JMortensen

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=87758 There's the thread if anyone wants to read it again. I don't know how modified these suspensions were. Sounded like some were bone stock, some were raced, some in between. The point was more that the stock setup has it's weak points, and the TC buckets separating from the frame due to heims joints without bushings seems at best a minimal concern when weighed against the stock TC rod breaking in half because of poly bushings.

I think a lot of them were on ZX's, which have tension on the rod vs the Zs compression, but several were on Zs which suprised me at the time.

I originally did the TC rods to get more caster, but I found when I dialed in more caster it flexed my poly LCA bushings really hard. Then I modded the stock LCAs so that they have the rod end inner pivot. Now I have bind free suspension and I can choose whatever caster angle I want without worrying about bind or stiction or stressing parts. So in my case a problem did exist, and I fixed it. I do agree about the people who are buying control arms to save weight. There isn't that much weight to be lost. Maybe 2 lbs on a rear arm and 1 on a front arm, I doubt you could lose much if any weight on a TC rod. I will say this though. I've NEVER heard of anyone having a problem with a custom TC rod (aside from Mike's prototype 5/8" aluminum ones and 74_5.0's TC's which actually hit the frame rail and failed because of that), but we found something like 6 or 7 people ON THIS FORUM who had a TC rod break in half under the strain of poly bushings in a previous thread.

I had a 93 DR350 with a smaller front sprocket, desert tank and a couple little added things like stiffer springs and better rear shock. Ended up spiking myself like a football in a set of whoop-de-dos and breaking my collarbone in two places and collapsing a lung. This was about 2 weeks after my friend broke his thumb in 3 places after getting in a head on collision on his 95 CR500. That was the end for me, sold the bike and have been relatively accident free, except if you count that little mountain bike vs tree incident...

Definitely needs to get hotter. At least 180*, I run mine at 195*. It will run better and last longer.

I can only disagree and say that there must be THOUSANDS of AZC's control arms and Mike Kelly's control arms out there, and many more Z's with camber plates. I've only heard of ONE frame failure (not cracks but catastrophic failure), and that was on a rusted out car with rubber bushings. The frame behind the TC rod bushing literally exploded into rusty bits when the car hit a bump while turning. Being cautious is fine, but IMO you guys are a little over the top on this one. FWIW, I haven't found any visibly broken spot welds yet while I've been stitch welding the rear of my car. It got cold so I haven't been through the front of the car yet. I have a couple friends driving similar setups in 510s and Zs on the street and no one has ever had any structural problems.

It's a matter of personal preference. I put about 40K on a similar setup with camber plates up top with no complaints, but I never installed a stereo either...

OK, so the hyper-conservative guy gets his panties in a wad because a comment was made about the stingy "western countries" and the hyper-liberal guy assumes that it was the comment that got us to increase our donation amount despite the original statement that the $35M was an "initial" pledge. Welcome to the New Year, same as the Old Year...

That is exactly why I didn't use them on my car in the front. I did use them for a couple years in the back, but I can only imagine that in most Z's adjusting camber in front with offset bushings means that you have different bumpsteer on the LF and RF wheels... ick. Unless your chassis was so straight that both bushings were in exactly the same spot... unlikely at best. LCA=lower control arm

Thinking about going to see Jello Biafra and the Melvins show. Wondering if the eco-freaks will trash my SUV if I park anywhere near the venue...

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=93343

The adjustment you suggested worked BTW. Thanks!

Here's some info for you: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=87758&page=6&pp=10

Hey I did remember something else for you. If you turn the TV volume up over about 30 my wife can hear a high pitched whine. I can't hear it at all, it's out of my frequency range, but she can hear it and it bugs her. We have a separate volume control on the digital cable tuner, so we just crank that up and then we don't have to turn the TV volume up that high. We have the DVD player hooked up through an audio tuner so that is never an issue.

Thanks John. Just what I wanted. BTW, if you make a 1x1 table and put the code inside the table then you can move the table and it doesn't have to be right at the top of the page. See: http://www.thepetdoorstore.com

My wife and I have the 46". I did notice the delay you mention, but I thought it was a function of my crappy DVD player. Sometimes it's noticeable, other times not. The only other problem I have is that you can sometimes get trails when you have a really jerky action scene going on. My sis-in-law says she can see the trails more often than I can, her eyeballs must have a higher refresh rate than mine. Supposedly plasma doesn't have that problem, but it was about $2000 more for a good name brand plasma TV. I like the TV though, and the price was unbeatable. We got it on sale at BB with 18 months no interest, they gave us about $300 in rebates and BB gift cards, which we used to buy a bunch of DVDs to watch on the new TV. Worked out pretty good. One other thing about the new TVs is that they really don't have good stands for these yet. We looked at all of the TV stands and hated them, so we went to a furniture store and found a "sofa table" which sits behind a couch. I'm not much for furniture shopping, so I had never heard of this piece of furniture before, but it fits the TV perfectly. It came with feet that we removed to bring it down about 4", but at that height it's just about perfect. I just drilled a bunch of holes so that I could hook up the stereo and DVD wires and that was it. Worked out perfect.

Kinda hard NOT to lower it that far when you're trying to make it look good with 27" tall tires...

This may sound really selfish, but it's the truth. I'd shell out some cash for this thing to help my fellow man, but I'd like to find a charity that would accept my donation then NEVER come to me again for donations. Is there a "don't call me, I'll call you" charity???

Be careful here! You start talking about road racing and people who ACTUALLY road race are going to answer and tell you to put some Konis and some 300 in/lb springs in. That's going to be brutal on the street. For a VERY aggressive street feel I'd go 225 in/lbs with Tokico Illuminas. If you REALLY want road racing stuff, then go with the Konis and a 300 lb spring. IMO that is not streetable. As far as kits go, search and you shall find. Probably http://www.modern-motorsports.com is the most common and very good quality. I think his stuff is the same as http://www.ground-control.com. http://www.arizonazcar.com has some really nice suspension pieces. But search, and you'll find all kinds of info.

Just wanted to point out that having a locker in the front is different than a locker in the rear. Since the rear doesn't turn, you can run a spool or a locker with a lot less hassle and breakage, and when you go around a turn the inside will chirp. If you have a locker in the front, then the locker itself wants to drive the wheels straight. So your Birfield joints or U-joints, which aren't anywhere near as strong as strong as a solid axle are fighting the locker anytime you turn the wheel. Anyone with a locker in the front end bought it because they're pretty serious about rock crawling or mudding, and invariably they're going to turn the wheels, and try to drive the front end over an obstacle all the while fighting the locker. THAT is when axles break. Datsun axles may have U-joints, but they still won't be under anywhere near the load that a front axle would be, because they aren't turning left or right.

I tried a pickle fork and I screwed up one pin out of the four I had to pull. I got the puller and pulled 3 in 1 hour, then went to try that 4th one and totally ruined it. The puller is the only way I would do this job again, IME a pickle fork is a good way to waste a pin. Of course Terry would probably build his own special fork that fit just right, but for those of us mere mortals, leave it alone and wait for the puller...

I know a couple guys who drove spools in the back of their 4x4's on the street. It's not so bad until you get in the rain or snow or ice. Then you're pretty much screwed. Lots of road racers use welded diffs or spools. I've known a couple people who have tried a welded diff for autox, and they've all gone back to LSD. You can't beat it for drag racing. If it is a fair weather car that just gets driven to the track and back, I say go for it. As far as keeping the stocker for long trips, I can't imagine that you'd want to change that out too many times. It's a big PITA. Not so bad if you have a ZX, but I hate pulling the diff in my Z. I'd sooner pay the extra $$$ for an LSD at that point.

Just get a cheap $6 volt meter and measure the voltage. Hook a wire up to the O2 and up to the red wire on the volt meter, then hook black to ground. You want ~.8V. You can also buy an O2 bung from a muffler shop and have them weld it on if you want. Takes about 5 minutes for the O2 to warm up to start reading right. Of course you'll be ruining that O2 mighty fast if you start running leaded...