RebekahsZ

Your videos are great it looks to me like you are doing fine. How did your times compare between you, your co driver and your dad? I would kill to be able to go racing with my dad but that won't happen until we are racing among the clouds. Funny that the consensus is to wait on race tires. It was the first thing I did. It is just so little work and guys in my club had old tires just laying around. It only takes a few minutes to swap tires...took a couple of events to cord them but they were faster on cords than brand new street tires.

I agree with everything that has been said, so I don't want to be a nag. But, the bang for the buck on the DP bolt in camber plates is really great. Check wit johnc, but since you already have coilover suspension, that is a really easy 1-weekend job with no welding. Basically, the DP camber plate replaces your top spring seat and your stock insulator. In the process, it lowers the car an additional inch. If you keep your stock lower control arms, the only tools you need to do a garage alignment is a camber gauge and a toe gauge, both of which are available from LongAcre Racing thru someplace like Jegs for a couple hundred bucks total. Johnc's camber plates transformed my car from an "also ran" to a front runner. Super dedicated racers will argue with me, but I see no reason at all to go to weld-in camber plates, so long as the DP is available. Now, everybody gets really excited about wide, low profile tires. But, you would do better with a set of used 195/60/14 tires in a BFG R1 or Hoosier A6 compound than you would with 275/50/16 street compound tires. The difference that you feel with race compound tires is amazing. You might find a used set laying around somebody's shop for as little as $100. Somebody gave me my first set because they felt sorry for me. That run in your car looked pretty good. Post a video of your worst run?

Thank you. Folks had stopped giving me advice and I was just sort of rambling about my experiences, which I don't think is the purpose of that section of the forum. Time to let somebody else have the "face time" for their specific issues. Thanks again for an awesome resources.

77 280z with turbo'd L28. OK. Do what you can to achieve johnc's recommended race suspension settings listed in the Suspension stickies. 3 degrees of camber front and back will help ALOT. Lowering the car from stock heighth increases camber in the back, but decreases it in the front. Fastest way to get there is DP camber plates from BetaMotorsports.com if you already have coilovers-lots more work if your springs are stock diameter. In my car, the lack of an LSD didn't make the tail twitchy, it just made it hard to get the power down (the inside tire just spun). LSD made my car faster by letting me get power down earlier coming out of turns, but it didn't make the car less twitchy. As you stated, race compound tires will help the car transition more gradually instead of having an abrupt change from traction to sliding to traction, you might be able to borrow or bum a used set from somebody in your autocross club; that's what I did at first. The other thing that might help is either less power or a lighter foot. Could you put a stiff spring somewhere in your throttle linkage to help you modulate throttle? Do you have stock (very slippery) seats? I had trouble with movement of my feet (causing me to stomp the gas in hard left turns and slalom) caused by movement of my butt sliding around on the seat. A race seat and/or a set of 5-point belts settled that down-a small block of wood screwed to the floor can help with that too. You are right-a high powered z with basically stock suspension drives like crap. Autocross is a suspension game, not a motor game.

I checked your content trying to learn a little about your car, but came up short. You really want help getting your car handling better? Tell us more about your car: suspension mods, motor, alignment settings, etc. Subscribing.

Wow! Put a Holden motor in it!!

Think about putting v bands in those headers. They are a pain to tighten and mine keep loosening up. I like how easy they are to install otherwise.

I'll pm you with follow up questions. I don't want to thread jack on this thread.

I wrapped a header once and very soon I blew a hole through it. What's the latest thoughts about wrapping? I have had very hot floor pans with the L24. Was thinking of blowing the cash to have whole system ceramic-ed after it is built. I wonder if the coaters can mask off the flex sections.

Exhaust flange warped from over tightening????? Can you put a straight edge on it? Is copper perhaps more heat resistant?? Do you have a flex section in exhaust to reduce vibration? I'm watching to see what you learn. I am running aluminum gaskets with stainless bolts and the bolts need tightening regularly....I have a long section of unsupported tubing after the collector with no flex section....

Where did you get your inter cooler?

How is your fuel pump secured? Looks like it is just floating but I know it isn't. On you fuel sump, is the left line your return? What size clutch master are you running? I have a 1" and it is quite stiff. I originally had 3/4" and it was soft but used all my pedal travel. I think 7/8" is probably best having been on both sides of it. The gray paint on the underside photos great!

Two years ago I started a build thread in the v8/gen3 forum called "LS/T56/240Z build mentor wanted.". Well the build is basically done and the thread should probably have always been in the member projects forum. Is it a lot of work to move it?

Can you shoot a photo from the side of the car so that we can see how much it hangs down? Thanks. I think it looks great.

Z-Gad and I are talkin tires on my thread in the Motorsports sub forum. He had 10" wherls on a 9 second car (1/4 mile) Shame you don't like draglines. They are an easy solution and they are much lighter than my Rotas. Pricey though. You could always spray paint them or put a spun aluminum disk on them like a bonneville car. I would stick with a 4.5 back spacing. Will give you 3/8" clearance from coilover spring perch regardless of tire.

I don't know what chassis you are considering, but don't overlook the tuner community. There are a lot of RX7 and 240sx getting LSx swaps. Even a few Miata(s). Come see me in Alabama.

I've got more money than sense or experience - I have an MGW shifter and I love it. I have the little dogleg link off to the left to give me some clearance from the hydraulic handbrake handle. Having the little dogleg in that orientation makes getting into reverse a little tedious. If I can have the handle bent (either the handbrake or the shifter, I hope to re-orient the dogleg to the rear, perhaps that will help with getting into reverse. I need a class on shifting - I ain't nothin fast like you. PM me a phone number where I can call for pointers. That video is the ****.

Shifter?

Congrats. Doesn't look like the lack of an LSD is holding you back one bit! Funny, I don't think I'm that much louder with my straight pipes! I gotta learn how to row thru the gears like you. Way to go.

Is the guy who started this thread still listening as we bench race this into oblivion? Chuck, you still out there? Bueller? Chuck, what style of driving do you plan to do with the car in the next few years? Obviously from this discussion, it matters. For example, my NEXT Z will be a total performance car, stripped of ALL creature comforts, back half-ed for 9" axle with a supercharged LSx. It will not be a street car. I'll probably go with the AZZC Wilwood setup. My current car is FULL of COMPROMISES so that it does pretty well in most driving situations, but it is at best a fun, hobby car; the greatest challenge to the brakes will be autocross (I've boiled the brakes once when I first got the car, and it was scary because of where spectators were allowed to sit at the end of the straight away, one of which was my infant daughter, Rebekah, in a stroller - so I appreciate everything the bigtime road racers have contributed). But, it is mostly a street driven, noisy car that I'm driving to work and drag racing on Saturday night. I live on a hill, ie. I need an e-brake. Do either the Silvermine or the AZZC Wilwood kits have allowances for an emergency brake? I'm running the Maxima setup because it does, and it works great. I'm actually going to change my current pad setup to help it stop better when the brakes are COLD. That's how I need them for drag racing, the slowdown areas of the local tracks are short and even shorter with the LS2, I need the brakes to work when I first get on them.

Love it! Like it best without grill.

With my coilovers, I could mount the 8.5" slick with as much as 4.75" BS, perhaps even 4.875. Unfortunately, the Weld wheels only come in 3.5, 4.5, and 5.5, etc BSs - no 4.75 or 5.0. The unknown value is how wide the tire "section" is on whatever tire you use since the tire is closer to the coil spring than the rim. The tire section on my 8.5" slicks is 9.3" if I recall. Summit and Jegs lists the section width and other specs of most popular slicks so you can see what the width of your current tires are and get a pretty good estimate of how much tire you could fit. Lay your tires on the floor and use a ruler and a straight edge to get a pretty good estimate of what you already have. Remember (as you well know), you don't need that much width - the tires do the job thru compound. Great chart, by the way. Printed and saved for future use.

Good to hear your opinion on this, MiKelly. I've been feeling a little bad for not going to the Q45 diff over my R200. Now I feel great with what I have! I respect your experience and judgement. (Kick ass video by the way-thanks for posting it).

That second part number is for a rebound snubber under the nose of the diff and the crossmember. The RT mount still allows a fair amount of movement and I still had some clunk until I put a snubber under it too. Still a little clunk but but much much less.

Wow-this turned into a bit of a pissing contest.....sorry Chuck. My point was this: of your car is on the rack all the time, it doesn't need very good brakes. There are a very small number of guys operating at the level that bj is and they are awesome. Awesome fabricators, drivers and machinists. I want to learn as much as I can from those guys but I am quickly learning that I am not in their class and most guys on this forum are not. I honestly hope that everybody who finds a rust free z-car does a brake up-grade because I know that a great number of those cars will never get back out of the garage until the owner dies and his children sell a dusty old barn-find to me for pennies on the dollar. Brake upgrades ensure me a constant supply of decent sheet metal well into the future. I like 'em.