JMortensen

I kinda thought that those were not the same car or at least not the same struts. One picture is red, the other is primer. Different wheels too. If they are the same car then it looks OK, and maybe David's suggestion of slotting the towers would be enough. If they aren't then it's going to take something a little more extreme to fix the positive camber on the red car...

That is very cool to see. I agree with MusPuppis though. Some of those patches are SCARY. Can't believe they just pulled into a gas station and let somebody start welding on it...

The G Machine bushings are good for about 1º of camber change. You need some adjustable length control arms that are about an inch longer than stock, or you need to go back to the stock strut housing IMHO.

Racing is kind of deceptive in that way. Here's another way to look at it. The BMW 3 series competes in ITS, Speed World Challenge Touring car, Speed World Challenge GT, ALMS GT series, and I would venture a guess that a 318 could probably fit into an ITC or similar class. Just because a car is getting beaten in a class doesn't mean the car that beat it was faster. It means the car that beat it was faster within the boundaries of that rule set. Of course the opposite argument is that you could make anything extremely fast if you put enough money in it, so it's a matter of where you draw the line. The Speed Touring car series is the series I think you were talking about. I think the 325's were pretty restricted power wise in that series IIRC. I'm not calling the Real Time Acuras slow either. I'm just saying that those cars were built to a particular formula, and the RWD platform is capable of quite a bit more.

SAND GOES EVERYWHERE IS RIGHT!!! If you have stuff like engines, transmissions, etc that you don't want to have sand in them I'd suggest you try to get the car out of the garage for this project.

That's at least a year old, but yeah, even autox carries risks, and you should always be on your toes when the wild driver in the high hp car is driving...

Now THAT is a product that was sorely needed! Glad to hear you're making it. I'll probably be ready to purchase that from you fairly soon here...

Search "diff clunk" and you should get 1000's of posts. Very common problem that usually has nothing to do with the diff internals. Could be loose driveshaft of halfshafts, or bad mustache bar bushings or broken diff strap, could even be worn axle splines. Tons of possibilities. That shop in Morro Bay that I mentioned in your other post would be able to pinpoint it for you... To answer your question yes the diff can be rebuilt but it is so expensive to do that most people just swap in another used diff that's known to be good. I had a gear shop on Capitolio St rebuild mine and they screwed it up 3 times and it cost ~$300 I think. Used diff is usually $50 to $150 depending on size and ratio.

Sounds like it needs a valve adjustment. Pretty easy to do. Get out the old Haynes and have at it. If you don't want to do it yourself, PM me. I know a shop in Morro Bay that does excellent work on Datsuns, much better than the places in SLO.

This is what I've been using on my project: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=91278 The knotted wire wheel is pretty aggressive. Much more so than a normal wire wheel.

I still think there's something else going on. It looks as though any 4 speed shifter is the same length as the truck shifter or very close. I'm having Matman send me one so I can compare directly to the truck shifter, so I'll have a direct comparison soon. NOBODY thinks the stock 4 speed has a short shift though. The throw is LONG. So my hypothesis is that the gears in the 4 speed are farther apart than the gears in the 5 speed they both fit in the same length case, makes sense to me that they had to pack em in a little tighter in the 5 speed. So when you put the 4 speed shifter in the 5 speed, you get a shorter shift as a result. I certainly wouldn't tout that my 5 speed "now shifts like the stock 4 speed". So if that's the case then the 25mm longer shifter might actually be designed for the 4 speed, which would make sense, since the idea is that it requires a longer shifter to shift nicely, and most race Zs are ITS 240s which require the 4 speed. So maybe it does work nicely in the 4 speed (?). The other weird thing is that some people here have had trouble with the 4 speed shifter in the 5 speed, but I know at least 2 people who used the truck shifter in the early 5 speed for years. It's possible that the truck shifter might be just 1mm shorter than the 4 speed shifter or something. I'll let you all know when I make a direct comparison of the two.

You know maybe I thought about that one a little too hard. Now that I have some time NOT thinking about it, it seems like the spacer bits would still be perpendicular to the centerline of the car. Because our toe adjuster doesn't swing out in an arc, it moves the bushings straight out. So nevermind, that shouldn't be a problem.

He's talking about the smaller 11.5 x .81 Outlaw setup. I believe that is the one John used on the ROD. The 12.2 x 1.2 is a different heavier setup. The reason that I ended up with the larger one is that it was cheaper to buy at the time than the smaller setup. The Wilwood and Outlaw calipers do seem pretty similar, FWIW. There are lots of different sources for the brake parts. I think http://www.behrents.com or http://www.pitstopusa.com are the cheapest. Just make sure you get the right bolt pattern for whatever hat you buy.

I bought a GMC Sierra last year. Would have bought a Titan, but they were hyper expensive comparatively (like $8K more for the model down from the equivalent Sierra). If only I had known that gas was going to hit $3, I would have waited another year. I swear I could go down to the GMC dealer and buy a 2500 for less than the 1500 I bought last year, or the Titan, or pretty much any full size. We got a good deal at the time, but those gas prices sure took the prices down a notch. Oh well. I got to enjoy the new truck for the last year... Congrats. Nice truck. Hauls ***, doesn't it???

One issue I've come up with is that our poor man's toe adjuster might not be the best idea with a full monoball rear control arm. Let's take an extreme example: If we had 1/2" toe in per side, the inner control arm bushings would normally flex ~1/4" per end to give us the angle needed (not really because the rear is larger and would flex more, but you get the idea). If we have aluminum cases or sleeves that locate the monoballs, the SLEEVES won't pivot or give to allow the toe change. The monoball is more than capable of handling this misalignment, but the aluminum bits are not. I think that you'd bind up the toe adjuster WELL before you hit the target. This is an extreme example, but the point is just to show that the aluminum parts can't pivot. Normally this is not a problem because toe changes on other control arms, Arizona Z Car's for example use a threaded adjuster to make the control arm longer. When the adjuster makes the end of the control arm longer, it still stays perpendicular with the monoball on the other end of the spindle. So the monoballs pivot and their housings stay perpendicular. Our toe setup doesn't make the control arm longer, it changes the angle that the control arm sits at. I don't think that a radical toe setting will bind the monoballs, but they will stress the ends of the control arm, which could potentially be a lot worse... I think that moderate toe changes or 0 toe settings will still be possible if this new setup comes to fruition, but I might have to back off on my rear toe setting a bit and maybe go from 3/16" total to 1/8" total. John said that his Kevlar bushings were as hard as aluminum and he still managed to run 1/8" toe in. I would ASSume that there is probably enough distance between the front and rear bushing so that the misalignment of the sleeve in the bushing cups is minimal enough to allow the same here. The other solution might be to start with a G machine bushing and machine it to accept the monoballs. Then adjust that instead of using the poor man's toe adjuster. Personally I hate adjusting the stupid G Machine bushings, which is why I got into the toe adjuster in the first place. It's been a slow Monday and I've been a little fixated on this... can you tell???

The parent company for Subaru is the company that makes all of the Nissan diffs, Fuji Heavy Industries IIRC. They make all of the R160's, R180's, R200's, R230's etc. So I would think the answer would be yes, but the one question I have is what Subaru comes with the donor R200 LSD? You can bolt in their R160 LSD in a 240 I believe, and I know it bolts into a 510 cause I have a couple friends running them. My Outback wagon had a R160 in the back, the WRX has an R180. Don't know of any Subaru that has an R200 though...

Should be pretty accurate, but I didn't put it together so... ???

More: http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/911_monoball/911_monoball2.htm

No problem, thanks for the compliment. I'd say most of my Z knowledge came from here, so you're in the right place... Terry has a habit of turning an idea into reality in a very short timeframe. Hopefully we can get him into this idea and solve both of our issues. Terry, thought of another way to locate the outer aluminum bushings. Get correct OD pipe. Cut .25" off end. Cut that in half. Now you have two 1/2 moon shaped pieces that are .25" wide. Weld these to the upper half of the bushing supports. Capture bottom of the bushings with the clamshells / front diff crossmember. Done...

Your statement about the nuts on the end is the real answer here. The nut and washer captures the sleeve so that it can't move, and then the inner poly surface pivots around the sleeve. So the sleeve shouldn't really ever move. But I know you like to be creative, so read on... I was looking at getting some Kevlar bushings from John Coffey, but it looks like he doesn't have them anymore, and then katman goes and details his rear control arm bushings in this thread: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?p=592258#post592258. Certainly you could make some bronze sleeves that were closer to the correct size and take care of this issue that way. My main concern is bind and stiction in the suspension. I still don't know how I'm going to resolve my concerns... but I have an idea. Since our last collaboration on the toe adjuster was so productive, I'd love to bounce this idea off of you: Monoballs in the control arms at both the inside end and the outside end. Outer end--I downloaded the Aurora Bearing catalog from their website, and the 5/8" Com-10 monoball has an OD that is .008" larger (1.1875") than your measurement of the receiving end of the control arm. So lets say you use those sleeves that came with your poly bushings. Section them so that they can be used as spacers to work on the ball in the monoballs. You'd still need the OD of the monoball fitted into the end of the control arm. I'm not sure that the .008" interference wouldn't be too much. I really don't know, but once the correct amount of interference is found the end of the control arm could be honed if needed and the monoball could be located in the end of the control arm either by inside snap rings, or by bushings, which in this case instead of providing the pivot could be just installed as spacers that sat against the race of the monoball. Inner end--I figure the inside end would be less critical since even the front hole is pretty large. I seem to remember a thread where you had said that a 3/4" rod end fit right over the end of the inside of the control arm. That would mean that the inside end could be done the same way as the outside, using a bushing to capture a 3/4" monoball housing. I have the OD of the 3/4" rod end as 1.4375". The main problem I see here is how these locating bushings would stay in place. They would probably need to be bolted together somehow or set in place with a set screw. They couldn't be captured the way the bushings are normally, because when you tighten down the big 24mm bolt it would freeze that pivot from moving entirely. So the sleeves have to be captured by the nuts and bolts, and the monoballs need to be captured some other way. I suppose the other way to do it is to make an OD spacer from aluminum then capture it with an inside snap ring at the ends of the control arms. Not sure how much metal you need to have to machine a groove in the control arm and still have some strength there though. Maybe inside snap rings on the bushings for the outside end, and set screws on the inside end since the inside pivots come apart I'm thinking snap rings would be hard to do. I've seen race parts manufacturers use monoballs this way in place of bushings in Porsches, but all I ever saw was the catalog, so I don't know how exactly it was done. The ones I saw in person all had the end of the control arm hacked off and a rod end installed on the end of a custom control arm.

This spreadsheet might help you: http://sth2.com/Z-car/Brakemath.xls I don't really think the 1/4" difference in the two rotor setups is going to be that dramatic, in fact it might be that the increased pad area of the Mustang setup gives it more bias than the Maxima setup would have (I'm assuming the pad is bigger BTW, don't know that for sure). Once you know for sure you should be able to figure it out with the spreadsheet. If you don't have numbers, look online. I was able to find all of the parameters I needed except coefficient of friction for the pad, for which I used .4. Set the masters to the same size, unless you're running a dual master setup.

1. Don't know, doubt it. 2. Higher the voltage, richer the mixture. Narrowband O2 swings from 0 to 1V. .8V = ~13:1 A/F ratio. They aren't as sensitive or accurate as wideband. For your turbo best bet is to upgrade to a wideband if you plan on tuning with it.

The T2 race is going to be on Speed at 11:00 AM Pacific today. They're just starting the F500 race now.

Just realize that running the spacer changes the amount that you need to raise the pivot. Even the standard, drill 3/4" up or 15/16" up isn't really exact. I run the spacer, and to eliminate the bumpsteer I slotted the hole in the crossmember then raised the pivot while checking the bumpsteer until I got it eliminated. Without some measuring you really can't do this job right (although it probably doesn't matter that much for a street car). Only takes a couple dial indicators with stands to measure and know for sure...