RebekahsZ

That's where I started too when I was in flight school. We pounded AH-1s into that concrete all week on hydraulics-off and no-tail-rotor landings, then raced there on the weekends. I always loved their no corner working format. It was great and you didn't spend the whole day standing around in the sun. THAT is what a course should look like. I loved that racing surface. It was very in-regulated back then and so much fun instead of a Nazi fest, like do many SCCA clubs are.

Just watched your autocross video. That's not an autocross-that's murder! Such a tight course! I can see why you are pissed. I think that would kill anybody without power steering where you could one-hand wind it with a necker-knob! You need to find a club with a bigger facility and some Corvette owners who set up the course. Who set that Taco Bell parking lot course up? A paraplegic in a wheelchair? Likely a miata or mini driver... Check out the Wiregrass Region who at least used to use the airfield at Ft Rucker, or come up to Huntsville where 70-80 mph is no problem and uses either an old airport or a stadium lot.

I'm not sure how to get Rare Parts to fix their part numbers. I think there are actually two versions of the inner tie rod, so there must be several different rack versions too. One is female and screws on the OD of the rack. Those inners are actually rebuildable and can be cut apart, adjusted and re-spot welded. They have no flats on them in order to install them with a wrench, but i have used a pipe wrench on them in the past. That is the inner tie rod that Rare Parts has. The inner tie rod version that I currently have has a male 16mm thread that threads into the ID of the rack. It is non-rebuildable and has 4 flats for a wrench to tighten them and a little round tin "lock washer" that gets staked like a safety against them unscrewing. While talking about racks, if doing a major chassis re-work like JMortensen, it would be cool if somehow the crossmember could be modified to allow easy removal of the oil pan for bottom end inspection/repairs. One of these winters I have GOT to build a new steering shaft. Mine is pretty tight but I know the needle bearings are bone dry, and the thing has about a million miles on it. It's becoming a real safety concern for me, even if it just neurosis. I run 5 degrees of caster with 9" of hot Hoosier R6 contact patch up front, 10" someday. Turn 6 of AMP has one of the hardest braking zones leading into it and the turn-in occurs in a transition from heavy braking going downhill to an uphill section leading to an off-camber crest. This weekend when I did my best version of trail braking, I felt like I was lifting the entire weight of the car on that front outside whee on turn inl. My arms were killing me after just a few laps. That electric power steering started to seem like a good idea.

If Accusump is considered, should one install a good oil pan baffle system too, or does the Accusump remove concerns of a dry pick-up?

A car with an Accusump got his shutdown-turn on sequence screwed up and pumped oil on his headers and made a little mess and everybody thought he had an engine fire. How would that happen?

That's great info-explaining what the driver has to do. How would you operate the Accusump if you were just tooling to work in the morning, what's the sequence?

My wife has learned to at least triple any time estimate I give her.

First, there seems to be a cost/complexity continuum from stock, to special pans and baffles, to Accusump, to dry sump. Not only does cost go up, but so does maintenance and labor requirements, not only when you build it, but also when you drive it. Baffling is cheap and passive once installed. With the Accusump, the car has to be started and shutdown in a certain order, or it gets messy-seems like something I personally could screw up easily. A dry sump system looks like a very serious commitment in time, money, and fabrication complexity. Can we talk a bit about the pros and cons of each supplemental oiling system?

The purpose of this thread is to consolidate a couple of threads that are going on here on hybridz and on LS1.tech. Mistafosta and SunnyZ have described oilng trouble due to either wheelies or just acceleration sloshing oil to the back of the pan. My oil pressure seems down after a trip to AMP with lots of sustained lateral loading of the car, I'm concerned that while nothing catastrophic occurred, I may have opened up some bearing clearances. I'm hoping this can be a thread where folks in the know can contribute, and that folks who are not beating their cars this hard will just sit on their keyboards and not clutter this up with speculative comments like I see on LS1tech. I'm hoping contributors can be specific to a actual racing, be it NHRA/IHRA or road racing like NASA, SCCA or the like, so guys with that kind of experiences, PLEASE contribute.

I ordered from rare parts and the wrong part came in. Be sure to check what's inside the box before you pay and walk.

A big THANK YOU to Matt for instructing at Z Nationals at AMP. You kept me and your other students safe and spent a hard, hot day at the track that you could have invested in your own car or your own family obligations. I'm very glad that you fell in love with the Z-car as a little kid. To get into a cobbled together home-built POS like mine with a soup-sandwich, Walmart parking lot driver like me takes some really big balls. Thank you, again, for the great instruction-I can't say enough about what a wonderful time I had.

My experience: I paid like $250 for the only "rebuilt" rack I could find. It was clean and had silver paint and new boots. The locknuts on the inner tie rods were all chewed up and unuseable. The inner tie rods felt good by hand but when I got an alignment the technician called me into the bay and showed me about 1/16" of play in the passenger side inner tie rod. The inner tie rods were not new. In an effort to find new inner tie rods, I have ordered a pair of 86 300zx inner tie rods that I think will work as a substitute for our NLA S30 inners. The threads that go into the outer tie rods are a bit longer (no one should complain about that) and there is only one part number, so no left and right. Replacing this worn part is on my winter list so I will post a write up on it when I figure out if that part will work, and which outer needs to be used for both sides. Otherwise, the rack is tight. The only other slack in my steering is in the steering shaft. Next time I will just find a replacement in the junkyard instead of paying someone to lie to me. We have politicians to do that.

He does have one adjustable component: tire pressure. Does that influence cross? I'm asking, not suggesting....

225/50/15 all four with zero offset 15x7 and you avoid a lot of hassle and spend more time on the track. How much faster do you really think the larger tire will make you vs the hassle?

Walbro 255 to Corvette FPR. Has been bulletproof so far. 400hp/435tq. Great 60' on those tires. Get some slicks: 26x8.5x15 MT ET Drag bias ply will fit stock fenders perfectly.

I need a used Koni 1437-RACE yellow single adjustable strut insert to use as an alignment tool for sectioning some struts. Can be totally shot. I hate to use a new one, knowing that it will get hot with welding. If anybody can part with one, give me a PM.

Go to an autocross and see what the competition is running. We tend to try to stay in one gear so to concentrate on driving, rather than shifting. Go see what brand, model and size 13" tires he has. Post that answer. It is the total tire diameter that matters. My 16" tires are actually taller than my 16s. The 15" tires I use for drag racing are 4" larger diameter than both my 16s and 17s. Don't confuse wheel diameter with tire diameter. That's what determines gear ratio. Then you can get on a gearing calculator and really figure out what you want.

Ditto

You need to figure out how OLD the slicks are. If they are more than a couple of years old, you should just let him keep his junk and not become his junk man. I keep my slicks in garbage bags in airconditioner storage. If I keep them in my hot garage thru a couple of summers they harden and are slower and slicker than the tires on my wife's minivan. Rubber needs to be consumed and replaced regularly or it becomes worthless. There are used race tire dealers around the country that sell tires that are worth buying but you need to always ask for the date codes when you buy. They seem to have the largest stock of 15" tires (discards from Spec Miata) and 18" tires (discards from everybody else). 13 and 14, not so much....dont build obsolescence into your car.

Stick with stock till you start racing a lot (like on a track with a certified helmet requirement). Once you leave stock brakes, you quickly get on a slippery slope where none of your wheels fit, so it gets expensive. If you start racing, just get the Arizona Z Car kit and be done with it, but you need to have 16" wheels, unless you get super lucky and you 15" wheels might fit. But 14s are out at that point.

Picked up the trailer from the shop. New rear axle has zero toe (measured it myself). Will make last road trip of the season on these tires then buy a new set in the spring. If this next set of tires fares better, perhaps I can settle down and do some car work. After two years, the trailer already needs a paint job! After that, I will probably have spent enough money (and certainly enough time) to have justified buying a Featherlite.

Can you give a pic of the Accusump inside the fender? That's on my list.

The drag strip is the only dyno that can't be disputed.

Blingo!

The CF stubs are drilled for BOTH 4-lug and 5-lug. You just tell him how many studs you want pressed in before he ships them. He has 300ZXT companion flanges that will fit his stubs. Its only money.