JMortensen

From the urban dictionary: "2. The jagged or wavy line between your marble bag and balloon knot." That has to be the funniest definition for anything I've ever read...

Roll bar basically. Got all the materials, hoop is done, diagonal is ready to weld in, but then I got sidetracked but I am going to get back to that ASAP...

Yes.

Thought I should report back. I did end up with the Big Buddy heater. Works well so far, although the suggestion that wheelman made that the pilot blows out easily is true. The slightest breeze takes it out, which isn't so much of a problem for use inside the garage. Fire it up and in about an hour the coat comes off. Still not balmy in there, but workable condition, which is really what I was after. The inherent leakiness of the garage works to my advantage in that the propane exhaust is not overwhelming. I spent 4 hours out there yesterday (finally did the first spin on the rotisserie, WOOHOO!) and wasn't phased by the exhaust at all. In retrospect I think the heater that preith had suggested might have been a bit more convenient to use as I'm already needing to refill the little 1 lb propane bottles, but would have required a little more installation than I wanted, plus the warnings about the 20 lb propane tanks that all of the heater manufacturers have on their websites are just are a little frightening.

Do you STILL feel that way??? HKS, then Nissan, then Stone, then about 20 more cheap *** Chinese headgaskets down the list... FelPro. IMHO...

You can run the RX7 studs with a Toyota 4 Runner lug nut. That's what I did for a long time. The shank diameter is correct for the Nissan wheels, but the Toy lug nut has the 12 x 1.5mm threads. EDIT--I should probably also say that I just went to a tire store and they had a whole bunch of them from rim swaps, they charged me $5 for 16 nuts...

I agree 1000%, although I would like to be a "V8 boy" myself one day. I guess then I'll have to start picking on V12's or something... The fact that it was built for F&F 3 does give it an air of jackassitude though. It just doesn't get any more moronic than that series of movies. I think I'd rather take a stapler to my taint than watch that shiza.

Here are the pics you asked for momz: The seat mount is 1x1 square tubing that I stitch welded to the floor. Then I welded some angle iron to the top of the tubing, and that meets the end of the recaro sliders that I bolted to the bottom of the seat. With the seat all the way down you can get the top hole in the recaro slider bracket. So it would be adjustable for angle or height. It works just right all the way down in the front and the back though. As John Coffey has repeatedly said, it would be easier to mount this seat if it were not on sliders. But this is a 2 driver car and I think my wife would have been pissed had I modded the car so that she couldn't drive it anymore.

Double shear to my understanding means that the bolt or whatever is being used to capture the suspension goes through two surfaces. So the inner bearings on John Thomas's suspension are in double shear. If he had a single tab welded to the frame and the bolt went through the one tab then through the rod end and that was the only thing holding it on, it would be in single shear. I believe your inner pivot was in double shear because you had 2 tabs welded to your diff cradle. Your outer is in single shear because the spindle pin will still go though just the center part of the strut. There is no outside part of the strut for it to go through on the other side of the rod ends.

Double shear on the outboard end doesn't seem necessary. None of the control arm manufacturers have that feature. Seeing zlalomz's pics makes me feel like we're on to something good here...

If you want to turbo the car I'd leave the Mikunis on the shelf. You can turbo the Mikunis, but it is a hassle. Search, there are people who have done it and all of them say that they are a pain in the butt. Use the stock FI manifold and get an aftermarket FI system like MS or comparable. If you want to run the car NA or if its going to be a year or two until you do the turbo, use the Mikunis.

Eliminate the module. Then keep it in the glove box with the pigtail to run it and leave it there. If the MSD should fail its easy enough to put the module back on and run the ignition that way. Running both just gives you two modules in the system that could fail. I ran mine both ways, started using both modules and eventually eliminated the stock module and it ran fine either way.

The 280ZX is not just a body style change. It is a complete suspension and chassis redesign. It shares some drivetrain components with the first generation Z's, but that's about it. It's a closer relative to a Maxima than a 240Z IMO. Like it or not, that is the truth. To get testy about the name is somewhat retarded, it is after all part of the Z line, but I think the change away from the design of the first gen is what leads some to hate it outright.

This is an interesting idea. I kinda like the idea of using the toe adjuster that I already made, plus the monoball spacer, sleeve, carrier whatever you want to call it still needs to be machined for the front end of the control arm. But that might have been a good feature to incorporate into the poor man's toe adjuster. At the time I think the focus was on adjustable toe, not so much rod ends or monoballs.

Off of the failure analysis for a second. Are these inner bearing supports going to have to be cut and then machined like resizing a rod? Maybe spot welded back together for the machining process or something? Presumably if you just machined the part then cut it lengthwise there would be a gap the size of the saw blade between the two halves...

HANS at an autox??? You guys must use BIG cones! I can definitely see that at the hillclimbs though.

No point for me. It fits me like a glove. I guess I'm the "regular" body shape. It doesn't have the torso height or the hip width that a more expensive seat would have, but it really just happens to fit me perfectly. Also, after a little tinkering with the seat bracket I was able to find a position that will fit well for me, and still gives my wife the ability to see over the steering wheel when she wants to drive, so position is at a nice compromise too. I've seen the poured foam inserts, but I haven't seen a bead seat. What's that all about?

They usually come out in the +2.5 to +3 degree range IME.

K, try again.

Confused now. Why would the 5 speed shifter have a 3/4" shorter throw than the 4 speed? According to the pic Darrel posted, the sticks look damn near identical in height, and we all know that the distance from the pivot to the ball is shorter than the 4 speed. So what gives? This does say one thing for my solution. Cut down like it is it has a 37% shorter shift than a stock 4 speed. That at least is some vindication for the short throw aspect of what I'm running. It is more than just "noticeable". This difference in the throw between 4 speed and 5 speed makes me think we're missing another variable here. We already checked the throw of the shift rails, then you just have the pivot to the bottom, and the length from the pivot to the top. What else is there???

The bearing might not be adjusting the toe, but it still takes loads from just about every direction. Makes me wonder if a roller bearing would be sufficient. Think of the load that bearing is going to get when you're hard on the brakes. Monoballs are good in any direction, making them the safer choice in my mind.

It's not quite that easy. If you look inside the strut tube you can see that only the last inch or so is the larger ID that you can tap for the threads. Past that first inch the wall thickness of the strut tube increases. While it might be possible to cut the tube, turn the ID to the proper spec in a lathe (how you'd chuck that up I don't know), and then cut the threads, it's really not that hard to just do the alternative and section the struts in the normal way.

I had just figured on welding the sleeves in on the outboard end. I suppose a compromise would be a set screw on one side so that the bearing could be pressed out and replaced, and weld the other side. It'd have to be a short set screw though.

That's a brilliant idea Terry! Simple yet brilliant. So much better than the snap ring...

The 300ZX is supposed to be stronger than the 280ZX and I believe the 300 CV is easier to adapt to your 280Z 27 spline stub axles.