JMortensen

When it comes to rust and bodywork, I really don't know my ass from a hole in the ground. I took the following pics today: I've been really afraid of rust since I had my Z painted. It was supposed to be taken to bare metal, then epoxy primed, then painted. About 2 years after the paint was done cancer showed in the usual places. I had sections just in front of the rear wheels cut out. Actually had the body guy give me the rusty metal he cut out. That's where the rust came back FIRST. Right now I'm preparing to stitch weld the frame rails, and I find this. I don't think this is major, but I didn't think the other rust was that bad. Is this a big deal? Somewhat normal? Should I worry about it? Is there anything I can do to fix it? The thing is that I push this car HARD. I don't want to go through all the hassle of stitch welding this chassis and have it rot out from under me in 5 years. If this is not a big deal, is there a better way to clean off these frame rails then what I'm doing? I've tried Roloc pads with a 90* die grinder. I've tried paint stripper (Home Depot variety). Now I'm onto a wire brush on the die grinder. It seems to work the best, but there are areas that I just won't be able to get the grinder into that need to be cleaned. Any other suggestions? A better paint stripper? Thanks everyone.

Pretty common with aftermarket pp. Pack a spare...

I don't understand why you have such a holier-than-thou attitude tannji. If I ever google in a post it's because I was taught to BACK UP MY FACTS. I'm bitching about a POTENTIAL problem. If it were an ACTUAL problem then I wouldn't just be bitching. I'd be voting against anyone who supported the act, and if that failed... I've stated, and I think Pop has also stated that we back Bush in the election. Clearly our opposition to the Patriot Act is tempered with some other thought that leads us to believe that Bush is the right man for the job in spite of the Patriot Act. It seems equally clear to me that you would back whatever the president has to say. You want to something to prove? How about proving to Pop and me that the Patriot Act WON'T be abused. If you can prove that, then I'll happily sign on in support of it. Good luck with that one.

Similarly the gov't doesn't have the time or resources to test the long term effects of Syphillis on ALL of its citizens for fun either. Tell it to the people who were part of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment from 1932-1972. The govt is not benevolent or malevolent by nature. I think it is very myopic to say that this administration won't abuse these powers, so they're OK. It is also foolhearty to say that INDIVIDUALS with access to this power won't abuse it, since we already have examples of that happening. Again, not saying similar abuses of power WOULD happen, just that they are POSSIBLE and that it's NOT WORTH THE RISK IMO. One more thing. I'm not much for CORPORATE encroachment into my privacy either. The Patriot Act is just potentially more dangerous because the government has guys with badges and guns whos' rights come before mine. I do see my Albertson's "Club Card" and my online banking as potential threats as well, but it's unlikely that a clerk at the store is going to "paper or plastic" me to death...

Consider this acknowledged. I don't think there is a police state agenda. I've said that a number of times now. Remove the parts of the act that give the gov't the power to spy on ANYONE without a warrant. I'm not against the whole act. I'm all for roaming wire taps and all that. WITH A WARRANT. Not my job to give you an alternative. My job is to bitch and moan when my rights are being arbitrarily encroached upon. Yes, I meant to say arbitrarily. There is always a handy justification for giving the intelligence agencies more intelligence. It is true that they can do their job more effectively with more intelligence. It is true that it is POSSIBLE to save lives with more intelligence. It is true that I would rather risk death than give it to them. If I had my way 2/3 of the people on those flights would have been armed, so there probably would have been either dead terrorists or massive cabin decompression and a downed airliner. Either way would have been better than what we ended up with. Unfortunately for us all, WE DIDN'T MAKE A BIG ENOUGH DEAL OUT OF IT WHEN OUR 2ND AMENDMENT RIGHTS WERE PREVIOUSLY ABRIDGED!!!

Wheelman, the point is that this act gives the govt the power to curtail your rights. It gives the govt the power to throw parts of the Bill of Rights out the window. The Bill of Rights was created because of the realization that the govt could overstep it's bounds very easily, and it was ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to put limits on govt's power. It was a condition of ratification of the Constitution, and should not be limited unneccesarily. A lot of the computer stuff would never be detected by anyone until the FBI and CIA arrived at your front door. It's like asking "Who here has had their phone tapped?" Well, if it's done right you're not gonna know, are you??? You can try to rationalize with an "I've got nothing to hide" attitude, or a "necessary evil" attitude, but nobody thinks the war on terror is going to end anytime in the forseeable future, so you're basically saying "I agree with the govt's abridging my freedom in this time of crisis, and I am going to rely on the govt to determine when the crisis is over, and I am willing to let the govt decide if the govt screws anyone over." Maybe you're willing to make that statement, but that certainly doesn't mean that everyone should, or that Boner (sorry, couldn't resist) is wrong for questioning it.

Yeah, I went looking for their website to call them again about 6 months ago. The site is gone. I think I posted here asking for the number and was told that he died. Sucks, they were THE BEST people to call for Mikuni stuff IMO.

There was a series (maybe still is?) for VW TDI's in Europe. I read that the diesels were kicking butt on the gas GTI's on road courses. I don't think that Nissan diesel is of the same ilk as a Cummins or a Powerstroke or the TDI. I drove an '87 2L turbo diesel Toyota truck about 3 months ago. Anyone who has driven a smaller turbo diesel from the mid 80's is not going to be terribly excited about the potential power from one of these motors. My friend who had the VW Rabbit truck that burned veggie oil is now working on building a new Toyota diesel engine with turbo and intercooler and a bunch of headwork. I looked at the ports on it when it was stock... UGH They just weren't built for performance. I think that engine started as a forklift motor. My friend is ***hoping*** for 150 hp up from the stock 90 or so IIRC, and he's sunk a lot of money into it. Try buying parts for these things. Maybe this new motor might have 200+ ft/lbs of torque, but it's still not going to be "fast". But hey, free fuel...

Apparently not!

http://www.rebelloracing.com/ Make sure you verify all parts to be ordered. I've ordered from them a couple times, and gotten the wrong stuff a couple times. On the plus side the guys at Rebello are super helpful over the phone. Tell them what engine, cam, chokes, carbs, etc you have and they can get you at least roughly in the ballpark. Nissan Comp has very little left, and I guess the Malvern guy died...

Is that Summit link right? 3.4 in inlet???? Anyone else ever heard of 3.4 inch exhaust??? Judging by the pic I'd guess 1 3/4 inch inlet, 4 inch outlet. Standard ricer Honda boy muffler specs, right?

IIRC, and that's a big if in this case because I'm no FI expert, the voltage dancing around is the system going in and out of closed loop. Totally normal. Normally I wouldn't post on something I know so little about, but I remember when my buddy was tuning his turbo Toyota truck it was doing the same thing and we talked about it. Sounds like you've got it tuned pretty good to me.

This used to happen to just about every 300ZX I ever saw at an autox, and just about every KA24'd car too. I think you probably just sucked air for a second around a turn. Once this happens it takes quite a while for the lifter to pump up again, and makes a hell of a racket too. There was a previous discussion about why and if hyd lifters were crappy maybe a year or more back, and I brought this VG and KA thing up and IIRC an extra quart of oil was the quick fix. I'd put another quart of oil in and see if it happens again at the next event, and consider a baffled pan from Nissan Comp or AZC as a fix.

The control arms are the same on both sides and 1 is flipped from the factory, so you are OK there. I'd change the bushings while you've got it apart. Even if you only do the rear control arms, I'd do them now. Regardless, you should coat them with anti-seize so that they come out easy if you ever need to pull the pins again. Still not sure what protrusion is there on the one side and not the other. Maybe you were just confused by the upside down swingarm. If you search for "rear control arm bushing" and click on the Search for ALL terms button you'll see some good posts about how to get the shells out of the control arms.

I tuned my triple Mikunis with an O2 worked great. Just went for .8V or as close as I could get all the way through the range. I used a multimeter like that site describes. A couple friends of mine have gauges that they bought from Summit or Jegs or whereever and they've been able to use them successfully and verify the accuracy of the gauge and O2 voltage on a dyno by comparing it to a wideband.

Sounds like you're trying to remove the spindle pins. This is one of the hardest jobs on a Z that there is, despite how easy it looks or how easy it "should" be. You simply don't need to remove the strut from the control arm to change the struts. You don't need to remove the whole control arm either. If you disconnect the brake lines, the half shafts, and the sway bar if you have one then you can undo the three nuts inside the car on the strut tops and then pull the whole control arm down and swing the top of the strut out of the fender well. Once you've got this done you can use your spring compressor and pull the spring, then put the strut top back on and bolt it back into the body. Now you have easy access to the gland nut. Loosen it, drop the swingarm back down, and you can remove the gland nut and replace the struts. Reverse, bleed the brakes, and you're done. There is a special tool which gets passed around here that is specifically for spindle pin removal. It works great. You only need to use it if you're changing the bushings though.

Are you worried about turning radius or is this supposed to be a performance thing? Most race teams get rid of the HICAS because it is extra weight and can make the handling a little funky when you push the car really hard. At least that's what I've heard and read (never had a HICAS car myself).

Man I can't wait to try mine...

They're noticeable in straight lines if you're normally getting the one wheel peel. You won't anymore. But really most of the time you're driving in a straight line, theres not enough power going to the wheels to make them slip, so most of the time the LSD does nothing at all. The reason they are usually more noticeable in turns is because the inside rear gets unloaded and spins much easier than if you were just going straight. So the car will accelerate a lot better out of turns with a LSD. Makes any car a whole different animal.

I bought a couple of 280 hubs from Juan @ JSK when I bought his brake kit. Just got into them and after cleaning off the grease I can only say holy crap are they rusty. I realize that I can get a couple more hubs cheap if need be, but I've already got these here, hence the idea. Is it possible to turn the wheel mounting flange on a hub like a rotor? I'm trying to think back to my wrenching days and I'm thinking that a standard brake lathe might not do it. I started to just sand the surface and there are some pretty big pits. I'm sure once the rust was gone it would probably only take .010 or so to get them perfectly clean and straight again. So what do you all think? Dumb idea? Not worth it?

Makes you wonder if it's going to eventually come down to "rock control".

Proper jetting is going to be hugely different based on what size engine, cam, exhaust, intake manifold, 40, 44, or 50 carbs, etc. etc. Best thing to do is find a Mikuni manual. They are not terribly detailed but they will give you an idea of what each circuit does. Also the How to Modify your Nissan/Datsun L series has a pretty good section that has most of the info that the Mikuni manual has, and a little more in some instances. The best thing I did was to install a narrow band O2 sensor. I tried for a while to use plug color etc, and I made as much progress in 2 weeks of having the O2 as I did in 2 months of screwing with it with no sensor. People will tell you that you need a wideband, but I now know of 3 other people using narrowband with good success, and 2 of them have verified the accuracy of their narrowband against a wideband on a dyno. Oh, and be prepared to shell out some cash for jets.

Well, my synopsis was a little simplistic, but I didn't want to write a book. My point was more that a large portion of both sides are unwilling to deal and are ideologically opposed to peace with the other, so it becomes a standoff that requires the death of the Jews or the abdication of relatively large parts of Palestine to bring either side to a situation where peace is even a possibility. If they were able to deal then Arafat would have signed the agreement Clinton proposed. But they weren't then and they aren't now. I just don't think that peace is going to exist there until the extremists die off, and they aren't likely to die off anytime soon since there are such a large contingent of Jews and Palestinians that raise their children to be extremists and continue on the fight. I do see small signs of hope like the Palestinians protesting the PLO about a month back I think it was. I didn't look too far into that one, they could have been protesting for the PLO's weakened stance or something, but the news portrayed it as a good thing. I guess I have a rosier outlook on Cuba. I think there are some big changes in store for Cuba when Castro bites the dust.

I've got a mark on my outer tie rod and two on my inner. One is for 1/8" toe in and one is for 1/8" toe out. I would just get to the autox early, jack up the front and change my alignment there. My main problem was getting to the autox early. I had it set so that the toe in setting had the steering wheel perfectly straight, and the toe out was just a hair off center. Worked great.