RebekahsZ

Should I get plain steel or stainless steel clevises? There's no rust on what I have, so I guess it's stainless??

Go to 5:30 and watch thru 6:40. Here's a video from ZCON 2015. We got a wave-by prior to passing. I don't remember passing the camera car at this point on the track. 1 tuff z may have been driving my car in this video. Unfortunately we had a TC rod failure the following day and had to sit out the drag racing (actually I got some seat time in socorob's car and a little drag racing in my truck-couldn't stay away).

Hmmm. I went with the T3 LCA to allow use of a spherical bearing so that I could easily change caster. So, perhaps even braking forces are putting that clevis in a bending moment via the small moment arm created by that offset described in your diagram, and not just a compression force. I see your point. I wonder if the bend started in the dog leg or the clevis. I really appreciate the input. Maybe a gusset or stiffener in the flat plate of the dog leg would help. The TTT T-C rod still used a flat plate dog-leg... I'm starting to wonder if threshold braking alone could have initiated this bend, or maybe threshold braking into a gater/corner curbing? I was smackin' me some gaters even when I wasn't leaving the paved surface. I was trying to win, so I was hitting the gaters under either steady state throttle or acceleration. The very first off-track of the day was by someone else and left two straight black marks right thru the esses, At least 2 gaters were crossed head-on with locked front brakes.

You guys are giving me great advice and I really appreciate it. I think I want to stay with the same kit and just replace the clevis(s) (clevi?)(clevae?)(clevises?) and the hockey sticks. I'm registering tube80z's steel alloy recommendation, any other alloy suggestions in case my local supplier can't get it? I'm wondering what the minimum order is gonna be-probably a 4x8 sheet-argh! I guess if I bend another one I will make a big change, but as you said, the damage will just get pushed farther down the line. I really wish I knew HOW this occurred-I didn't feel us hit anything solid at all as we were spinning, and I wasn't freaking in the passenger seat or anything like that-I had my eyes open and my brain engaged the whole time. If anything, I was probably laughing cause none of my friends could stay on the track any better than I could.

Oh, I hope you didn't take the A/C comment as critical-it wasn't intended that way. I posted this thread to congratulate you-plus I cant count on you to talk your car up as much as it deserves. Yes, on a normal drag situation you turn off A/C to keep track dry forward of waterbox. And in a race situation less power losses might be worth some performance gains. But, this track day wasn't racing, it was more of an demo/exhibition anyway. I like your A/C and am kinda jealous-between your car and Mad Mike's it was the only A/C I got all weekend-notice how I didn't want to get out of your car? A little bit of paradise in the scorching hell that was ZCON 2015! I would sacrifice a little traction any day for that respite.

Drag racing is for knuckle-dragging neandrethals. I broke my front suspension at the autocross. My tow truck ran 14s.

Socorob had the fastest ET at ZCON 2015 at Memphis International Raceway, spinning most of the way down the track. It was his first time to a drag strip. He ran 12.7 in the quarter on autocross tires thru a MGW-shifted T-56 and a 3.54 Q45 diff. With the A/C on! He beat all the 350zs and 370zs and a Nissan V8 swapped S32 (what is that: VQ or VK?), and an LT1 equipped 240z with a 60mm turbo with a Phantom Grip (that didnt work). His car is super: sorted, sano-clean as a pin, restoration quality resto-mod car. He was very fast in the autocross thanks to good driving, used "free" autocross compound tires, a full T3 suspension kit, S32 rear brakes and Toyota truck front brakes. Interior is clean, plush and quiet. He let me drive his car some, and I would drive that car to California with confidence. Rob and Carmen drove up to Memphis from near N. Orleans in a borrowed RV, towing a borrowed trailer that Rob had to re-deck the week before ZCON before it would support his car; they stayed in a mosquito-infested campground. Carmen was his videographer and gets wife of the year award. A big shout-out to Socorob!

5/8" on the clevis thread size. 74_, what did you hit to do that? I just cleaned up my tires to go back in cool storage when they dry. The number of flat spots on the front tires makes me doubt the wisdom of "both feet IN!" I'm thinking that if you are headed off the track backwards, a better policy would just be "Left Foot IN!" I have spare used tires and they tend to age out before wearing out. So it's all good.

Yeah, John, I'm wondering if I should stick with them for that very reason. I just wish that little metal brake line that tucks under the rail had been 1/2-inch to either side-the TC rod put a nice little crush in it. A bunch of brand new RB600 is about to get wasted when I replace that crushed line. All the luck! Seems I can't change a side marker bulb without having to bleed brakes!

74-I will edit this when I measure to get you an answer. I'm kinda thankful for the way this failed, the clevis was ductile and bent rather than breaking, and I THINK the clevis and plate took the damage instead of the TC box in the rail. That's a real plus. So, I actually feel pretty lucky. I'm looking into the T3 rods next since I have his LCAs. I have to find my receipt, but I think these are from Datsun Parts LLC. Johnc turned me onto them. I like them, they are easy to work with and don't want to bash them one bit. I have an extra pair of tubes that allow me a lot more caster, and I already had plans to use those to try to keep the wheel straighter on landspeed. The flat steel plate bent at one of the drilled holes, a likely point of failure. If I can get replacement clevis-s, I may just cut new plates with more material around the bolt holes and get back to business. And sure, I let other people drive my car. They never fail to exit with a big grin on their faces. This sport isn't that fun all by yourself. Plus, I like to watch the car run. I should have been more selective (not with drivers, but with venue). This was supposed to be an autocross, but it was on a track, and I was personally topping 100mph at corner entries. My car sharing is really more based on a parking lot full of cones. Funny-I was definitely the cone killer of the event. If the MC at the banquet has any sense of humor, he should really roast me!

Here's a better photo. I'm starting to consider that those of us who drove the car may have gotten this TC rod bent a little out of line with heavy braking and curb hopping, perhaps finalized with a final off-track excursion after 7 or 8 spins (some on track, some off track, all thru either the S's, which have curbing, or one of the cone slaloms). I'm also willing to consider the possibility that the final off-track spin in a cone slalom was CAUSED by the failure, rather than the other way around. My wheels and tires look fine and are nice and round without rim damage. Which makes me skeptical that a single impact with a curb was to blame. Plus, the other side doesn't look 100% straight either. More updates as I learn. I'm certainly not upset nor eager to cry foul in any way-there was a team of angry drivers that were beating the hell out of the car, and everything has its limits. And I was have more fun than any of them, and I still am.

Did a little bit of agricultural work at ZCON when I was supposed to be autocrossing. You might say, that in the heat of the day, I found the cool green grass to be preferable to the official driving surface. And thereby experienced a minor component failure in what I think was wheel vs the back side of the gator curbing. I was afraid to try to repair this and continue the driving events, thinking that by bending the clevis back straight, I might cause a crack. A show of hands: who would have had the balls to take this TC rod off, straighten it with a hammer and get back on the track?

Yep, it's that simple. The adapter wiggles around and would seem to not be water tight, but it is.

Johnc taught me to drill a hole right they the face of the drum and use a brake adjustment tool to adjust the rears. There is a little lead or rubber button in the drum that is in the right spot. Sure enough, it helped! The stock adjusters don't do a very good job.

Did you bleed the master using short hoses to recirculate the fluid back into the reservoirs? Sometimes it takes a lotta bleeding to get MC free of air. I ran for a couple years without my booster working back in the L6 days. Pedal was high and hard as a rock.

Here's my take on brakes. For a street car or drag car, and even most autocross cars stock brakes are fine. These are short activities where the brakes don't get that hot. When you need bigger brakes is when you are doing repeated braking from like 100-plus to like 30mph over and over. Another thing that will require better brakes is wide sticky tires. What stops a car is the tires. Big brakes with small tires is silly, the tires will just lock up. But with big sticky tires, you will have the grip to start braking later and harder. And as big race rubber (Im talking road race), heats up, the traction goes up. So as the brakes are getting hotter, the tires are getting better. So the brake requirements go way up the longer you are on the track. And so does pad wear. The maxima and 280zx rear brake kits are all crap. Really just bling. I recommend staying totally stock on brakes (to not waste money on things that dont work) until you want to go road racing-then go straight to either AZC kit or Silvermine kit. Then you start learning about pad compounds.

I would recommend a different order. 1. Gauges while you are at it, to get the engine swap truly "done." 2. Keep stock brakes with rubber lines (the SS lines are a gimmick and don't do a damn thing for performance). What is "feel" anyway? 3. Drive it some to enjoy your work until winter, unless you are in California where it is never winter. 4. BC coilovers 5. AZC brake kit with whatever master and booster you want (it work fine with any booster or master). Low pedal is not booster-that's air until proven otherwise, then it is STILL air. A bad booster causes a hard pedal. You don't need a rear sway. A stock front sway will be fine if you just get stiffer springs. Bushings would be very last in my list because they give very little improvement. Sounds to me like you just need stiffer springs to settle the car down. Coilovers are to your suspension what a V8 is to your engine bay. They are worth saving up for and doing once and doing right. The BC package looks ok. Only problem I see with them is possibly that you can't service (replace) the shocks once they are installed??? I don't know this for sure. I have the old Ground Control "do it yourself" kit and that gives the mechanic the most flexibility for subsequent upgrades and changes. I have run 225/250 F/R springs for about 15 years and love them as a compromise for just about anything. They are soft enough not to break the car, but stiff enough to be decent for autocross, track day and drag racing. Yet they are nice in they street too, except when drinking coffee from a coffee cup. Coke from a can or a water bottle still do fine. For all-out racing with a cage and some chassis bracing, 400 range is likely better, and I will experiment with that some in the future. But if you are still stock now, Id aim for that 200-250 range. Debate exists about whether to go stiffer in front or rear-I don't have an intelligent or experienced answer for that. I have run stock shock with cut springs and I can't recommend that. I have run tokico illuminas and they were better than stock. I'm now on the yellow single adjustable konis and they are noticeably better than the Illuminas. I can actually I interpret the change in car behavior (at least at the drag strip) as it relates to the adjustments I make. Don't really understand how I should adjust them for road course yet, still a noob there. That's my version of Suspension 101. Oh yeah, to get car to autocross well, you need 1-degree more negative camber in the front than in the rear. So, if your rear is at 1-degree negative, you need 2-degrees up front. If you have 2-degrees in rear, you need 3-degrees in front. Dreco has achieved this with the BC package. Otherwise a Z pushes (under steers) on static turns. With a V8 it is easy to get it to power oversteer, but this requires that you enter corners slower than you otherwise could. For drag only cars, the stock suspension is actually pretty good. It allows weight to transfer well. I know a lot if guys going very fast on stock suspension. The stock Z with slicks hooks great. I bet it takes some balls at the fast end of the track!

If you have a buddy with an OBD-2 code reader with real-time data, you can check your engine coolant temp (EGT) by plugging into your port. Quick, easy, no cheap guages to buy. If you don't have one, you should get one. Prices are dropping like crazy for those.

I ran a 3' section of straight pipe right off each collector for a year. It wasn't that loud. Wfritts ran a 6" section of pipe right off the cast exhaust manifold right up thru the hood for a couple of years. Suprisingly quiet. Just get the outlet out from UNDER the car.

Awesome!

You know what?-it can be really fun to learn at these track days. You don't have to go balls to the walls. Not like we are racing for trophies or series points so, put the new tires on the front for a session and see how you like it. Then for next session swap them front to rear. Post what you learn. Follow wear pattern to figure best air pressure. I will bring my pyrometer. Lets have fun learning and not worry about the rest. Just enter turns a little slower than what you think is required so that if the car is unpredictable, you have time to react. There are corners that are more safe than others. Take it easy when in the company of concrete walls. Be a little more aggressive on corners where you can spin off into the grass harmlessly.

Switch back to 4-lug and I will share mine with you-haha! Search for jphglobal.com. He's a used dealer like John Berget. Of you hustle you might be able to get one in in time. Remember, we aren't really racing so you will be fine on street tires at ZCON.

Thanks man! You saved me a project-and maybe my life!

If your name is Brandon, I sent you some videos.

I've built (only in my head) an airdam that is mounted on drawer glides, with travel stops at the bottom, that would allow it to rise and fall as it skimmed along the ground. With maybe replaceable white plastic skid pads on the bottom. The problem with my splitter was that, even dropping straight down off the front of the hood, and racing on a fairly smooth and level track, it kissed the ground several times. I think it has to do with the distance that the leading edge is in front of the wheels. Starting 3" off the ground, I never would have dreamed that it would kiss the ground, but it did. And it wasn't from downforce: when I cut the splitter/lip off, it STILL kissed the ground. And loading it on the trailer with it installed was a no-go. The 3" splitter I built was fine without supports to the airdam (the paint and resin showed no sign of flexing). I'm confident the scraping was due to suspension bump travel (possibly) aggravated by downforce. For next season I am doubling spring rate, putting the splitter back on, and trying again.