JMortensen

Are they THESE coilovers? Did he get the problems fixed? They would work on a 280... http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=92213

I watched a show on weatherstripping your house and they did this in a different way. They put a big fan in the house to pressurize it, then they used a stick of incense around the windows and doors. Anywhere there was a leak, the smoke from the incense would go straight for it. You might be able to do this with the normal fan in the car, or maybe a slightly larger house fan. Can't be too big I suppose. Anyway, just a thought and probably would be a lot less stinky.

I think I found 2 possible answers. ZR8ED has this which basically looks to me like my drawing without the braces on top. Then I searched through some pictures that I had saved 2 years ago in preparation for this, and I came up with this picture: This looks like just what I had envisioned originally. I tried laying some 1" square stock under the angle on the stock piece, and it fits, but doesn't fit with the bushing and the big washer on the back there. Maybe I could just trim the bushing and the washer??? I'm looking for the owner of this car to ask what they did about it. If you know whose it is, PM or post please...

So here's what happened. I saved up some money and bought a sway bar. Turns out it wasn't going to work because it attached to the stock uprights and the transverse link. So I sold it and bought the ST rear bar. Spent a couple hours yesterday slotting the holes (PITA when all you have to work with is a dremel). Now since I have a hellacious case of the while I'm at its this time around, and I shimmed up my LSD and katman says that shimming it will make it run hotter, I would really like to get this all done with the 300ZX finned cover on the back, which makes the transverse link part much more complicated. I bolted the finned cover to the mustache bar and found some surprising stuff. 1st, the diff isn't centered in between the uprights. I guess I already knew this since I knew that the stock halfshaft was too long on the driver's side, but I hadn't really visualized why. 2nd, the ST sway bar clears the finned cover nicely. There is about 1/2" clearance as it is, and following the John Coffey "space the bar back away from the uprights" edict I should have plenty of room there. 3rd, the transverse link looks to be a big PITA. I really need some ideas on this one. I'm struggling with how to get the turnbuckle out far enough away from the cover, but still have some strength. So far I've had one idea, I'm looking for some feedback here. I could get a piece of 1/8" bar stock that is as tall as the transverse link (1 1/2" or whatever it is). Then cut the link on both sides as close to the bushing mounts as possible so that they aren't likely to interfere with the cover. Then I could weld the bar stock to the link so that it juts straight out behind the diff. I figure if I JUST did this, the link itself would be very flimsy. I know that it is bolted to the uprights, but still, that level of flimsy makes me uncomfortable. So I'm thinking that I could add a triangular brace along the top to meet up to the curved part of the link. I've done some photoshop work to give the idea, it's not the best (I'm envious of Terry's skills). What say you? Yea, nay? Any better or simpler ideas???

2126, I see your rear spring rate as being a little high vs the front rate, you might also try a little toe in in the back and see how you like it then. A little toe in back there makes a BIG difference. You could remove the rear bar but I think it's going to plow really bad afterwards.

Yes. Question is how much sway can you tolerate, and how much spring rate can you tolerate?

Looked like the turbo caught the insulation on the firewall on fire to me. Might even have run to the nearest house and shot it with a garden hose and put it out instead of just standing there filming the destruction.

I still don't see the "upgrade" in that upgrade, even at a cost of $350.

Please bring back your proof Ray. Diesels don't have a TB either, is that because the TB is too restrictive? No, it is because they don't restrict the air coming into the engine to control the acceleration of the engine. They only change the amount of fuel going to the engine to change the rpm. As I understand it diesels can't have ANY overlap, so essentially they have a VERY VERY small cam. How you can push MORE volume through an equivalent sized motor with an extremely small cam and 1/2 the rpm range is beyond me. I'd love to learn. What about the other thread where Jamie took apart a 6.5 liter turbo and MEASURED the impellers? Why did that come out to be approximately a T3/T4 in size? One more time. I'm not a diesel expert. I'm not a turbo expert. But I'm not going to change my mind because someone says I'm obviously wrong when it isn't anything like obvious to me.

You should be able to move the suspension all through the travel and the sway bar should not contact anything. When I removed the springs and disconnected the passenger side of the sway bar and jacked up the driver's side suspension my front mounted bar hit the floor in just outside of frame rails IIRC (its been at least a year since I checked it but that seems right). I had driven it that way for a long time and had never realized it was doing that from the driver's seat, but it was really obvious when I checked it out with a floor jack. I don't know that the bar would have done this if I hadn't had the car so low. What damage does this do? Well, my Z was pulling the inside rear tire off the ground in slaloms which is pretty unusual, and I'm sure it made the back end of the car act funny as the rear swaybar would have a set spring rate, then when it bound that spring rate would go way up since it could only spring on the side that wasn't bound. In general terms you don't want ANY suspension part to be limited in its movement until you hit the bumpstops or the strut tops out. Other types of binding would include TC rods with poly bushings since they don't allow the suspension to move freely all the way through it's travel, or coil springs that have been cut too short so that the coils bind before the suspension bottoms.

You just don't need that much volume IMO. But don't take my word for it. Try asking around on diesel forums.

I think Steve would have done better if he greased the threads on his leveler, very similar to lubing the threads on a spring compressor.

No, you read it right the first time. Again, I'm not a diesel OR turbo guy, but I think diesels run small turbos. Think about it this way, if you have a 6 liter that spins 3500 rpm or a 3 liter that spins 7K rpm, they'll both need the same amount of volume (in a perfect world). Here's what I'm talking about: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=90177

I would try to keep the rear mounted bar if you can. My front mounted bar bound sometimes. I think this problem has to do with the bracket location. The later 260 and 280's had a completely different mounting point than the MSA, ADDCO, or Nismo 240 bars and they apparently didn't have the binding problem. The Suspension Techniques or BRE bar (the one you have), binds also, but if you space it back away from the uprights 3/4" that solves the binding issue. What's the clearance issue? Is there any other way to work around it?

I think you'll find that smaller turbo is better. You'll want to stay LOW in the rpm range, so you want a small turbo that spools at those low rpms. Get a large turbo and it won't spool until close to redline. I'm not an expert on turbos or diesels but I wouldn't think you'd want anything bigger than a T3, maybe even smaller would be better. That's why you occasionally hear about people putting the Cummins/PowerStroke/Duramax turbos on their 4 or 6 cylinders.

I'm going to reserve final judgement until I get a chance to try it, but I can tell you that a 510 with Ackermann turns in better than one without, according to my friend who bent his steer knuckles. You might still need a static toe out setting for road courses. For those of us who do both autox and time trials there should be a big benefit based on the 510 example.

No thanks. It's a waste of time to keep rehashing the same points without someone doing some testing, I was just defending my earlier points about the SU's.

This is theoretically correct, but I know VERY few people who adjust their SU's independently. Usually it's "turn the nozzles down 3 turns" or whatever. Similarly I know very few people who adjust Mikunis per cylinder. Some people aren't that enthusiastic about rotary engines either. Kinda the same thing. Similarly to the rotary, there are VERY FEW THINGS to adjust on SU's, and very few moving parts, just butterflies, pistons, and needles and seats. But when the new Z owner isn't familiar with anything other than V8's and he goes to tune them and start looking for a power valve it's bound to be confusing. Don't like the lawnmower analogy I used in the earlier thread? Fine. It's the same type of carb used on EVERY HARLEY DAVIDSON until the 90's (or are they still using them???). They were also used on Volvos until the early 80s outside the US. Jaguar and most of the other British car manufactures used them for decades. I'm sure there are MANY other motorcycle carbs that could be cited, in fact I think it would be most motorcycle carbs, I just can't name any others. You make the point that EFI is better. If we're just looking at BETTER, why are you arguing for the 4 barrel? You should be arguing for Motec, or some other hyper expensive EFI that can adjust every cylinder individually. EDIT--As to the carbs being an "OLD" design, how much does it bug the crap outta you when idiots start spouting off the pushrods are OLD technology. Pushrods work fine, so do SU's. A simple design that WORKS is a good design.

It's not a clear cut thing. I think the higher I can get the roll center the better because on a Z it's not going to be that high regardless. Cary (tube80z) thinks the LCAs should be level or lower and sometimes even that the RC being below ground can be best. John hasn't really stated a firm preference that I've noticed, other than to say that the control arms should point down. John can probably give you a rocker height suggestion based on your wheel diameter. The end result is that you can get the car lower with a lower RC, and you can make a variety of RC's work through spring and sway bar changes. If you want to drive on the street you probably want a higher RC so you don't have to have ultra stiff springs and sway bars to make it work.

http://www.suspension.com had the best deal when I was looking.