JMortensen

I could be mistaken. Even so I figure I'd want something like 25/75, or 20/80 were it my car. Jon

I think Smokey has it right. I don't think it was my acceleration alone that freaked the WRX owner out. It was the lateral grip. Granted, my car isn't exactly stock. I test drove a WRX when they first came out and was really impressed with the power, but not so much with the handling. It seems that the center of gravity is really high (tall car to start with, lots of glass, 4 door), and driving the front wheels with 50% of the power isn't going to help the pushing problem that the car I drove seemed to have. Jon

IIRC, the poly bump stops are tapered, so that they start of soft and as they compress they get harder and harder. I wouldn't take any off the tapered end. I'd take it from the other end, which is usually mounted towards the top. IMO a solid poly bushing with no taper wouldn't be much better than none at all. Have you seen the Koni ones? About 3 inch long soft foam. I think you need to cushion the impact, that's the important part. I've got nothing for you on the tire question. Jon

I had a friend wire up my Maxima alternator, 80 amp internally regulated. It took him an hour or so. I am a wiring moron at best, but any automotive wiring shop should be able to take care of it for you. They bolt right on, so mounting is not an issue. Jon

I met a guy with a WRX at an autox. I was complimenting him on his car, and he asked for a ride in mine. Went through the first dogleg, then it opened up into a wide left sweeper. I punched it going into the sweeper and never let off. His comment: "OOOOOOOOOOOOOH MMMMMYYYYYYYYY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDDD!!!" I never had so much fun at an autox. And that was in the first 10 seconds of the run. Needless to say, he was impressed... Jon

The reason they do that is to withstand hydraulics. Better to have them located radially when you're bouncing the front end 4 feet off the ground. At least that's what I've heard... Jon

Sorry to hear that you're still having problems. 2 things to suggest. 1. Check fuel pressure. I know that's been said before but I don't remember if you've done it. In fact, just go buy the Purolator fuel pressure regulator from the auto parts store. They're cheap. 2. If you still think it is timing related, check to see that your front crank pulley didn't spin. The outside timing marks and the inside pulley are connected with a strip of rubber. If the rubber cracks then the outside where the timing marks are can actually rotate on the pulley, making you time it to what seems like the right spot, but in actuality you can be way off. You can check by pulling #1 spark plug, sticking a pen or something in the hole, and turning the crank with a ratchet. Turn it to TDC, and make sure that it feels like TDC on the pen, like the pen stops moving up right before you get to TDC. If it has spun--GET A NEW HARMONIC BALANCER ASAP!!! Good luck. Jon

Go to a Buttonwillow Raceway driving school. They are $150, and they do a skidpad test (bring your GTech), and you'll get about an hour on the track with an instructor. Lots of fun, fairly cheap and not too far away from you... Jon

Why don't you just try it and let the rest of us know. It's not that hard, just use a wedge on the timing chain and it should be a 1 hour job or less... Jon

The two biggest assets in my car are camber and caster. I've got camber plates and adjustable control arms to get about 3 to 3.5 degrees neg camber and adjustable TC rods for 5 degrees caster. I used to have a horrible push. Not anymore! Try Diamond Star Racing wheels. They'll custom build any offset you want, and you can get a spun steel 15x10 down as light as about 18 lbs. Sorry about the double post. OOPS! Jon

The two biggest assets in my car are camber and caster. I've got camber plates and adjustable control arms to get about 3 to 3.5 degrees neg camber and adjustable TC rods for 5 degrees caster. I used to have a horrible push. Not anymore! Jon

I was under the impression that for slicks there are a lot more available in 15's. DOT tires I'm not sure, probably about equal. I've got some Yokohama A005 slicks that I listed in the Buy/Sell/Trade forum and no one was interested. $200 for a set of 4, about 80% to 90% tread left, bagged and treated. Might be a good deal for you while you sort out your suspension. They are a little hard for autox, but you don't want to burn through a bunch of expensive soft slicks getting the car set up. I've got 8 tires that I'm selling. Search that forum for more info. A competitive FP car will have a lot more hp than what you currently have, but I suppose it all depends if you want to start out with a nationally competitive car, or work your way up. Look to spend huge $$$ to start and be competitive right out of the box. Jon

One thing not mentioned on that site. If you want to push the stub axles out, get an air hammer with the pointy tip. Stick the tip right into the divot on the inside of the axle, and lean into it. Hit the air hammer, and the vibrations drive it right out. Less chance of damaging threads too. Jon

CO2 fire extinguisher in the intake works. About 12 years ago I was working at a shop and I stuck my hand over the intake of an International Scount with a Nissan diesel in it to kill it, but my boss almost had a coronary. Apparently people have done that and had the flesh sucked off their hand... Jon

There is a 75% rule, exhaust should flow 75% of what intake flows, at least for N/A's. The reason why everyone says to be careful is that you can screw up and make the head flow worse, or very unevenly. You can cut right into the water jacket too. Then the port has to be welded. I had a friend with a SSS 510 head with the huge 1.5" ports. He hogged it out to 1 7/8". The thing runs fine...above 5000 rpm. That's actually OK for him, because it is a roadrace/autox car that spins 8K (I still think its a little much and he would be better off with a little more midrange power). But on a street car, if you make the ports too much bigger, the intake velocity drops, and you need that velocity to make power, at least that is what JohnC is always saying. Since the Z has tiny ports compared to the L4 SSS heads, I can't help but think that you can go MUCH bigger without causing too many problems, but you need to know what you're doing, where to take metal from, and where not to take metal from, and you need a flowbench to make sure that everything is even when you're done. If you just want to clean up the castings and make the port walls smooth, and port match, I don't think you can really do too much damage. I've seen pros do it though, and I don't have the time/patience/expertise to really hog out a head. You've gotta be a special kind of anal for that sort of work. Jon

A friend of mine had just painted her Z black with lacquer paint (the body shop she worked for had some laying around, and let her buy it). She had hundreds of hours in the prep. It wasn't even all rubbed out yet, she still had a quarter panel that needed to be polished. Needless to say, she's driving down the street and a tow truck is doing a U-turn in the middle of the street with its lights on. She's thinking "WTF is that guy doing???" Right about that time, she hit about a foot tall wheel chock dead center of her Z. It took out the front valance, rad support, radiator, oil pan and passenger floor pan. The unibody was tweaked, and the insurance company ended up paying her for the car and totalling it. Debris sucks! Jon

http://www.betamotorsports.com Already bookmarked. Jon

That is the G Machine setup. I don't think MSA actually makes anything (could be wrong) I think they just resell everything. The one on the bottom looks like what I have on my car, but as Mike said it is for a 300ZX, so it doesn't have the bent end like Z's and 280ZX's. EDIT - Scratch that. The one on the bottom doesn't have a turnbuckle, so to adjust it you would have to unbolt the rod end, turn it out a thread or two, then bolt it back up. Mine has a turnbuckle like a tie rod end, and like the ones Mike used to make. Jon

Yeah, I suppose a congrats is in order . I got kinda sidetracked by the fact that you can't order anything off of it yet... Jon

While we're at it what's the deal with Darius? Someone said he might be dead??? Bike accident??? Jon

Are you going to sell parts via the internet or just give a basic description of your biz? IMO you can use the Internet like a big Yellow Pages ad (what you have now), but just about any biz that sells goods will do better to actually get the site e commerce enabled. Right now you can look at it like a Yellow Pages ad, or a "store with no cash register" as a buddy of mine put it. If you had a standard product line you would do well to add the cash register. If everything you make is custom, then forget it and just use the website to get people to call you. Drop me a PM if you want to talk more about this... Jon

I had mine built by a machinist, and mine are 3/4" rod ends with aluminum turnbuckles. Used to be you could order 5/8" units from Mike Kelly. Not sure if anyone is actively selling them right now. It would be a good seller I'm sure if someone made them. Jon

The G Machine stuff wears out a lot faster than a poly bushing. I used mine for 3 years or so and probably had 30K on it and it was still fine, but you won't be able to use it for 10 years without any maintenance, like a poly bushing. The poly bushing works great on the side that takes the braking load, but it is too stiff for both sides. If you use the poly on both sides, as Afshin stated previously, the TC rod is very hard to move through its range of motion. I think that problem would be lessened by putting the rubber on the backside, because it is still flexible enough to allow the rod to move freely and the backside of the TC mount doesn't take the load under braking. Icice9 could test that theory very easily, unless he threw the rubber bushings away when he swapped. Jon

That's gotta be a future Darwin award. Right on Terry. That's definitely gonna affect your weight distribution though... Jon

You could put a rubber bushing on the rear and use the poly on the front (for us Z guys we would want poly in the front and rubber in the rear too, even though the TC rod is the other way around), and move the TC rod up and down to test how stiff it is, and let the rest of us know how that works. If you prefer you can get the G Machine setup from VB, or get a custom rod end style and have adjustable caster. Jon