JMortensen

Weird, I searched and couldn't find anything either. Then I searched for JUST .080 (2mm) and got this: http://forums.hybridz.org/search.php?searchid=29463

I agree with the others. I was a mechanic at a Porsche shop for a couple years and the only cars that drove like you describe were the ones that were neglected. I got to drive everything from 356's up to 911 Turbos with 500+ hp. The mid 80's Porsches were some of my favorites to work on. Driving wise they were good, not the best, not the worst. The most fun I ever had driving a Porsche was a 74 Carrera CS that we rebuilt the engine and trans on (engine blew probably due to the notoriously bad catalytic converter placement and it sat in a barn for over 20 years!!!) Man that was a fun car to drive, and the customer was a regular so I got to tool it around a couple times, you know, check for squeaks and stuff . And yes, the pedal placement sucks on the 911's, but you can get a special heel/toe gas pedal cover that makes it easier.

http://www.geocities.com/zgarage2001/p90.html That should answer most of your questions. Try the search function too. Been discussed a lot.

A tiny bit of oil seepage on the headgasket area is pretty normal. I don't mean WET, but just a little hint of oil, just enough to collect dirt about 1/8" to 1/4" down from where the head meets the block on the passenger side is normal to me. Every Z engine I've had has been like that. Retorque the head studs if you think you have a problem. As to the crank seals, are you using Nissan seals? I won't use anything else after my last build. The machinist told me the kit he sold came with good quality seals. I was dumb enough not to question why it was so dang hard to get the rear main onto the back of the crank, 2 months later I was replacing the rear main and the seal lip looked like it had totally run dry and burned up. It was just too tight, a poorly manufactured crappy seal... At least with the front you don't need to drop the trans back out.

It will work just fine, you might want to check the bushings and the advance mechanism, but the distributor in good condition is up to the task. Check here for more info on bushing checking and repair: http://www.jrdemers.com/280ZX/distributor/distributor.html

If you got some great deal RedZ85 that's great, but I'm thinking that it might just be how you measured. I wouldn't trust the breakaway figures from the factory at all. In my post about my shimming experience I mentioned that I had something like 15lbs after adding a .004" shim, I know Dan Baldwin has had similar luck with his, then Gordon Glasgow helped a guy shim a BRAND NEW NISMO LSD that had 10 lbs, and internally it was the same as mine, which came from a 300ZXT. I think they changed the clutch type from the smooth to the ridged, and when they did that the preload came down, the number of clutches came down, and they started using a big *** spacer on either side of the clutch stack. I can't say if they are all this way, or just some, or what. The first time I got mine on the road was about 8 or 9 years ago and I thought about shimming it, but I tested the breakaway and it was A LOT. Of course the diff was dry, and I didn't realize how much of a difference that made. If I were to guess at the breakaway with no lube I'd say 120 lbs or so. With lube ~10. Yes, it makes that much difference. Here is the excerpt from Gordon's site about how to properly test the breakaway:

Oops, nevermind.

The sad part for me is I refer to this guy's page quite a bit. This page http://home.att.net/~jason510/dizzy_specs.htm is pretty damn good. Then again I guess you don't have to know how to weld to assemble advance curves on distributors...

Kinda sounded like there was more to the story...

OK Rufus, curiosity piqued...

Follow me here: If you had no motor mounts at all, that torque wouldn't drive the car forward, it would spin the motor instead. Now you add motor mounts and the engine moves say 1" or 1 1/2" when you rev the motor. Further down the line the transmission has one mount, so it helps a little to control the twisting, but not too much. Further along is the front diff mount, also a single mount that isn't going to help too much. Last you've got the big wide mustache bar with bushings on both ends. It would have been a lot easier to put a single stud in the back of the diff cover and run that straight up to the frame rail, but Nissan didn't do that, because the mustache bar IS responsible for controlling the twist. When you just put a solid front mount on, all the twisting stress goes straight to the front diff crossmember. None is carried by the mustache bar, and that twist goes to the front diff mount BEFORE the motor mounts. The most likely piece in there that is going to fail is the driveshaft. Next most likely is the differential crossmember. You could take the load off the front crossmember by adding solid bushings in the mustache bar, but that still wouldn't fix the driveshaft issue. I've had this discussion before, and bottom line was some (mostly ITS guys) ran their cars like this for years with no problems. Some others had problems including driveshaft U-joints exploding and the front diff crossmember actually tearing. I would expect that a V8 conversion is going to produce more torque than an ITS motor, and have much larger U-joints. Where that will leave you as far as failures I can't say. May be that your driveshaft is big enough to take the strain. Maybe not...

http://www.zcarparts.com/store/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=7BSA or maybe http://www.jimcookracing.com/catalog/page13.html Actually I think the second one is it, because if you look at the pics the flares are convex on the front and concave in the back.

I don't wanna get sucked into this too far, but I'll throw this hypothetical question out there to all of you solid mount proponents and maybe get the ball rolling: If you've solid mounted JUST the front diff mount, what part of the driveline or frame takes the load when the engine and transmission want to torque over to one side??? OK, OK, just a couple more: If the front of the diff is SOLIDLY mounted, why have bushings in the mustache bar??? What do they do, other than isolate all of the stress onto the front mount? What problems could this cause?

I don't think they're the metal flares. The metal flares don't blend in that nicely in the back. I'm guessing MSA IMSA fiberglass.

Who is the freakin PO? He needs to be banned from using tools altogether! This isn't the only stupid problem Cameron's been having...

Nissan Comp sold those shot peened and polished 280 stubs up until a few years ago. I imagine they were doing the same to the 25 spline stubs prior to that.

Well you shot down all of my arguments...

Check John's link again. 0.4 ms switch time. Not that it matters much. I think one of the big differences is the changeability of the lens and the good ones have a glass cover, cheapos have a plastic cover over the lens itself. I'm now also remembering that the HF ones have a very small lens, so that could be a problem when you're in a tight spot, where the more expensive ones have a larger viewable area. I'm sure John will tell us all what is what.

If you buy from Nissan they force you to buy the whole gear cluster, which is several hundred bucks. If you buy the synchro ring (which is really the part that wears) you can get aftermarket ones really cheap, factory Porsche still aren't terribly expensive. I want to say that jobber on the Porsche ones is less than $100, but I haven't worked at that Porsche shop in over 5 years now. BTW Preith I looked at your site and your car is what my car wants to be when it grows up.

Just for the record, I broke a 1/2" Snap On breaker bar. The problem with the HF welding helmets is that they're slow to darken, so every time you use one you get a split second of exposure to the flash. As Aux said, over years and years and years this can be a problem. Not sure that it would affect someone too greatly if they didn't weld a lot though.

I bought mine almost 10 years ago and I think I paid $135 per corner, mine are the "roadrace" version and they require cutting the top of the strut tower, and they come with the camber plate and I think they also came with the coilover stuff for that price. They also have a street version that doesn't require cutting so it's legal for Street Prepared autoxing. There is also the Carrera plate, the EMI plate, DP racing makes a camber plate, AZC's is a weld in plate, etc. There are some options...

When you adjust the camber at the bottom, you may have a left control arm that is 1/2" longer than the right arm. Basically by setting camber from the bottom you could make the whole car out of square. If you set it from the top then you can adjust both sides independently and have the control arms the same length on the bottom. Much better. You can also compensate for a bent car this way too, which you really can't do from underneath alone. One additional advantage is that you can get more neg camber with both. I wasn't able to run more than about 2 degrees neg before I got adjustable control arms. Now I'm running 3 and could be running more.

I love that one. Here's another: An elephant and a mouse are walking through the jungle and the mouse falls into some quicksand. The elephant straddles the puddle of quicksand and says to the mouse "Grab my dick and I'll pull you out!" The mouse grabs on and is saved, and tells the elephant how greatful he is. A while later the elephant falls into some quicksand and the mouse is ready to repay the debt. He says "Hang on, I'll get you out!" and runs home. He comes back with his Porsche and ties one end of a rope around the bumper and throws the other end to the elephant. He jumps in and pulls the elephant to safety. And the moral: If you've got a big dick, you don't need a Porsche.