JMortensen

My uncle was the president of Freedom Arms in the mid 80s. Got to shoot his "Oh ****" gun. .454 with 5" barrel, with 340 grain handloaded ammo. He said it was the second most powerful load ever made for the gun, second only to a 400 grain bullet they loaded for a safari. Needless to say, the 340 grain bullet was BRUTAL. But it was fun to shoot the thing and then watch EVERYONE elses' head swivel around like "WTF was THAT?!?!" Nothing like a 4' wide 6' long fireball out the end of your gun to attract attention...

Damn... Dan tells a good story!

On my 2 R200s I pulled apart there were only 3 shims in each. So I don't think you'll find a shim pack like you will for a GM 12 bolt. You'll have to either guess at what you need and order the correct thickness shim from Nissan (I think that is how that worked) or you can try to find another shim from another diff that will work. Shouldn't be too hard to find something similar that works from an American diff.

What are you talking about shimming? If you're talking about changing backlash or pinion depth or something of that nature, probably the best thing to do would be to go to a diff shop and see if they have something close that works. If not you can probably buy what you need straight from Nissan. If it is a clutch LSD and you want to shim it you need to get some shim stock and cut the shims out of it. I did my shims with .004" stainless shim stock. I cut it with a pair of meat scissors. Here's more info on my R200 shimming experience: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=92629

That's a hell of a lot of power. Impressive numbers.

Feel free to delete my explanation if it saves the thread, although the thread is probably doomed anyway...

Now it's a political thread...

I think the real target is the garage based body shops. I was talking to a guy who owned a body shop about the guy across the parking lot who owned a repair shop. Apparently the repair shop guy would do body work at his house, and apparently he did a LOT of it. But of course, he didn't have to comply with any of the regulations, so he could paint your car for 1/2 of what the legit shop could do it for. The legit guy was pretty pissed and was talking about calling the cops on the other guy. Apparently they had already had it out and the repair guy wasn't about to back down, even though what he was doing was ALREADY ILLEGAL. Yep, already illegal and this is 10 years ago now. For that reason I agree with Tim. Enforce the laws that are there, leave the hobbyists alone and crack down on people trying to skirt the law. And if you don't like the law then the appropriate response is to try to change it.

Hmm... Sometimes internet diagnoses are frustrating. This appears to be another "there's nothing wrong with my braking system so how come it sucks" threads. Something has to be wrong... All I can suggest is take a step back, look at each individual component and see what you come up with. If it's not the reaction disk, then I'd suspect the brake lines and/or the bleed. Tim mentioned the master cyl. Did you test that? Usual test is soft constant pressure on the pedal. If the pedal slowly sinks, the master is bad.

Pull the master, pull the pin, should be a ~nickel sized 3/16" thick rubber disk in there. If it isn't stuck to the back of the pin it probably fell into the booster.

Anyone else have visions of Napoleon Dynamite running through their head while watching that??? I kept seeing a Japanese dork coming into the kitchen and slamming Gatorade then going back to his room to keep practicing.

The monoball is the only thing that could be moving. You can feel the slop in the monoball, not a lot, but there is movement, and I think it's this thou or two movement that makes the noise. Gland nuts were checked and rechecked and rechecked. GC provides a shouldered nut which fits tightly into the monoball and when tightened allows no movement. As previously stated the monoball is a press fit and is VERY tight with respect to the snap ring. When I was trying to diagnose the noise I had a friend turn around in the car and put his finger on the strut as we drove. He could feel the clicking of the monoball in the race. I don't think I got two sets of crappy monoballs, and they both started rattling within a few weeks. Again, if the weight of the car sat on the monoball then they wouldn't be able to make noise at all. It's the fact that they aren't loaded that allows them to rattle. I'd imagine it should be the same with the EMI plates. If not, maybe I ought to buy a couple of monoballs from EMI and see if that makes a difference...

It sounds like you didn't bother checking the reaction disk. I'd still suggest you take a look in there. Easy enough to look.

That hasn't been my experience John. I replaced the original teflon lined monoballs with the best monoballs that my local bearing supply could get. They were also chrome/teflon and ran ~$35 each. They started rattling within a couple weeks.

Call them and ask them what they recommend.

I was thinking about this a bit, and maybe the solution to the rattle is to use the other style spring hat in the rear. The rear doesn't need to pivot, and as you said the monoball is more than capable of handling the load, so in the interest of quieting the rattle you could use the MM or AZC spring hat in the back. It doesn't take the twisting of the front struts, so there should be no real problem there. I still like the GC plate as designed for the front, but using the other spring hat would solve that problem...

IR definitely doesn't make Snap On's air tools, maybe CH. I quickly looked through Grumpy's links and couldn't find which cheapo Chinese company made Snap-On's welders.

I'm at a complete loss for words...

I bet skipzoomie is right. Typical reaction disk thread is titled: "I've bled the brakes 173 times and the pedal is still soft." I didn't recognize it until he said it, but that definitely sounds like the problem in this case.

Man I hate statements like this one: "If yours rattles from another manufacturer, then they dont know what they are doing." The GC monoballs rattle. The reason is that they aren't supporting the load from the suspension, the needle bearings do that. Having the needle bearing in there is still superior because it eliminates the stress on the monoball. So it does rattle, and it is superior to the AZC design.

When the car is off the pedal should still be soft(er) for a couple pushes of the brake pedal, because there should still be vacuum in the booster. If there isn't any vacuum in the booster when the car isn't running the most likely problem is that the one way valve in the vacuum hose to the booster is either missing or defective. You should have that check valve in there, otherwise you're relying on whatever the engine vacuum happens to be at any given time. So if you're WOT and you step on the brakes there would be very little vacuum, but if you're idling there would be a whole lot available. ANY car with power brakes is going to have a rock hard pedal without the booster. How soft the pedal gets when the booster is working depends on the condition of the brake hoses, quality of the bleed, the quality of the fluid, and the size of the caliper pistons in relation to the master cylinder pistons. I don't think putting more vacuum to the booster is going to make you happy, so I think putting a vacuum pump on there is a waste of time/money. Wilwoods aren't going to change anything for the better either, unless you get Wilwoods with smaller pistons than your current brakes have. Do you have SS brake lines yet? That helps a soft pedal, especially when the old rubber lines are cracked and bulging. If everything is in good shape and the fluid is new and the brakes are bled properly, your only real option is to switch to a larger master cylinder. I can say in my own experience with the ZX master with 4x4 calipers and ZX rear disk I had a very firm pedal. I did have the smaller early Z booster though.