JMortensen

My opinion is that you should forget the Z if you want to drive people around. Go look at a 2+2 in person and try and fit in the backseat. It's not much of a backseat. That being said if you can deal with a 2 seater a 240 would handle better than a late 260 as it is lighter to start with. You'll probably be gaining some weight with subframe connectors or roll bar or cage so starting with the lightest car is a good idea if you're looking for handling. As an alternative I'd suggest a 510 with an SR20DET swap. That would be light and would handle great, smog exempt, but you'd need some flares for big tires, and it's aerodynamically challenged. If you can deal with a 2 seater, a 240 with a good airdam and spoiler, good suspension upgrades and an LS1 swap is looking like a reasonably inexpensive way to meet all of your goals with the one exception.

Sounds to me like you have a bar for a 240. I need a bar for a 240. I'm not sure if my MSA bar for a 240 will work on your 280, but if you want to try a sale or trade PM me. The difference is that the 240 bars mount to the verticals behind the diff, and the 280 bars (or the MSA 240 bar like I have) mounts in front of the diff to the frame rails.

Funny how giving away all the rich peoples' money starts to look less attractive when you stop smoking doobies and get a damn job. Suddenly that's YOUR money that's being given away.

OK, that's cool. Can't really be a better overall goal than "does everything bitchin". I don't think your Jegster chassis is going to handle really well with stock fenders and 345s though. I think you'll have a hard time turning it. It should go down the strip nicely though.

What is a pro-touring 240? I'm guessing it must be a drag racer? Never heard of such a thing. Seems like you'd be better off with a smaller wheel and more sidewall on a drag car though.

Kinda the same thing--liberal hippies in the cities and toothless rednecks outside the cities... I guess it's the same everywhere...

I never ran vacuum advance on my Z's (SUs or Mikunis), because they've always been broken when I got the car and they'll start advancing on top end runs, which is really bad. Never had the popping either. Plug the vacuum hose that comes off the intake to the dizzy, and set your timing at ~18 or 19 degrees BTDC and see if it still pops. If you use vacuum advance you'll get a little bit of in town driveability, but when you do a long top end pull like on a long straightaway at the track you won't have any vacuum at first, but then as you get into the higher rpms the vacuum starts to creep back up, which then advances the timing and can cause pinging. Of course, it won't if you set the timing to the factory level of 8* or whatever, but then you won't have your 36 when you need it.

Aux, did you know in WA there is a law that if you live with a woman who has a child WHO IS NOT YOUR CHILD and you decide to move out or leave you can be taken to court and forced to pay child support? Of course, women who live with a man who has a kid can't be forced to pay, but a man who lives with a woman who has a kid, that guy is on the hook...

An '81 ZX dizzy should have 17* mechanical advance, as stated here: http://home.att.net/~jason510/dizzy_specs.htm. Here's the other great dizzy page, since I always give them out together: http://www.jrdemers.com/280ZX/distributor/distributor.html

Ztard, you might be right on the .223 penetrating body armor, I don't really know. I haven't shot an AR-15, but I have shot a Mini-14, which is pretty similar. If I were wanting to take a long distance shot I'd prefer a standard open sight to the peep sight. The aperture on the Mini 14 that I fired was pretty big, so it was more of a "your bullet will go in this general area" sort of a thing. The point about the AR-15s is that the police got those guns in particular because they were "massively outgunned" and the news reported it the same way. If you're referring to how many bullets you can fire in 45 minutes, then both the police and the media were absolutely right. The truth is that the police only needed to fire 2 shots to end the whole thing, and a sporting weapon would have been a more appropriate choice IMO. Kinda reminds me of a trip I made to the shooting range. There were some gang members (bandanas, bunch of military type weapons, the whole bit) shooting skeet when we pulled up to the skeet area. I was shooting my 870 20 gauge with a 26" barrel, and these jackasses were shooting a Winchester 12 gauge "riot gun" with a stainless 20" barrel and black pistol grips on the front and the back. Needless to say I began shooting my skeets, then turning and shooting theirs before they hit the ground (none of them hit a single skeet out of the box of 120 white flyers they brought to the range-pathetic). When they said something I said "Just trying to help!" I bet if those cops had seen my 870 and that riot gun at that store on that day they would have taken the riot gun and left the 870 on the shelf. It all goes back to the "assault weapons" law. The law doesn't target the most powerful weapon, or the most accurate weapon, it targets the "meanest looking" weapon. After the Stockton Massacre there was an Oprah where they took a Ruger 10/22 on stage and asked if it should be banned. No was the universal answer. Then they took it back stage, put a composite folding stock on it and a 30 round banana clip in it and brought it back onstage, and everyone said they wanted to ban it. Same damn gun, and a good one at that. These laws are for people who don't know what an assault weapon is and who are scared by what they don't understand.

Doug is right. Right now you only have one cross pin and 2 pinion gears taking the load when you go around corners or do burn outs. I'm guessing its the burn outs that are taking out your diffs. Get a 4 pinion and you've got twice the cross pin area and twice as many gears taking that load. Scumdog, the LSD makes an unbelieveable difference in the handling. Yes, a clutch type will give you more push as Doug said, but you can tune around that. I've only seen one Detroit Locker R190 ever about 10 years ago, and I've never heard of or seen another one since. That was in a friend's 510, and he put it in, drove around for about a month, then sold it. He said it was brutal, and it almost killed him getting off a rain soaked offramp one evening. When he went around corners I expected to see the differential in pieces in the middle of the road because the thing was so loud. Mat73GNZ has made spacers so that you can put your 10mm ring gear on a 12mm carrier. Don't know if he still has any left, but he sold me a set.

When I see stuff like this it reminds me of ALL the "street" video clips people put up. Darius on the street racing a GSXR, people doing donuts, burnouts, racing their buddies, and there's that one Z video with a bunch of older Jap cars racing on the freeway at night. That's just asking for it IMO. Don't video your crimes guys

Because it is a 2 pinion open carrier. I'd bet you'd do a lot better with a posi (all R200 clutch type posis are 4 pinion) or a 4 pinion open if they made one.

http://www.student.oulu.fi/~hmikkola/shootout.html If you want to hear the cops during the thing, check the above link. Only ONE guy says "Aim for the head" and that is right before it cuts off minutes into the audio. Look guys, they WERE able to hit these guys in the chest 100s of times with the 9mm pistols. 100s of times. They just weren't AIMING for the head. I don't care what the training says to do. When you and your fellow cops have unloaded 40 clips into the guys' chests and they are still walking around, CHANGE TACTICS. Aim for the head!!! If you can hit the chest 100's of times, I refuse to believe that you can't hit the head ONCE. That's all it would take. And there were 300 cops there. It doesn't really matter how many were firing, the city of LA devoted 300 cops to stopping 2 guys with automatic weapons and body armor, and COULDN'T GET THE JOB DONE FOR 45 MINUTES. That is just lame. And the thing that really gets me is that they stuck AR-15s in the damn squad cars as a fix. And again, the rifle thing. Why the hell did they go get AR-15s??? DUMB move! Like I said before, give me my .243 and I could have made that head shot from 300 yards. With a .30/06 you wouldn't even need a head shot. I could have hit a human torso at 80 yards with a .30/06. I'm sure I could, even with the adrenaline going. Look at soldiers in war. They've got the adrenaline going and they still manage to kill people who are firing at them with automatic weapons. The simple fact is that the cops were hung up on the assault weapons. If the cops had to have assault weapons too, they could have gone to the military surplus rack and grabbed a couple of M1 Garands and been done with it. I remember afterwards there were a LOT of people critical of how this was handled. Lots of competition shooters and lots of law enforcement types were very critical. Now all I can find on the web is stories of these heroes. Typical. I did find this amusing comment from Jeff Cooper (some gun guy) just now:

WTF?!?! I'd love to hear the "explanation" on that one. Do you know what the reason given for that was Heavy?

Aaawww, that makes it worse!!! I always like to think of myself as a "function over form" type of guy, but I just can't take it...

EWW!!! What were they thinking!!! What's with the front door angle not matching the rear door? Oh, man!!! I think I like the older and the current Aston Martins a little better. Damn...

Congrats!

The SWAT van was there IIRC for at least 10 minutes (maybe I'm wrong, but I lived pretty close and it was on the news 24-7 for a while). That was a situation that called for head shots, but what did the cops do? They drove down to B&B gun store and got some AR-15s and came back. If they had 1/2 a brain they either would have gotten some seriously accurate weapons, like the bull barreled Remington 700s that the SWAT guys have, or they could have gone for something powerful enough to blow through the body armor, like a .300 Winchester Mag or a 7mm Remington Mag (hell I think even a .270 or a .30/06 would go through that armor). Like you said I think it was over by the time they came back. I distinctly remember the SWAT team being there, and I kept thinking, why haven't they shot these guys in the head??? I think it was SWAT that eventually got the one guy in the ankle to take him down, then he was shot in the head. F'in retarded police. Seriously f'in stupid. Totally disregard the SWAT team for a second. You've got 300 policemen with 9mm Berettas, right? Shoot THOSE at the guys' heads. Those two took 100s of bullets to the body armor, you could see it plain as day in the video. They could have easily taken some shots to the head as well with the 9mms and it would have been over. Or the feet. But they didn't. And again, to justify outfitting patrol cars with AR-15s with that BS is just insane. I couldn't believe all the "the cops were overpowered and outgunned" BS when they were saying it then, and it still doesn't make any sense now. I know it's not PC to bitch about the cops, especially when they were under fire, but that was really really really badly handled.

Yeah, they carry them in CA because of those jackasses in No Hollywood. I still can't believe that SWAT and 300 regular officers were held at bay for so long by 2 dudes with AKs and body armor. I coulda made that head shot from 300 yards with my .243 and I am no sniper, and as far as hitting something in the background, hell, it had to be less dangerous to the public than letting those idiots spray bullets randomly for 45 minutes. That was a real travesty. I couldn't believe how inept those cops were. And then they go and give them AR 15s??? That's the last thing they needed at the time. What they needed was one of those SWAT guys to take 2 shots with the .308 Remington 700. 2 good shots and that whole thing could have been over in 5 minutes. Instead they spend our tax $$$ on friggin AR-15s for cops. LAME.

The ZX and the 510 have a very large diameter spring. You can use the smaller diameter spring from the 240 and have more room to redrill the strut top holes or slot them for camber. To do this you would have to cut off the 280ZX lower spring perch and weld on the one from the 240. On the top you need the rubber part from the 240 attached to the metal part from the 510 or the 280ZX. This is from a coming 2nd hand from a conversation I was having last night with Greg from the pic I linked to above, so you'll want verification from Anthony or Drax or someone else. The rear 240 springs will be slightly stiffer than the fronts. The 240Z and the 280ZX use the SAME EXACT strut cartridge in the front. The rear of the 510 is a semi-trailing arm setup, just like a 280ZX. Totally different than the 240/260/280, so no Z stuff will crossover into the rear of your 510. I thought and Drax seems to think that you can swap 280ZX semi trailing arms into a 510 no problem. For rear springs I know most guys are using roadster front springs, or roadster comp front springs, or comp 510 rear springs. I think the comp 510 or the stock roadster would be the best match for 240 springs. Jon

To be fair to the 911 victims, they had only history to go by, where hijackers would take a plane and try to get comrades released in exchange for passengers. I don't think we'll be seeing any other hijackings in the foreseeable future. The one I love is the home alarm system commercials on TV. "Kids, get in the bedroom!" Mom yells, then the alarm company calls and tells her it's going to be all right. Makes me want to I don't think I'll trust my safety to a home alarm and a chair wedged under the doorknob, thanks. My buddy had a T/C Contender chambered for .223. Used to freak people out when I told them I shot M16 ammo in a handgun. They never believed me when I told them .44 mag kicked a hell of a lot worse than .223 in that same gun.

Some of the shifters were straight, some were bent. You might have a 510 shifter in your Z, or vice versa. I think they also go straight or bent based on year. Early Z's were straight, later Z's were bent IIRC. Doesn't really matter though, as long as it is in a comfy spot for you. The hardware is all the same (same bushings, shaft, retaining clip, boot) until you get to the ZX, then you get these tan plastic inserts in the shifter with a weird spring thing in there. Still haven't figured out what the big plastic thing is for, but I know I put my truck shifter in a ZX trans and it worked. Also worked in a B type 4 speed no problem. Didn't have to change anything with regards to the shifter rails either. Just plug and play.

That's not fair. He did it on purpose!

I did a 180* spin at about 115 mph. Caught it going backwards at about 80. Anyone else beat 80 mph backwards??? Oh, yeah, I caught it in the dirt too. So I've gone 80 backwards off road in my Z... beat that. As for driving forward I'm sure I'm nowhere near the record, I don't think I've broken 125, because there was always a turn at the end of the straightaway... I have a friend whose tach in her Z has got to be off by 2000 rpm. She's always telling me that I'm overrevving her motor when I drive it, I don't think I've ever had it to 7000 rpm. One possible explanation.