JMortensen

Terry when you hammered out the inner fenderwell did you pie cut it, or just hammer it? I figure if you didn't pie cut it you probably had to hammer it pretty good... but if you pie cut it then you would have had to weld in some wedges to make it whole again.

Well, you may have a point Heavy, but they're practically the same damn thing these days anyway. Subtle differences to be sure, but Republicans and Democrats aren't sticking to their core values anymore. Look at Bush's prescription benefits. What Republican 10 years ago would have dreamed of trying to get that legislation passed? Maybe in a nightmare... it seems completely contrary to conservative ideals. Or Clinton's statement during his presidency that "...the era of big government is over." Huh? I thought Bill was a democrat??? The funny thing to me is that I don't know anyone who classifies themselves as a Republican or a Democrat who agrees even mostly with their party's ideals. Political apathy is rampant. The thing that bugs me most is the lack of introspection on the part of most voters. Just run down the ballot looking for (D) or ®. Stupid... Related to the two party fiasco, have you guys seen the petitions to allow voters to vote for ANY candidate in the primaries? I know this is an attempt to address this issue, but that seems like a REALLY BAD idea to me. Bushies could have devoted 60% of their voters to Kucinich (Bush is obviously a sure thing), and nailed him in the general election. I don't know what the answer is, but that sure isn't it... Jon

There are certain groups which I think will almost never lose the will to fight. Among them are the Vietnamese, who had been fighting occupation for 2000 years when we stepped in to try and bail out the French in their quest for Michelin rubber. We should have just let that one go. Ho Chi Minh even asked for US approval of the Vietnamese declaration of independence, which was very similar to the US's version. Instead we chose to side with our ally and so Vietnam turned to communists for support as a second choice. I don't think Muslim extremists will ever lose the will to fight either. Their viewpoint is so extreme that you cannot "convince" them not to fight, or to see the world in a different way. I see it kind of like racism in America. You've got dyed in the wool racists in this country who will NEVER change their views. What has to happen is that the society needs to protect equality, and the masses need to be exposed to something OTHER THAN racism. A few generations ago, the situation was much worse than it is today. A few generations from now, and it will be a much smaller problem. The same can happen in Iraq, but it takes generations. Occupying for generations is not an option, but occupying until they have the resources to deal with the uprisings themselves is essential. When that happens the new Iraqi govt needs to be responsible for the security, just as we were responsible for security of our country. Are there going to be massacres? You bet. Is there going to be a stronger backlash than what we're seeing right now? I'd put money on it. But we need to give them the tools to deal with it, not occupy their country. The only reason we left Somalia was because Clinton and his constituents couldn't handle it. The soldiers wanted to go back, and they DID know who the warlords were, so they weren't fighting an invisible enemy. I've seen several interviews and read some about this and all of the soldiers were very pissed that they had to leave. They knew who they were after and where to get them, but the White House fearing a backlash pulled us out. I've been saying this for years now. When Bush first started in on Iraq and 1441 was passed, I was telling my friends, Clinton should have taken care of this in the 90s. There would have been much less backlash from the UN and the rest of our "allies", and the purpose of the mission would have had greater clarity which would have meant less division amongst Americans. Unfortunately, Clinton's response to just about every threat was to chuck a couple of cruise missiles (which he wasn't replacing) and leave. That is not an appropriate response IMO, and I feel he did a horrible job in this respect. Also, I agree wholeheartedly with Jay. I watched a 60 Minutes (?) segment with John Stossel about 5 years ago where he went to a college campus and Alan Keyes was speaking about getting rid of affirmative action. They simply would not let the man speak. They sat in the audience and chanted over his microphone so that his ideas could not even be presented. Stossel tried to interview a couple of the activists outside, and they started chanting "Racist! Racist!" at him until he finally gave up. The point was that the colleges are supposed to be the intellectual places where issues can be talked out, but they were already so militant and closed minded that they wouldn't even hear the argument. It was sad. I love to debate because I see it kind of like putting my ideas to the test, so thanks everyone for being tolerant even if we disagree. Jon

Since we're promoting good arguments, go here http://www.albinoblacksheep.com and watch the "protesting the protestors" parts 1 and 2 in the video section. Amazing...

Show me someone who does. But you can't just decapitate a country and then leave it. If we invaded Iraq then turned around and left immediately, there would be a Sunni fundamental Islamist gov't in power, no doubt. The Kurds and Shias would be massacred by the Sunnis. The only thing keeping that civil war from happening 30 years ago was Saddam's dictatorship, and he just killed anyone who dared to speak out against him. Now we have a chance to from a somewhat democratic gov't there, and if it is successful that will be a sign to the rest of the Middle East that it can be done. All I can say to that is I agree. If we had a 3 million man army and unlimited funds I'd want to go into a bunch more countries. Since we don't, we have to compromise and go one step at a time. If that is your criteria for winning, we never will. There will always be someone who scares the crap out of us, it might be a radical Muslim extremist, it might be some wacko militia member, it might be a serial killer, but we can never be totally safe. Jon

I can't believe people actually think we're losing the war in terror. We have delivered the two finest ass kickings ever seen in human history in Afghanistan and Iraq. We've intimidated Quadafi into backing down, and exposed the Pakistani nuclear problem. We've dealt a severe blow to Al Qaeda, and we should be thinking that WE'RE JUST GETTING STARTED. Sure, there are insurgents in Iraq, but LOSING??? We've lost 800 men in the war with Iraq. How many did we lose on D-day? 4000? Going further back the US lost 50,000 in the battle of Antietam in 2 days. How long did it take for us to lose 800 men in post WWII Europe during the Marshall plan? I'm sure that there were problems there too, but nobody wanted to cut and run. I think Mike's point was that we need to prosecute the war to the fullest, and not get stuck like we did in Vietnam where we had people walking the point on patrols with no ammo, or orders not to shoot. Vietnam and the day to day media coverage gave us a weak stomach, and that is what needs to be dealt with. I was listening to a former CIA guy yesterday talking about how Clinton established a rule in the CIA that we would not work with any foreigner who had commited a felony. That's the kind of PC liberal hamstringing that f'ed up our intelligence agencies during the 90s. That and the liberal move to cut intelligence funding and block the intelligence agencies from working together. I don't think he was trying to say that we're losing in the first post, but that terrorists perceive our hemming and hawing as weakness. We need to CONTINUE kicking ass. That's how it's got to be done. If we aren't willing to kick ass, then we should go home, on that part I agree. I just can't reconcile the accomplishments and the relatively low numbers of casualties and come to the conclusion that we're losing. What the hell is winning then? Jon

Could be anything. Broken tooth on the flywheel would be my first guess. Even if you can't warm the car up, you can still do the oil test and see if the numbers jump. If they jump a lot, then it probably needs new rings. Test results would be more accurate from a warm engine though.

Warm the car up. Pull the spark plugs. Put the compression tester in each hole, turn it over until the compression readings don't get any higher (usually about 5 compression strokes or so). When you've checked that way, you can squirt 2 squirts of oil into each cylinder and check again. If the numbers jump up a lot, then you have some piston rings which aren't doing their job. Your initial numbers don't look that good. You want them all to be really even, and yours were all over the place.

Smaller cam = higher compression numbers. If memory serves you're about where a normal 2.8 NA should be. There are specs in the FSM if you have one.

Well it looks like Steve has actually dealt with this before, and I've just heard of it, but when I've heard of it the advice was unbolt the master, pull it off the booster, and look in there. If you see the disk put it back in place and reattach the master...

What about that one, have you checked for that? You could put on 100 masters and none will work if that disc isn't in there. I think it's called a "reaction disc". My understanding of the check valve is limited for sure (a while back I talked at great length about how I thought the drums were affected by wheel cylinder size on the IZCC list and was totally wrong so don't believe everything I say when it comes to drums), but I believe it holds a bit of pressure in the wheel cylinders to keep the seals against the bores. I also believe that this valve is in the m/c itself.

This installation should not be a problem. I can't figure out what has gone wrong here, but this is a fairly simple operation. My only thoughts on why it isn't working are: 1. The disc inside the booster that sits between the back of the master and the pin fell out (usually falls into the booster). 2. The rod is the wrong length. 3. The master is bad. I wouldn't be afraid to do this swap, I'm sure it has been done hundreds of times by lots of different people sucessfully (including me). The drum master has a check valve built in for the rear brakes IIRC. If you put rear discs on a drum master, then the rear could potentially drag, just a bit, all the time. I think I read somewhere that someone had removed the check valve, but I can't remember where or who said that.

I think I'd rather put a longer pin in than put a bushing in between the crank and flywheel. That sounds like a bolt shear fiasco waiting to happen.

http://www.jskinnovations.com/Wilwood2.htm

I agree with you guys. Watching a driver perform is much more interesting than watching a car perform. I suppose the other argument is that the technology developed there does trickle down to road cars, so if they stop developing this stuff than the potential downside is that we won't see it in the new $1,000,000 Enzo or the new $600K Mercedes...

The advantage in the MillerMatic 135 or the Lincoln 135 + (I think that is the right Lincoln) is that the wire feed speed and voltage are infinitely adjustable. IIRC the wire speed on the Hobart is infinite, but the voltage is set with a switch that only has 5 settings. One might be too cold, and the next is too hot. That being said I have a friend with a Hobart 135 and he loves it, and uses it all the time to make parts for the printing presses that he fixes. I just don't think its as good a choice for fixing thin rusty sheet metal on a Datsun. I don't know what you were looking to spend, but I did get a MillerMatic 135 with a Hobart hood and some gloves from the ebay seller weldfabulous for $607. They were great. After buying a tank and a few little accessories and replacing the regulator which broke almost immediately I was into it about $860. Works great.

I hear you Pete, and I do that all the time with box vans and stuff, but my little Toy 2wd is not much of a visual impediment. I think it's more a subconscious "my car should be going faster than that POS" thing. The problem is if they'd just drive their own speed I would slowly drive away from them, but instead they speed up to get in front of me and then slow down to the speed they are comfortable with (slower than I was going in the first place). Anyone who has a junky looking car should be able to verify this irritating phenomenon. My other bitch is what I call "dualing morons". 2 jack@sses will drive the same exact speed right next to each other about 5 to 7 mph BELOW the speed limit. Happens all the freaking time here in Seattle. No one in front and a big traffic jam in back...

There is definitely a psychological aspect to this one. I can be driving 75 in my nasty looking Toyota P/U, and EVERYONE feels a need to be in front of me. They get in front, then they slow down, just like you said. Doesn't seem to happen in my other vehicles, but people do not want to follow my truck...

Well, just to give the opposing viewpoint, I just placed an ad at zcar.com a while back and also placed one here. I NEVER post at zcar.com or read any of the crap they're doing over there. One of the members here (280Zone) responded to my ad AT ZCAR.COM, and I bought a diff from him. I don't think the classifieds here are very user friendly here which is maybe why 280Zone responded to the zcar.com ad, and I hate the way people will jump in on someone's post and say "We are also selling x, and we've got it cheaper" or whatever. I liked the old system, post your ad, nobody can respond. That kept the bickering and the sales theft to a minimum. I think the ads should be from whoever (no minimum post requirement), but I do wish we had a feedback mechanism. I worry about sending a check to someone I don't know, but so far I've had only excellent results and I wish I could tell others about the good experiences that I have had so that they felt comfortable dealing with these guys. Jon

Here are two very different situations, but may be worth it to hear them. A buddy of mine just did a full day on the dyno and his low hp carbed L4 gained 7 hp from MSD vs Nissan elec ignition. I put it on my Z when I had SU's and got 32 mpg on a long trip. Just once, but still, 32 mpg!!! I would suggest the 6AL unless the turbo already has a rev limiter, or you just don't rev that high. The bad part about these comparisons is that they were both carbed L series, and the multiple spark probably plays a much bigger role in carbed engines, since they don't atomize fuel as well. I do understand that it is harder to throw a spark with lots of boost, so it might help there. Maybe you could run a wider plug gap??? Jon

Got this thru the local autox email list, it's pretty interesting: http://www.efi101.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=131

A friend of mine had a Yakima on her Z for a long time. She had to cut the rails down so that she could open the hatch, and I think even then she couldn't open it all the way. It will work.

That makes for an excellent hunt. Just not an excellent battle.

Take all the measurements you can (diameter of the syncro ring, width of the ring, thickness of the ring) then call a Porsche specialist or a German parts house. They should be able to measure one on their end and figure out which ones you need. IIRC they were out of the 915 transmission from the early 911's, and 1st thru 4th were all the same, 5th was smaller, just like the Porsche.

I have a friend who firmly believes that America never made it to the moon.