blueovalz

And I thought it was "noz" all this time.

Try this site. They carry 3 different, but highly recongized manufacturers products. http://www.bakerprecision.com/rodend1.htm Also, www.trueschoice.com sells a lot of fomula stuff too, as well as www.racerpartswholesale.com

Greimann brings up a good point here. I replaced my headlights (again, due to body mods) with a much smaller light. I wanted the Acura headlights (those small round ones) but salvage was very expensive on these. So I use the PIAA 110watt pencil beam driving lights. Yes, they are most likely illegal, but I do not plan on driving at night. BUT, just in case, I did wire in a 240 watt 1/2 ohm resistor to each side. This brought the intensity down to where it will not create a problem with oncoming drivers, but still allows plenty of illumination. One good thing about pencil beams focused pattern is that it only takes a few degrees of downward angle to significantly reduce the glare to other drivers. I do miss the wide pattern though.

I believe there is a "Gateway Z club" up there, and I've seen one of our members, that live up there, on this list. Some day when I go up to visit some of my family up there, I hope to make contact with both.

This is exactly why I do not bond glass to metal. The durability of the "fix" is directly proportional to the work put into it. If you plan on being buried with this car in old age, then the long of it is to remove the quarters/flares (which ever is the problem), remove the rust between the two (because there WILL be rust), and then either bonding it with the current technology epoxy/bonding agents, or an even more protracted fix, is to make them bolt-on. If you don't plan on keeping it more than a few years, then grinding out the crack, laying in new glass (or bondo depending on how severe it is), and finishing it up. As far as the crack in the glass, you will need to v-groove along the crack. If it goes all the way through the material, then stop the goove just as it breaks through the intire thickness of the panel. make it at least 5X the depth of the groove. Then if possible, determine what weight or type of mat/cloth was originally used, and the mat/resin ratio so that it can be duplicated to keep the newly added fix in the same strength/flexibility range that the original material is. If not, over time, the fix will become more visible as stresses will be focused on the transition between the two sides of the fix. A lot more can be said on this, but I'm trying to keep it reasonably brief.

Alright, that does it. No more Bud this late at night. Hell, I'm seeing two of everything now.

Kevin, I sure hope you stick with that inliner for awhile, 'cause you won't have anything to gripe about if it gets yanked out (he he he)

Thanks for the history lesson. I have a book with a photo in it of the differential being replaced in the Z at LeMans. It does not surprise me because even though I've never had an failures of my R200, It still gets very warm and pukes a small amount of oil out the breather when driven for any length of time. BTW, an ex Litzinger Racing '79 280ZX is for sale in the AW classifieds. Needs engine repair, but will be let go for the tidy sum of 18 kilobucks, OBO.

My understanding of the purpose of this oil is to provide a medium for heat transfer from the insert housing to the strut housing, thus keeping the internals of the strut cooler. An air gap between the two is considered a less efficient transfer of heat than the oil is. I used transmission fluid in mine.

If that. There is not a lot of room in the housing for the oil (provided you have the correct insert for the size of housing.

I did not quite understand the "tweakage" in your TC rod, but isn't the lower control arm/TC rod assembly basically an "A" arm set-up anyway. There are (IMHO) other easier ways to get adjustable caster. The one that comes to mind is a heim jointed lower arm, and spacers on the TC bushing or a threaded TC rod (both of which are sold by one of our members). Also, the majority of the forces (compressive) impressed into the chassis from braking are distributed quite well into the OEM unibody reinforcement through the TC rod. So you would want to use this pick-up point, which I think you wanted to do anyway. With that said, then a spherical bearing or the nylon/aluminum bushing replacement may be an advantage, but then you completely eliminate any shock resistance that the rubber bushings provide (should you bump a curb or something), thus risking a bent rod or worse yet, unibody (but in F Prepared, who drives around town)

Why is it said that the same cam for a BB is more "radical" if placed in a SB. I would think that regardless of the displacement, the timing vs piston position being identical for both motors would create identical curves for both motors (obviously, the SB curve would be under the BB curve though).

I think your observation is correct. I also remember using the brakes both ways (swapping front and rear) and not noticing any bias or braking problems.

SCCA is correct. I've got the '84 Z31 rear rotors on my 240SX and they are just over 11" in diameter. And when I bought these, I compared them to the same year turbo version and the only difference on these rear rotors is the bolt pattern only.

Thanks for re-focusing this sting to a NA set-up. It's been very good reading along with some other strings. I've learned some good things I've done, and some bad, and I guess in the end it really won't matter 'cause I aint yanking the motor to change a few things that really won't amount to a tinkers damn on the street.

My '84 four lug had a 10.75" diameter rotor. What caliper are you making reference to when you say that the pad is place too far away from the axle centerline? When I put these rotors on the front, I had to actually reduce the size slightly to get them under the calipers I was using at that time (280ZX calipers).

Instead of a Gremlin, would a Matador or Pacer do?? (sorry, I couldn't help myself)

It is possible to fit an 8"/245 combo on the front without flares using stock spring set-ups. Anything wider than that will pretty much require some flaring. And even moderately-to-highly prices wheels can be had in large widths even in the 4 lug pattern (mine are 11"/315 combos)

I've got 2.5" coil-over struts with 5" backspacing, and that is about the limit on the front, with just a bit more on the back. 6.5" sounds like a lot. Take the wheels off the car, then use a carpenter's square to find how much backspacing you can get away with. Do this by placing one inside edge of the square flat against the hub (wheel mounting surface), and then rotate the hub around a bit (with the square firmly held against the hub) while measuring on the other leg of the square how many inches inboard of clearance you will have. Make sure the inboard pointing end of your square is at a radius out from the hub that accurately represents the radius of the rim (Advertised wheel diameter + 1.5" then divided by 2), and just as importantly, the section width of the tire (in reality, you can use any right angled square of the correct size). Be sure to not focus on the strut only because the front and rear of the wheel wells will also surprise you, and may indeed be the contraining dimension. you may also want to consider setting the weight of the car on the measured suspension to make sure any measurements are undistorted due to the full droop of the suspension at the time of the measurement.

Back spacing is the distance between the edge of the back lip (side of the wheel that faces the strut) and the wheel mounting face, hence the name "back spacing". Not to be confused with offset, which is the rim's centerline plane distance from the same wheel mounting face. Thus a wheel with zero offset is exactly centered over the wheel mounting face.

Many times I hear where folks say the DP works better than the VS. This has always confused me because in theory, the VS should only operate when the additional mixture it provides is needed. And thus it should be able to maintain the vacuum signal and carb "size" at a more optimum level than my foot ever could using a DP. Any comments?

With small holes, I would think any medium would suffice. Larger areas though, should be repaired with the same material as what is being repaired. It must have the same maliability and rigidity as it's "parent" material, or stresses will be developed at the joints. Anything that can be removed with bolts is not part of the unibody. In general, only large areas of missing material will substantially effect the strength of the unibody (given these large areas are not at places where panels come together into corners or angles).

I've always been a Holley man, but my 2 x 4 set-up uses a couple of 500 AFBs. I really like the secondary system on them, (it's kinda like points vs electronic ignition), the AFB secondary is too simple for anything to go wrong, and you can actually see them pivot slightly with WOT blips.

This is a tough problem to diagnose with your pants seat. A properly operating secondary system will not be felt. It may be the the diapham may be ruptured, thus the vacuum signal is not "sealed". A quick, but strong blip of the throttle while the engine is running can many times just barely get the secondary to start to open. But you have to get some real air moving to do this, so don't expect to see the secondary move unless you get to a high rpm to see this. Also a plugged circuit to the diapham, and lastly, and very commonly, a too large a carb will be a cause of no secondary action. Is the 3310 one of the old 780 designs?

My similar problem was self-induced. Too small an underdrive pulley on the crank. finally had to go back to the OEM size pulley.