JMortensen

Just one more thing. Mid 80's Civic or Integra motor bolts right up and is about twice as powerful as the stock motor. Just need to make 2 little jumper wires and you're back in biz. I understand if you don't want to fix it, I just thought I'd throw that in... Jon

Every Z I've bought or any of my friends have bought has had a gummed up heater control valve. Fix that, put new hoses in, adjust the cables, and I'll bet you dollars to donuts that it works great. I did that on mine and it burns my toes off now. I almost never have the heater control valve more than 1/4 of the way open. Just too hot. One more thing, there is a weird wire linkage system inside the heater box (plenum???) under the console. I've fixed 2 of them now. The rubber grommets break down, and when you move the lever on the console the wires just slide through the levers that close the side doors, instead of grabbing the levers inside the box and closing the side doors. This is easily fixed with a pair of extra long needle nose pliers. Tweak the wire ends a little bit tighter and things will start moving again so you can switch from floor to defrost. Bastaad, I was also thinking of removing the heater from my car, but after the SCCA runoffs 2 years ago I decided to keep it. The EP Z should have won, but his windshield fogged and he couldn't see where he was going. Plus it's like a witches boobie up here... Jon

Makes me wonder if I should "stitch glue" my subframe... In the end I think JohnC is probably right when he said that the pieces need to be made to be bonded, but it is kind of an attractive option if it would hold. Grind the spots to epoxy, get the right epoxy, mix it up, and you could do the whole car in a few hours. Jon

Yep. Looks like a big overgrown Z in person, maybe a little low on the hoodline... thanks for finding a good pic for me. Jon

I talked to one of my 510 buddies, he uses the same kit as the Z on his car. I should have remembered, but he reminded me that I gave him my old kit when I took it off some years ago. It is on his car now... Jon

Is the TC rod in front of the control arm, as in a 510? If so, they can use the G Machine setup. I don't know if there is a different G Machine bushing setup for the 510, but I've got friends using them on 3 or 4 510's. They just get mounted backwards, so that the cup and cone are on the front side of the TC rod bucket. If it is behind like on a Z, I have to wonder what makes them different from the Z setup. Jon

I used the MSA or G Machine kit for a couple of years with no problems. About once a year I disassembled it and regreased it and checked for wear. It did not wear out before I went to adjustable TC rods. There would be no play from using a rubber mount on the other side of the kit. The rubber is just softer, and lets the TC rod move more freely, but there is really no forward pull on this joint. Only push to the rear when cornering and braking. Any play would come from wear of the aluminum/plastic joint. Taking a poly bushing and making it softer is really just spending a lot of time making a rubber bushing. It is already soft and requires no work. I wouldn't put a spacer between the control arm and the TC rod. The rod takes a pounding when you are braking. Any lengthening of the bolts would be asking for a failure, IMO. Not to mention the rod mounts to the top of the control arm, so if you put a spacer in, it would make the angle worse, unless you put a really big spacer underneath and mounted the TC rod below... Jon

Here's a rundown of what I think you've got going on: KYB doesn't make a strut that can handle the stiff springs you have, not that I am aware of anyway. It sounds like your rear struts are blown. You've got too much sway bar both front and rear for those springs IMO. Mismatched tires front to back. No strut bars. Front sway bar mounts may not be reinforced. Possible brake bias problem. Fixes: Option 1: Keep the front strut cartridges if they aren't blown, replace the rear struts, get softer springs probably like 225F/250R or somewhere in that range. Keep the sway bars that you have. Strut tower braces would be a good idea. Reinforce the front frame rail where the sway bar bolts on. Get the same tires front and back, check brake bias. Possibly reduce rear tire pressure. Option 2: Get Koni sport shocks front and back. Remove rear bar. Replace front bar with smaller aftermarket or possibly stock bar. Install strut tower braces front and back. Check the frame rail for damage, fix if necessary. Get the same tires front and back, check brake bias. Possibly reduce rear tire pressure. Maybe JohnC will see this post and throw his ideas in on this one. He would be a better source for suggestions than just about anyone on this board... Jon

I wouldn't rule out not enough negative camber. If you're driving hard around corners and the tires are rolling over because you don't have enough neg camber, that will cause the outside edges to wear. If the tread blocks aren't feathered as Tim said, try some more neg camber. You can tape measure the toe in the driveway just to see if that is the problem. Just pick a spot on the tread that you can use as a reference, and measure front and back of the wheel as high up as you can. Should probably have about 1/8" narrower measurement in front than back. Jon

There's not that much machining to do really, but if you started to make rods like Mike made, I'm sure you'd sell them. It's not the material that makes the stock TC rods weak, its the poly bushings. They are way too stiff for that particular job. But the stock rubber bushings cause the Z's to be nervous under braking. Some type of swiveling joint is needed, IMO. Adjustable is nice so that caster can be easily changed, that's the best part about changing the TC rods; gaining more adjustability. Jon

I've now seen this twice in person, and you are the second person I've heard of but not seen this happen to. The reason is that the poly bushings do not let the TC rod pivot. The rod flexes and flexes, and usually over the course of 5-10 years, it breaks. I would suggest upgrading to an adjustable TC rod with a rod end, or if you don't want to do that, get a G Machine setup and run a stock rubber bushing in the back. On the G Machine setup the front aluminum ball and plastic cup takes all the braking load, so putting a poly bushing in the back is not necessary. You can run the rubber in the back so that you don't flex the TC rod. Good thing there wasn't a Prelude with a family in it going the other direction... Jon

I disagree about rear sway bars in general, but I agree that you probably don't need huge sway bars at either end seeing as how you've got such stiff springs. I'd switch the springs first, then see how it handles. Taking the rear bar off is going to increase the tendency to understeer, if you just do that alone. You may want to consider taking the rear bar off and getting a smaller front bar, maybe even a stock front bar with some poly bushings. Jon

http://www.racetep.com/policy.html This is one of those Buyer Beware situations. Jon

Nitrogen and Oxygen don't mix to become nitrous oxide. They mix to become air, with some CO2 and miscellaneous other elements. Nitrous Oxide is a molecule that is a combination of Nitrogen and Oxygen. Kinda like Hydrogen and Oxygen. H20 is water, H2O2 is hydrogen peroxide. Sorry, wasn't trying to make you feel bad... now I'm kinda embarrased. Don't want to come off like a jerk... Jon

The first time I saw a Ferrari 575 I thought that was what the new Z should look like. I tried to find a good pic online, but couldn't get one. Needless to say, body lines are very reminiscent of the Z, especially the rear quarter. The front is a little long, but still, the basic shape is there. That Aston is stunning. I've seen it at an auto show, and I think the only car I spent more time drooling over was the Richard Burn's Subaru asphalt rally car from the 2002 championship. Jon

The racing bicycles you're referring to like 10 speed style, have rim brakes. Racing wheels for bikes with disc brakes like mountain bikes are much heavier because you are trying to stop the hub, and the spokes have to hang on to the rim while all of that braking torque is being put on them from the hub, but all of the traction comes from the tire. That big difference in weight in rim brake wheels to disc brake wheels is on a bike that with a rider might weigh 200 or 250 lbs. The huge 26" or 29" diameter of a bicycle wheel and the light weight of the bike and the rider make spokes a better idea than an aluminum wheel, simply because of the amount of aluminum needed to make such a wheel, but there have been several attempts to make carbon wheels. The carbon fiber wheels were supposedly pretty fragile, although I can't say for sure because I'm not a roadie and have never ridden on them. On a car that weighs even just 2000 lbs, you need much stronger spokes, and you have way more lateral load on the rim as well from turning with 4 wheels on the ground instead of 2, not to mention the braking forces that the spokes have to endure in a car wheel. I'm sure someone could come up with an aluminum hub, aluminum rim, titanium spoked car wheel like you see on bikes, but the expense involved would make it too expensive to be worth the effort, especially when most people prefer the aluminum wheels already available. You don't have to service an aluminum, steel, or magnesium wheel either, so they're less costly in that regard. Jon

If you get the distributor shaft in 180* off, you can mess with the wires like you describe to "fix" it. I had a friend do that recently despite all attempts to get her to put it back together correctly. She already had the oil pump on and I could not convince her to take it back off to get the shaft in correctly. If you pulled the timing cover and put everything back the way it should be, then your firing order is mixed up, because you now have it right, and the PO had it wrong. HTH, Jon

That's the related portion of the return policy as stated on the TEP website. It doesn't say anything about covering shipping costs to repair or replace defective items. Like it or not, he stated it up front. Were it my business I would cover the shipping costs, but that decision is up to TEP in this case. To my eyes, he's upholding his part of the bargain. I used to have a friend who always said "Never let it be said that I didn't do the least I could do." Maybe Steve thinks the same way... : Keep in mind that race parts very commonly don't fit right out of the box. If I gave up on every part that took a little machining or extra effort to fit I think I'd have a stock Z. As another friend of mine used to say sarcastically, "Welcome to the world of high performance." Jon

I assume the points style dizzy question was to me. Nothing makes me think you ran points. I never said anything about points, other than to mention my buddy who stretched his head bolts and blew his head gasket with a points dizzy. My 280ZX EI distributor is still driven by gears off the crank. That geared setup is apparently what makes the timing irratic at high rpms. I am not sure what you have in your car, but the NA distributors are all this way IIRC. Search for Dan Baldwin's dyno sheet. You can see his ignition get a little wacky at about 7K, and he has EI. That's the only point I was trying to make. One more time, I don't think that 7K will hurt an L series engine. I do think that the original build talked about in this thread is going to take more than just a simple slap together this crank, these rods, and these pistons, and it will run 7-9K all day long with no problems. I was mentioning the 7K thing since that's where stock ignition gets weird, and IIRC there are vibration issues with the cranks at 7.5K. To do 9K as originally discussed, I think you need to run a dry sump setup, all the expensive internals, and you'd need a valvetrain and camshaft that would both be able to get you there, and not float the valves once you got there. And you'd need some sort of better ignition system. If you don't want to do all of the above, you'll get more torque and hp from the larger displacement of the stroker vs the destroker. Jon

They seem to be going after harsher penalties these days. I'm not so sure the guy will just get a slap on the wrist. In San Luis Obispo, CA a few years ago there was a guy who was changing the tape in his cassette player and went through a red light and killed a family. The DA tried to get this guy on MURDER! I thought that was a little over the top myself. He obviously did something stupid and he was speeding 75 in a 65, but the intent to kill was just not there. I don't know what the resolution of that was, I think they were going to try him for murder. Obviously a totally different case in a different county, but still. The Vette guy, if he's guilty, should be guilty of manslaughter or perhaps murder 2 or something and that situation is exactly why I always speak up against street racing. On the other hand though, with the guy in SLO, there HAVE to be some situations that are considered ACCIDENTS. I couldn't believe that I was seeing the public's lynch mob mentality picked up by the DA. That was scary!!! Jon

Factory spark starts to scatter at about 7k, according to all the books I've read that's because the gear drive isn't exact enough. Lots of people with Z's are floating valves way before 8K. BTW, I have a friend who tried to blow up his L24 by standing on the gas down a long straight in his town. He ended up blowing the head gasket out of the side of the head at something over 8k. That was with a points distributor. I wasn't trying to say that you CAN'T rev past 7k, I'm saying that 7k is when spark timing gets irratic, and irratic timing at that rpm is dangerous. Also valves start to float at some point, the stock cranks supposedly aren't that great for too much over 7k. Basically if you wanted to do that kind of rpm consistently (like if you were going to build the motor to work at that rpm) then you would spend a lot of $$$ to make it reliable at those speeds. What I found when I was looking into this is that you get more hp/torque from the increased displacement of a 3.1. That extra 500cc gives you a lot more than the destroked engine will unless you spend that $$$. If they're both revved to reasonable redlines the stroker is a better choice. Jon

I just researched this a bit. Seems like the stroker is a better idea. If you do the destroked engine, you won't see the benefits of the better rod ratio until you get to the point at which a standard lubrication system and ignition system won't cut it. A stroker can rev to 7K with no problems, and that's about the limit of factory ignition and oiling system. If you want to dry sump it and to crankfire ignition, then go for it and you should see some good results above 7K. Jonzer makes a good point about the valvetrain as well. Jon

If nothing else, have him take pictures as he cuts out the rust and welds in the new panels. Jon

That is hilarious!!! Thanks for the laugh Evil! Jon

I was gonna make a crack about which was more exciting, racing Porsches or having a Spitfire fly 6 feet above your head... I love the Porsche and Ferrari shows he did. Just amazing. Jon