JMortensen

Click below. Type in phantom grip, search in the drivetrain forum. LOTS of info if you look for it. http://hybridz.org/nuke/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=search It LOOKS like a mini spool. It WORKS like a Lock Right. It ACTS like a LSD. The reason it doesn't look like a lock right in the pictures is because they don't show the side gears with it. I guess because they don't sell you side gears like an EZ locker would come with. Jon

If you want power from 4 to 7K, get triples. If you want power from 1500 to 5500, use SU's. I think the SU's will choke off a stroker pretty badly, so in that case maybe the triples will do better. Here comes Norm... If you don't know how to tune them, be prepared to learn or spend big bucks to have someone else do it for you. Triples are not the best street carbs, but if you like high rpms, you really can't beat them. When I put them on I was immediately slower at autox, and immediately MUCH faster on the big tracks, if that gives you any idea... If you're willing to spend some $$$, you may want to look at a set of bored out SU's. I think Ztherapy sells them. That would be the hot street car ticket IMO. Jon

It is NOT a spool. It works much like a Lock-Right or EZ Locker for a 4x4, only instead of having two big gears to lock together it has two plates with a friction surface on the insides. Do a search on phantom grip and you'll learn more about it, if you care after hearing the above explanation. It's a cheap and less than ideal LSD. Jon

320hp RADICAL?!?! That would be ...uh ...no, can't bring myself to say it.

Normally I don't like body kits, but this one is oddly appealing. Looks like it could actually pull air out of the fender area. Rims of course have got to go. I would be curious to see what one wheel/tire combo weighs. I'm guessing in the 70-80 lb range. I've seen 16's like that on a Mercedes, and those spokes are thick and heavy. IIRC we weighed that wheel/tire combo in the low 60lb range. I believe it was Archimedes who said "Give me a chrome lever and a place to wrap a 35 series tire, and I can make the car slower" ...or something like that Also the rear spoiler seems TINY. You'd figure it would be about 3 feet tall and have at least 3 airfoils if he was trying to keep the theme started by the wheels. Jon PS You haven't responded to my email Eric.

Mine wasn't that hard, just had to put a lot of torque on the nuts, and I was an idiot and tried to pull one pin that I had already slightly damaged prior to receiving the tool. Sorry if it came off like the toughest job I've ever done, because it wasn't at all.

I double wrenched mine out. Impacts don't work really well for this because the bushings just compress and take all of the impact. Put the box end of a 3/4" wrench on the nut, then the box end of the 19 on the end of the 3/4, and be sure not to hit yourself when it comes flying off, as it is bound to do at some point while your working on it. Or just get a big pipe and attach to the end of your wrench. Jon

It works better if you screw the tool ALL the way down on the spindle. Don't ask how I know... I was able to cut the end off the tool (I stripped about 6 threads out of it, and there was still enough meat in there that I was able to cut that portion off and still have enough to screw it all the way down the threads of the other pins I pulled afterwards. I was able remove the other 3 pins I needed to pull with no hassle. If you didn't get the one that I cut then you might be able to do the same. My cut was really not straight (It was too small for my chop saw vise, sorry whoever got it after me), so it should be obvious if the one you have is the one I had... Jon

Clutches need to bed in like brakes. Once they're bedded in, then you can abuse them, and that's when they'll work the best. I'd wait 500 miles before doing the clutch test. One time isn't going to hurt anything, but you will be lugging your engine pretty good at that speed. When you do it the engine should go from 5000 to 800 or whatever rpm it's going to be right away. If the clutch can't hold the power than it might actually increase rpms when you do this, or it might just slow down a little bit. Don't burn the crap out of it testing, just do it and see what happens then push the clutch back in and put it in a reasonable gear and continue on your way. Good thing about this is that you can figure out if the clutch will hold, then if you need to change it you can do that at Tim's... right Tim??? As far as the back and forth goes, I've been really stuck myself a number of times, and I'm just returning the favor that was done for me... Jon

I've seen 2 Z's get stuck in 5th. My friend drove to my house, turned around in the dirt in 1st, and when her tires hit the asphalt the tranny locked itself in "kind of first... kind of 5th" The fix was to drop the tranny and manually move the shift rails back in place. Never happened again. The second was mine. My friend was driving my Z at Streets of Willow in one of the slower off camber corners coming into the turn in 3rd. He downshifted to 2nd, and the rear tires locked up solid. He slid off the side of the track and just missed a corner workers' stand by about 2 feet still going about 50 mph!!! He sat in the car and tried to shift it into every gear, after about 3 minutes was able to get the car back into neutral, and then all of the gears engaged fine. Been fine for the last few years, just recently started popping out of gear. I know it has worn countershaft bgs (bearing grumble at idle), and I think the popping out of gear is a sign of the main shaft nut backing off. Not sure what causes this problem, but on my list of things to do is rebuild my tranny. I'll let everyone know if I find anything, but I've got SO MUCH to do it might be a few months just to get to it. Everything is taking longer than I expected, but hey, at least I got the 2 bee hives out of the damn garage... Jon

Push in clutch, move foot to the side. Another way of saying drop the clutch.

I'd take it easy on the clutch for a couple hundred miles. The pp being easy to push thing... I made mention of that on another clutch post but I guess you missed it. I have the ACT pp with a stock disk. My clutch is not very stiff at all, very slightly noticeable that it is not a stock pp to me, but if you didn't know Z's you would think it was all stock. I think you had either no grease on the shaft where the throwout bg rides, or maybe someone put white grease on there and it coagulated and made everything sticky. My friend's Z was like that and I pulled it out, replaced the disk and lubed everything with some high temp grease and it was an AMAZING difference in pedal effort. I was thinking back to the last car that I saw with worn thrust bgs. It was a 200SXT, and the car had a Centerforce DF disk. The puck side had worn the crap outta the flywheel, and it was not even at all. So lets say that it had a groove all the way around the flywheel, but it was 1/8" deep on one side and 1/16" deep on the other. When you let out the clutch, it chattered VIOLENTLY. While it is doing this, the crank is getting shaken fore to aft HARD. And that's what took out the thrust bgs. Once you've put some miles on the clutch, you can check for slippage as follows. Going maybe 30, put the car in 4th, rev to 5000 rpm, and side step the clutch. That will tell you right away whether that clutch is going to slip. If you've really got the HD pp and the stock disk, I don't think you're putting down enough power to make it slip. The price on that pp was AWFULLY cheap though. Makes me wonder... Glad to hear you're back in action, now take Tim up on his offer to help and get some main bgs in the bottom end. And pull the motor if you can. Not very hard to pull it, and it will make the whole job so much easier! Jon

I don't think two piston dynalites are going to keep up with 4000 calipers in the front. They might do alright with the 2000 series calipers that John C has in front, but you've got a lot bigger pad up there. Maybe a small 4 piston caliper in the back, like a 4 piston dynalite or an outlaw 2000 or 2800. Just as an example you may want to look at AZC's brakes. They use wilwood superlites in the front and ndl's in the rear. I would think that this would be comparable to outlaw's 4000s and 2000s. Jon

Subie is an R160

My uncle is a gun nut, was in the army, and was president of a gun company in the 80's. He is a safety nut, and always told me "At some point, you WILL have an accident." His happened when he was cleaning his .454 Casull. Somehow he managed to fire one off in his bedroom and it went through 6 pieces of .5" thick oak cabinet, through a brick wall then through a 3' diameter pine tree. They couldn't find the bullet after that. Keep in mind he's been HEAVILY involved in guns in one way or another for the past 50+ years. Sounds to me like this guy's hand slipped off the slide when he was opening it. Not sure how that would cause the gun to fire, but seems to me reasonably accidental. Unless it was a glock and he fired it when the slide closed because his finger was on the trigger. That would have been exceedingly dumb... I have to applaud 50 people for going to a firearms safety course in the first place. I don't think that it's unreasonable for 50 people to be there, but having the gun loaded was unwise. If they wanted to show what the gun looked like loaded they could have just used some of those plastic safety cap bullets. Jon

Search for phantom grip.

That's because yours is slightly different and f'ed up and what is normal doesn't work on your car.

I was able to get a stock oilpan out without lifting the motor. To get my AZC pan in I had to jack up the motor on one side about an inch.

I don't think there is a reliable way to tell what's inside. The main indicator to me would be the 2 piece driveshaft, but I've seen them with a one piece driveshaft, and I've never seen the CV driveshaft. In fact I had both a two piece driveshaft and a single piece driveshaft comp trannies at one point. I gave them to a friend in need, and he assembled the main shaft from the one piece driveshaft with the gears and countershaft from the 2 piece (closer ratios in that one) then installed it all into a standard ZX 5 speed case. I think the original case for the comp 5 speed is different from a standard 5 speed, but I only had the guts from the two so I never saw the difference in the case or bell housings. This stuff interchanges too easily. Unless you could see a synchro I don't think you can tell. If you can see the synchro (maybe through the fill or drain plug) then you should be able to tell. The brass synchros are yellow and that is an obvious giveaway. If you've felt them both shift you can tell that way too. The brass synchros pop into gear with one solid click. The steel synchros have a longer throw, and almost feel like two clicks, or one and a half maybe... Sorry I can't pinpoint that a little more for you... I sold my spare ZX 5 speed before I moved two years ago for $150. Jon

I don't think anyone is trying to make fun of you, but damn, I mean DAMN dude... You ever read the children's book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day??? Maybe you should get rid of it...

You gonna bail him out again Tim?

If you pulled it back apart and sectioned (agreed not exactly a 10 minute job), you wouldn't need to purchase anything, just cut and weld. Jon

IME you've made the right choice on the pressure plate and clutch. Like I said, I've only seen damaged thrust bearings on puck clutch equipped L series. Going to super cheeseball hack mechanic mode-- Couldn't Bastaad just pull the middle main and replace just that one? That's where the thrust bg is. Mark the cap so you don't flip it around when you reinstall it. I'm sure you already know that it's better to fix it right Bastaad, but maybe this would just get you back on the road... Jon

Ross, I thought the 280 rear strut tubes were taller. So you could lower the perch, but you'd still end up with less travel. Hence the need to section. It looks to me like Juan could slap some 8" springs and get close to the ride height he wants, but that's no good if he's driving on the bumpstops... Is that right? Jon

Sprint turbo 3 cyl with a front drive swap?