RebekahsZ

I have had coilovers for years and the purpose of my car has migrated a lot over the twenty years of love/hate my z and I have shared. The first thing we all should do is be honest with ourselves about our goals for each of our cars, recognizing that our personal situations change over time. It is cheaper on the long run to do whatever johnc says, because his stuff works at the track. But you sure dont have to. Over the years I started with stock springs, then cut them, kybs, then did coilovers with Illuminas going to progressively stiffer settings. Next set of shocks will be konis from johnc and 400-ish lb springs. Now, the real issue with changing your ride height regularly is setting toe-in up front everytime you adjust ride height. If you know of a quick and easy and accurate way to do that in a little two car garage with four bicycles and a lawn mower-please teach me because I try to limit my alignment budget to about twice a year. Otherwise I would experiment with the coilovers a lot more.

Doesn't matter with progressive springs either, but if they are progressive springs throw them in the trash. Only time it matters (right side up) is if they have been cut. In that case you want the cut end down on the perch that is welded to the strut tube. If both ends of the spring are square, it doesn't matter.

Knock yourself out. I had my four semester of calculus 25 years ago and flushed it within seconds of leaving the final! Still have nightmares.

R200 longnose CLSD 3.54 ratio extra clutches with no shims for 45# breakaway (tired of diff clunking "chatter"-next time diff is out, extra clutches are coming out). RT front mount, poly mustache bar bushings, Z31T 4-bolt CVs, M2 shortened axle shafts, chequered flag 39-spline stub axles, MT ET Drag bias ply slicks 26x8.5x15 inflated to 15# hot on 7" Weld Draglites with 4.5" backspacing. Not to be exact. So far so good.

Thanks, that is a very fair price, but too close to what I can get a set of RBRs for. I think I can get some of those for about $650 shipped, which is about the same total price. Shipping has been a big problem since it has gotten so high. I sold two sets of wheels this year and basically broke even after shipping. You have been very kind to go to the trouble of sending me the pictures. What track is that? I have my first ever track day scheduled at Atlanta Motorsport Park on June 1 - I'm scared-I'm gonna be stopping my V8 with stock brakes (or not stopping).

They will bend if you curb your car hard enough. I spun once on the street (I don't do that any more) and shattered a cast iron hub and destroyed a rear rim, but my drop mounts are still perfect. They were designed for the loading that they get under normal stress vectors (don't I sound smart?). I've been abusing mine for 20 years and they are fine. I would find something better to spend my money on - like a nitrous kit or a set of slicks. You've spent a bundle on that car since you got it and really worked your arse off. Did the new intake work get you a lot faster? Most guys do intake-cam-nitrous. I'll be doing nitrous-cam-intake. Bang for the buck!

And why would putting something under a less-heavy load hurt it? That is right up there with "some cars need more back pressure." That only works with middle aged men: I was strong when I was young, but sitting around watching TV has run me into the ground! Don't let that mechanic DESIGN your car, although he may be great at fixing them. You should be fine. Always overbuild.

Beautiful car! Thanks for the pictures. I have to admit, I'm not in love with the looks of those (I'm kind of shallow), but you haven't named a price. How much? If they were really inexpensive, I might be persuaded....

Thanks, Leon. Unfortunately the tuner is 2 hours away and he can't hear his work phone when he is dynoing a car. Now answer machine. I just have to sort of keep trying. I did get in touch with one of his hired men and he said my request didn't seem like it should be a problem. There is an autocross 20 minutes from where his shop is this Saturday. I'm gonna try to drive bribe the officials to let me drive the first session, work a little, then go visit the tuner across the second half of the second session and across lunch. Then maybe I can drive in the second afternoon session. I hope they are cool and don't treat me like a free-loader. I always wait to load my car until after I have picked up cones at the end of the day.

There is no down-side, except that you have to be careful with this loaded gun. Corners that you used to exit flat-footed, you now will need to baby. Not, because the car handles badly, but rather because you will have the power to get into trouble. First autocross after the LS swap was a spinfest.

Thanks m1noel! You were my first really helpful "mentor" for the project, remember way back when? This motor does have an underdrive pulley, plus no cats, minimal exhaust, no A/C, no P/S. Still has the same junkyard sparkplugs. I really expected the drivetrain to eat up more power. Do you have the same issue that I do about throttle run-on? I wonder if it is a DBW thing?

Unfortunately, my hands are too busy in all the tight stuff. I don't want to use brakes if I don't have too-I want to transfer weight without slowing down. Kind of a lift-stab rather that a brake-stab.

Yes. A mazdaspeed miata was fast time of day on them and an unmodified 240z smoked me with a set of them. I'm sure better driving was a factor too. Looks like a good price for that much tire. If you have a true zero offset wheel, you should have no trouble mounting 225s. That is 9" of tread.

Yes, I think that will work.

Lane's shop is on a long gravel driveway so I didn't do a test drive. Just got car off trailer at home and did a test drive here. The engine braking is better but not dramatically so. The rpm falls, but there is a delay of about a second whereas it used to take several seconds. . According to the guy giving me autocross pointers: that's not quick enough to cause the kind of weight transfer i need without hitting the brakes. The whole idea is to make the car super sensitive to throttle lift oversteer in order to help with turn-in. With the car orignially, after lifting the throttle, the car slowly lost rpm to idle over several seconds. I want the car to immediately drop to idle. I need to call Lane tomorrow to see if that can be further tuned. Hope it doesn't cost me another $300. In the video, I see a little puff of smoke under the car toward the end of the dyno run. I'm not sure if the wind in the dyno shop is blowing a little tire smoke forward or if the driveshaft u-joint has slung a little grease onto the exhaust. After car was shut down, no source of the smoke was found.

I want to graduate from TnT to actual racing, but I'm afraid the car will never be competitive bracket racing and I want to race all night if going to the trouble (and catch the grief from home) of loading up and going to the track. I think I can work my way into the Grudge Racing scene which has 6.0, 7.0, and 8.0 classes. I should be competitive in the 7.0 class, especially when air temps climb. I guess it is sort of a bastardized form of bracket racing. Evidently you still lose if you breakout, so I should still practice as if bracket racing. I may still throw some money at bracket racing knowing that I will probably only get one run after qualifying. Qualification lasted 5 hours this Saturday.

Lane said an intake was worth 15hp, a cam 50, nitrous 125. At what point would I be spending more time replacing axles than driving? If you watch my videos, I'm chirping the slicks with each shift. Gotta stop that, perhaps reducing my clutch pedal height a bit will help since the disc has broken in.

Here's the numbers. The tuner: Lane Culvard of Huntsville, AL (he does the tuning for HinsonSupercars) thinks somebody already worked on my computer because it was so good right out of the box. I had previously sent computer to waitformeperformance.com for a flash, but when I first built my car Lane said they had failed to remove the security system, so I kind of wrote them off. Maybe they were ok after all. Anyway, my baseline was 401hp at 5600 and 428 tq at 4200. I asked Lane to try to make the motor engine brake better for autocross and he said that would cost me some hp and he warned me that the numbers on a hot engine are often down a few hp over a cool motor since it was the second pull. He did something to the idle airflow tables (whatever that is) and said the engine was a little too fat on the top end. We left the upper rpm limiter at 6700 and he advised me to have the shifts done by about 6200-6300. Final numbers were 398 hp at 5450 and 435 tq at 4150. This was all on a Dynocom dyno. His printer is broken so I will post cell phone pics of the charts and graphs and a very noisy but not terribly informative video tonight. So what's next. Just gonna try to keep it together doing repairs as needed thru the summer and try to become a better driver in both drag and autocross. Next autocross is May 18. I'm joining cobramatt in Atlanta on June 1 for a day of road course one-on-one instruction. This winter is gonna be all about chassis trying to get the car safety certified to 135 rules in the 1/4-mile. Who knows, maybe ill fix my doors, heater, wipers and get the speedo working. Maybe the year after I will have enough money saved for cam/intake/nitrous all in one fell swoop. For now, I just want to change tires regularly. I'm pretty happy with the car as it sits.

Send pictures and a price. Send your best price, I'm a straight forward person.

Cool on the engine braking, thanks. I'm wondering how the 26" tire is gonna be when you spray and have a faster trap speed. You got room for 27" or 28" with your tire relocation? When I was having trouble with the wet tires, my buddy wanted me to do some dry-hops - not a good idea-holy crap, that whip-lashed the tar out of the old CVs! Won't get baited into that again.

Original post edited (links to youtube videos added). I forgot to mention that the 3.54 gearing on the 26" tire works out perfectly-going thru the traps in 3rd the shift light is on, but the rev limiter isn't barking at me. A question on braking technique after the run: stay in gear and engine brake or clutch in while braking before turning onto the return track?

Sorry it took so long to get back with you, it is complicated. Anyway, I'm ON for June 1st. My email is pkeiththompson@yahoo.com. Much more straight forward way to handle the details. keith

The reviews I'm hearing on the Z2 are better than even the Z1. I've got a buddy running 225/50/16 Z1s. That tire rack tire search tool can be hard to work. I think there is some kind of back-door to find what you want.

I'm with Mike-get the motor swapped, then start the endless "while you are at it-s." That is what kills these projects. Get the motor in and take apart as little as possible. Love the tractor for pulling a motor-awesome!

No problem, buddy-I'm loving it! I've tried several times to get a thread started on drag racing tech/techniques in the Motorsports Forum, but that forum is kind of neglected and I don't get any bites. I post to learn. I have no idea of how to combine an auto trans and a 2-step, I kind of thought that your torque converter stall and a trans brake kind of did all that for you??? Again, I'm not familiar. I watched the precision of the real bracket racers and I was amazed-I'll NEVER be able to compete with the autos. It sucks that you only got 2 passes, we'd be better to you than that here in God's Country-I usually expect to get 15 runs in a couple hours. That track at Moulton is my favorite and they told me that they didn't plan to do any bracket races, just bracketed "heads-up" racing with a 6.0, 7.0 and 8.0 class. I DO want to get back up to Lawrenceburg at least to participate in the qualification portion of some bracket racing-I've got to get practice with another car beside me-it is a whole different game mentally than just time trial-ing (which is most of what I've done). After I beat a Maggie-equipped 2010 Camaro SS, I didn't know which lane got to cross over and take the return track first and we sat there eye-balling each other at the end of the track for a while. I got some advice from another racer after that. After surfing Santa Cruz for a few years I've kind of learned to respect folks and it is best to know the "rules of the road" and avoid collisions and fist fights. I almost got rearended on a return track last year when I stopped to get a big rock out of the road-a rock that would have cost me an oilpan. Socorob-I'll be autocrossing next Saturday in Huntsville. Hoping my Hoosier's arrive in time to mount up. I had a lot of fun with the silly velocity stacks. Before my last run there was a crowd of guys around my car when I opened the hood to adjust the 2-step. I had been telling them all night that the motor is stock and when I opened the hood, there was a roar of "Wow!" Then I aditted it was all fake. They didn't believe me for a while, then we all had a good laugh. Super nice track.