JMortensen

Bore sight laser should be properly aligned. Smart! Did you verify, just to be sure?

I would bet that the problem with the Subarus has more to do with installing camber plates than it does installing inverted struts. The struts themselves aren't any more noisy, but a monoball/pillow ball/whatever you want to call it mount in a camber plate can clunk. Mine did with Tokico Illuminas, which are an upright twin tube shock. Good (although getting dated) info here: http://farnorthracing.com/autocross_secrets18.html

If the caliper is OK when you get home, you may have an incorrectly adjusted master cyl push rod. If you adjust the rod out too far or adjust out all of the slack in the pedal, it is possible to partially or completely cover the port to the reservoir. When this happens the fluid heats and expands as you drive and basically the farther you drive the more the brakes get applied. Once it cools down the fluid contracts and the caliper won't be locked on anymore.

If it were under the car, wouldn't that make it an under pipe and not a side pipe? The header collector is just in front of the door, so it's not going underneath. Could do that if I had shorties and then a single pipe out to the sides, but that's not the case. I do think you're right that if it dumped under the car it would be fine, and it's probably the reflection of the sound off the side of the car that makes it a problem. Have been looking at longer glasspacks as an option. Classic chambered mufflers have a good rep for sound with the cobra guys, so that's kind of the front runner in my mind right now, but if I put a longer pipe on then I'll have to change the jack point on the side of the car, which is a bummer.

Just called Hoosier so I have just a little more info: the FACS tires that I have are R35 compound. They stopped making this tire in R25B. I'm quite sure that the guy thought I was a complete moron at the beginning of our brief conversation. I showed him how his tech release pressures shows that my vertical load will be well within what the tire was designed for, and lateral should be about the same too. 1230 * 3 gs = 3690, and 2250 x 1.5 = 3375. So I think by the end there I wasn't AS much of an idiot... He flat refused to speculate on temps, pressures, camber, etc. EDIT--screwed up my math. With 2250 as the min car weight, add my 180 lbs and there you have 2430 x 1.5 = 3645, so it's even more on target.

Emailed Scott, didn't want to call and take up his time since I wouldn't likely be buying anything from him. Looking online it appears that they use the Flomaster Hushpower which is too large a diameter to fit under the door of a Z. I'm really torn on this one. I think the Spiral flow will help, but probably won't do it all on its own. I think any number of exhaust tip inserts would also help. Classic chambered mufflers would definitely work but they use pretty restrictive louvered cores. I know Super trapps would work, but I hate the idea behind them. I guess I have 6 months or so to figure it out. Going to go hit up some Cobra forums and see what they're doing.

Not sure what the PITA is, I don't remember it being that bad. Just measured from the inside of the frame rail to the center of the bolt, then figured the center of a rod end in my new piece of frame, measured the same way.

I worked through this stuff years ago and came to the conclusion that the pivot should be in line with the LCA pivot. I slotted the box that I attached the rod to and after putting it on the ground I found that my highest setting is basically level. If the rod points down at the front you get anti dive, up is pro dive. Always interesting to see what you do. http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/41611-tc-rod-pivot-relocation-bad-dog-subframe-connectors-slotted-crossmember/

Back to the FA tires for a second, I think I was running too much pressure. I bled down to 28, looks like they give spring rates for 18-22 psi. http://www.hoosierracingtire.com/ACSSR.htm

Saw some pics of Dan's car and have been impatiently waiting for him to update the thread. Slow day at work makes it worse. Sorry Dan, for stealing your thunder. Anyway, he's clearly got the same thing going on. Cary noticed that he doesn't have a lot of steering input going on in this pic, so the basic question is still "Why is this happening?" I was trying to think back to other Z's that lift rear wheels and I think the only other one that I recall doing this is... mine in the 90s. I was told that I was lifting inside rears going into slaloms and I had really soft springs 200/250 and no droop limiiters and about 5 degrees of caster. I assumed that it was happening because my sway bar was really badly bound up in the back. Cary's solution is more front spring, but it really doesn't look like the front end is compressed that far. Since I already have a front tire hotter than rears issue, I'm still thinking stiffer roll bar and stiffer rear springs for my situation.

Having exactly one big FG project under my belt. I can tell you what I did that worked for me and what didn't work. I read and re-read all of Terry Oxandale's posts about a billion times, then tried foam house insulation hot glued together and glued to the fenders, and tried to shape it with sanders and knives and saws, etc. Complete and total failure. I know it works for a lot of guys, but I'm apparently not one of them. It also made one hell of a mess in my shop. Then I learned about "fleecing" which is building a frame, covering it with fleece (literally sweatshirt material). This sounded like a better option because I could make a frame from steel, and I'm a much better welder than a sculptor. I made a frame for the front which the fiberglass is dzus fastened to, and I cut most of the original fenders off and then dzused the fiberglass to what was left so that I didn't have to figure out how to attach it in the rear or have to get all the door gaps correct, etc. After the frame was built I used packing tape and skinned the frame with that. To get the final shape I was going to use drywall mud. I didn't think the mud would stick to the tape, so I put a layer of packing paper on top of the tape and then put the mud on top. The mud turned out to be way too thick and wouldn't dry, so I started looking for other answers and came up with 2 part polyurethane foam. Mixed up the foam a little bit at a time and added it on and sanded to shape. One day I had gotten the pass side fender absolutely perfect. Had my 7 yo girl out there sanding with me, it was great. Came back out the next day and it had sunk. I probably screwed up the mix on the foam, but it had gotten soft and sunken in. At this point I went back to the mud. Put the mud on top of the foam and finally got the shape I wanted. Once the shape was done I went looking at fiberglass options. I did the fleece the front, and having done it that way, I wouldn't do it again. I'd just do the straight fiberglass instead. I used a fiberglass cloth called Knytex. Knytex is layered glass which has mat, then 45 degree weave in one direction, then 45 degree in the other direction. It does curves pretty well, and you can get it in different weights. I used 17 oz the first time, that worked pretty well. It was pretty difficult to saturate the 24 oz cloth that I used, so I would suggest two layers of 17oz cloth if you're going to apply the epoxy to the cloth directly and not use a mold and vacuum it in. Here is the thread I made for my project: http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/110952-starting-on-flares-for-15x14s/page-2 $3000 doesn't sound too bad. If they could expect to resell them you might do a little better, but the Z31 isn't that popular from what I've seen.

Coleman Racing's steel tie rod turnbuckles are 5/8" x .120 wall and have flats for 3/4" wrench on them. Really cheap too.

Looks good!

Does that mean you're doing the toe link in front? I like your solution. I had Coleman machine make me a really short turnbuckle then had to cut down the rod ends.

Already running asspickle. Still too loud.

Not worried about the time. We just turned the lights off up here. It will be dark and rainy until May, summer usually starts July 5th. Not sure if I'll run in the spring, depends on if I can find rain tires. Either way, I've got a few months to sort things out.

Definitely not going to run cats on my carbed, side piped V8. I'd think I'd have a pretty good chance of burning the paint off of the rockers. Right now I'm still mulling adding a second muffler (maybe a spiral flow instead of a straight through) or doing Supertrapps on the end. I don't like Supertrapps, generally speaking, but I know I could just take plates out until I hit the number I wanted, so it has that advantage.

Car was too loud at the autox. Sound limit is 96 dB, I went past the meter at 102. 5.3L with 2.5" sidepipes into 18" long mufflers that I made. I tried to ape the Burns Stainless super quiet one by welding angle into the flow path in 2 spots at 90 degree angles to each other. I think the problem is that my muffler is pretty small in diameter at 4". Would have done 6", but there just isn't room for it. I put V band clamps on both ends of the muffler, so I could just swap it out entirely for something else, or add another muffler, or change the tip. My thought right now is to repack with ss steel wool (the fiberglass I put in has apparently left the muffler). Seeing bulk stainless wool on ebay, is that the best place to get it, or is there something better to use? Then add supertrapp tips and just take plates out until it makes the dB requirement. I really don't like supertrapps in general, but that seems to be the most cost effective solution from what I've seen so far. There are other bullet mufflers that I could just weld a vband flange to and bolt to the back of this one and that might even be cheaper than the trapp, but I'm kind of worried that I won't get enough out of that and then I'll need the something like the trapps on the end of that. Better idea?

I thought higher rear RC would put more heat in the tires. I was going to jack the rear up a bit. Remembered that I had to add 3/4 spacers in front and also narrowed front track 1/4, so scrub is probably closer to 5.5ish. When you turn the wheel the whole front end lifts up. Maybe that is to be expected, but there is no noticeable lean when things are static. maybe that doesn't mean anything, but that's what happens in the shop anyway. Don't want to give up on this yet. The other guys running the big tires in the front also had cold front tires, and I couldn't get any heat in the rears. I found that odd. Everyone seems to think that Avons are better than Hoosiers in this application, so I think next move is to try and get some Avons and see how they do. If that doesn't work out, then I'll have some serious thinking to do.

I think it's the scrub that really makes the difference, if that turns out to be the problem. I have 5 inches of scrub. Thinking the next step will be to get some other slicks on it and try it, even if the fenders are way out past the wheels, and then if it works a lot better it's decision time...

Managed to get mine out this year. Wasn't sure I'd make it but managed to get out there Sunday to the last SCCA event. The good: Nothing broke. Everything worked just fine, power steering, button clutch, the relatively untested T56, all worked flawlessly. Only issue was I lost the dust cap for the LF hub twice. A little tweaking with some pliers solved that problem. The bad: The car was way too loud. They allow 96 dB at local SCCA events, mine was showing 102 on the meter. Tried to add a longer turndown to the side pipes, it fell off. We ended up just letting off near the meter and they let it go. I did floor it on my last run and I didn't think the sound guy would really get mad about it, but they basically said don't come back until it's fixed. I have mufflers that I made in an attempt to copy the Burns Stainless super quiet bullet one. I put two pieces of angle iron in the flow path at 90 degree angles to each other. I guess the idea is that the angle diverts the flow into the packing. Started it up yesterday afternoon and it seems a lot louder now than it did before the event. Guessing I blew all the fiberglass packing out. Going to need to do something else anyway. In one of my better moves, I used V band clamps on the both ends of the muffler so I could take off the tip and add a second muffler if necessary, or just replace the whole thing from the header on back. Thinking Supertrapps or maybe buy some of the longer classic chambered mufflers: http://www.classicchambered.com/classic/products.html. The super wide Formula Atlantic rear tires that I spent all that time fitting to the car didn't really grip that well. I'm using the spec compound, FACS. They also have R25 which might be softer and work better, don't know how they compare. The tires actually felt worse than the 10" wide Yokohama slicks I used to run on this car 13 years ago. Mark Haag (zredbaron) was impressed with the turn in, but I wasn't. I thought it felt pushy on slow corners. I was able to get some heat into the fronts towards the end of the day and it was doing better, but the rears were quite a bit cooler. I didn't want to try and screw around with settings too much, just wanted to drive it and see what fell off, so I don't have much in the way of tech info. My non-calibrated hand thermometer says about 140 degrees on the inside of the fronts and 130 on the outside, maybe 110 on the inside of the rears and 100 on the outside. The tires weren't rolling off of the tread, but there did appear to be a little more wear on the shoulder than I would have liked. I could spin the rears at will for as long as I kept my foot down, which seemed strange seeing as how it is a light car with 4.11s. You'd figure the car would just accelerate up to the tire speed, but there just wasn't any grip to make that happen. Lateral gs weren't really there either. Overall our times were very even, and pretty disappointing. I have droop limiters on the car, and had some unusual behavior, not sure if it was droop limiter related or not. There was the longest straight into a kink and a C-box immediately afterward. Several times I got all crossed up going into the box. Dialed the bias bar towards the front, and then was told that the inside rear tire was coming up 4 or 5 inches off the ground. No sway bar. Even if I didn't have a limiter on there, it should still have been off the ground as there isn't 4-5 inches of droop available. I would think this means that I need more front spring, but I already had a lot more heat in the front tires than the rear. Might have to raise up the rear to get the roll center higher to get some heat in the rear and find a different solution for the front. The other: Apart from the lack of grip and the weird tire lifting, the car was fun to drive. It was neutral in sweepers, would pivot on slower corners and I could steer with the throttle. With the exception of that one spot on the track, I never felt like it was doing something other than what I asked it to do and it felt predictable just about everywhere. Mark said it was nervous under braking, but I only felt that way into that kink. Got a lot of thumbs up on the road and the autoxers really seemed to like the way it turned out. So kind of mixed bag. Very happy that it didn't break and it went so smoothly other than the muffler thing, but not real excited about running those tires again. There are Avons available which are supposed to be better but Berget didn't have any when I ordered these. Other option would be to make a drastic size change in which case I'd probably go 315s in 17 or 18s, or 275/35/15, but that would make my body ridiculously wide, so I'd like to try to make this 14" wide rim setup work first.

Yes, and then you can either shave the bushing down or put washers in between the saddle and the upright so that you don't squeeze the hell out of the bushing when you tighten it down. And if you're feeling really zippy you can drill holes in the saddles and bushings and install zerks so that you can lube the bushing later.

I'd still run a rear bar with 280 in/lb springs. If you mean welding that piece in the middle of the tubes, I'd leave it where it is. and make the side with the plate the bottom of the arm. ST bar, you said? If so you should move it back away from the uprights about .5" and shim the saddle so that it isn't squeezing the bushing super hard and making the bar hard to move.

Well, you could get female rod ends and run a stud with poly on the bar side, but what I did was to cut the end of the bar off and then weld on a .25" x 1.25" piece of just plain ol bar stock, then drilled the holes in that to mount the rod end. I had pics of all this stuff when I did it about 10 years ago, but can't find the threads anymore. Here are some of the pictures. None of this is on the car anymore. We did another thread with A-arm and toe link stuff and I redid all of it and decided to run springs stiff enough that I don't need a rear bar. Might still have to adapt one later on, but hoping not to.

You want long end links if possible, and get rid of poly or rubber bushings if possible. What I'd suggest is using two pieces of angle welded to bottom of the arm. This would make your arms left and right specific if that matters to you, but you'd get a double shear attachment and a longer end link and it's easy enough to do. I'd leave room for rod end spacers to make sure that they don't bind. If you want to keep the stock style bushings then you're probably fine as is, or could add the perpendicular piece at one or either end to stiffen it up.