JMortensen

That's really low. Do you have any suspension left at that height??? You may want to run a little higher until you get some things changed around, like sectioned struts, raising front control arm pivot height, and some adjustable TC rods, possibly raising the TC pivot too. Right now I'd venture a guess to say that your control arms are pointing way up, and that as the suspension compresses you are losing caster due to your ride height. I think lower is better, but with stock pivot points too low is not good. Maybe you've already done all of that, I don't know. 250/275 should be fine, maybe 225/275. I started with 250/250 and dropped to 200/250 to get help get rid of some of the push I was talking about before, before I got the custom control arms and TC rods. Jon

I wouldn't do it. I've seen N/A 2.8's blow up R180's in 2 different Z's. They were autox cars too, not drag racers. One guy destroyed the Nissan LSD. The carrier grenaded on him, but he's also the only guy I've known who broke a mustache bar. Let's just say he liked to light em up. Jon

You should only post your question in one forum at a time. Not sure if anyone else has mentioned that to you yet... The urethane will sag over time, but won't crack if you hit a parking stone. You can reinforce it with metal to keep it from sagging. I think Auxiliary did that to his to beef it up. Fiberglass is better in that it won't sag and is lighter, but is fragile. I thought I had the best of both worlds with my "Flexdam" which is fiberglass with a rubber skirt. Turns out the rubber skirt started flapping up at about 90 mph, so I changed the rubber out for plastic lawn edging, which has worked well. I got the flexdam from a company in Ventura CA about 7 years ago, I have no idea who what their name is anymore. You see a lot of them on 510's, but mine is the only flexdam I've ever seen on a Z. If I had it to do over again, I'd buy a fiberglass unit, since I barely drive on the street anymore with the Z. Jon

Mr. Coffey will probably correct any errors in my statement, but I think the TWM units are specially tapered to keep the flow going all the way to the back of the airbox. I have heard that an incorrectly shaped box can really limit flow to the rear carb. I don't know how hard it would be to get close enough to the TWM unit to be "close enough". A slight taper is all it really looks like, but maybe there is more to it than meets the eye. Jon

Interesting. What kind of plates are they? My ground control "roadrace" plates can adjust me between about 3.5* to 1.5* with the control arms lengthened. With the stock control arms I think I could get to about 2.25*. I think you also may be running a little lower than me ride height wise. Your bias ply tires are the main difference there, though, as you know. With a radial the plates are probably more necessary. Jon

Gramercyjam has it right, I think. I wish I had known about the differences in the Konis and Tokicos when I bought struts. One advantage to the Illuminas is that if you are still driving to the events you can turn the shocks down before you hit the road so they don't destroy your spine. At present I haven't run in a little more than a year, but before I moved to the land of rain and rust I used to drive 2 hours to events with 4 slicks in the car. Three wedged in the back and one riding shotgun. Oh, and I had my tools, my jack, my helmet, and my crate full of spares... a whole Z full of crap. Hopefully I'll be trailering the car before I go again. I think if you're going to get really serious with FP you'll probably end up with coilovers and camber plates anyway, so I don't really see any harm in doing that now, but if you're trying to go cheap you can get a set of coilovers like the ones from modern motorsports, then you won't be paying for that aluminum hat which you'll get rid of when you do go to camber plates. Jon

I think we'll all find out when Mike hits 2000 posts. He'll get another dot if I'm right. The first five boxes are 100 posts each. Nothing happens again until 1000, when the first dot goes up. Then each 1000 after that gets another. That's what it looks like to me... EDIT- Actually, I just looked and I am apparently wrong. Sorry. It sounded good anyway.... BigWhyteDude, your bar doesn't follow my model. Jon

Too big. You can run an adjustable prop valve to try and fix, but you may want to just start with a smaller caliper and have that much less unsprung weight. I think Terry (BlueOvalZ) is using Toyota cressida rear calipers or something like that, he would definitely have some good advice for you. Jon

This got me reading, and I did find this article: http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/launches/spacejunk-1_824.html Apparently a French satellite was hit by an old French rocket and damaged. How about "sh!tosphere" for the name of floating junk in orbit? Jon

Sorry Majik... just wanted to share. RPMs I was thinking the same thing. Probably actually a 7.5. Still should fit a 225 nicely though. I just like the weight on those. 14 lbs is what the 6 spoke ZX rims weigh. Jon

Uh.... 10.... Jon

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=43955&item=2443438812 I think these are pretty sweet... Jon

2400 lb VR4 sounds to me like about -1000 lbs of BS. Just not buying that one... I did rather like the Car and Driver where they showed that the spoiler was more effective in the lower position though... Jon

Yeah, weren't they rated as "crappy, crappy, and crappy"??? Jon

I run 250/45/15 slicks at low pressure and it's not easy to turn at low speeds. My Z is not flared. I've been looking to see what's going to happen with that WRX power stering rack upgrade. Tread and higher pressure will help you steer at low speeds, and the my car definitely handles much better with the bigger tires than with the street meats, 195/60/14's. Jon

OK, apparently that piece is a spacer, and not a crush sleeve as reported to me. Still trying to figure this out...it even kinda looks crushed on the ends... I may just have to buy that new ring and pinion and go through the setup myself to get it straight... Jon

According to a friend of mine who owned a Mitsu race parts biz they have a very weak transmission that is damn near impossible to rebuild and very expensive to replace. They do haul butt for a big heavy car though! Jon

Resurrecting this old thread. I recently was sent PICS of a R200 pinion shaft with a crush sleeve. It was stated that the diff was a 75-78 R200. I don't know what to make of that. Maybe they used crush sleeves in the earlier models and not in the later ones? Anyways, it brings back the point I had originally tried to make about the crush sleeve crushing in drag cars, and the possibility of installing a solid spacer. This certainly would be a better setup for you V8 guys. Just thought everyone should know... Jon

There have been a couple of full size older Blazers (I think that's what they were) with 240Z bodies sold on ebay in the past few years with solid axles front and rear. Never seen a modded 240Z with fully independent suspension and 4wd, except that Japanese one where they completely swapped Skyline stuff in. That is a really cool car, but made for show and definitely looked like a street/track car, not an off road vehicle. Jon

I haven't been able to get the brake bias right with the Toy calipers, but I'm running 79 280ZX rear disc with it. I think the rear disc can't keep up. I also constantly boil the brake fluid, but that is at the track, which yours won't be subjected to. If I have one recommendation it is Brembo cross drilled rotors which I got from PowerStop. I think I would actually go for the slotted knowing what I know now, but I have thoroughly abused the rotors, I think I've boiled the brake fluid 5 times with these rotors on the car and they still aren't warped!!! Jon

GOOD STUFF!!! Thanks! Jon

MSA sells a kit to make camber and toe adjustable. I'm sure these adjustments have an effect on rear caster, but I have only met a handful of people who actually care about caster in the back at all. Jon

Try searching for tolulene or toluol, we had this discussion about a month ago. Here's the quick version. You can mix race gas with regular, run toluol or xylol (aka tolulene or xylene) mixed with gas to get your octane up. Toluol is already in your gas from the pump, but it is 114 octane so you can mix 1 gal to 5 gallons of gas to get about 96 octane. Xylol is 118 octane. I've run race gas, xylol, and toluol all with good results. Supposedly you can run up to 35% xylol or toluol with no ill effects. Jon

I think David is onto something. Check the edge of the rotors for scrape marks. That happened to me once when I didn't get the little anti squeal springs in correctly. Jon

Well, I'm not much for the straight line thing, so I really can't dispute that. The one thing I can say is that after owning an Outback wagon, I love Subarus, and I think their AWD system makes a hell of a lot more sense than the old Eclipse system, or the Volvo system. I'm sure I'll own another, hopefully it will be an STI. The Subaru is almost like a Porsche 911 AWD backwards. Very cool. Jon