JMortensen

OK but how about the way the intake tubing is bent all over the place like a bad exhaust system? I know what the engineers are doing, they are using the bends and sometimes pieces of tubing that come off the intake and go nowhere to cancel sound resonance, but surely the convoluted SHAPE has to hurt performance. Just a little devil's advocate here... BTW, I love the drop in K&N's and have put them in every car I've owned, except my Z which has an ITG. The only reason I buy them though is to save $$$. Use and clean vs. use and trash... Jon

Sectioning the struts would be WAY easier IMO, and you'd get the same effect. The rally cars do it for more travel without really raising the ride height and cg too much, IIRC, so the car doesn't look and drive like its on stilts. If you aren't looking for 9" of travel, then you can section the struts, run the struts closer to the top of the travel, and have more bump travel available. If you aren't hitting the bumpstops then I don't suggest you do any of this. Maybe switch to a softer spring or different strut cartridge. I don't know what your spring rates are, but not everyone wants to drive around in a Z with 300 lb springs and Illuminas on 5. Jon

You describe getting "reflective" paint because your Z got hot in the sun. But your engine isn't going to get hot from the outside. It will be cooled by the outside, since the underhood temps should in every case be lower than the water temperature. So you want the block surface to get as much of the water temp heat as possible, so the air coming through the radiator and past the block can take it away. The answer is black. Speed Racer is right. You probably read black was best in How to Hotrod, BTW. BRE used to paint all of their motors black. Jon

Lots of rally cars do that, so the idea at least is good, but how far can you go before you hit the hood? Not too far, I think. Jon

Look at the gear ratios too, not just the 2 overdrive thing. There is a T56 with a very tall 1st gear. That is the one to buy IMO. You could put seriously low rear gears in and still be able to cruise on the freeway without annoyingly high rpms, and since 1st is so tall and the gear spacing so tight, it would be really cool for a car with a big cam or something that has a narrower powerband. The T56C as listed on the following page would be a total waste IMO unless you wanted to try and get 40 mpg while cruising down the freeway at 800 rpm. I can't imagine 1st gear being usable beyond 20 mph with a reasonable rear gear in a V8. http://www.bigfastcar.com/transmissions.asp Jon

Good to know. Thanks, Jon

Kinda like Desmotronic pistons in a weird way. Too bad they use a standard cylinder head. You would think that with a Desmotronic head or rotary valves you could get some serious rpms going. Jon

Ground Control now makes a strut that is good enough for super high spring rates. Price is high (compared to a set of Tokicos or Konis), and if I recall correctly they only fit 280Z tubes. Also, front springs seem long. Not sure if you'll have a problem, just commenting. Jon

Also you could put a cyl at TDC then use an air gun in the spark plug hole. If the air comes right out the intake or exhaust port, that would be a pretty good sign. Jon

Check the valve lash. Should be way outta whack if the valves are bent. I suppose that if they just barely hit then they could still be pretty close, but if pistons and valves smacked hard they should be pretty easy to tell. Jon

Cool! If you have any questions shoot me a PM. If I knew then what I know now I could have saved 1000's of $$$. Jon

That's interesting, as I had heard that you could not swap the pivots out. Sounds like you have done this before, or are at least sure that it will work on the head you are building. One more rumor debunked! Jon

Check this out: http://www.geocities.com/zgarage2001/p90.html If you haven't already seen it it has some good info. Also, I thought P90a was the hydraulic head. Jon

74, that is sweet. Jon

Do you have any idea of the total weight in tubes that you've put it? I just sold my 50lb Autopower rollbar to Auxiliary, I was kinda hoping to get a full DOM cage for about the same weight. The guy who did the all .095 cage in the 510 said he could do a 10 point in a 510 that weighed less than my rollbar. Jon

Yeah thanks! Very interesting. Jon

That was the royal "we" Jon

I can't speak for anyone else, but I never liked driving the Escudo so I didn't mess with it much. No matter what you do you can't get the car to rotate, at least I couldn't. Jon

Oops. Sorry we had your nick wrong. Would you care to enlighten us despite our faux pas? Jon

.080 shaved would be .160 extra chain FWIW. SleeperZ, you would think that the tensioner has enough throw to keep everything in line, but the engines I saw with milled heads that did not have shims did just what DAW described. Not sure why it happens, but I've seen it. Jon

That's enthusiasm. Jon

Check the Jeep at the bottom left of the page! http://www.molestedcars.com/trucks2.html Jon

OK, thanks for the input. I appreciate your viewpoint. Jon

So JohnC, I thought the downside to DOM was brittleness vs pipe. Was I mislead? I think I was reading that in "How to Drive Faster" or some such book. They basically said that DOM tubing was stronger thickness for thickness, but more brittle and pipe was softer so it would bend instead of crack. I already know I had the schedule 40 thing wrong, but what about the other? The book also said something to the effect that pipe was preferred if weight was not an issue and there was a possibility of multiple impacts (which I took to mean circle track racing). Oh, and what material is your cage made from? I've heard people talk about .095 wall and .125 wall 1 3/4" DOM. The .095 wall was on a recently done 510, not sure if that would be thick enough for SCCA or NASA on a Z. I suppose I need to follow my own advice and get a rulebook too. I think this project is in the near future for my Z. If I were to prepare it for a class of roadracing it would probably be an EP car, that is what it is closest to at this point. Thanks, Jon

We need HLS30 to tell us about the Z432R...Japanese highway patrol car 6 cyl 2.0 liter triple sidedrafts. That's about all I know. Jon