RebekahsZ

Looks like a handfull trying to stage that thing!

It was not an original thought, though I can't remember where I'd seen it before, perhaps it was on my first car: a 1956 FORD! I'm just glad I only slipped once with the dremel and kept from cutting a brake line.

By hand?

I actually had a dream last night that I found a T56 in a field that was caked with mud and had grass growing thru it. Hope this isn't some sort of foreboding sign that I have a rebuild in my future..... Then had a dream that I was a substitute teacher at my daughter's school and the kids abused me mercilessly. I gotta get some good quality sleep....

Hooray! Pics and timeslips! Quick thread jack: I did that extended stud swap just like you described it - piece of cake (pictures double posted in suspension forum)! Thanks for all the part numbers (I did it just like you described, except I used my HF 12 ton press). This week is brake bleeding (I blew a Maxima rear caliper at the strip last week) then billet stub axle swap perhaps next weekend (need brakes working to break the big nut loose). I installed speed bleeders on all 4 corners. What did you use as a drift to press on the outer stub axle bearings? I bought a little clampy-do-hickie to get them off, but getting them pressed back on may be a challenge. New stub nuts and outer bearings have arrived. Did some work on my trailer to get ready for big racing weekend in 2 weeks. You going to Branson? Too far for me.

Since I went coilovers, I had the concept that it would be easy to change springs, but lo, tis untrue due to restrictions by the length of the flexible brake line. I decided to "notch" the bracket on the strut tube to allow the caliper to be removed without disconnecting the brake line (which would require tedious brake bleeding). See picture. Hope this helps somebody.

I got all these part numbers from SUNNYZ. Here are pictures and part numbers for my extended stud conversion. I ordered it all from Summitracing.com. With the right parts and tools, this was super easy. Re-greased the wheel bearings while I had it apart.

There is a super one out there on a yellow ls-z completed in the past year. Keep looking-it is kind of complicated bend wise. If the cell is high enough you should be able to just go straight back. Also look at cobramatt's racecar in the member projects in the s30 section. He has the muffler under the fuel cell.

I goofed with the pin puller the first time I used it: I left the big washer on to protect the bushing. Big mistake- the washer jammed on the tapered part of the spindle pin-liked to never get it off. Had to dremel the washer in half. Put the puller back on and it was magic. For other side I took the washer up and let the puller tear up the bushing a bit and the pin came out perfectly as advertised. Next time I'm replacing spindle pin with a bolt and stopping the madness.

I'm gonna save for konis from betamotorsports for my next shocks.

Only another old codger can truly appreciate the literary genius being demonstrated here. Back to my original question: at the track😜I pushed the temperature probe in about half of its length to take my readings. I was afraid to "bottom out" for fear of puncture. Is that fear founded or should I have used the whole probe to get an accurate reading (surely someone is mature enough to help me)?

I have used them (had them for years early in my z-life. My feedback: Very noisy after a few months and give insufficient camber adjustment to really be worthwhile. If you lower your car, you will lose negative camber in front and gain negative camber in back. This aggrevates the z's natural tendency to push. So, if you lower the car, you really don't need them in back. Even in their max setting, you don't get enough neg camber in front to make a z stop pushing (a z under steers from the factory) particularly if you lower it. There are some offset bumpsteer spacers that may give you enough in combination with these offset bushings, but you are really just dancing around the need for camber plates. Talk to johnc about DP bolt in camber plates. They really simple and I love mine-no gimmicks-and I can adjust from +1 to -3.5. We tend to worry about dynamic suspension concepts a lot, but honestly, once you put stiff springs on a car, your suspension only moves about an inch, so for all practical purposes, the camber that you set at rest is fairly close to what you will have going down the road.

Is there any problem with removing the lead and just tig welding that area neatly? I'm tired of that area cracking.

Amazing

Sunny, take a deep breath and keep working.

h4ns-what street and race rubber are you running on what wheels?

The first driveshaft JCI sent me was too tight to take in and out; the new one is almost too loose-but it is what I asked for. Your loop and ds look way better than mine.

Shoot! My new ones just arrived.

Thank you so much for the coaching. I will study the vids tonight and follow your suggestions. The clubs I have played with so far have been super serious about having you work the cones half the time. If you drive you gotta put your sweat equity in. Last race there were so many guys standing on the track it was dangerous. April 27 I'm going to a test n tune at an old airbase. I really wish I had a skid pad to play with so I can have a steady state turn to learn from. Perhaps I can make something like that happen at the airfield.

Looks great!

I had unreliable sender function for a year, until I cleaned up the connections between the chassis harness and the sender. Works perfectly now. I'm sure you already tried that....just sharing my experience if it helps.

Just looked at schedule and a map. No way I can make it all the way to Branson for an event on a Friday. Just too damn far for me to do that much driving/trailering on a weekend and 50% of my pay is earned on Thursday and Friday mornings. I wonder how my little S-10 would do in the Ozarks....I can make it about 6 hours on a Friday afternoon, but that is pretty much the extent of my driving radius. Perhaps if the meet were on a Saturday...then i could drive on Friday and Sunday and do the 2-step boogie on Saturday. As an alternative: I'm looking at an SCCA Solo II test n tune session in Blytheville, Arkansas on Saturday April 27th. This is held at an old Airforce base that has the potential for straight-away speeds over 100mph with long sweepers and open slaloms. Perhaps I could get some heat in the R1s. They said that this is usually not a crowded event. On the way, I would stop in Memphis Dragway (1/4-mile) on the way over (April 26), and on the way back (April 27). This is a much more do-able opportunity for me due to the distance. Gonna rotate slicks Friday in preparation. Wife has a woman's church conference that weekend! Billet stubs in the mail/Summit box on my porch. I am also working on a plan for a one-on-one driving day with Matt Isbell in Atlanta.

Do those porsche style CV bolts get lock wires? I'm not sure it is necessary, but my wolf creek axles sure were fond of safety wire-that is why I hated them. Your front and rear diff yokes look much better than mine. I'll be contacting the DSS if I get afraid of my driveshaft. Looks great-you falling asleep at work?

Lets say I adjust my suspension using the FAQ settings as a starting point. I'm not sure that an autocross is a controlled enough setting to really try to optimize and learn the effects of small changes, like shock adjustments...at least when I'm driving there are so many transients with slaloms and decreasing radius turns and braking, etc, that I'm confident that I would not know how to change things or test things. I asked others to drive the car and come on ride-alongs to give me feedback, but the best I got was-that was fun! Nothing constructive to work with. I was thinking that an improvised circular skid pad was a good place to start??? I'm gonna be studying googlemaps photos trying to find someplace abandoned to do it...any other suggestions for maneuvers that I should do BEFORE my next autocross? I'm not very talented-I need lots of repetition. Any reading resources to seek for driving and car setup? I'm working on getting to a very open-track Solo II style test n tune in 2 weeks at an abandoned airfield 6 hours away. Perhaps things will be sustained enough get hot enough to put some wear on those R1s. I really need a systematic approach where I can practice more than a total of 3 minutes a month. I also just opened a PM with Matt Isbell about a high-speed driving day with him early this summer with 1-on-1 instruction.

Is there a track in Branson for Z-fest? I was just thinking we could have the tower start some of the cars with a handicap so that the finish will be more exciting, kind of like they do at the track, starting one car before the other (I'm sure there is a word for that). One would just have to do a few runs to start off in order to figure out what time to give the tower. Anyway, there were 2 cobras with the doors flying open! I ASSUME my motor is stock because I haven't done anything to it. It has an underdrive crank pulley, but there was no scuffing on any of the water pump bolts or valve cover bolts to suggest that anybody had been inside. I saw the 18k-mile GTO that it came out of and it had the suspension ripped off from an off-road excusion and had bald rear street tires. The interior was really junky, like maybe a punk owned it, not the kind of car that somebody loved or respected or would take the time to modify in a positive way. Talking about the big end, there is an rpm where things really start to boogie in 4rth gear-I really felt it when I ran 1/4-mile. I haven't been able to figure out what rpm that is on the tach because I'm busy trying to keep straight, but I sure can feel it in the seat of my pants. The car is just starting into that exciting part of the tune when I hit 1000'. It is kind of like "here it comes!" and the run is over. In 1/4-mile, that part of the rpm tuning makes you want to say "yeeehaw!" Oh, and I think that is all the timeslips-I just put them in order by the time at the top. But, it did feel like I made more than 15 runs-I would have guessed more like 20. I only had 1 yellow ticket and that was for the time I red-lighted. The tune is whatever the tuner put on it when he took off the security, second set of O2 sensors, etc. He's never seen the motor or the car. Could it be a matter of the tires "growing?" I was actually thinking of burning out less (2nd gear, BTW) in order to get more passes out of my tires-they didn't last long. I think most of us would be willing to take a pre-engineered kit to a fabricator for welding of some brackets if provided the brackets and some measurements/templates-I would still consider that worthwhile even though you are right: it wouldn't be truly bolt-on. You could be the next JTR or JCI-I think there is a market.