blueovalz

Yep. I an effort to make it legal enough to get tags for the car, I had to add some headlights, and other things. Then I went ape-$#!t and added a lower lip, removed the drip rails, changed a few (a lot) of little things, and ended up ready to paint again. I love fiberglass!

I've never noticed any warpage. It may be there in the sense that it is temporary when it's hotter under the hood than on top, but during all the years I've had mine, it's never happened that I could tell. The good thing about these hoods is that the "power bulge" that runs down the center of the hoods strengthens it in that direction.

Follow-up on this query: For Tokico fans, here are the options I was given, reference finding a good insert for shortened 240 strut tubes. The RZ1100 is very similar to the insert I am currently using. It is again, a "generic" insert, that is non-adjustable, pressurize gas, designed for spring rates in the 160-400lb/inch range, and cost ~$98/insert. The body is 11.6" long and 42mm in diameter. The second option is part # BZ1073, which is an adjustable gas insert, that is designed for a wide range of VW products. It costs ~$170/insert, has a body that is 12.6" long and 1.6" in diameter, and I was told should work well with spring rates up to about 300lb/in.

The Tech overview is interesting. Without a more intense investigation, their claims appear to be quite reasonable, and performance increases are not out of line. I made a true ram-air for my 240SX that gave me enough of a power increase that my "passing" time around a vehicle (at highway speeds) in 5th gear was nearly the same as it was in 4th gear before the ram-air. In fact, it was almost the same gain as the Unorthodox racing pulley improvement. Their claim of 1/2 lb of pressure at the intake also appeared very reasonable. Would I buy it? Probaly not, but this is the first electric charger I've seen that I felt was not blatantly overstating their performance. Very interesting.

If it took two years to break this crossmember, then consider replacing it and look forward to another 2 years of abuse. Just change it out with every tire change (ha ha)

A while back I had posted concerns about solid mounting only one end of the diff. It's kinda like using a solid engine mount on one side, and a flexible one on the other side. The engine will still move around (although somewhat restricted). The solid mount of this type of set-up will be minutely, but constantly flexed, and eventually fatigue, and then break, or tear out the material around it. Just like a wire that gets bent back and forth enough times. Either go full flexble mounts, or full solid. I have run solid mounts now for nearly 10 years with no failure using the OEM crossmember. In your case the solid mount was stronger than the crossmember was, so much so, that instead of it fatiquing to the point of failure, the stresses or flexing was passed on to the surrounding material that flexed into oblivion. You will most likely, even with poly mounts all the way around, not ever tear the crossmember ever again. Will the new mount hold up to whatever load you're putting on it? Don't know, but a stop (poly, rubber, etc)just over the top of the nose is a real good idea. One just high enough to not make contact in normal driving, but close enough to back up (restrict additional movement or tension loads) the mount when extreme loads are thrown to it.

I recently tore down the struts on my Z for inspection. All was fine, but it occured to me that I may want to find some spare strut inserts for future use. Currently I am using Tokico TZ3039 PRODRA-G inserts (on all fours) which was a drag race strut that Tokico made only for a few years. As unreasonable as this sounds, the damping in both directions worked quite well for the road courses. Anyway, on the the point; Tokico no longer makes these inserts, which have tubes 12.6" long, and 1-1116" in diameter. The insert is a good fit (almost snug) in the shortened struts. Questions: are these 240 size in diameter (when I built these I couldn't remember if I used 240 or 280 strut tubes)? Also, is anybody running other types of inserts in their "shortened" struts, and if so what are they?. Thanks.

Very nice reading!!

You answered one question (solid front mount). Just curious, how did you mount the rear of the differential though. This may be a key point.

IF, and I mean if, you feel motivated to run down to Wal-mart, you can pick up four cheap bathroom scales for about $6 a piece. Place one under each wheel and weigh the entire assembly (I'm assuming that the whole thing weighs under 1200 lbs??). Then when you are finished, weigh it again without the unibody attached. I sure would like to know what the unibody weighs by itself. When I had mine tore down, I estimated it at about 300 or so lbs, but did not rotisserize it. Just curious what they actually weigh.

For those truely desperate to break loose this nut, here is what I did in the garage one day. I used two bolts in the flange (but the pipe wrench would have probably worked better) Anyway, with the rear of the car up on a floor jack, I set up a breaker bar with a socket to hang about 45 degrees toward the drivers side, and then with another bar that was wedged between the bolts in the flange, I hung it at a 45 degree angle toward the passenger side. Then I lowered the car down with the floor jack until the floor made contact with both bars, then, let let the jack down all the way (thus making the floor force or spread the two bars apart). On the second "more agressive" attempt, the floor spread the bars and broke loose the nut. I did on the second attempt place a block over the top of the diff nose to keep the flexing down, and not bust the front mount (I had no compressor motor, and thus was thrown back into the stone age again).

The rear curved crossmember is to clear the differential cover plate. On the very early ('70 only I think) 240's, the differential was ~1" further forward, thus a straight crossmember worked, but with the differential moved rearward (to a much better location) 1" on all later models, then the crossmember needed to have a curve put in it to still clear the rear cover (because the this crossmember itself remained in the same location for all Z models).

The term "popular" is a little misleading. Out of all the conversions in this forum, It would be an overstatement that even 10% of our members have a Ford conversion vs the GM swaps. With that said, I would still do it again with a Ford (289/302)due to it's slightly smaller dimensions, significant weight savings, and yes, even giving up the 50 cubes on average. If this 4 speed is a top loader, then I'm not sure you will find any mounts made for it (or even a t-5 for that fact). One of our members did or is making motor mounts it think. Check the "search" for this (he may also reply here too). I chose a more complicated mounting system of motor plates, which has it's own advantages depending on what your goal is, but wouldn't recommend this for a daily driver. Lastly, welcome to HybridZ, and especially to the Ford side of the fence (we really have no fences here).

Here are my thoughts or rather experience. Back in '76 when I bought my first car ('71 Pinto-yeah, I hear all you guys out there laughing, but it really was a good car), I dogged it (headers, 390 holley, etc) until it started knocking. It was a periodic knock, just as you describe, and if I kept the rpms just right, it would go away. It did get progressively worse, and toward the end, the "quiet" rpm range had deminished to a very narrow band, but by then I had set up an A-frame and swapped to a new motor late Saturday night at the apt complex I lived at, and finished up Sunday morning just in time for the owners of the complex to drive by and see the carnage on the way to church. Lessons learned: 1) After tearing down the motor, I found the a rod bearing that was nearly gone, and that was where the noise came from. 2) Found out how expensive it was to have to move to another apt complex after the owner kicked me out of my current apt.

I can't offer a difinitive answer on that, but I can't imagine Nissan not standardizing the stub axles between the two so that the companion flanges fit both. The only way to give you a better idea if it will work is to remove the companion flanges on your 83, and count the splines. You will need 25 splines (on the stub itself) to allow the swap to work.

That's a fine and unique rear end with the 300zx lights??. I wouldn't put the rear bumper back on, but instead find a way to "dress" the rear portion under the lights. Yes, there seems to be a lot of unused space under the lights. It would be neat if somehow a form of dual exhaust could be run through the valance panel, but with a stock tank back there, that would not be practical. Perhaps a spoiler on top to "balance" out the painted area under the lights would help too. Regardless, the rear looks good on it's own merit even now.

I know! I know! This is a 240sx diff. It is an R200, but the casing is similar to the R230. It may have a LSD, but it would be on a Super HICAS (rear steer) option, which is very rare. I am absolutely certain about the diff though, 'cause it's the same one under my '92 240sx.

If you are removing the entire drip rail, be aware (on my '71 anyway) that the lead is also at the top corner of the windshield, and the bottoms of the "A" pillar.

Racing seats provide a channel for the shoulder harness to pass through, thus the top part of the harness is always in an optimum position for restraint should it be necessary. I do not have OEM seats in mine, but if I remember correctly, the headrest gradually tappers and widens down to the back support, thus I have serious reservations as to whether the shoulder harness can be kept in it's proper position (high on the shoulder).

The driveshaft will always have a certain amount of looseness in that it can be rotated a few degrees each way due to clearances in the pinion and spider gears, as will the u-joints. A wornout u-joint is best found with it "unloaded". So you will need to place the car on a flat surface, take it out of gear so that all the drivetrain is un-stressed, and then start pushing and pulling at the joints. I've always found this to work better at finding the bad joint than twisting the shafts. Don't forget to inspect the front diff mount too.

Is not a P7 a street tire? Mounting, or more acurately, running a street tire on a true racing wheel can have hazardous if not lethal consequenses. I sort of disregarded this warning with some 3 piece lightweight racing wheels (these were road racing, and not drag racing wheels) and sure enough I soon regreted it. As warned, the wheel halves started cracking at the bolt locations where the parts where bolted together. It took only a couple of months for this to happen (only on 2 wheels, but I removed all of them immediately), and I can only imagine what would have happened had I not noticed this while cleaning the wheels one day. The best info I've received on this is that the heavier tires (the street tires where nearly twice the weight of the Goodyear rubber they replaced), higher air pressures (going from 20lbs to 30lbs), and the condition of your typical streets are all contributors to damaging these wheels. All along I was under the impression that if it can stand up to the racing environment, then the street is no problem. Please invest some time investigating this before you commit to doing this. Who knows, you may get lucky.

It's a shame regardless of how much money you spend. For many, many years, I always had the impression Hennessey was a reputable as, dare I say it, Enron. More and more, the bottom line is all that matters, and to hell with honor and dignity. That's why I got out of painting aircraft and cars. I spent so much time and effort to make the jobs "worthy" of my name, that I couldn't justify the time spent, so I quit doing it and went back to working for the utilities again.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/zerothread?id=234868 Interesting info if your planning any business with John Hennessey.

I don't have the math in front of me, but I do remember the scenerio of "moving the radiator backward a few inches" example in weight re-distribution on race cars. The one thing I do remember about it is that with the fairly small amount of weight involved, and the limited amount of movement available, that the practical advantages for even racing applications is almost negligible.

Acceleration is just a small part of the picture in weight loss. The lighter car also handles better and stops better. Obviously a max-lean Z may not be practical for a daily driver, but it makes the car feel so much more nimble.