RebekahsZ

I just booked a room at the B&B across the street from the track. Racer's Rest Bed and Breakfast (706) 265-6304. Only 2 remaining rooms available as of this morning. This B&B is a great little secret-the owner has a track key and will let you park your trailer/car at the track the night before so you can just walk over after breakfast to attend the driver's meeting. I booked for Thursday, Oct 9 and Friday, Oct 10. Will head home on Saturday morning unless I find something else fun to delay me.

I have a clean outer CV from a Z31T that I could test fit for you if you wanted to send me a shaft.

Good luck finding a 40 year old door with less rust than that! That's nothing, I think that's why he sent the pic-to show how clean and nice it is.

Listening and learning.

Potato-potaato. Don't call the whole thing off! Have any of you guys blown up an outer CV on the Z31T axles? I'm thinking ahead of maybe buying Will's kit to hang an 8.8 center section, but using a "hybrid" of his axles and the Z31T outer CV (by the hub). I'm in no rush.

The presence of dyno rollers helps. I got 145 passes out of mine, so they are a stout little kit. Just not indestructible but what is? I think I just got on too sticky of a track with too sticky of a tire. I'm curious to learn over time about daily driving a turbo car? Does the tune (and all that meth injection stuff) automatically tune on the fly if you have the boost turned up or down? The standard just keeps moving! So much to learn and priorities to manage...the Joneses just keep whipping my butt! My current car will remain N/A, but I'm already fantacizing about the next one.

Where exactly did you hammer to get the inner CV off the stock axle shaft? I seem to have to beat the shit out of the CV and it leaves some pretty mean dents in it. One of the days I'm gonna ruin one....

Sounds like a porn star.

I'm totally in awe. Please post lots of pictures once you get rested up. I'm trying to figure out where you put your radiator hoses so that they don't get fried. Looks incredible. Are you still on an R200? Axles?

Yippee! Happy for you. Pulling that tranny and bleeding everything is a real chore. And you got to it quick! I bet you can still be smooth in traffic if feathering at low rpm, but if you are launching with the revs up, let 'er out quick. I warped mine my first season, but had no trouble all last season at all since changing my technique. Axles and driveshafts are another matter... I keep spares for that now. We are gonna break stuff if we dog these old cars out-best to break the stuff that is easy to get access to. Build in such a way that you can fix stuff as easy as possible.

Love it! As a kid I used to read hot rod mags in the junior high school library and revel at the crazy parts combos guys would put together. I never read the articles but just looked at the pics and the parts lists. You gotta think about getting rid of the traditional 5.0 EFI intake manifold! Take a look at the BBK manifold or something that puts the throttle body in front rather than the side. That car deserves a custom intake!

Hang in there. You will LOVE your coilovers. In fact, I would trade my V8 and my left nut for my coilovers-they MAKE a Z worth having.

I'm sorry you are having such a tough time. I recently talked to MiKelly, who has a huge build thread in the Members Projects forum. He lowered his 280z just by using camber plates without sectioning his struts at all. Look at his pictures. Perhaps that is an option for the rears when you re-do them. Don't know what insert he is running. With my 240z, I ran 8" front and 10" rear springs when I had stock insulators and my seats were near the bottom of my collars. When I switched to camber plates, the car was too low even with the seats all the way at the top of the collars. So, I bought 10" front springs and 12" rear springs and now the seats are about 2" off the bottom of the collars for my autocross slicks (26") and 1" off the bottom of the collar for my drag slicks (28" with a rake). Springs are pretty cheap from johnc (if he's still dealing') or from Speedwaymotors.com. Another interesting bit of experience is that the tokicos have a lot more droop travel. I needed droop limiters (really just in front) with Tokicos, but I don't with Koni -1347-RACE shocks. The droop is a lot less with the Konis. I use my hands to adjust unless I try putting a good bit of preload on the spring, then I use a spanner from Summitracing.com. I have to remove my wheel to do any adjustments, just not enough room for me to do it otherwise. I installed Torrington bearings between my spring and lower seat this year thinking it would make adjustments easier...it didnt. With preloading, sometimes the seat moves and sometimes the collar rotates. I wish I had welded a little "tooth" onto the collar ring (or whatever you call the ring that you weld to the strut body) and file a notch in the collar, so that the collar wouldn't spin on the strut during adjustments. It takes two hands instead of one. Another point: greasing the threads on the collars hasn't made adjustments any easier either-the grease just attracts grit. It was easier and cleaner when the seat was metal to metal on the threaded collar. I "dick" with my rear ride height all the time. Front stays the same due to the need to adjust toe-in after every ride height change. Rear goes up when I want to get my redneck on! A high tail makes the rearend very twitchy/tail-wagging-the-dog at the autocross-I drop it on down for that. Once you have your sectioning done, droop is a combined function of strut tube length, strut ROD length and internal shock design. Your spring seat adjustment won't affect that. Your spring only enters the equation when the car is on the floor and loaded with the vehicles weight. You won't really know where you are ride height wise until you put the wheels back on and set it on the ground. Sorry so long, but that's my 15-year coilover saga. And oh, I bought my tubes already sectioned to proper length from a retiring ITS racer-they are not welded exactly straight, and that was a major source of pain during the koni conversion. Konis fit very tightly into 240z tubes. Turned what should have been a weekend job into an all-winter job. Hope some of this book is helpful.

They show as out of stock on the website. I told the rep that is on this forum and he said he would check it out. No action so far...

I wasn't trying to sound like an ass (it just comes naturally). My LS2 only has a PCV port on the passenger side valve cover...I have that plumbed to the intake airstream in the stock GTO location before the air gets to the IAT sensor and the throttle body. In my rear-facing camera at AMP, I did notice an occasional puff of blue smoke. I thought to myself: "bad valve guides already?"

I am a big fan of the Z31T Nissan CLSD produced from 87-89. It is simple and tough and easy to work on once you've played with a few. But in my car it has trouble with clunking noises in parking lots. Not everyone has this problem. But it works great at the drag strip, autocross and road course. Google for problems with the OBX, it has some problems with the spring washers. The only one I have had in my shop was full of chunks of metal (probably washers-I bailed when it was obviously broken). I also have a VLSD from a limited production Z31T called the Shiro. I have never run it and I plan to sell it when I get the energy. It has special axles that only work with it. I imagine that the VLSD has less clunking noise on slow turns-that's why I bought it. I have one set of good axles for it. The potential problem I can see is that if I break an axle with the VLSD, the car will be down while I search and search for a replacement. Axles like you have are easy to source.

I just got a tight rebuilt rack in the mail today. I have to send my worn out rack as a core. I am picking up a 260z parts car on Saturday and will consider grabbing the rack off of it before I surrender the chassis to a friend. What is TTTs price for a set? I might consider just buying a bunch to be the forum steering rack master just like Savage42 is the forum CLSD clutch master.

It's ok. I appreciate your willingness to help. I'm still a little dizzy!

I'm not sure what I'm missing. I just turn the key, put it in gear and haul ass. When it needs oil, I add some. Am I destroying my engine and somehow don't know it?

Run away from that chassis as fast as you can. Rust never sleeps, forgives nor forgets. Cars never say "thanks."

Look on the ring gear for a collon, you know, the punctuation mark with two dots : There is a number that starts with a 3, then the colon, then a second number. Divide the two numbers and that is your gear ratio. For example, 39:10 is a 3.90. 37:10 is a 3.70. And 39:11 is a 3.54. Yep, that's an open diff. I have one like it that I bought as a CLSD, too. Lots of us have learned the hard way. The axles you have are rusty but good. Have fun rebuilding them. You bought a nice car. Can you send me your source for your rear wing and take some pictures of the attachment side of it?

Sounds good. Post lots of videos.

That's just my experience, a single experience. Intellectually, it seems like you have something broken in the pressure plate.

I warped my flywheel right after my swap by letting it out slowly at the drag strip thinking I was being easier on the axles. (Cooked that sucker). The warpage made it seem like my clutch disc was extra thick and it wouldn't disengage fully. I now let it out fast. If you've been driving that way, perhaps you have the same problem, so good-on-ya for having the parts on hand. I also recommend proving the operation of your clutch master cyl. Put a plug in the outlet hole (isolates the master). The clutch should be solid as a rock. Then put light pressure on it see if it leaks down slowly. My Tilton was brand new and it was bad-plugging it found the hydraulics problem. In other words, I had two reasons for similar symptoms. Funny, I have fantasized that the external hydraulic system of the LT/T56 was somehow easier to deal with.

Texas300, you gonna be showing your car or beating the hell out of it? Before johnc mass produced his subi conversion stubs he asked me to install them, challenge them, tear down and inspect them for defects. THEN, he put them into production. I took them to the track and dropped clutch and did four full throttle gear changes on them 90 times before I inspected them by his protocol (granted that was with an L6, but that's what that system was designed for). You game for that? I foresee same problem as SunnyZ. We need a forward crossmember to bolt to, and according to old posts, we need both the mustache bar and the front mount to be either rubber/poly or solid, but not one of each. If you could design one, I think most guys serious enough to invest in this much of a mod would be willing to weld or pay a welder. And when I say "invest", I don't mean just money-this is gonna take time to assemble, and every time I fix something AGAIN, it takes a little bit of my Z-love and steps on it. I dont know how many re-dos i have left in me. If ANYBODY can do this, it is Will.