RebekahsZ

I can't find a shop that will let a customer come into the shop, much less sit in the car when it is being aligned-they all want your butt in a chair in the waiting area reading an out-dated Cosmo magazine or a Lady's Home Journal. I've tried tipping and being super nice and I get no where. I'm gonna have to keep looking or a better/cooler shop with a more interested owner. At an autocross, you get so little time to adjust your car-the one I just attended was very hectic and you really couldn't bring your tools into the paddock. I need to find a safe place to play skidpad or something like that in order to try to sort some of this out before getting to the race, then maybe I can make little changes once I'm there, but there really isn't a place/time to do any developmental adjustments. Any suggestions for that? We did (3) 40 second runs in the morning and (3) 40 second runs in the afternoon, with cone duty in-between and no lunch break-how do you find time to do adjust and re-verify on a race day? For my drag racing there is test and tune every week, but the only place I know of for test and tune sportscar is on the streets, and that is a no-no. Any more suggestions?

I have only played with it from 2500 to 3500. I think it is on 3500-I think I raised it from 3000 to 3500 after the second run. The line was terrible when I first got there and Will came out of line in order to line up next to me, but then the car in front of me broke a driveshaft and oiled the box. Will aborted that run and I took his lane and made the first pass solo. I tried both lanes throughout the night and the left lane felt better, but I had a little spinning in either lane. For the most part 2500 bogs pretty bad and makes a 1.6 60' time and 3500 bogs a little and makes a 1.5 60'. Will kept goading me to set it up higher, but we know you broke at 4500, so I resist the temptation to crank it up. Will can change an axle in 5 minutes, but I haven't built up a spare CV yet, so I'm not interested in testing the system to the point of intentional breakage. I'd rather be able to race all night at a slower speed and live to fight another day. I was having some wheel spin late in the session that got better, but not completely when I lowered my tire pressure back down to it's earlier cold setting, but I'm also pretty sure brake fluid on the edge of the tire may have had a contribution too. If wheel spin starts to be a routine problem, I'll turn it back down until I hook. I've got to learn a lot, like my light sucks and I don't know how to set a dial-in anticipating better air as the night cools off. If I had set my dial in at 7.20, I would have broken-out when the temps dropped. Lots to learn. I wish we had planned better to give each other a dial-in, perhaps we would have had more fun chasing each other down. With the slicks, every race I ran was over before the 60'. I wonder if my next set should be the same or if I should try a Hoosier or a MT bias ply ET Street just to learn about them?

Timeslips: I tried to post these the other night, but I think the site went into back-up mode and dumped them. Run Time React 60' 1/8 @ mph 1000' @ mph Notes 1 8:39pm .631 1.62 7.23 97 9.26 114 Unexpected pro-tree 2 9:28 -.366 1.63 7.36 95 9.42 112 Red lighted - must have left on 3rd yellow 3 10:34 .121 1.57 7.25 96 9.29 113 Crowded, getting 1 run per hour 4 10:47 .065 1.59 7.20 99 9.24 113 I don't believe that mph-bug must have broken beam 5 10:53 .101 1.57 7.22 94 9.24 114 Starting to get the hang of this! 6 10:57 .018 1.58 7.16 95 9.17 115 Air must be getting cooler? 7 11:04 .132 1.57 7.13 97 9.16 115 8 11:15 .137 1.55 7.12 95 9.12 115 9 11:28 .076 1.56 7.11 95 9.11 115 10 11:32 .021 1.53 7.09 98 9.10 115 It's like I have my own private drag strip! 11 11:40 .114 1.57 7.19 96 9.22 114 Beat that Cobra-I guess I got distracted 12 11:45 .112 1.58 7.10 95 9.10 115 13 11:47 .100 1.54 7.09 95 9.11 115 14 11:49 .086 1.66 7.20 96 9.20 115 Getting wheelspin-what's up with that? 15 12:01 .172 1.56 7.13 98 9.12 116 Tires had gotten hot-let psi back down to 15 from 20 2-step rocks! Gotta learn how to cut a light. And order some new slicks.

One thing I really learned from the night at centerville is that we need to try to run dial-ins in order to make the fun last longer. Our cars are gonna be different with different strengths and weaknesses. If we just try to run heads-up, it will get boring pretty fast. Nitrous/boost will be lonely in front and stock L24 will be lonely in back. Or, we could just heads-up till somebody breaks and call it a reliability run, but I vote for putting dial-ins on out windows and letting the tower help us have some good competition at both ends of the track. Then maybe do some heads-up at the end😜.

I haven't been at this long enough to have good judgment or wisdom on the subject-that's why I started the discussion-to learn from others. You are right-hard to know whose floor is more level, etc. I think it would be nice if I knew how to do my own alignments so that I can make changes without having to take the car somewhere. Reliable shop?-haven't found any place so far that doesn't leave a couple tools under the hood, a new rattle under the dash, grease on the carpet or a jam nut totally loose. When I find two or three things wrong, it is hard for me to trust the whole job. This is the kind of thing I have dealt with at the last. 2 shops I have tried. Double checking behind the mechanic has been absolutely essential here lately.

Did you see all the AC Cobra replicas with their doors flying open? I'm surprised nobody got dumped on the track! After you develop your motor and trans mounts and headers, can you make and market a "bolt on" solid axle conversion? That black factory five and the red trans am made me think that maybe a solid rear axle wouldn't be so bad after all. The trans am (amazing driver) flat got the job done. He was 4 seconds ahead of us and 2 seconds off FTOD.

What on the car do you attach it to?

Wfrits911 made his own headers from a kit and they look great. Give him a pm for advice.

Ok, gotta search for the details on z-fest in Branson. I can't wait see the beasts you guys put together.

BFG R1-roadrace tires that I've had in the rack for, I think, 2 years just waiting to be used (and getting harder by the minute). Tire wear pattern was perfect with 30# in front and 26# in rear. Never tried going lower, but might have been able to. I chose tire compound poorly and never could get any heat into the tires with 20-40 second routes, so I was ice skating all weekend. Did some ride-alongs and it was totally different riding in cars that could be driven rather than kind of tossed in a general direction. I think the highest tire pressure I saw was about 117 after car had been hot-lapped thru the course for hours. I concur with you about the "handedness" of a course-this course was mostly left-handed sweepers and slaloms-the right front was always significantly hotter than the others. Second day was a little more ambidextrious. Only thing that bothers me is the differencce between what the shop says they aligned to and the readings I'm getting on my new Longacre camber/caster gauge-I don't know which to trust. I might try to find another shop to traiangulate and confirm everything. I did get to play a lot with weight transfer and getting car to turn, then to steer with throttle-a good day.

I'm always up for 1/4-mile! Memphis anytime you want; never been there, but lets change that. Yeah, sorry about the red-light, I was still screwed mentally up from the pro-tree light right before it. That really hurt your feelings, didn't it? It was my mistake and I still feel bad for screwing up the video! Man, don't put your car down all season! Listen, with Josey's help, I just ordered my kit for the billet stub axles, so I'm gonna sell off my 280z stubs and M2 brand Z31 turbo companion flanges as soon as I have the kit installed. Can't you just scrape up a couple of Z31 axles to get thru this summer and do your big mods when the tracks close for winter? If you would consider it, I would just loan you my companion flanges for the summer (and maybe my used slicks). That Cobra lined up against me toward the end-I settled the score just fine. He thought he was bad with his DRAGRACR license plate! He got a good look at my Alabama Antique plate, but he didn't get to look at it for long. Turns out the reason I was spinning toward the end of the night was 2-fold: my tire pressures were 5 pounds higher from all the hot-lapping (I've got to rotate my tires on the rims; I'm near the wear markers on the inside), and I was bleeding brake fluid from my left rear Maxima caliper onto my tire. It must have started either at the drags or at the autocross before. Remember that suicidal braking area on the autocross on Sunday??? Well, I had brake pedal when I loaded the car at the stadium but none when I rolled off at home-talk about God's mercy! I think that caliper was leaking all weekend from the amount of mess on all my rims-how did I miss it with all the tire changing?? I gotta get you do do a QC on my car after I work on it. Curious about your clutch-I did the warped clutch boogie last summer and it burned up a lot of open track time. If it keeps locking you out, try to get more pedal to open the cluch separation a little more. Good thing the autocross was all in 2nd, but I was at 6000rpm exiting the sweeper for the final straight away and just tried to keep it straight until honkin' on the brakes.

Drag racing. Swapped on the drag slicks and skinnies and loaded up for the drive to Centerville. Centerville is a 1000' track that gives you splits for 1/8-mile on our timeslip. The pits are pretty nice (lots of standing water in some places to get your truck stuck in), the staff is SUPER nice and the track is in super shape. It was the first night of the season and it was PACKED! The vibe was great, everybody was having so much fun and Will knew everybody. When I got there, racing had been going on for a couple hours and the staging lanes were bumper to bumper. We were getting about 1 run an hour until it got late, then I went in the "hot lap" mode and was getting a pass about every 4 minutes. My stack of timeslips is huge. The first pass they threw down a pro-tree and it caught me off guard, but I cut a decent light by pure luck. Got the windows marked for a .500 tree, then I red-lighted for the only time of the night (damn nerves). I had played with a practice tree some over spring break and it really helped, but I was not particularly fast off the light, but I didn't red-light again all night. I think our only video shows my flagrant red-light-I must have gone on the second yellow! I'll post some timeslips in a thread tomorrow. We traded cars and made a pass-we both took it easy on the launch, but Will got to see what slicks are like at both the slow and fast ends of a track (it's different). I kind of went for a Sunday drive in his, even though he brought two extra axles, I sure didn't want to be the one to make him swap one. I did see the shift light in 2 gears and his car with the under-floor exhaust cutout shounds great. It was nice to have some good gauges (his are super nice). My Datsun temp gauge looked a little scary, but Will hooked up an OBD2 port scanner and I was fine at 205 with my dual-fan Champion radiator. Will went home early with both axles intact (he has a huge posse of friends up there and they caravanned home together). I was the last car running as the air got better, and I closed the place down at 12:30am and was in bed at my mom's place at 2am. My last few runs I had some spinning off the line, but more about that later. Not many cars lined up against me, and I didn't see a tail light all night. A bunch of the guys in the money race said I should have run with them-maybe next time I will. I love this car at the strip.

EastTNZ-the title is "tongue in cheek" humor. This all happened last weekend. It was just the two of us. We just showed up in the same places where events were already planned for the general public and we just joined in. It cost about $30 for the school, $40 to autocross and $15 to test and tune at the dragstrip. If you are trailering your Z-car your truck will get half the fuel mileage you usually get, but my S-10 handled the car and trailer just fine (thank God no deer or coyotes jumped in front of me). You will be too busy to eat, so don't budget any food money, just lots of fuel at $4 a gallon. If you plan a gathering-make it simple. If I do this sort of thing in the future, it will be a Saturday only event with me getting up on Sunday and heading home-I'm shot. I stayed up two nights before the drive until 4am getting the car finished up. This was the maiden voyage for my exhaust system (which did great). The first Zfest that Will and I had was at a gas station on the side of the highway near his parents' house. If you want to have a get-together late this summer, plan it somewhere where a driver school is gonna happen, and somewhere where there is a dragstrip nearby. You will need to look at all the SCCA club and dragstrip websites and just see what falls in place. If only one other hybridZ shows up - it is a party! At some point even racing, golf, surfing, and trying to fertilize and egg can become work, so keep it simple and don't over-do it.

In autocross, my car and Will's were very closely matched. Other than drivetrain (LS/T56/R200 LSD), our cars are totally different. Will's car was hand built by the owner (probably under a tree in his front yard), including fabbing all his own motor mounts, headers/exhaust. Neither of us have an interior, but Will even has the stock seats (?) and seatbelts, whereas I have super light racing buckets and a 5-point harness. He ran junkyard axles (including the junkyard u-joints) and I ran modified Z31 turbo axles. He had 17X9.5" Rotas with nearly worn out 275s under ZG flares and I had 16X8 Rotas with fairly new Kuhmo cheapie 225/50/16s in the morning and those lousy R1s in the afternoon (times were the same on either tire). He has done no suspension mods at all-heck, he may even have junkyard shocks on the thing. I have coilovers, 225/250 springs, Illuminas, camber plates, adjustable LCAs and TC rods, full poly bushings, all set to johnc's recommended settings (john, my tirewear and temps were great-spot on as usual). Will adjusted his toe-in until it "looked about right." I had -3 degrees camber; he had probably +3 front camber. I had -2.5 rear camber, he probably had -4 rear camber. Both of us were all over the track, but at the end of the day, we had run about the same times (we didn't check the tenths and hundredths). In the game of dollars vs. speed and fun vs. frustration - Will whipped my butt. And so did everybody else. I met his parents and finally got that Jerky (which was all eaten before I got home).

I want to start by saying that Will's car is a beast. His is a true budget swap starting with a $400-500 car and a his own wrecked F-body donor. He's done everything himself, and while it doesn't shine (he painted it with Plasti-coat over spring break, the thing is awesome. My car represents a 30 year love-affair with a $900 rust bucket turned resto-street car, turned non-competitive BSP autocross car, turned 15 year garage queen, turned LS hotrod multisport fun machine. Autocrossing. The driver school was great-everybody should do one of these. The instructors were super helpful and did ride-alongs in the morning, then we hot-lapped the 20-ish second course all afternoon. When I was on a support period working the cones, I just left my keys in the car and encouraged as may instructor drivers to drive it who would. I had fairly accurately achieved johnc's recommended alignment specs then mounted BFG R1 225/50/15s on 15X7 wheels on the car, because they had worked well for me on summer south Alabama concrete 20 years ago when the car had a weak L24 in it. Well, things have changed in the tire world and an LS2 and inexperienced driver can really make it show. On a cool Spring day, those tires were harder than a greased marble and the car was a real handful. I did turn in the best time over all the instructors who did drive my car, but only once and not by much. Of course, my time was still weeks behind the FTOD, which was in a turbo miata with only 225/50/15, but they were of a very sticky variety. The instructors were much faster in my car on the average and I just had one lucky run late in the day when everything just fell in place on the track-all the hot lapping by almost every instructor helped heat up the tires, too. I learned a lot about "street tires" which is a tire with at least a 200 wear rating. Some of those have very aggressive contact patches and were much stickier than the "race tires" I stupidly bought without doing adequate research. Those tires are up for sale very cheap or maybe even free to anybody who will come and get them. The car consumed 1/2 tank of gas 20 seconds at a time. I let the instructors totally whore it out and they knocked down as many cones as I did (one guy alone had to have made 10 runs-I know at least 6 instructors made multiple runs in my car), but all had big smiles on their faces and gave me lots of compliments, saying things like: it only needs this or that to make it a really competitive car. I think it would take a LOT of this or that. On Sunday, the vibe was totally different, honestly I didn't enjoy it. One, I was tired, and two there were so many cars and good drivers trying to win points that I really had no joy in the day-a few of the instructors who had been so cool when teaching turned into stressed out a-hole once that competitive element was present (different day-different role). I am not really eager to compete again, but I can't wait to attend my next school. Our Zs were not competitive at all. In fact, we got our butts handed to us by 3-seconds (40 second course) by a driver with only 1 full season's experience in a really nice 240z with a souped up L28 (sounded great) and a set of Dunlop 200 wear rating "street tires" (very sticky). He was a great driver and really showed us how to get down. I learned the hard way to push in the clutch once a spin is uncontrollable-the car runs like crap for a while after a long spinout, and somebody suggested that the engine can run backwards after a spin-is that really possible?

Will (wfrits911) and I met up again in Arkansas to beat on our cars together. I trailered in from Alabama and Will drove in from college at the University of Arkasas. On Satruday, the Arkansas SCCA held an autocross driver school at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock (Will skipped this because he's obviously a superior driver), then we met at Centerville Dragway in Centerville, Arkansas for a night of Test N Tune. I had hoped to enter the stick shift streetcar shootout bracket race, but I lingered too late at the driver school and missed qualification rounds. We then both headed back to Little Rock for the SCCA competition autocross on Sunday. I trailered back to Alabama and stayed up 'till 3:30am working on the weekend's breakage (a rear brake caliper) and was back at work at 8am. We are both whooped, but we will both have smiles on our faces for a long time to come. We made friends along the way. We were joined by Dillon? from here on the forum (Dillon-PM me, I want to follow up with you-I was kind of stressed when we met because I was so late getting there). And, some of the instructors from the SCCA school made the 90-minute drive to the dragstrip just to see my car run. Hopefully, Will will get caught up on his homework and join me in this thread. The cars performed well, and I learned a lot.

I haven't listed them yet, but I'm thinking about unloading a set of new 15x7 "hyperblack" deep silver Rota RBs. I need to double check the backspacing on them to make sure they would clear a stock spring. I had them on my car today at the track so I know they fit. PM me if interested. Gonna make somebody a good deal.

I think you may have gotten no reply because it is a tough question. When I would have sold my car I couldn't get anybody to give me an offer. I think CrayZ bought his for $6000 but he had to totally redo the diff. If you can turn a profit, sell it unless you have an inescapable illogical emotional attachment to it, which on my opinion is the only reason to own a z. There are so many "better" cars available now days. I just spent 2 days getting my ass handed to me in autocross, and I've been working on my car for 20 years, trying to make it respectable, and I drove my car faster than anybody else who drove it (trip report to follow). The driving school was great, but the competition day sucked. Now the night at the drag strip was another story altogether😀!!! I didn't see a tail light all night! I only have 2years in drag racing "development." That may be the best place to invest "hybrid" time. Damn tough to beat a 250hp turbo miata (no where even close). It was ugly. Did I read that correctly: you want a head job? That means something non-mechanical in my neighborhood and it costs about $20 if the latest estimate was correct.

What do you mean by "bouncy", the whole point of coil overs is to have stiffer rate springs compared to stock. The only way to have a soft ride is to have soft springs.

Build fatigue/burn-out? Not good when a man buys a lot of guns, then starts hocking his belongings...you doin' ok? If you need to get away from the communists for a while, fly out here to God's Country and we can go plinkin', canoing and hit the dragstrip.

Australian headers are always different due to opposite direction swirl vortexes encountered in the Southern Hemisphere.

I had a real hard time bending 3/8" metal line without kinking it. There are a few bends that I'm not proud of but I had to accept some imperfection and move on. There are several valves in either jegs, summit or speedway. Very expensive so I didn't use one but I wish I had.

I'm all done with the exhaust-I torqued to 80 inch pounds with an ati-seized bolt.

Modified JTR headers arrived today from Nitroplate. They look great! And I only scuffed them up a bit fighting with the Lokar dipstick. Getting the dipstick in wound up being the fight of the night-the original o-ring had gone chalkie and evidently I replaced it with the wrong size. Used a nitrile O-ring hoping for better longevity. Had to remove the downpipe, starter and knock sensor to get a good angle to push dipstick tube in with enough strength to squish the o-ring enough to fit, but I got it done. Oil change-done. Would like to flush the brake system (reservoirs look pretty dark), but it is time to quit until after this weekend's racing. Going to alignment shop day-after-tomorrow for johnc's autocross alignment settings.

Do as I say, not as I do: I made a steel hard line and fit it down the tranny tunnel in the exact location of the original lines, then had AN6 fittings welded to both ends. I then have flex line from my tank to a screen filter, then to my Walbro pump, then to my Corvette FPR, then to the hard lines. At the firewall, the hard line is then connected to a flex line, then to the stock LS2 fuel rail. For flex lines, I used inexpensive push-on AN6 fittings from Speedwaymotors.com and used their black rubber high pressure fuel line that is made to work with the connectors. The flex line part was easy, except that you should cut all flex lines 1/4" longer than you think you really need because the line shortens when it stretches to go over the barbed fittings. Buy a few extra fittings-once you push the fitting into the line, it ain't coming off again! If I did another car, I would just run flex lines from the back of the car to the front-making that 3/8" line and routing it down the top of the trans tunnel was a major delay-er in completing the job. Just run it down the "frame rail" like most guys do. For that long section along the floor pan, I would use braided because it is likely to get scraped some on speed bumps. Go ahead and buy a cheap set of AN wrenches-it makes the job so much easier. I also wish I had spent the money for a fuel cutoff so I can service the filter without having to run the tank dry first. I had sandblasted my tank (dont do that), so it took 4 or 5 filter cleanings before I stopped getting a lot of sand trapped in the filter, so plan on serviceing it a few times after you get your car running. I think that is about it: speedwaymotors.com has the best prices on AN fittings and hose. One more thought: you say you only want stock LS power-that will change. nmoel told me that speed is addictive and he is right. Go ahead and plan you fuel system to allow for a second fuel pickup on your tank and allow room for a second fuel pump and filter so you can have a fuel-safe system when you go to nitrous later. I know you say you won't do it, but what a PITA it is to add those things later if you change your mind.