JMortensen

I do remember that. It is nice to have the toe adjustment, but yeah, easy enough to swap it out and see if it was the rod ends squeaking.

Excuse me. Must have been that crack I smoked earlier. The sleeve is captured by the bolt so it doesn't move in the front. In the rear, it's captured on the control arm so it moves with the control arm, and the bushing stays stationary. What I was trying to say earlier was that the sleeve needs to be locked down tight. The bushings are not as long as the sleeve. But when you install the bushings in the arm or in the chassis, they are spaced out a bit and what you don't want is the bushing really squished in there when the bolt gets tightened. If the bushing is really squished, then it is squeezing the sleeve, and that makes it harder to move the control arm. Stiction in the suspension is bad.

The sleeve isn't supposed to rotate. The ID of the bushings are supposed to slide on the sleeve. When comparing outside the car, the sleeves will always be longer. Usually the problem is the opposite, that when installed the bushings are longer than the sleeve, and when you tighten the bolts down this pinches the bushings, increasing friction on the sleeve and creating a lot of stiction. The solution is to sand down the bushings so that there is very little squish on the bushings when it gets tightened up. If your sleeves are truly longer than the bushings when the bushings are installed you have a problem because the control arm can move forward and backwards, changing toe on the rear LCA.

That pic must have been added in later. YIKES!!!

I seem to remember mark posted a pic of a pile of rotors he had gone through on his AZC setup. Maybe it's about pad selection or maybe he was driving a track that is hard on brakes.

Tough to tell because of the angle, but doesn't look like the tube bent well. I tried that pipe bender and it was terrible on DOM tube. I think you have pipe and bad bends and your diag goes the wrong way. Not good.

Use lighter tube for the stiffeners. Mine are 1.625 x .065. 1.08 lb per foot.

Looks like mine are slightly different than Steve wanted.

Why not just change out the rear end or throw in a 5 speed? Should be able to do either for less than $200.

No, I'm not sure. I wouldn't count splines in a picture as a way of verifying though. I'd do some searching on silvia forums and see if you can figure it out that way. Clutch LSD is indeed a bolt in. Ring gear bolt spacers if you want to be extra cautious.

I've got a set, just hit you on FB.

FWIW, I think my Woodward rack is cheaper. Requires more fabrication to get it in, but you can get a faster rack ratio, whatever length rack you want, and adjust the level of assist after the fact. http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/97073-woodward-power-steering-project/?hl=woodward

Well, if I keep buying parts like I have been I'll run out of parts to buy. Then I'll have to make excuses as to why I'm not assembling them. It's getting closer.

The VLSDs are also 30 spline IIRC. You could try to find the VLSD CVs from an 88 SS, then use a CV conversion and hope that it fits the VLSD Nissan diffs.

Jim, ARP makes spacers that you can add in to get the wing you have higher. 3D is an unknown quantity. Really needs testing to see what works with the shape of the car you're putting it on. Nice work on the CF wing. The thing that strikes me about the wing that was made is that it doesn't have a lot of camber. Probably could have been a little more aggressive in that respect. Here is a similarly cool forum post about how to fab an aluminum wing: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/302014-poor-mans-aero-building-your-own-wing-many-pix.html

The problem with door bars is getting access to weld around the whole tube. I ended up cutting holes in the fenderwells and in the door jamb for access. If you want foot protection I think my bar from the bottom of the A tube pillar to the front strut tower does double duty and gives decent foot protection and adds to the chassis quite a bit. In your case, just do a dash hoop like you would see in an older convertible, then run the bar from the bottom of that to the strut tower. Might have to be a little choosy with your placement to avoid the brake and clutch masters.

I don't think there is room. Racers drill a hole in the backing plate and feed it in from the other side.

Harbor Freight has zerks too. You can grease all of them except the inner rear LCA pivots. The bushing caps there aren't tight enough to allow for greasing, it just squirts out the corners. Years ago I called Energy Suspension and they said moly chassis lube was fine, so that was my plan (then I went to monoballs).

There is a reason they call it a "FIREwall".

You can't tighten the nuts with the springs on? I've done it before with a big pair of channel lock pliers. You have to be REALLY careful, but it can be done. Tried loctite on the gland nuts? Are the threads bottoming? With the nuts RFT you want a couple threads showing.

Some of the older Nissan LSD diffs which had more clutches didn't have the spirals, but yeah, the grooves are there to get oil between the plates. You might try a different base oil as well. You can see the roadster LSDs had no grooves, older R160 LSDs too, R180s, R190s: http://www.gordon-glasgow.org/lsd2.asp

I used to know a guy who had a very similar hitch welded into his Z. He towed another Z with it to the Z convention in LA and sold it. I thought he was batshit crazy, but he said it towed just fine...

Why would you exit into the wheelwell? Shouldn't you be exiting out the bodywork?

Timken is excellent quality for future reference, but they don't make these bearings. I once ordered Federal Mogul but thought I was getting Timken. The Federal Mogul box had NSK bearings in it. When the Timken box arrived... NSK bearings. BTW I have 280ZXT stub axle nuts I'm getting rid of on ebay. $15 a set for nuts and washers, brand new, free shipping. http://www.ebay.com/itm/271253803761?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

No, you're totally right. Here's a different way of thinking about it though. The current PAX for FP is .877, and for XP is .901. Z's are competitive in XP (won the last 10 or so titles before last year). Granted, John Thomas is one hell of a driver, but they're still competitive for sure. So by that PAX value, on a 60 sec course the FP leader should pull a 68.41 and the XP does a 66.59. About a 2 second gap. Now, here's the question... give John Thomas a Z with another 200 ft lbs of torque down low, quicker power steering, unlimited width tires, a 6" splitter, a wing, etc, and is it possible that he makes up that time??? It's iffy IMO, but I think it's within the realm of possibility.