JMortensen

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.

There is no "correct" thickness, as these spacers change the roll center, and don't really fix the bumpsteer. I would say thicker is better, but at some point you have to worry about the shear strength of the bolts. I think I've seen 1.5" ones for 510s which I believe will bolt onto a Z. I'm using 3/4" ones myself. Tire height will have no direct bearing on the bump steer spacer thickness. What will have an effect is your attempt to reduce the wheel gap by lowering the suspension. The taller the tire the higher the body of the car will be from the ground, and the low-pros look funky when there is a 3" gap between the tire and fenderwell. The natural inclination is to lower the car with coilovers, and fairly quickly the control arms go past level and start pointing up towards the wheel. When this happens the roll center goes underground and then you need larger sway bars or stiffer springs to control roll, or you can relocate the inner pivot up or use bump steer spacers to bring the outer part of the control arm down to compensate. Since the bumpsteer spacer is below the axle height it doesn't affect the ride height of the car at all. What it really does is fix the roll center problem. Fixing the actual bumpsteer itself is more easily done on a Z by raising the inner control arm pivot. I slotted the holes in the crossmember and raised the inner pivots until the bumpsteer went away on a bumpsteer gauge. Another fairly easy way to fix bumpsteer on a Z is to drill out the steer knuckles to 5/8" and run a 5/8" rod end, then use a circle track (Pinto) bumpsteer spacer kit to move the tie rod down to get the bumpsteer eliminated.

DL is right. You can just disconnect the vacuum advance and run it purely on the mechanical advance. If you buy that distributor and follow the bushing inspection instructions on Joseph Demers' site you'll be in good shape. Worst case scenario you'll need new bushings. He sells them cheap. If you don't want to run the vacuum advance you can either just leave it disconnected or you can actually glue the breaker plate in place like I did. The reason I did that was that on my distributor the vacuum advance plate had been broken and left for so long that the stator started to tilt in the housing and hit the reluctor. That COULDN'T have been good for the timing. So I took the vacuum advance guts out and JB welded the breaker plate in place. You kinda have to take it apart to see why you can't just take it out without gluing it all together, but suffice it to say that you can't. The nice part is that the distributor only has 17º of mechanical advance, so you just set it at about 16 to 18 degrees at idle and you're done. And as DL says you can get rid of the module if you run MSD. I actually ran the MSD WITH the module for a couple years before I figured out that you don't need the module. Never had one go bad on me, but I always carried a spare.

I'd say sell it and buy another shell to work with. You've already got so much work in that body you can at least recoop some costs (not much, but some) then buy another tub and flare that one. No way to flare the car without having to redo all the body work on the Goose, so might as well start from scratch and leave the pretty paint job looking pretty.

I'd start by replacing anything that is rubber that hasn't been replaced recently. Coolant hoses, fuel lines, brake hoses, etc probably all need to be replaced. It's a good bet that it will need all of the suspension bushings replaced (poly is a nice upgrade for most of them), and also pretty likely that it needs tie rods and ball joints.

This is pretty commonly done on 510's. They are a rear steer setup and there is no clearance issue, so you can bend them quite a bit. Did you heat treat these after bending? I think that is a common practice with the 510 guys. I've been looking at moving the rack back towards the crossmember to get a little Ackermann. Neither solution would produce a whole lot of Ackermann. Maybe both together??? Last suggestion is 280 hubs (assuming your 260 has 240 hubs). They space the rotor out another 10mm, so that would give extra clearance. Just an idea. Cool project Richard.

Yes that is the one. Joseph Demers' site is awesome, and he is a great resource as well. The vacuum advance mechanism is easily fixable, my point earlier was that they are commonly broken. EDIT--I love my 6AL too. I'd definitely recommend it.

The vacuum setup on the ZX distributor kinda sucks. Almost every one I've ever seen has been broken. But if you aren't using the vacuum like me or JaysZ then it is a cheap reliable distributor.

Only if you have either of the adapters for the 300ZX CV's here: http://www.modern-motorsports.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=32&PHPSESSID=18a1ef516d086d16ce6be5fc6a015a9b

I don't know what the big deal is about the Mallory distributor. It's $600 or pretty close to it. Bottom line is I think people just like to see that big red distributor cap on their engines. For just a bit more $$$ you can run DIS like the Electromotive setup and you can completely rid yourself of all of the slop in the distributor drive gears, and you never have to worry about cap and rotor, etc. Or you can run a ZX distributor that you can buy for $50 that has a good mechanical advance curve from the factory (17º advance, all in by 2500). I use the ZX dizzy, and I went out of my way to JB weld the vacuum advance breaker plate in place so that it can't vary the timing at all, so now I have a mechanical advance distributor that's reliable and if I need a replacement I can get them all day long for $50.

So what's the story, Joe?

Oops... thanks Cary.

Makes me cringe every time I see one of those kill posts here. That's just looking to get nailed. I have a feeling that this sort of thing will become more and more common.

Yeah, he's a member here. Savage42 is his screen name. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=99668

Yep. My first Z had that bolt STUCK. My friend who is VERY strong and a mechanic for 15 years couldn't budge the thing. Did just like you said with a breaker bar on the ground and the bolt came loose on the first try.

I've used the starter to break the crank loose, haven't used it to tighten it up. The starter puts out quite a bit of torque...

Anyone make stainless brake lines for the Chevy Mike? Might be cheaper than replacing the whole damn thing.

They're CHEAP. My 12" Wilwood rotors were ~$40 each, and you don't replace the hat. There were cheaper rotors available, but I sprung for the curved vane. Could have had straight vane for ~$33 each. Pads won't be found at the local auto parts store for the Wilwoods, but they're also readily available and inexpensive. Shop around, but I think you'll find these are some of the best prices avaliable. http://www.behrents.com/brakes.htm http://www.pitstopusa.com/brake_system.htm EDIT--I think if you get the heavier one piece rotor from MM then it is a Vette rotor. The lighter setup is a 13" Wilwood style rotor. Also the MM setup uses Vette pads in front and 240SX pads in back IIRC.

And if you're lazy, a friend of mine dynoed his brand new L20B a couple months back. He tried stock Nissan EI and MSD back to back and showed a 9hp improvement to the wheels with MSD. 9hp on a NA L20B that I seem to remember ended up at ~140 whp. That's pretty impressive.

You need to swap the yoke or companion flange as Pete said. The rear cover MIGHT fit on a ZX, not sure. If not you might need to swap in a non-finned cover. The CV's you have will plug right in.

I don't know if you need it or not to be honest. I thought it was necessary. No impact is a bummer. Best you can do then would be to put the car in 4th and have someone stand on the brakes while you tighten the bolt.