JMortensen

Sure. Much higher octane. Just have to tune for it.

Sad to lose another good Z guy. Did business with him, always very friendly and helpful, really bent over backwards for me on one occasion.

Yep. Chamber design, cooling, FI, etc. Everything is going to be better on a 2015 vs 1975 engine.

If that's the case, I'd drop the CR down a couple points. There is power in the CR, but only if you can run the right amount of timing. This is coming from a guy who built an L28/E31 combo at around 11:1 which wouldn't run the best timing without 95 or 96 octane gas.

Just remembered my jig won't work for you. I cut off the inner control arm pivots and welded monoball holders to the chassis, so not compatible. How are you going to do the inboard end of the control arm? Cut up a stocker and build off of it, or ???

Congrats. What are you doing for CVs or halfshafts? Now is the time to widen the arms if you want to run CV shafts. I still have my jig for 15" arms, 1/2" wider than stock and fits 300ZXT shafts if that is useful.

Nice. Similar argument exists about bolt in plates on top. I've got my bolt ons underneath for the same reason even though they look very pretty on top. I would figure the main objection to putting them in on the bottom is that it's a lot harder to weld to the underside of the strut tower if you don't have a rotisserie. Welding upside down sucks.

A sphere without dimples has a large wake, and the drag slows the ball down. Dimples help the flow stay attached, reduce the drag, and the ball goes further. In the port, you would think that flow attachment would be most important on the short side radius, but I haven't been able to find pics of a head dimpled only on the short side. Airplane wings (and some Z cars) do use vortex generators to keep flow attached to wings and make the flaps (and spoilers) more effective, FWIW, but there are big differences between the air flow in an enclosed port and on a wing or a golf ball in free air. Not sure if the idea works or not, but "they do it on golf balls and airplane wings" isn't necessarily proof of concept inside a cylinder head. The dimples on the ball also help to generate lift from the ball's rotation, which is shown in this really cool video, but that part doesn't relate to what we're doing. Still worth the watch:

They're doing that with CNC's on LS heads now. I talked to a local machinist about it and his response was "That idea has been around since the 60s. If it worked, AFR would do it, and they don't." Yet you see stories of 15% gains, etc.

$730 gets chromoly stub axles from Joe. Still need your bearings and grease, but I wouldn't bother with the expense of cryo and peening. Even with chromoly, especially if you're drag racing, you can still break them, but they should hold up a lot better than stockers. http://www.chequeredflagracing.net/Datsun.html

Good thinking. I'll just wear my bulletproof shoes and pants.

Yeah, seems to be that the consensus is that I have less than average to worry about. I also have an SFI flywheel and ARP bolts. I think I'm going to skip it.

It's been a while since I really was considering all the ins and outs of TC/LCA angles and all that, but as I recall I was much more concerned with getting the inner pivots in line than I was worried about the LCA pointing slightly forward. I don't see how that has much of an effect on anything so long as you can adjust the camber where you want it and you don't have a solid TC rod end like on the TTT parts. If the inner pivots of the LCA and TC rod are out of line though, then IIRC you get suspension which will try to level under braking loads. I don't think the effect is huge, and I ran some TC rods that had a pretty big clevis and then rod end so they were well out of line and the car still performed reasonably well. Still, I thought it was worhwhile to redo the entire TC rod bucket and use rectangular tube and rod ends to get everything back in line.

There is no requirement, although SCCA says they recommend a scatter shield. I have a small diameter button clutch on an SFI flywheel. Someone pointed out that the lighter small diameter parts have a lot less energy, and people generally don't run scatter shields with them in road racing situations. So I think I'm just going to run it as is. As far as the original question goes, I do like the blanket inside idea but it would have to be trimmed to fit. That would be like trimming a bulletproof vest. Might be able to do it with a cutoff wheel or something.

I bought a Kevlar trans blanket with the idea of using it on the bellhousing as a scattershield, but when I try to attach it, it's just not working. It was designed to wrap around the round portion of a transmission, not the tapered portion of a bellhousing. It's too thick and inflexible to conform. What I should have done is bought a SFI bellhousing, but I didn't and now I really don't want to pull the engine and trans back out to change it out. Used to have .25" thick metal scattershields that I made for previous build. I could do the same again, but not looking forward to climbing around inside the car with the cage in there trying to bend and shape the metal to get it done. I remembered that TAP Plastics has Kevlar sheet, so now thinking I could go buy some and stack up a few layers and then glass over the top of it to make a shield on the inside of the car that I could screw to the trans tunnel with some nutserts. Guess the question here is how do I figure out how thick to go in order to make it strong enough?

The difference in weight is pretty minimal, not that much tubing here, really. I'm guessing you'll use www.onlinemetals.com. On their site they have weight by foot and you could calculate it out. Probably a lb or two difference.

I had my tube adapters turned down in a lathe. If you look around there are racing suppliers who will sell you both the tubing and the adapters that fit it. I believe http://ubmachine.com/lowerparts.html has both.

Cheap heims are an issue for sure, but good ones last a long time. I had probably 30K miles on my front LCAs when I took my car apart for the current never-ending build. The old ones were still tight, but they were expensive 3 piece rod ends. The problem with makaofox's friend's solution is that poly has a lot of friction, doesn't really allow for the angle change that comes with caster sweep, and he has a ton of threads in bending with that design. Looks similar to the Modern Motorsports rear arms, which I never liked for those same reasons. According to this thread I went with 1 1/8" .095 wall DOM: http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/62776-yet-another-rear-control-arm-design/

When I made mine I went with 3/4" rod ends, just based on some feedback from people who had used 5/8 and had issues. I do like having the fixed point of the A arm directly under the strut as opposed to in front, but I think it's a minor difference. If you have the fixed point under the strut then you need a really short turnbuckle for the front. I had to have mine made by Coleman racing.

There are a couple different clevis designs too. I looked at two and got the chunkier one. The one that you had is definitely the lighter and sexier looking part, but thought this might be stronger. Maybe it just puts more stress on the threads... Ignore the part it's bolted to. Had to trash that and copy Dan's design.

Yellow is good if you (or people coming the other way) have eyes sensitive to glare.

The other point about wide 5's is they have HUGE wheel bearings comparatively speaking.

Are the ceramic bearings any weaker? Would that be trading friction loss for strength? Got brand new bearings in mine, but just thinking ahead.

Sure. It's a way to kill a couple hours.

Kris is right. Duration and when the valve is open is the killer, not lift. Years ago BRAAP showed me a tool to fly cut the pistons without removing them. It was a tool that fit into the valve guides and you would just hook a drill motor to it and then cut the piston right there. Tape over the piston and bore area, and then just vacuum/blow out the aluminum bits. Still have to take the head off, of course. I seem to recall you can make your own tool by simply notching the rim of an old valve and just use that.