JMortensen

Start checking ebay. Bottom line is it's worth what you can get someone to pay for it, but you need to check that out and figure a realistic #. You're seeing the tip of the rust iceburg. You could be right about the 5-10 years of roadworthiness. But if someone is going to drive the piss outta this car that is going to take a bigger toll then driving to work and home.

Did you read his original description? Rusty ZX = no resale value. Trust me, the farther you get into the car, the more rust you're going to find. If you already have a large section of the frame rail GONE, it's rusty. Really rusty. Personally I'd sell the Pontiac and use the $1000 to buy a shell to transplant your drivetrain into. That shell sounds like a big problem to me. If I were in the market (and I'm not) I would prefer to buy the engine and MSnS and the trans separately without having to haul a crapped out ZX to the JY. Just my $.02.

It has been suggested before that a spoiler will help reduce the fumes, as will a turndown stuck out to the side to get the exhaust into the airflow on the side of the car instead of tumbling in the back of the car. Kind of related weatherstrip issue. I've ALWAYS had issues with the weatherstripping. Had an idea about it the other day. What if one was to grind the little lip around the hatch opening where the weatherstrip goes on completely away, then use the same type of weatherstripping used on the DOORS for the hatch? That stupid hatch weather stripping always comes off or folds over so that it doesn't seal. My thought is the door type that people are buying from McMaster Carr can't do that. Should be much more reliable... just a thought.

Funny you should say that. When I tried the first time I was looking at my foot and writing with my hand and I wrote the 6 backwards. If you were to draw the 6 from the inside out you'd basically be doing the same thing... cheater!!!

You don't want a mirror smooth surface. Think of it like a brake rotor, same sort of friction material and steel surfaces coming together. Lots of places will put a cross hatch pattern in the flywheel just the same way as a brake disk.

Is there a reason to believe they won't interchange? Japanese diffs are usually pretty good about that, they don't have carrier breaks like American diffs AFAIK.

That Armada must have a tall ratio! Look at the ring gear thickness difference. BIG pinion head on the Armada...

Wasn't there an oddball 26 spline in some of the 260's as well? I'm sure I've read that here before...

Cutting probably took 1/2 the time of drilling and prying and then cleaning all of the seam sealer out of there if it makes you feel better.

You can use a cheapo bubble camber gauge to do caster, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. When I had my TC rods made the guy who made them set the caster to 7º using the camber method. Then I put the car on an alignment rack and it only had 4º. Could be he just did it wrong. Any camber gauge will come with the formula, but basically you measure the camber with the wheels straight ahead, then you turn the wheels 20º (or something like that) and measure camber again, then there is a simple formula to compare the difference and figure out what your caster is. If you have "too much" caster I'd say keep it. It will make your car handle much better than too little caster.

But see the problem with this comparison is that you went from a 75 series 14" tire to a 40 or 50 series tire. Of course there is going to be a lot less tire compliance which will make it feel a lot more connected to the road. What about a 45 or 50 series 14" tire? How would that have been in comparison do you think? The thing that I hear most as a reason for why it's OK to put huge tires on your car is that it makes the contact patch longer size for size. While this is true I don't think that it's always to your advantage to go with the larger rim. At some point the advantage of the bigger diameter tire is swallowed up by the disadvantage of having to accelerate, suspend, and brake that same tire. I suppose it doesn't matter as much if you have 400 hp and huge brakes, but even Scottie said his wheel choice was a mistake, and he isn't lacking power. My personal feeling, and it's just a feeling since I don't have any hard data, is that if you're talking Z's and your talking about handling, not just drag racing, your losing out when you go above 15", MAYBE 16". You can have the car lower with lower cg, the tires shorter for lower effective gear ratio, and you don't have to slam the car to get it to look right. The lever of the wheel to the hub is shorter, so the wheels don't have as much of a flywheel effect. I always wanted 13 x 10 slicks on my car, but that won't ever happen with my new brakes. Maybe on another Z someday...

I think you misunderstood what I meant. These were not exactly mass produced. I kinda figured there was about 1 of each model. Not saying anything bad about the car, although if Gran Turismo 4 is accurate at all it the 2J is a handful around LS.

Feature marque is... you guessed it... Chapparal. http://www.montereyhistoric.com/event/event.html What do you guys think? Will they be brave enough to put one of the old 2J sucker cars on the track? That'd be cool to see...

please use some punctuation and some caps its really hard to read when you don't because you don't know where one setence ends and another begins see what I mean

I'm more wary of mechanical failures or those cars that didn't even get to the track because of blatant safety issues. HPDEs are relatively safe if you put it in perspective. As Al Pacino once said "You can get killed walking your doggy!" and we all know racing is inherently dangerous, blah blah blah. Having worked tech at many autoxes I've seen seat belts tied in a knot, batteries held down with bungee cords, broken off lug studs, leaks of all types of fluids, etc. And these people are always pissed because they can't race. Just don't go if your car isn't ready, please. I've put out a car that was on fire because the guy put a small battery in a big battery box at an autox. The battery slid inside the box until the + terminal hit the metal brace in the box and caught fire. I watched a Z come around a turn and heard a loud "BOOF!" and watched smoke pour from the engine compartment. His battery hold down failed and the battery tipped over and landed terminals down on the starter and engine block. Last time I was at the track they put a couple pieces of duct tape over the + terminal of my battery just in case the battery came loose. Probably not a bad idea. The other thing that I have personal experience with that is pretty scary is what Mike Kelly and I and a bunch of Porsches I've been on the track with have done; dropped a tire in the dirt then tried to get back on. Bad idea. If you're going off, go off. Then collect the car, then wait for the track worker to waive you back on the track. The newbie reaction to dropping a tire is to get off the gas and then turn the wheel back towards the track which inevitably ends in a HUGE slide across the track. Aside from those things the other thing I saw at a track day which utterly astonished me was when an MR2 spun around and left the track backwards at about 80 mph. The driver NEVER stepped on the brakes and the car just kept going and going and going and eventually backed into a corner workers' stand at ~30 mph. The guy could have stopped the car EASILY if he had just locked up the brakes, but he just sat there letting the car roll backwards for what seemed like forever until the accident. If you go off and you aren't going to collect it right away just stand on the brakes. Anyway those are my safety tips and bitches. It's surprising to me how many battery issues I've seen. EDIT--I guess this response is better suited to the other thread. Sorry.

Yeah, what Don said...

Disconnect neg terminal of the battery. Connect volt meter to the battery cable and the battery post, and set meter to millivolts. Then watch the readout as you pull fuses one at a time. When the draw goes away, then you know what circuit its on. You're on your own from there...

Have you tried cheapie organic pads? You want something soft, that's about as soft as it gets...

Don't forget the tire companies. How much are a set of 275/50/20's???

Whew!!! 80 lbs!!! How does that truck stop? My new 1500 with 16's stops great...

Hmm. That is a very interesting idea. I don't have any droop limiting device. I wonder if I could get enough travel out of the rod end to keep from hitting the race... Why would you need to move the inner tie rod to adjust the bumpsteer? I thought as long as they were parallel there was no bumpsteer. Assuming you could adjust at the steer knuckle I'd think it should be fine. I get how you did yours by basically matching the height of the control arm pivot to the height of the inner tie rod, but I don't think that's the only way to do it. I hope Vinny doesn't mind us taking over his thread. I guess we're still on topic...

"Cross section of female anatomy reminder" That's some funny ****.

My thought on my new one I'm going to do is to figure out how high I'd like to move the pivot (thinking 1") then drill the new hole and weld the old as John had mentioned. Problem then is that you have to adjust the bumpsteer at the outer end. I was also thinking of moving the TC hole up 1" for the anti-dive as mentioned. Cary your idea of moving the pivot and the rack together is a great one. I'm just not that good at fabrication yet...

Yes you could. I didn't since I had planned on using a bump steer kit on the tie rod end. I want to raise the pivot farther because I only went up about 1/2" when the bumpsteer was gone and I'd like the roll center a bit higher than that.