RebekahsZ

Oh no, it's a legit post. Though I wish we were all in the same town so we could pool resources. My neighbors would love it if a bunch of Z-guys were hanging around my place lining the street with burn-out marks! You know, I probably wouldn't have picked up another S30 chassis if it weren't for this on-line community. I'm a street rodder at heart with the life-long dream of building customs and 30's Ford street rods and race cars. But I'm running our of "poop", ie energy this year and sticking to a chassis I know pretty well is likely a wise choice/compromise. Even with the lift to help me, I did a battery swap on the truck (the battery is under the bed) last night and my back was killing me when I finished. One of these days I'm gonna have to give this obsession up. The early years of fighting, falling out of planes, 10' unicycles and surfing are starting to catch up with me. Maybe someday I'll have a grandson to work along side of.

Now that the engine and trans are out, I can see that it has been hit. It's pretty good work, but it looks like the entire passenger side inner fender has been removed and replaced. Amazingly the paint matches. What I was finding as rust is actually welding burn-thru. All the body panels line up and the gaps look good. I'm gonna keep it but I'm not as psyched as I was originally. Reality bites.

A lotta dirty power will overcome a little dirty aero.

If you find out, please post it-this question comes up regularly, and everybody says: "use MR2 struts!" Well, the parts guy wants a make, model, year, and accessory package in order to go back to the shelf and actually put a part in our hands. The devil's in the details!

Oh, I need more floor space-hah!

I'm in freakin' heaven. Battery is dying and engine swap required relocation of battery to under bed of truck. Yes, this would be better done on my 2-post, but the new Datsun is over there. So, I'm using the sliding jacks to get the rear of the truck up enough to get at the battery. This is SO awesome.

Needs one more bay without a lift to be perfect. I really needed 3 bays. But the house is in the way! Damn house!

You are correct: MR2 front, stock front shock in rear strut tube. Section to fit. I don't know what year MR2 shock to send you to the parts store for. That section will set you up for the future of you later want to change to Tokicos or Konis and they should fit.

If you keep a stock spring rate (140#?) and a replacement quality shock, the ride quality will be stock. If you use a stiffer springs or stiffer shocks, the ride quality will be more stiff than stock. 225# front and 250# rear is what I have run for years and it is a nice compromise rate. MR2 shocks will get you the ride height that you want, but you will need to section the shock tube to fit the shock insert.

Lightening holes. Should be 2-3 mph faster.

.

I put my 16x8" Rota wheels with 245/45/16 Hoosier R6 tires on my new 75 280z in place of one of the flat tires that were on it. I just grabbed them out of storage to get the car on the trailer when I bought it out of a barn. The car had stock suspension, whereas I run coilovers in my race car. Here's the result. The wheel rubber metal on metal on the lower spring seat on the inside. And hung out the side of the fender on the outside. Since the car was at stock ride height, rubbing would only be a problem on the outside unless the suspension compressed about 3".

Well, I just went thru the same thing and got my memory refreshed. I bought a used Z that had been in storage and wouldn't roll. Jacked up each wheel and found it was the rear brakes. Tried my old trick of striking with a hammer. Got drum loose from the stub, but it was hung up on the shoes. Looked for the adjuster plug. There wasn't one. Drilled a hole thru the drum and found the cylinder. Couldn't see good enough to release the adjuster. Finally got my cutoff wheel and cut around the stub axle flange. Pried the center of the drum off. Figured out how the adjuster releases and removed to rest of the drum. Yeah, I need a new set of drums, but I got the car on the trailer. So, basically, everything I told you was wrong. I'm sorry. I thought of you the whole time I was fighting mine.

You don't create down force until you have exceeded the force of lift. Until you do that, you are only reducing lift to a value closer to zero. If you do achieve down force greater than lift on the front of the car and do not reduce lift on the rear, and have sufficiently stiff spring rates to translate these changes into the tires, you can actually change the attitude of the car as it goes down the track. So long as this change in attitude (I'm talking about aviation attitude, not mental attitude) doesn't cause your front to hit the ground, or your tail to hit the limit of rebound in your struts, or change your dynamic alignment settings, none of this really matters. We are talking extremes here, going pretty fast, and for me in a straight line, to get into these issues. Faster than most folks on this site will likely go. I'm not smart enough to add turning a corner into that complex discussion.

Whenever I open my shop door, it is like I hear a choir of angels singing! Violins, trumpets and oboes! Sunday, we popped the motor out of my new 75 280z in 2-1/2 hours start-to-finish. We cheated like crazy since shipping is so high, I had no aspirations of selling any of the part-out. So, we cut the driveshaft in half to avoid fighting the rear crossmember/sway bar. We cut off the front of the driveshaft to be able to use the slip yoke as a plug to avoid spilling oil all over the floor. We are giving the engine/tranny away, and all the hoses were really shot, so we just cut them. I don't like to hack wires, but the fuel injection harness had no connector to detach, so that got the hedge trimmer treatment. When we had the engine too level and couldn't get it over the radiator support or under the tranny tunnel, we just put the front wheels of the car on the floor and put my lift arms under the seatbelt wells and hoisted her up! That tipped the car-INSTEAD OF THE ENGINE! I mean, crazy, yeah? I've had to go the the ER several times this week because they say that if you have an erection for more than 4 hours, you should consult your physician-well I've had a boner steady since the lifts arrived!

After 2 years of begging, I finally got a widow in my town to sell me her husband's project '75 280z. I found this car thru the widow's mother-in-law who commented on a picture in my exam room showing my daughter (Rebekah) standing next to my 240z at the drag strip way back when we did the science project that started me on the hybridZ bandwagon. I went and looked at the car, which had been in dry storage since 1989 and found the best set of fenders, floors, and rockers that I have EVER seen. The diff isn't even dirty! Some of the original paint had been sanded off on the top side of the car and left raw, so it had a little surface rust on those panels, but it was otherwise in original paint. The fuel injection system was half disassembled and the radiator was leaking. I offered her $300. She let me walk. I kept going by dropping notes in the mailbox to let her know I still was interested. Last month, mother-in-law has a second surgery with me (the other eye), and says: "You really should buy my daughters car from her." So I call her up. The car had been moved to a barn at her brother's house (the same brother who told her the car was worth $5,000 back when I offered her the $300). He had sprayed it with primer (no prep/no masking) to "protect it." It's when people lose interest in these rust magnets and put them someplace damp that we lose them, after they've had crap stacked all over them and gotten lots of trailer loading rash. I started to panic and offered her $1,500. She accepted. I took a day off and went out with the trailer. Way down in an Alabama holler in a lean-to with a dirt floor sat the Z laying on its belly with 4 flat tires. But it had only been out there for a season. So I put some of my tires on it, cut one brake drum off and loaded it up. Now it is in my garage getting cleaned out and lightened up to go into dry storage until I break 200mph in the blue 240z (my goal is do do that by 2020). I did a lot of cleaning out crap yesterday and hope to pull the motor/tranny today. I put new valve stems and 4 used tires on it and finished disassembling the brakes (which were largely seized by pad/shoe rust making it really hard to push around). Hopefully the diff will come out next week (you just can't get enough R200s) as well as any cloth or carpet in the car. I don't want to find a bunch of rats and rust in this thing when I get back to it. Then it is off to storage till I'm ready for it. The title states the plan for an 1/8-mile, 1/4-mile, 1-mile racer. BTW-the guys in the picture are all my local Z buddies; I'm on the other side of the camera, grinning from ear to ear!

If the springs are stiff enough to transfer that downforce into the pavement.

My next Z will use stock LCA with the mono-ball modification.

With a little arsenic, it can be yours. Dave, I would LOVE that!

The only reason to move away from a stock arm is to be able to run a bunch of caster. Which often involves cutting your fenders and airdam for tire clearance. So, stock LCAs offer your best option over either aftermarket arm. Spend your money on things that will make you faster, like a good seat and seatbelts. Or tires.

.

There is no need for this modification.

You are doing INCREDIBLE work!

Lifts arriving for the shop today. I haven't been this nervous since proposing to my wife!

Dude, you are SO in trouble! No Valentine for you!