JMortensen

When was I rude? I wasn't trying to be rude, sorry if it came off that way. I thought I answered two of your questions. This subject has been talked about at length, argued over with many posts on numerous other threads. I was referring you to them. As I see it we have two choices. Rehash the same subjects every time somebody new comes to the site, or tell them to search. I mean no disrespect when I suggested you do the latter. From the READ BEFORE POSTING sticky at the beginning of every forum:

Put some Locktite on them. If you make a whole bunch of power they tend to loosen up as the mustache bar keeps pulling on the cover.

ZERO evidence has been shown that it doesn't improve cam timing. I have presented several pieces of evidence that show that it has benefits other than just the timing issue.

Just for the record Super Turbos aren't chamber mufflers and they are fairly free flowing, much more than a chamber muffler like a FlowMaster. I believe Dynomax also makes a straight through muffler as well, can't recall the name. I bought my Super Turbo for $29.49 from JC Whitney. Dollar for dollar that's tough to beat.

What about the Talon example? That's a pretty clear case.

I'll give it one more shot then I'll see if someone else can come up with some better wording. WHY is there always tension on the tight side of the chain? Because the pistons are driving the crank which rotates the chain. When the pistons AREN'T driving the crank, then the tension isn't there anymore. Think about a rope and a pulley, you're holding one end, and on the other end of the rope on the other side of the pulley is a 50 lb weight. So as you pull on the rope, the side where you're pulling gets tight until the weight comes off the ground. Now imagine you yank down on the rope as hard as you can for 2 feet, then stop. The tension increases until the weight starts moving, then the weight starts climbing rapidly. When you stop pulling, the weight doesn't stop immediately. It has it's own inertia now and it will continue to raise up until that inertia is gone. The rope will actually get loose in your hand for a second before the weight falls back down. That is basically what happens to the chain going over the cam gear as you accelerate and decelerate. The Kameari system seems like it would have much more control at that time.

If you're decelerating the pistons aren't driving the crank. The crank is driven by the wheels through the diff, transmission, clutch, etc (some newer FI systems actually shut the fuel off during decel) and the chain is no longer driven by the acceleration forces on the crank. Instead of powering the car, the crank is now decellerating the car, and this causes the slack side to go tight and the tight side to go loose, because the cam just follows the crank and it doesn't care which side of the cam gear does the pulling. That's a pretty piss poor explanation, but I hope you get the idea. When the Mitsu Eclipses first came out I worked for a Jeep/Eagle dealer. We had at least 2 Talons a week come in with all the valves bent. Every one was the same. The owner had accelerated with their foot to the floor to redline, then let off and decelerated. The timing belt in that case would then jump 2 or three teeth and the valves and pistons hit, etc. Eventually that problem was taken care of, but I was a Jeep guy so I don't recall what the fix was. I would assume it had to do with the tensioner or possibly the routing of the belt. EDIT--I'm a dumbass. I've been calling the slack side the tight side and vice versa. Dumbass In thinking this through it suddenly occured to me that the the left side is the tight side.

I bet the answer is in one of those 421 threads... but in one word "quench". It's a big can of worms, search quench p90 and read for yourself.

Ninja, it's apparent that you haven't experienced the chain guide being eaten firsthand. If you just mill a head say .050 and slap it back on and adjust the cam timing with an adjustable gear in short order, say 5000 miles you'll hear the timing chain chewing through the bottom of the curved guide. Shimming the cam towers is pretty essential to making the chain run tightly on the curved guide. Another trick for really shaved heads is to run the Z22 slack side guide. The Z22 left side guide is curved and takes up some more of that slack. Again, this modification is done to make the tight side run tight enough to not eat the curved guide. There is a spec for the tensioner "extension", I off the top of my head I think it is 1mm of extension from it's housing. Any more than that and you will have problems with chain slop and that slop will chew away at the guide. I've seen it more than once up close in person, and I know it's been discussed here too. Alan, when the tensioner was described as "crazy" I think you took it the wrong way. I think they meant that it is crazy in a good way. Also, Dan is right about tensioned parts still being able to twang. Take the guitar string example. Lots of tension, but you can still twang it. The more tension, the higher the frequency of the twang, but you can still twang it. Some of this will still happen with the Kameari setup IMO, but I just don't feel that a bit of twang between the idlers compares to the stock setup which has all kinds of slack between the cam and crank gears. The big difference that I'm seeing between the motorcycle and the L series tensioner is that the motorcycle unit pushes the WHOLE guide into the chain, where the L series uses the little foot just above the crank gear. I think this might be a pretty big difference, especially as Alan mentioned earlier when going from accelleration to decelleration, because the slack would suddenly go from one end of the chain guide to the other, and the L series has no tensioner up top. That's my guess anyway. Another guess is that the reason the guide gets worn on a shaved head is because the foot can't handle the extra mass of the chain that is now bunched up at the tensioner on a shaved head, and becomes too weak to do it's job. Either way, the L setup is definitely not weak (if you don't ask too much of it it works fine for a very long time), but definitely not the be all end all of accurate timing IMO.

I just searched "p90" and the search found 421 posts.

"Didn't your mama teach you how to chug???"

"The snozzleberries taste like snozzleberries."

You can make your bracket for either lug mount or radial mount calipers. Lug mount would be easier, and the front caliper bolt pattern is "narrow mount" which means 3.5" between the mounting holes. If you keep the narrow mount spacing then the caliper bracket is a lot smaller. The Arizona Z Car setup http://www.arizonazcar.com/brake.html uses Superlites on the front and Dynalites on the rear. I found my calipers for ~$450. Places like http://www.behrents.com and http://www.pitstopusa.com have pretty good deals. I bet you could save some money if you could get them to ship to Oz. I didn't buy the spot calipers for my car, but I can't imagine they cost $500. I think the "standard" setup is 1.75" pistons in the front and 1.38" pistons in the rear. I believe that is what Arizona Z Car sells in their kit for use with the 15/16" master.

Thanks for the explanation of the safety washer Cary. I thought they would reduce the articulation, but it looks like they increase it. I had talked to Dr. Sideways (don't know his real name) about this a while back and he had turned down some little tapered cone pieces in a lathe to fit right into the steer knuckle, and just run the size rod end that fits the steer knuckle which I think is 10 or 12mm. That seems like an awfully small rod end to me, so I was just going to drill it out instead and use the 5/8". Now I'm thinking that that awfully small rod end is basically what is in there now with the stock tie rod. I guess the hassle there would be making the turnbuckle since it would require a LH and RH 12mm (or whatever) tap. Although now that I think about it I guess the inners are RH and LH, so even if I went with my original idea I'd still need the taps... hmmm.....

Hasn't been answering emails either. His website is down. Maybe he is just selling the few fuel rails and TB spacers he has left...

My plan here is to move the inner pivots even higher than they currently are, then use the rod ends and spacers to fix the bumpsteer on the outer end. So my misalignment on the outboard end is probably going to be pretty severe. After Tim said 12º I looked up some high misalignment ends and found this: http://www.racing-stuff.com/high-miss.htm which appears to say that the Aurora high misalignment ends can go up to 38º. If I put those safety washers in that would limit quite a bit. Are they really necessary? I've seen them before but haven't seen any in use.

I'm trying to figure out master cylinder sizes myself right now. It's a tough one. I know that a 15/16" master works well with Toyota 4 piston calipers in front and 280ZX calipers in back (my old setup) but I can't say how the bigger caliper in the back changes that. The smaller the master the less pedal pressure required, but if it is too small then there is too much pedal travel. What does the 300ZX use? At least if you knew that you could take a guess at what size you need. I think the Wilwood and Outlaw calipers are pretty similar. Never seen a head to head test. I bought Wilwood because that's what the brake setup I bought suggested, not because of any allegiance to Wilwood.

Yes it will. The 240's are easy to gut. You can unscrew the guts right out of the side of the valve, cut them off, and put the bolt back in. Not sure about the 280's.

Preith that is on my list of things to do. I was going to use a 5/8" rod end, but the only way I've figured to attach a 5/8" rod end to the 12mm (it is 12mm, right?) inner tie rod is to get some 1" hex aluminum and drill and tap both ends. Do you happen to know of an easier way? Whatever you do it has to fit the taper in the steer knuckle, or you have to remove the taper in the steer knuckle AFAIK.

I used a mid 80s Nissan truck cable, sourced from the JY for $10. When you remove the gas pedal you'll see how it has a ball end on it that is peened in place. I drilled that peen out and welded a little plate on the end of the pedal, then drilled a hole for the plastic bushing on the throttle cable, and cut a slot to slide the cable in from the side. Just slide the cable in and if your hole is drilled the right size then the plastic bushing just pops right in place. Then it was a pretty simple matter of making the other end that holds the cable. This I did with a piece of angle aluminum, just bolted it to the top of the middle carb and drilled a hole and cut a slot a lot like the pedal end. The carb end of the cable already had a double nut setup to adjust the cable, so I just drilled the hole the right size to use that. I cut the cable end off and bought a new end from one of the Mikuni parts suppliers that fit the ball on the Mikuni linkage, and that was it. I don't have any pictures, and to tell the truth, the whole thing was hacked together the day before a race, so it isn't much to look at. I might take some pics after I make it look nicer, which is one of my "while I'm at its" that I haven't gotten to yet.

You have to remove the original valve, then test as you describe. Better to test when it's wet for a street car, otherwise you might be in for a surprise at the first rain. If it just isn't raining, figure out where the front locks first, then give a little bit of a safety margin.

OK, I can agree with that statement. You're all right that there is nothing really wrong with the Hobart or other quality welders that don't have the infinite settings, it's just a little more convenient to have them, especially when working on thin rusty sheetmetal.