RebekahsZ

Thanks for the feedback. That is good to know where your axles snapped. The M2 shortened shafts lack that groove (I'm no expert on metalurgy to know anything about the alloys), so perhaps that will give me a little more strength (?). My (future) nitrous package will have a window switch and a progressive controller specifically purposed to protect the axles. My plan is to leave the line at 3000 on the 2-step, spray comes up progessively starting at some rpm, perhaps 4500 to redline. Redline will be determined by cam/springs. I'll be selecting a cam that sacrifices some torque at the slow end for gains at the top end. Having a manual trans, I'll need to automate things instead of running a manual switch. The cost of the controllers will significantly jack up the cost of the system. Once car is off jackstands I'm going to start rat-holing cash until I have $2000 in order to do the cam and spray all at the same time to save a $500 dyno/tuning session. Thanks for sharing so much-a rising tide lifts all boats.

My first passes with the L24 (9.99 in the 1/8th) were made at Fayetteville when I was stationed at Ft. Bragg in the early 1990s. Do they have a 1/4-mile track too? Do great!

Had car back to driving condition for 3 whole days-back in the air today. Exhaust to rear bumper-done. Electric cutouts will have to wait until mid-April to finish. Headers in box to get coated-in the mail tomorrow-2-week lag time. Front suspension disassembled and reassembled: front end play was in TC rods, not in struts; just took the tightenening of one bolt to solve the problem (took tearing whole suspension down to find it). 2" longer front springs installed-1.5" above lower perch now instead of totally maxed out in the up position. Lowered front end back down the 1" I had raised it-I just couldn't stand the high nose, plus will enjoy the 3" of ground clearance I gained with the new exhaust system. Front droop limiter modifications made-gotta take to the welder Monday or Tuesday to have that finalized. Starting this week on installing 2" taller springs in rear, replacing end-links on adjustable rear LCAs and trimming adjustment holes in rear LCAs to make it easier to make adjustments (too tight to get a wrench in there now). A friend is giving me his slightly used trailer radials to replace my jacked-up bias plies-I pick those up 2 hours away tomorrow night. Ordering some grade 8 bolts from boltdepot.com; I should replace my driveshaft bolts at least every season, don't you think? Bucking to have this thing aligned and running by April 5 for a solo driving school. Got Spring mowing of my huge corner lot done today and went to Sunday school and church too. I should sleep well tonight.

Is it still so dry out there? I lived there in the early '90s and it didn't rain for 5 years-if it is still like that, you could go straight to drag radials if you have deep pockets. BFG has some with some tread, although the "classic" seems to be the MT Drag Radial around here. Just dangerous if there is ANY water on the road. 235/60/15 is the best drag tire for your swashticas-goes right on perfectly and gives you 8" of axle-breakin' sticky tread on the ground. Funny you commented on 195s-my first set of autocross tires were BFG R1s in 195/60 and they were SO much stickier than any street tire I've ever driven. Although that was really just the case in the lateral mode-in the forward mode they were still easy to fry. Tire engineers are amazing. Really glad you are out there rippin' it up! If you haven't gotten to the track-best stay away-it is addictive in these little rockets. What spring rates are you running?

I don't think you will find ANY street compound tire, of any size, that you can't spin if you try. However, I have seen a 6.1 1/8 mile with a 8.5" slick. The only way to avoid spinning with your car is either by restraint or a slick-and even then, a hot sticky slick. Think about having sacrificial street tires and separate race tires.

Very sorry for my crazy reply. What I was trying to say (but said poorly and on an offensive way) is that you don't have to use all the power that your motor makes. I agree with the other posters who have recommended plenty of power (as much as you can) but with restrained application of the go pedal. Again, I am sorry for the interruption-enjoy your car.

For a change - I drove it!

Oops.

Chromoly CV axles....what portion is chromoly, the shafts, the CVs...where did you get them? What portion failed? Any pictures of the broken parts? Do you manually hit the spray or do you use a window switch of some kind?

Chromoly CV axles....what portion is chromoly, the shafts, the CVs...where did you get them? What portion failed? Any pictures of the broken parts? Do you manually hit the spray or do you use a window switch of some kind?

Thanks, thanks, thanks, and thanks!

How do you tell your computer that you are gonna spray, or do you use the same computer tune for both spray and bottle-off operation?

We are all just jealous! Have you broken any axles yet? How many passes on this set? Found an on-line article on Chuck Anders and the S cam package. I'm gonna do the stub axles and axle breakage loops to the LCAs before I do the cam/nitrous so it may be next winter. 6.3 in the 1/8 is flat cookin'. What is your exhaust downstream of the JCI headers? I'm on JTR headers.

A table-top belt/band sander is definitely on my wish list. Any reason not to buy a cheap one like they have at Lowes for around $120? This will get sporadic use (damn, I'm done with the exhaust). Also, do you need special sand paper for it since I'm mostly doing metal fab and some around the house wood stuff? Do you pretty much just leave 60 grit on it most of the time? (Can I use this forum as fabrication 101)?

Is this a gun control debate? Who let the congress woman from California join our forum? Sounds to me like somebody needs a mental health evaluation so I can take his hybrid away in order to keep our children safe, Would that be a high-capacity 396 or just a single-shot?

I've seen an old thread on this, so keep looking. Seems the properly splined joints are NLA. Somebody was doing a group buy for some custom steeing shafts, so try to find that old post.

Donovan, don't be fooled. This fellow must know his shtuff. It takes effort to go that fast, and even more to do it over and over again without breaking. In fact, while we sit at our computers bench racing his car, he's probably out figuring out how to make it even faster and more durable! I imagine he's having fun reading our thread-jacking posts since he started this thread and hasn't looked back.

CrayZ-I've been following all of your threads. If you are serious about starting to road race, I recommend you cut out the hump in the tunnel AND, make new seat mounts that will put your butt as close to the floor as possible: remember, you gotta plan for helmet clearance and clearance between your head and the forward portions of your rollcage. My last rollcage thread brought out that helmet clearance from the rollcage is a problem even in the best-designed cages. You might consider going to aluminum road racing seats instead of the wide "sport seats" that are all the rage right now-a dedicated race seat can make a big difference in your road racing experience. Plus they should be pretty easy to shove into the limited space that we have in our z-cars. I'm going to aluminum seats when that rises higher on the priority/task list-its pretty far down.

Just wait until you can do a coilover conversion. I cut my springs years ago and it made the car undriveable. Every seam in the road bottomed out the suspension. I would discourage you from cutting stock springs-the suspension bottoming will drive you crazy and it even cracked my roof at the b-pillar. If you leave your suspension alone, you can enjoy your new engine, but if you cut your springs, you will have to baby the car everywhere you go-that would be a shame.

There really isn't any such thing as "just a cam." While a cam may cost less than $400, you are looking at cam, springs, retainers, push rods and a tune, at the minimum, so you should budget more like $1,000. Similar story with nitrous - an empty bottle costs a couple hundred, but a system with all the controls is gonna be about another thousand. Most of these guys also have done exhaust and intake work too, but don't admit it. Look at the torque curves of most RB motors and even the stock LS motor-there is no comparison in terms of "area under the curve." But nobody can argue with what RIPS can do with a Z-car, RB motor and an auto trans! There is also a big difference between a 9.9 and a 9.0, while the difference between a 10.0 and a 9.9 is much less. As drag racers, we like to round-down very liberally-you'll see me do the same thing from me as soon as I go 10.99999. I'll call that a 10-second run all day long!

I don't think it is really necessary to re-route brake lines. Howver, the driver side "motor mount" will probably need to be notched.

Bangin? I would expect something more akin to "groovy" or even "swell" from you!

That is a maxima caliper kit sold by Sean Schlapi. It has a great emergency brake, but the maxima caliper doesn't clamp any better (maybe worse) than a stock drum system. But, this system does work with 15" wheels. I would do the Silvermine rear kit, but be prepared to need larger wheels, maybe even 17". You'll also need to carrry a brick with you for an e-brake. But the Silvermine system gets great reviews.

Exhaust is installed after driving car on 3" header dump tubes for a full year. The verdict: I hate it. My car is suddenly a royal POS! It used to have a loud exhaust, but was otherwise really well constructed with a super tight chassis. Now I find out that I have a noisy valvetrain, squeekie doors, a rattling rear hatch, noisy tires, a screaming cermic clutch, rattling camber plates and loose struts, chattering LSD... I want my noisy exhaust back! With the exhaust exiting in the stock location, I have fumes in the car just like a classic Z-car-I reek after a test drive! I miss my straight pipes!!!! Will start on electric cutouts (to get my life back in order) right after an autocross first weekend in April. Spending next 2 weeks on suspension while I send headers to Nitro Plate for shiney "ceramic." Gotta get some camber back in the rear or I'm gonna spin like a top! Gotta move my shift light from the steering column to the dash-with this thing so quiet, I'm gonna be over-reving like crazy! The Borla really sounds great at high rpm under accelleration load-just got to get used to all the squeeks and rattles. Thanks hybridz.org for all the advice! IMG_1236.MOV

Siliconeintakes.com. $9.99 for the clamp, $29.99 for a set of two flanges. I wish the bolts were 1/4" longer so I didn't have to remove the nut to remove the clamp, and the clamp interferes with the bolt a little, so I trimmed the bands a little to get them to work a little better.