JMortensen

I was talking about Josey's car, but the same is true for yours. If you are slamming into the bumpstops on acceleration, you'll be more likely to break things.

I'm talking about the suspension bottoming. He's got it pretty low from what I understand with 250 ish lb springs.

The problem with the 930 conversions is that they attach to the stock companion flange on the outboard end and the stock diff stub axle on the inboard flange, so you have huge CV's attached to a pretty flimsy flange. Attached pic is at the wrong angle to really see it, but the stock companion flange is about 3/16" thick at the flange and has a squared off connection to the splined part. Your CVs might hold 1000 hp, but that part won't. Sunny, if your car is bottoming like I think it is, that can sharpen the impact of driveline shock and cause more problems.

They're all gone. No mas.

If you have 4 bolt shafts, talk to Joe at Chequered Flag about shorter CV shafts, he wanted to make them and he has the other parts (stub axles and companion flanges) already in production. If you have 6 bolt adapters, look at the 280ZXT shafts. I don't know if the 280ZXT shafts fit without issues or not, haven't tried them personally. I can tell you that the Z31T shafts don't fit, and flipping the cages won't fix it (flipping cages gives you more like 1/8" extra clearance). Really needs shorter shafts, which I made for a while but shut down the diff biz just a week ago or so now.

Helicals have less ability to lock the wheels together than clutch LSD's do, so helicals are more likely to spin the inside tire. Softer rear suspension and eliminating the rear bar helps any car that will spin the inside rear to keep traction, so that is a generic recommendation that works in many instances. Any LSD will spin a tire that is off the ground unless it is a clutch style that is shimmed so tight it doesn't slip at all.

That's a rare bird. Good find.

Yep, sorry. For some reason I saw Z31 and I ignored the photos.

Chequered Flag Joe has some 41 spline chromoly Z31 shafts just like the pair that I had for sale for over a year and finally sold. The shaft diameter is a bit larger than the 240/260/280Z, but the stock Z31 unit tapers down a lot to the inside bearing and I think some guys were breaking them there, and that's why the chromoly units were made in the first place (no taper, much stronger). Username SATAN here has a similar set on his Z31 and helped me out a lot when I got that pair trying to figure out what worked with them. I think the main issue is going to be finding a bearing that fits the larger shaft and the stock hub. I would think that it's probably going to be impossible to find a bearing that works. Modifying the strut for a larger bearing is not going to be easy; I don't think there is a lot of room in the hub to machine it out, and it's all one big cast steel piece. It would be nice to find a more modern rear that had a plug through CV setup like most RWD cars use nowadays and then adapt that in. Might also solve all the CV upgrade issues at the same time, and allow for bigger brakes, etc. Problem is that there aren't many RWD strut based systems anymore. This is basically what TTT did, but their upright looks clunky to me.

The main thing is where the rust is. Unfortunately, Z's tend to rust in structural areas, frame rails, rockers, doglegs, etc. It is possible to fix a car like that, but the benefit doesn't justify the expense or time, in my judgment. It's a subjective thing and I'm making this judgment based on a couple sentences and no pictures, but I'd sooner buy a (240Z) shell from CA or AZ and pay to have it shipped for a couple grand than spend 1000s of hours trying to build a car like you're describing. If you do decide to build another one and you have some storage available, keep the drivetrain and suspension.

I may be wrong here, it's been a while, but I don't think there is a return spring on the Z after 71. The earlier models had an adjustable slave, and the later ones did not. The later ones were returned by the pp and they just sit there until you push on the clutch pedal again. The earlier ones were forcibly returned by the spring, so you had to adjust the slave out so that there wasn't a whole lot of throw before the slave engaged the fork. IIRC the early forks have a hole for the spring, the later ones don't have a hole. Since the trans has been swapped, it's likely running the non-adjustable slave.

Should be able to find one from a driveline parts place. It's not an uncommon part.

I ran it for 40K, started with probably 180 whp and ended with ~240 whp. My understanding is that the rpms is the main issue, and I had mine to 7500 a couple times on accident, then installed a rev limiter which was at 6800 and 7000 IIRC. If memory serves, Norm the 12 second SU dude had a stock (lightened???) flywheel take apart the bell housing on his trans, but he wasn't injured. If your engine is in the stock location the bell housing is probably 4 or 5 inches in front of your feet, so it's not directly in foot amputating position, although if parts bounce of the road and back up... For a scatter shield I cut a couple pieces of 1/8" plate to fit the tunnel and then welded them together to make it 1/4" thick and bolted to the tunnel. There are Kevlar blankets that you can get which might do the job too, but they are relatively expensive.

AZC made mine (purchased maybe 15 years ago) with very sharp corners, no radiusing anywhere, and they cut right through the threaded pressure plate bolt holes to reduce weight. Stress risers all over the damn place. I had 3 different machinists pick it up and immediately ask if I had a scatter shield. That said, it never blew up on me and I've never heard about one coming apart. The other ones that I've seen, HKS steel, Tilton aluminum, and one other aluminum one all had nicely radiused corners. I don't know if they're still making them the same way or if they are buying someone else's unit now but that was my experience.

Yep. That's what we were after. Now with the new shafts you have room to use camber bushings or aftermarket control arms without running out of length on the CV's.

Go to carfiche.com and download the factory service manual. The 70 and 71 had an adjustable slave. 72 and later did not, although you can adjust the linkage at the pedal. Do it wrong and you'll have issues, so get the FSM. When a clutch master or slave goes bad, grinding into reverse is the first sign. If this problem starts getting worse and worse, that's what I would check. Pull the rubber boot back on both, and if clutch fluid drips out, then you need to replace them. Most shops do both at the same time, FWIW.

Yes!!! Especially in CA where the gas is crap. Take it from a guy who built a motor that was too hot and had to run ridiculously retarded timing to keep it from pinging or mix race gas to get the octane needed to run proper timing. There are a lot of ponies in that last few degrees of timing, and the extra point of compression isn't worth nearly as much.

Your dimensions are way off. The longer one is about 5/8" longer than the 14 13/16. If it were 15 15/16, it would be 1 1/8" longer, and it is more like 5/8. I don't have the spec in front of me. Please don't confuse the issue any more. The second one is your shaft that you sent back. They are not cracks, they're (shallow) dents in the spline. It also had some big dings in the shaft itself. I don't know what you did putting that thing on, but you apparently did it the hard way. I think you put the gear on backwards so that the tapered end of the spline on the gear faced the stop on the splines. Turn it around so that the square shoulder on the gear hits the stop shoulder on the spline and you'll be fine.

14 13/16 and the longer one. I think it's something like 5/8" longer. I can't remember off the top of my head. I double checked all of them before they went out though.

All the new axles are on the way, I'll be emailing tracking numbers today.

Potential issue with electric is the strength of the rack itself, particularly if you're using huge tires.

Check the pinion races for brinneling, which is when the bearings put little dents in the races. If you see this you'll need to replace the races and possibly the bearings too. http://www.stle.org/resources/lubelearn/wear/default.aspx#false Torque spec = RFT. I don't think it matters too much, just red loctite the nut. I put my impact on 5, fill the compressor, and nail it.

Usual bearing that goes bad is the ball bearing right under the pinion seal. If you tighten the pin nut and it freezes solid, you either have the wrong spacers between the two tapered roller bearings, or you have the seal dragging on the pinion flange.

I did. Thanks.

Go search at miata.net. Lots of guys running 225's on 9s and they have the option to run 8's too. They seem to think it's actually faster to run the 225's on 9's, although I bet they'd be running 245s if they were available.