RebekahsZ

The business about weight is pure bull. Whoever you talked to didn't know what he was talking about. Use whatever diameter strut insert will fit inside the tubes. If your tubes are 240, then you need 240 diameter inserts. You might try calling Tokiko tech support. Maybe you'll get a tuner on the phone who can help you see what your options are. I've even heard of guys using VW rabbit inserts to shorten the tubes way low. I just know what fit my car as stated above. I bought used tubes from an IT racer that were already cut, so I had to use the inserts that he cut down for. Send a PM to ComicArtist and he can probably help you with some of the crazy combinations that CAN be done. He just went thru this and he is dragging the street. He's a young guy and is into the low-at-all costs scene/fashion/style/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. Just know that the lower you go, the less you will want to actually drive your car. It really starts to be a pain. You will start rubbing here and there on your chasssis, you will have to space your swaybar away from the frame rail and you'll start going thru ball joints and u-joints. You will find that there are fewer and fewer driveways and parking lots that you can get in and out of. Don't worry about "blowing" a shock. It just loses gas and stops working-it is not like your car will collapse, the spring is what holds it up. Don't try to go very fast in a really lowered car, you'll find that even crossing a seam in the pavement rocks your world.

If you enjoy driving your car, just fill 1/2 way fast, then fill the second 1/2 tank slowly, paying attention not to overflow. If you like working on your car, drop the tank, replace the lines with expensive OEM lines (that will crack a year from now anyway), spend the next 2 weeks of spring driving weather cussing, and when you have totally restored your tank, you may still have the same problem. Having worked on my tank a lot-I would just fill the second half slowly. This is a nearly universal Z-car problem - call it character. Have you done your taxes this year, try to get a fuel efficiency tax credit!

Coil-overs are great, but please, let this crazy fad of tires hanging out pass you by...these cars are getting so rare, that it really hurts to see one butchered by this "stance" craze. If you want to actually drive your car, the tires need to stay INSIDE the fenders, or else you are going to cut your tire and kink your quarter panels when the fender hits the tire. Destroy some yugo or something, but save the z-car for those of us who want to actually fix them up and drive them fast. I've got coilovers and I love them: slam the pee out of it, but keep the tires inside, where they belong. I have a GC system with MR2 struts in front, 240z front struts in back and 225F/250R springs and I could easily get that low. I'd set my toe in for some reasonable ride height like 5 inches, then slam it at the show, then raise it back up before you hit the road. It only takes a few minutes to change the ride height.

New calipers did not arrive today as hoped. So, I did some yard work and installed a relay between my engine bay fuse block and my IGNITION PWR-ON bulkhead connector. This increased my supply wire from the 16 gauge wire coming off the Painless 7-circuit fuze block to a 10 gauge, now using the Painless wire as a trigger wire for the relay. I should be able to power anything I want to on the inside of the car, such as my rev limiter, Cable-X, shift light, line lock and maybe even an amp for my weak little stereo. Went to my first car show. My commnunity has a little car show every Sat night at Bojangles restaurant parking lot. It was interesting: I got good traffic from the old-timers, but neither the tuner crowd, nor the corvette club seemed to even notice my car. I guess the tuners are too young to know what a 240z is, and the car club that is full of LS motors is too busy polishing their totally stock $50,000 cars to know that they have a bastard cousin in the same parking lot. Nothing like the sound of 3' straight pipe side exhaust in the moonlight! I went thru a drive thru and had to turn the car off to order. Cranked up, pulled forward and turned off the car again and rolled into the pickup window. After getting my food, I tried to warn the little girl that things were about to get loud, but she didn't seem to understand until I touched off the ignition key. No lie, everybody in the drivethru screamed and the manager actually hit the floor! I've got to get some mufflers. Went to a church social in the car and took my daughter for her first ride on the way home. There was a speed bump ahead in the direction I was pointed, so I asked her if she "would care for a donut?" My kids know that that is Daddy-code for "HANG ON!" Lit up the tires from a stop, cranked the wheel and pulled a perfect LSD-controlled pivot 180 and departed the church parking lot from the same direction that I came in. My daughter was laughing her head off! The heck with 3-point turns - from now on, I'm just going to steer with the throttle. It was a nice day.

That is amazing - 72 hp difference between brands of dynos?????

Thank you so very much for the time you have taken, and for your thoroughness (is that a word?). When I get my brakes straightenened out, my diff built, and my exhaust built, I will take my car out for a cruise up to 100 and see if I have this problem. I am driving it a little on my R180 to work out the bugs that one finds after a total rebuild, but it is just too loud for me to "open 'er up" without fear of a ticket. Perhaps the mods will find your thread "sticky" worthy. I bet they will. One of the problems with the dudes who post on this site is that they like to post problems, but they rarely take the time to come back to the computer to report back on what they found to be the problem and to tell the story of the solution. I recently contacted one such person via PM, only to find out that the problem was never solved and that the half-finished car is still sitting in the shop years after the owner got burned-out. Thanks for not letting your car meet that fate, and thanks for sharing with the rest of us. I hope some day to attend an event where I can meet all the great guys who have helped me to live-out a childhood dream of owning one of the coolest and fastest cars in my area. The first day I drove my completed LS swap to work, I got a note on my windshield and an offer to buy it (which I turned down).

There you go! You can just wake up early, jump on the PCH and head north to Leon's. Catch an evening glass-off surf session by the light of the ferris wheel at the Santa Cruz lighthouse before heading home. Shocks on and back on the road by Monday. I love this forum! Doin' a little California dreamin'

Thanks sooooo much for this feedback!! JustaFantaZ - Is your car 240/260/ or 280z?

It is a trade-off. You will love your 3.90 at the track and you will hate it on the highway. I have 3.90 gears with 400lbs of torque. So, I don't use 1st gear-it is useless, now; but I really like the 3.90 with my L6 and used 1st gear all the time. I built my car to drag and autocross. If you do very much commuting for your daily driver, I'd go 3.54. I felt so wastefull using those low gears on the highway. If you really race your car a lot, go 3.90. If you make a special plate for your jack and you modify your exhaust to be easy to remove under the diff, removing and replacing the diff isn't a huge job, so you could just swap back and forth depending on what you are doing more of for the season. If your motor makes a lot of torque, I'd go with the 3.54. If it makes weak torque (like a stock L6) or if you need lots of rpms for your turbo, I'd go with the 3.90. You will be really winding at highway speeds, which kind of hurts your fuel efficiency.

You'll be happier with autozone shocks than with a dead shock. Unfortunately, the last set I bought from the parts house was about $49 each! Put a "wanted" add in the classifieds on this forum and see what turns up. Used parts aren't worth that much, so maybe you'll get lucky and something nice will turn up. I bought some springs that way. Most of the guys on this forum are straight-up, and many have a big stash of used stuff that they can't emotionally let go to waste or get crushed, but they'd be happy to hand-me-down to a fellow z-car lover. I've given away a motor, several open diffs, several transmissions, various body panels, etc. Sorry, I don't have any shocks or I'd hook you up.

I just went back thru your posts. What a nice chassis-I am very jealous of how pretty your floorpans are. If you have exposed any raw metal prior to priming, beware-primer is not waterproof and you will get surface rust that will have to be sanded off again later. If car is exosed to moisture, repaint with flat black PAINT to avoid rust. It is a shame but these cars just aren't worth that much-go crazy and have as much fun as you want with it, you'll never sell one of these cars for what you have in them. If they were a good "investment" the Nissan sponsored restoration project wouldn't have failed. I just noticed that your front brake backing plate has a little scoop bent into it. I've never seen that before, and my 1972 240z doesn't have the little scoop-very cool.

Had same problem with swaybar. Here begins the "domino effect." I don't know where I got them 15 years ago, but there are some poly bushings out there that move the swaybar away from the frame rail about an inch and that solves the problem. Until I got these, I just put a piece of wood between the stock bushing and the frame rail, using the wood as a spacer and used longer bolts. Be sure to chase the threads in the frame rail and antisieze the new bolts, this is a favorite place for a bolt to snap off and waste a day. Consider fiberglass fenders-it is a z-car, you will have rust again in 10 years, no matter how good the replacement metal fender is. The day will come when you want to add caster to your car's front end. Before you paint your car or mount ZG flares, cut about an inch out of the front of the fender arch and airdam and relocate your side marker light up and forward accordingly. You will thank yourself someday for that foresight. My next fenders will be glass and I will modify them to look like "BIG SAM." Tell me more about your wheels-size and offset or backspacing. I MIGHT be interested in buying them or trading for them. I have a set of Halbrand dummy knock-offs that would look awesome with them with a "big and little" tire combination. I'm not in any hurry, just something to give you an option. I have more z-car wheels than Emelda Marcos has shoes!

From the pics, you don't seem to have a ton of negavite camber in the rear-how did you de-camber it? Looks good. If you get it looking any better, you will be tempted to paint it - resist!

Got lots of good advice from the brakes forum. Test driving to work tomorrow with heat gun to check to see if I was successful. It is about 3 miles. I put the hood on, so the only part that will be really suspicious is the lack of mufflers. Then there is the wheels and tires, the striped paint job, the carbon hood, the red seats, the roll bar and the lack of horn and wipers. It's Alabama, so I should pretty much blend in. There is a certain rpm, where the car isn't loud at all. Have only one major part lacking for R200 CLSD/M2 CV axle swap: new CLSD clutches. Should have them next week, so I'm gearing up for that. Ordered 2-1 merge collector from Burns stainless. 2-1_Collector-Thompson.pdf

My recommendations on what to do while waiting to do coil-over conversion: Stay away from "progressive" lowering springs. You will hate them. While you are waiting, you could just run your stock springs, lots of guys are racing with them...honestly, "lowering" springs don't lower you that much and they are only marginally stiffer. You will go an inch lower by swapping to 240z spring insulators (I think-double check me). Cut a coil (don't even have to remove the spring, put the cut end of the coil on the lower spring seat, and you are lowered without spending much money at all. If you lower via the spring, be sure to put a bump stop on the strut rod-you will bottom and that sucks when it is metal to metal-you could lose a filling. If you cut a coil, you CANNOT get air going over train crossings or dips, you'll drop the spring and kill youself. You can drag race and autocross. If you go to the track, you should be fine on cold street tires with lots of air, but you may want to stack a couple of bump stops on your strut rod if you are going to have much traction (drag tires, hot tires or low pressures) to keep from busting an axle. Then again, you could always just take a trailer and chance it.

If in doubt, put it together and go test drive it. The thing I love about my coilovers is that it is pretty easy to work on them. You can always go back and put bump stops on if you need them. Depending on your springs, and how much you sectioned your struts, you may coil bind before you bottom between the gland nut and the top insulator/spring seat. The next question to torture yourself with is "how large of a bumpstop should I use?" I had a set of tokicos that came with bumpstops that slid tightly over the strut rod. I cut them in half and run 1/2 on the front and 1/2 on the back because they were so tall.

Add Helga and a healthy serving of schnitzel. I think it looks great.

I did observe one other thing, but I don't know if it is truly notable. The brake fluid in my reservoirs is much darker color (honey) than it used to be (almost like water). It used to be clear...what's up with that? The brake fluid stays cool in the reseroir, surely any heat isn't making it into the master cyl? I haven't even trompped hard on my brake yet, I've been babying it...no panic stops. I'll feel around for those two distinct stops on the linkage. Reading lots about reaction discs and excessively long booster to master push rods. Would that cause my problem - which is limited to the REAR brakes? When driving, it actually drives and brakes pretty nice. 11:00pm. Been searching and reading-thank goodness for this forum. I went out and loosened the little bumper bolt that keeps the pedal from returning all the way up. I can now feel two distinct points at which things change. I am assuming that this is the pedal pushrod hitting the booster pushrod, then the booster pushrod hitting the master cylinder. Now that I have a little slack in the system, I will test drive tomorrow (straight pipes at midnight! makes the neighbors hate you). I have started a build guide-I will include a chapter about all the adjustments that are necessary to actually get the car on the road. I used to be really happy with the way my pedals were adjusted in a straight line so that lifting a heel was not necessary to move from pedal to pedal-that is all screwed up now.

Wow, it took me 6 months to get to the point you achieved in one weekend! You don't mess around-looks great.

Wow-looks great. How many hours did you have to invest in the dash, specifically in installing the new gauges? Looking really good.

Thanks so much, guys. Anybody who has had a stuck caliper, please describe your symptoms so I can think about that some? While the temp of both rear rotors was twice the temp of the front, the left rear has consistently been the hotest. I will check for a residual valve-it would be so sweet if it was that simple. I love this forum!!! My master is a 15/16", so I assumed it was from a disc equipped car. The only way to know is to tear it down and check. Will probably be Wednesday before I can do it an get feedback posted. I have the stock 240z pushrod installed on my 15/16 master cyl. I have not yet adjusted the little rod that connects the booster to the master cylinder. If I remember correctly, it is adjusted to the short side, not the long side: could that be a problem? There is a lot of travel before the pedal firms up; I assumed that was due to needing to lengthen that little pushrod that connects the booster to the MC. I was saving that until I don't have dragging brakes. Thanks guys, I really appreciate it.

I concur with 75 280z. I do have trouble finding room to heel-toe in a 280z whereas a 240 has plenty of room for big feet. My 240z to EFI fuel tank conversion is still killing me. However, the new LSx style longtube headers were made based on a 280z floorpan, so that is a plus. 280z more likely to have R200 and airconditioning, too. A small thread jack here, does anybody know what month the 74 260z started to use the 280z floorpan?

Tank back in; car running well. Rear disc brakes dragging (still)-see Brakes forum for request for help. Gotta hook up tach, shift light and speedo this week. Drove it moderately hard tonight on test drives X3. I think I hit the rev limiter twice, hopefully it isn't still fuel starvation. Don't have a clue as to what rpm the LS2 is limited too, anybody? If anybody has a suggestion for a fuel pressure valve in the cockpit that is compatible with LS2, I'd sure appreciate it. Maybe it was the rev limiter. Don't have a tach and this thing really sounds different than the old L24-things (like rpms) happen a LOT faster. Gave car it's 6-month car wash.

"While I was at it," I did a rear disc brake conversion (85 maxima calipers) on my 240z in conjunction with my LS swap. LS is running great, but still having trouble with rear disc brakes. Made it more complicated by adding a second caliper for a "drifting hydraulic handbrake" what was I thinking??? Car feels a little heavy (draggy) and front brakes are staying cool (30 degrees celsius) while rears heat up (cruising down cool country road with little braking). Anyway. I am going to totally disable the hydraulic hand brake and remove those calipers and their rubber flex lines. That at least limits me to one set of calipers. What I have done already: 1) verified stock master cylinder push rod. 2) Loosened parking brake cable until it has slack 3) Turned wilwood adjustable proportion valve in the maximum "less brake" direction 4) Used a laser pointer type thermometer to check heat of rotors and calipers. Both the main and the drifting caliper are staying about the same temp on each wheel-sometimes i initially get a hotter reading on the driver side hydraulic parking brake caliper. The driver side is hotter. When I stop the car, jack it up, the wheels turn with just the slightest drag on the brake pads-everything seems normal..is the same with motor on and off (vacuum booster is hooked up the LS2 intake manifold. I want as many suggestions as possible, so please go crazy so I can find what I'm overlooking. Two questions to open the floor: 1) Do the little tin pieces that clip into the calipers have any function? I can't see any, but maybe they help return the shoes? They seem to do nothing. See attached photo. 2) Will a stuck caliper on one side of car make the brakes drag on the opposite side as well? Thanks. Keith

It there any down-side to flipping the cages? Does it weaken anything or limit travel? Since I'm shortening my LCAs, I'm wondering if I should do this while I have it all apart. Sittin' on the fence. Painting your axles shafts here in a minute or two.