RebekahsZ

Four fasteners per side and no safety wire vs 20 fasteners per side with the WC axles. I am constantly taking my car apart. And, I just knew I would always worry about those blind fasteners loosening up. When I drag raced my z with a L24 with stock u-joint axles, the hub side companion flange nuts had to be re-torqued after every trip to the strip. I always found loose nuts. Now, I can do 60 clutch drops from 4500rpm with 435# torque and nothing loosens. I just never trusted my WC axles with that kind of abuse. But, i swapped them before my first trip to the strip, so they may have been fine. Im sure they are great for a non-drag car. I tried to drill the four Z31T axle bolts for safety wire, but I just broke drill bits against the grade 10.9 metric bolts. I mark all my driveline bolts with a wax marker "Torque Seal" and the Z31T axles have never needed re-torquing. That's why.

Sorry for the downer-the swap took me a whole weekend, but I am exceptionally slow at all car projects. If you only stab yourself under the fingernail once with the safety wire you are doing well. I was unable to use safety wire pliers due to the awkward positioning under the car, so all that safety wire twisting was done by hand. And, it was my first safety wire experience, so that may have made it harder than your upcoming experience. The blood, sweat and tears is worth it-those are the prettiest, smoothest running axles available. But, you gotta work for it!

I would call Wolfe Creek and verify that they sent you R200 axles. I sold my WC axles over a year ago, but I don't recall having trouble getting them into place. Mine were for a 240z with a Subaru R180. Pointers (best I can remember): 1) Did you remove your stub axles? Maybe you forgot to torque your companion flanges adequately? 2) Are your differential side axles pushed all the way in? 3) You could always remove the inner LCA attachments to give you more installation room. 4) Chase the threads in the WC aluminum adapters with the correct sized tap and use lots of anitseize on the long allen-head bolts (I galled one of those bolts and it was a royal PITA to get out, praying the whole time that that tiny bolt didn't snap off. 5) Use red locktite on the Datsun nuts that hold the adapters to the companion flange and the diff side axles-m1noel had trouble with those loosening and one of mine was loose when I disassemble when I switched to Z31T axles. 6) Don't try to do the lock wiring on your anniversary night-not a good night to be pissed off and frustrated. 7) After the axles are installed, you should be able to "rattle" the axle shaft laterally at least a bit between the CVs. This lets you know that all the clearances are good.

I've never owned a car that didnt have a little runout on the brakes. With brand new billet stubs and brand mew AZC brakes I have a bit. We'll see if it is a problem. But I'm running it as it sits out of the box.

Do brake ducts need to face directly in the direction of travel, or can they simply be located in a high-pressure area?

Happy New Year, buddy. You still aiming to have the car at Barber in Feb? If so, tell me the date so I can get it cleared by the Commandant.

More progress. All four konis in and suspension reassembled, stub axle nuts retorqued. Next is to make a flex line bracket for the staging brakes and get that plumbed up-hope to be done with that by NEXT Monday. Only 3 months until the tracks get opened back up. Next step is the SFI bellhousing. Will probably do some more planning/cutting for the fender flares while waiting for it to arrive (waiting 'till payday to order bellhousing). The 28X10.5 slicks are huge and will require some work with a saw to the quarter panel. Rear BAMF flares on-hand but need a lot of fitting due to major bondo in quarter panels. The BAMF flares look wide enough that I may have room to go all the way to 15X10s or more-won't know until it is on the floor and aligned. Just noticed how many times I said "next." Only 3 months 'till racing season re-opens-gotta get moving! Rebekah is home from Auburn and we changed her fanbelt together. Daddy was in heaven.

Konis 8610-1437RACE single adjustable. Tolerated a dead shock (the beaten up one) for 15 years planning to replace it "one day," then Tokico goes belly up! Replaced all 4 shocks (what a PITA) all because of the one bad one. Surprised nobody has tried to buy them yet, surely I'm not the only guy out there with one bad Tokico....will put them on ebay later this week. For what it is worth (probably not much), the tokicos are more stiff in both bump and compression than the konis when compressed by hand out of the tube. But, in rebound, you can really tell when you have the konis in full soft or full dampening. Not so for the tokicos-my little elbow shock dyno can't tell a bit of difference from setting 1 to setting 5. Just finished the AZC wildwood conversion. When I was trying to get 200# torque on the stub axle nut, I couldn't get the rear wheels to lock. So, I went to my prop valve and set it full loose (definitely couldn't get 200# on the nut), then I set the prop valve full power (and rear wheel locked right up and took the 200#). It is nice to be able to see these adjustable components working as advertised. With the old Maxima calipers, I could never tell if the prop valve was full on or off, and I had to use the parking brake to help hold the wheel for torquing the stub axle nut. Its coming together!

This discussion reminds me of Ralphie in A Christmas Story: "You'll shoot your eye out!"

Perfect!! Thanks a Zillion.

Be a man-post 'em either way! Seriously, I read every post in your thread, so please tell us what it makes-or PM me the answer if you don't want the competition to know. Cheering you on.

That's coming along great. Looking forward to a hot timeslip! Looks like you built quite a sub-frame in that car! Since you got it on a lift, can you shoot some more pics of where the 4-link bolts to the sub frame (the 4-link side)?

Just posted a pair of tokicos in the for sale forum.

Getting closer to having a roll cage built. Only issue still to be resolved is placement of the knee bar (forward cross bar). I want to keep my heater to use as a defroster since we autocross in the rain sometimes. I also listen to my radio on the way into work on sunny days, so I'd like to keep that too. I also need to be able to remove these items when they need repairs. Anybody got a neat solution/suggestion for placement of a knee bar that lets me have my cake and eat it too? If the answer is "no," I will look at the option of sacrificing my radio.

I am planning a roll cage, and the stock heater is right where I want to put my knee bar, behind and under the dash. I may be contacting you in the next year or so for pointers, but this gives me the courage to bag the stock unit. Thanks!

Here's a simple mod to make brake maintenance easier. Came up with this because I did my AZC brake kit, THEN, installed my Konis. Needed to get the caliper out of the way, but didn't want it hanging and putting a kink in the flexible line. So, I installed a small I-bolt into the inner fender. I tried a coat hangar as a hook, but it was too flexible, so the next available hook-making material was some left over 3/16 brake line. Bent it in a hook and "presto" hung the caliper up out of the way so I could pull the strut out of the fender well. For years I used to set the caliper on a cardboard box inside the fender, but this worked out really well. For the rears, it looks like it will be ok to just let the calipers hang, since the flex line isn't routed in such a way as to kink the line.

The thing I can't figure out is how to create room for a 4-link. A ladder bar rear looks pretty easy if you let the pick ups for the ladder bar hang way down, but that kills the ground clearance needed to go get groceries in it (or make it down the return track at the redneck tracks where I race). Plus a ladder bar kit makes a z into a wheelie machine, which is something I'd like to be able to adjust out with a 4-link.

The 245/45/16s. I have also run 26x8.5x15 slicks. Both of those fit inside the fenders.

The photo shows tires, from top to bottom: (2) 28X10.5X15 drag slicks on 15X8s (1) 245/45/16 Hoosier A6 on a 16X8 (2) 275/35/17 Hoosier R6 on a 17X9.5 Those 28s are some big tire!

Google ZCC-JDM. They sell a fiberglass replica for like $280 (ouch). They call it an engine pan. I would order one, but I don't have the energy to drill out and re-tap all the tiny bolts that hold it on, but have snapped off inside the "frame rails." Oh, hey-you're the landspeed racer! I'm Keith, from Alabama-we talked on the phone this week. Looked at race days in Ohio: May 3-4 is Hot Rod Top Speed Challenge, then Jun 7-8, July 12-13, Sep 27-28. It is 8 hours to Wilmington - it is 6 hours to the Georgia event (kind of a wash for driving time). Got lots more questions. Should I pm you or continue with email for further questions? I'm kind of getting fired up about adding landspeed racer to my resume'.

Merry Christmas to all my hybridz friends, and a special thanks to all the Admins for running such a great site/community.

16x8+10. 2-1/2" Coilovers. The largest sure fit with stock suspension is going to be a 7" wide rim with zero offset or 4.5" back spacing and a 225 series tire. Anything beyond that is hit-or-miss. If you order something, test mount only one wheel before mounting tires. If it looks to clear, just mount one tire to test fit and try it on all four corners do you can return the other three wheels if the setup doesn't fit.

Nope. There isn't one. All the straight axle guys have writers block. If you search the Internet, look for a gray 240z drag car with a turbo 4.8. He has some pictures posted somewhere but not on this forum. There are some pictures of z cars with ladder bars that you can find with google images:240z 260z 280z drag race. The images show the cars doing wheelies and you can see the ladder bar placement in those pics. But nothing on this form. We are especially hurting for a 4-link write up.

I have 400hp and just gave up on un-flared fenders and will be cutting mine this winter. I ran 16x8 with 245/45/16 Hoosier A6s and felt very traction/driver limited-couldn't maintain decent traction on even the straight sections. Totally sucks to be unable to put the power down even with your hands level at 10 & 2. Competing XP against LS-powered miatas or trying to score a better time than a Z06 with competition rubber just isn't likely to happen unless the other driver totally sucks. I'm going to 17x9.5s Rota RBRs. Going to wear out a set of 275/40/17 A6 this year, then perhaps go to 315/35/17 next year. Still wont beat a well driven Z06 with 345s all the way around. It's frustrating but I think it is Z reality.

Got my new/used draglites prepped for tire mounting (cleaning, de-burring, drilling for rim screws and drilling the valve stem hole for tubes), but got to tire shop after they were closed. Finished wheel spacers. Put bolts/studs in DP camber plates to try to make camber changes from drag to autocross a 1-man job. Photos show locations for stock, positive and negative camber locations. Won't know how well this works till I get my alignment in the Spring. Plan is to get it aligned for autocross settings, then the drag setting is just a matter of what I get - is what I get. I just want the car to squat to zero camber, which means I gotta start with some static positive. It is a warm day, so I hope to get all the trimmed metal painted today, so I can go back to my brakes and finish that up before moving to the front shocks. I'm thinking about changing my front outer tie-rods to the kind sold by ZCC-JDM. May also go to shortened steering knuckles while I'm at it-that way my Spring alignment knocks all these changes out at once. But, that might be too many "while I'm at its" for one off-season.