RebekahsZ

Oh yeah, I know. This outer CV had 145 passes and was mated to the broken inner CV I replaced a few months ago with one of your shafts in between them. Really mostly jackstand time since then.

Just blew outer CV of same axle-now I've broken both ends. Tear down and inspection tomorrow night-time to use that spare I have had sitting around. Broken almost literally getting groceries.

Not so. He won't appreciate my advertising it, but our hero road racer CobraMatt finishes second on occasion to either a 70 Camaro with a straight axle or a NASCAR-style car that has a straight axle. It defies all my stereotypes, but its true. There's lots of ways to set up a solid axle, but I haven't learned about it yet, and certainly everything is a matter of compromises.

Blew up driver side outer CV within an hour of last post. I was getting on it, but not very hard since it was on the street-nothing major, and probably didn't even exceed the speed limit. Its the same side that I broke the inner CV on this Spring. It comes to mind that I only replaced the inner CV and left the outer alone when I "rebuilt" that axle. Will swap in my spare axle, then see what's wrong. I haven't made any major rear suspension changes, so surely it isn't a length issue (?). Glad it happened now and not at GA event. I was able to limp into a Walmart parking lot a mile from my house where I had plenty of room to back the trailer in. Glad I had that towing package put on my wife's minivan. Damn, I miss my truck. Car is tucked away inside my garage, ready for some thrashing tomorrow after work. I'm getting good at dragging a broken Z-car home.

tooquick-funny you should say that: I went by my mom's house a few miles away to deliver dog food (she's keeping my dog while the 30X30 garage is being built-with a pool attached). I thought about running by Taco Bell on the way home, but said to myself: "too damn hard to get my wallet out of my back pocket in these skin-tight seats." I guess it's a race car now. Especially because it came home on a trailer tonight. A few blocks past Taco Bell, I got on it a little (truly, it was only a little and from a roll). Terrible noises from the back and I thought that I had hit the big tires on the inner fenders since I had lowered it last night. Limped it up to Walmart parking lot in case I needed a trailer and I could see that I had blown the driver's side outer CV and almost torn the boot all the way (but the boot held it together so I didn't lose any brake lines-whew!). Called the wife and used her minivan to get the trailer and carry my sorry butt home (since the truck is in the shop). Had to use the winch I mounted in the floor of the garage to hoist it up the cliff of a driveway I have, but that went pretty well and the car is inside ready for a new axle tomorrow night after work (new garage will be on level ground, but close to a meddling neighbor, so the all-night car thrashing is probably about over, but I shouldn't have to winch it up the driveway anymore). ol doc-I have an Intermediate Road Race seat with hammered wings, too. Sounds like I'm not the only one to have trouble making the seat fit. I will be trying to get rid of it at Z Nationals (I just need the room). No troubles with the side bolsters so far-seems great. Now, the door bar on the 6-pt roll bar is another matter. I'm trying to teach myself to tuck my elbow in to steer left, but I'm gonna cream my funny bone some time really bad. Issue is, padding will likely make things even more crowded, so for now, I'm not padding it. Hmmm, what about an elbow pad on my arm?....

Put a solid axle in it from the get-go: I just blew another CV axle.

Sorry buddy, I'm a plug and play mechanic. The new sender reads lower than my last one, but I'm gonna mark the new "normal" with a Sharpie and move on.

I caught hell for those stacks from this forum. Glad I found a few guys who can enjoy a joke.

Yeah, may have to put the tires on the roof and drive the Z! My next event is actually in Sep, basically the same tow distance and mountains as Z Nats. Its hotter than hell today, so I've been catching up on posting pics and updating old threads until the sun goes down. Now to send an email to Bogart about having some custom wheels made....by the time I'm thru with that, it should be bearable. Ordered an Allstar 14" convex mirror today just for Z Nats, I want to see you overtaking me so I don't turn into you.

Version 2 of the Kirkey install. My helmet hit the ceiling with version 1. So, I got my fabricator to channel the seat mounts with some sections of square tubing, effectively lowering the place where the seat sliders bolt in somewhere between .5 and .75 inches. Then, I got a local fab shop to bend up and plasma cut some brackets for me (the Kirkey brackets sold for these seats are goofy and don't fit). These let me put the seats all the way down on the sliders. So, I effectively dropped the seat about 2". Now there is plenty of helmet room and the seat slides back under the main hoop without scraping it. All bolted up, I think I can move on to some other project. I am going to put a little high-density foam in the lumbar area. Call this done. Having seen some cars where the seat was mounted to floor extensions of the roll bar, I do wish I had done that to improve safety, but that will have to wait for the next Z-car. After installing the 4th set of seats in my 25 years with the car, I think I've done it for the last time. One problem with these seats: very narrow in the hips. Any girl who wants to ride along that is over 175 pounds is gonna be insulted and slap me.

Ready for the GA 1/2-mile Sep 12,13. MT 275/60/15s, BAMF flares. Not in love with how tall the rear tires are, but I need them for the gearing the provide. I have lowered the rear of the car an inch once I verified tire clearance at full bump.

I'm SO ready to get my truck back! I think it will be this Friday. It's like a million degrees, 120% humidity in Alabama right now. Daily driving the Z is a blast, but I miss the truck's A/C. Got a ticket driving my wife's minivan Friday night-somehow missed the 35mph speed limit sign rolling thru a tiny little speed trap town and got pulled over for going 52. That's gonna hurt.

Would he be ok with the redneck beer can (premium beer of course) or (if you want to look racy) an old Redline oil bottle and a tube?

I see a lot of threads asking about tire clearance for certain size wheels/tires. This is to share my experience with drag slicks and BAMF flares. The tires are 275/60/15 (28" diameter) Mickey Thompson Drag Radials which I have borrowed to run at the GA 1/2-mile in September (they don't allow bias ply slicks). They are mounted on 15X8 Weld Draglites with a 5.5" backspacing and a 1.25" spacer adapter to yield a final backspacing of 4.25". I have coilovers and BAMF flares cut super high, and I cut at least an inch forward into the "dog leg" so that the inner fender is flat from the inside curve to the skin of the car.. My camber is pretty close to zero, and my track has been narrowed 1" on each side with shortened LCAs. The pictures show that the flares are dangerously close to the tire, not at the widest part of the flare, but rather at the narrowest part of the flare, at the forward edge of the flare (near the door). A belt sander with 80 grit made quick work of the clearancing. The tire sidewall is 1/4" from the spring perch (the angle of the photo is bad).

djwarner was right-the soldering killed the sender. After soldering, I could hear a rattle inside the sender, but I installed it anyway: it did read oil pressure...sometimes. So, with Tony D's help, I went looking for Datsun Roadster Senders. Very hard to find. Found a used one that looked pretty good for $38 plus shipping. Found 2 units for $120 and $140, but the ebay stores for those guys were inop. So, I bought the used sender and mixed up some JB weld and applied it to the crimp fitting, the base of the hex portion of the stem and I even JB welded it externally (so maybe I can get it apart later) where the adapter screws on. The problem with the BSP to NPT thread adapter is that it isn't labeled in order to know if the adapter is BSP to NPT, or if it adapts BSP to NPT, in other words I don't know if the male end is BSP or NPT, nor do I know which the female end is-the facts are somewhat hidden by the English language. So, I'm using JB weld to make up the difference between 27 threads per inch and 28 threads per inch (which I sure as hell can't count accurately on a stem that is of unknown length less than 1". If no posts are added, you can assume that it worked and I'm not dripping on the track anymore.

My buddy, who works at a junkyard ("used auto parts establishment" when he's around) found this Cadillac engine cover laying around and gave it to me. So, I thought I would play around and try to put it on my LS2, which already has non-functional velocity stacks (just for fun). The engine cover clips onto the fuel rail, and the GTO fuel rail that I have must be different from the Caddy version so after cutting the engine cover all up, I decided to can the project and move on to items which actually do something, like making the car go, stop and turn. I shot some pics of the mayhem before I threw in the towel after about an hour of wasted garage time.

When I walk on the track, sometimes I feel like my shoes will get sucked off! If the track prep is good, I wonder if you could have the tires shaved down to a slick, or close, just a mm or two of tread. We could put them on my car with the linelock on and just burn them down... Please realize that I think you are doing great. I started just like you back in the 1990s, and I'm a hack really, living somewhat vicariously thru you. We'd have a ball if we lived down the street from each other. Any body have any experience with the spray-on or paint-on tire softeners?

Don't envy you for that brake work. I HATE brake work so bad. I will be praying it goes like clockwork for you.

On the radiator overflow, you might do just as well time and price wide to get something universal at the parts store. They usually have rectangular ones that mount to the radiator support or inner fender, although I don't know what space you have available after your turbo and intercooler. A small one might fit inside the inner fender close to the headlight bucket, you could just run the hose thru a little hole drilled in the inner fender. I'm putting my sub-belt in today for the same reason. If you plan to crank your shoulder belts really tight, a sub belt is a must or the lap belt will ride up.

A couple of things. Phantom-what is the treadwear number on the Direzza (that's a great tire), in case his "street tire" class limits him to a certain number? Milenko212-the Goodrich Radial T/A is a terrible tire from a traction standpoint. All the hotrod guys run them and I have them on my S10 pickup, and I hate them. They are awful, and if there is ANY rain on the street I can barely get the truck stopped. They are very hard compound and last FOREVER, and they look great (why I bought them). Just about any tire is going to be better than them. If you go to the local hotrod hangout, look at the cars running the Radial T/A, you will find that underneath the Armorall, they are dry-rotting before they wear out. I will probably keep the T/As on the back of my truck and just burn them to the cords, but I am just about ready to pull the trigger on some stickier front rubber so I can get this truck to stop better. Stopping or starting, traction is traction. Also, important to know that traction declines due to age. About a decade ago, I bought some brand new race tires and put them on the shelf because I had big racing plans. My in-laws moved in with us, I changed jobs, blah-blah-blah, and I didn't race for several years. When the smoke cleared and I started racing again, I mounted those tires up and it was like driving on ice. I walked around the pits doing the fingernail test on my tire compound and with racing tires I had harder tread than the guys with new street tires. Tires are the stickiest the day you buy them. Also, check manufacture dates-a lot of discounters have tires on the shelf that are several years old when they get to you. A 2.0 is a very respectable goal if you are restricted to street tires. Also, lighten up if you can: pull your spare tire, jack, tool kit, subwoofer etc out of the car, get lighter seats. Power-to-weight is cheap horsepower. Finally, let some air out of your rear tires to improve contact patch (cheaper than new rims). What pressure were you running? You could easily let the tire pressure down progressively to as low as 15 psi and pick up a lot of contact patch. I wouldn't do it all at once: if you are running 30 psi now, drop to 25, then 20 and see if it helps. Finally, what is the track prep like? Do they spray it down with VHT really good, and how far out from the lights? I race at tracks that prep well and I can go mid-1.4s, but at other tracks, I'm struggling to go 1.6s. Traction doesn't just happen, there are a lot of variables.

I checked my available rear droop from the ride height I am currently running: 2-inches before the tires start to scoot on the floor. Doesn't prove anything-just another piece of data.

JMortensen-that's good to know. I run a pretty solid bump stop from a PT Cruiser that jnjdragracing turned me onto, in order to limit rear squat in an effort to keep the axles straighter on launch. jnjdragracing carries his car halfway down the track on these bumpstops with both front tires in the air. I also run the koni bumpstops that came with my shocks. With the rideheight that I run with roadrace tires (24 inch tire), I have about 1" of travel before hitting the bumpstops. With drag racing rubber (28" tire), I am on the koni bumpstops at rest; that gives me about 1" of travel (squishing the koni bumbstop) before I bump down on something more substantial (the PT Cruiser bumpstop). Last night, I was examining my available travel after sanding a little tire/flare interference off of my flares: I pushed the koni bumpstop down against the strut body with the tire off and the suspension in droop. Then, I put the tire back on and set the car on the ground. Jacked car back up to droop the suspension at look at how the bumpstop had moved, using the bumpstop as a "tell-tale." That little procedure told me what my travel was like. I then dropped the spring seat to its lowest position and jacked the tire up into the flare until the other rear wheel came off the ground, and then jacked a little more to compress the suspension a full 2 inches from the starting point on the ground-revealing that I still over an inch of clearance to the body/fender well before my largest tire was in danger of rubbing. Now to set final alignment and get on the track! Final step is to get some slow frame video of the car launching from the side (to watch for tire movement toward the dogleg/compression of LCA bushings) and from the rear (to determine need for more positive static camber such that tires are at zero camber when the car squats on take-off). Suspension set up is time consuming, but so much fun! And I hope to never stop learning. mossy74-you will tire of being so low the first time you scrape your oilpan when your wife sends you to the grocery for milk and eggs. Think about bringing it up some or getting some taller tires. I've done the low thing and it gets old having to plan your route everytime you pull out of the driveway, oops! you scraped getting out of the driveway.....its nice to be able to straddle road kill.

Holy crap, that's a fast track! I better stay on something slower and tighter at my novice level. Be careful with that Scarab-what an awesome find! LOVE it.

You may already own the 8" wheels, but if you don't, I can't imagine that you would have a big improvement in performance with a 8" wheel over a 7" wheel. If you can stick to a 7" wheel, all the uncertainty about fitting the car will just evaporate and you can bolt on and go. Versus having to worry about spacers, rolling and trimming fenders. The difference between 7s and 8s can be an awful lot of sugar for a dime. And 225s fit a 7" wheel like a glove. However, if you push the top of the rear tire in with about 3-degrees of camber, the wider wheel will just fit. Take the camber out for street driving, and you will have trouble. I have a beautiful set of 15x7 RBs that I plan to take to Z Nationals to try to get rid of. Shipping would be less than the cost of buying a single wheel, but if it would help a brother out, I could ship you a wheel with 225/50/15 R1 on it to trial fit. I would just need it back by October so I can take the set to try to sell. A wheel and tire are pretty heavy-I bet it would be as much as $100 to ship. The tire is old, hard and dry and has no value other than for a fit check.

You may already own the 8" wheels, but if you don't, I can't imagine that you would have a big improvement in performance with a 8" wheel over a 7" wheel. If you can stick to a 7" wheel, all the uncertainty about fitting the car will just evaporate and you can bolt on and go. Versus having to worry about spacers, rolling and trimming fenders. The difference between 7s and 8s can be an awful lot of sugar for a dime. And 225s fit a 7" wheel like a glove.