blueovalz

I made a ram air set-up for my 240SX. First pieces I made did not work real well, but after a few lips here and there on the intake scoop, and going larger on the duct tube, the result was pleasing. The passing power on the highway in 5th gear is now as good as it was in 4th gear before set-up was made. For pics and ideas look at http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumList?u=1541023 and look at the "240SX Ram Air" album.

A technique I've had great success with is to slightly dimple the holes (slightly indent the holes from the normal surface). Then the bondo will have a lot of area in which to bond to and prevent the hole from popping out of the center of the bondo. For a 1/8" hole a dimple about 3/4" in diameter and about an 1/8" deep(this is only an example) has worked well. It's not the purest way, but it will stay put. Terry

With all else being equal, extending your wheel base forward should slightly improve the ride quality over bumpy roads, bias the weight distribution toward the rear, and I think the polar moments will improve being the front tires will be moved further away from the center of mass. In other words (and I'm waiting for some more knowledgeable advice here) there should be an improvement in handling, if only minor. The bodywork may be a challenge being the GTO is just a bundle of compound curves (beautiful curves), so being able to extend these will take some good eyeballing in order to blend the different radii (spelling?) when adding (splicing) material here. Terry

I run larger rotors with the floating 280ZX calipers. The reason I chose these was because the 4 puck Toyota calipers extend beyond the wheel mounting surface on the hub enough so, that wheel spacers are required (unless the wheels you have has an unusual amount of space between the spokes and the hub. Price: when I did this 8 years ago, it cost a grand total of $200 for the good salvage parts (this was for all four wheels). The ZX calipers do not extend outward this far, and thus my "normal" wheels do not require a wheel spacers. As the money gets a little greener, I plan on the SCCA treatment, but will require a different backspacing on the brake hub before I purchase them. Terry

What parts of the front clip do you want to extend. The part behind (rearward) the front wheels (i.e extending the wheel base)? Or perhaps a little on both sides of the front wheels? Terry

Believe it or not...a hot glue gun (low temp works fine). I sticks to just about everything to a point. Just don't get the glue on a part of the joint that has to be sanded. This causes a raised spot because the glue will not sand like the foam does and will require extra care and work at any joint where the foam has been sanded down to the glue. TIP: I got some sticky back sanding sheets (for air files), stuck them to the surface of the car that the foam was going to sit on, and then ran the foam piece over this paper in very short strokes. This then sands down the bottom of the foam and thus makes the bottom of the foam piece match the contour of the body (somewhat). This gives the foam more contact area to glue with. Terry

And all this time I thought you six-ers didn't have a sense of humor.

I can measure the dimension if you wish, but I found that an engine plate attached to the block between the block and the timing chain cover, will come close enough to sitting over the OEM Z engine pedestals, that simple angle brakets would allow the mount. This use of the OEM engine mounts was predicated on my use of tires no larger that 215 widths (this was to allow the tires to be the weak link for traction, instead of the engine mounts. Also, I considered modifying the OEM Datsun mounts to be compression loading instead of tension loading on the left side (a safety measure to prevent mount from separating at the rubber) if I chose to go with larger tires out back. Terry

Weld-in (or at least I've never heard of bolt-on pieces. A descent wire welder will help a lot. First thing I'd check is how bad the rust is. "kind of rusting" indicates to me the corrosion is not terminal yet, so I would consider a good cleaning, a rust converter, and lastly sealing it real good. It not real hard work, just time consuming if you want the job to look good. Terry

Never could get the image up, but I think most of "our" V8 Z-cars have a factory or lower ride height. I've got a 2.5" ground clearance, so the fact that a V8 resides in the front is not really an issue of a desired stance.

Boy, I hate to say this, but I do have the exact same size rotors on the front as on the back. NOW, with that said, the set-up worked well when I had 2" wider tires in the back than the front ones, and with the proportioning valve biased all the way. BUT, now that I have the same size tires all the way around, and with a slightly smaller piston caliper in back, and with the proportioning valve at full bias, it barely is balanced. My next big expense is the front (stage 3???) rotors SCCA has. Then I think I will be fully satisfied with the set-up. Front rotors really do need to be larger, or rear caliper piston a good bit smaller. Terry

If your plans are to have the tires extending past the edges of the fenders, then IMHO the fenders would need to be cut (unless the car is so high that there would never be any contact of the tire to the fender). On my rear flare, I cut 2.5" off the top of the arch (same arch radius, except raised 2.5"). Then hammered the steel wheel well upward on the outside half of the well, to where it met the new arch, then I lapped the new arch around the edge of the raised wheel well, and welded the two together from front of the arch to the rear to bring the unibody rigidity back. The new lip is now more of a 90 degree joint of the wheel well and quarter panel. The flare then covers this because it is well below (about 2") this point.

My understanding of brake systems has led me to believe that the rotor thickness has nothing to do with the actual pressure applied to the surface of the rotors. It is directly related to the cooling charactoristics of the rotor though. My opinion in the matter is that you would want equal heat build-up and dissapation between the front and the rears for them to remain ballanced for any given condition. In this sense, the rear rotor may need to be thinner, or of a different design, provided both front and rear rotors are the same diameter. But IMHO, for spirited street/slalom racing, stick with piston size, and rotor diameter differences between the two.

Excellent idea. This way some serious metal would have to fail before the front of the diff got loose.

On all my parts, the foam is either dissolved (with acetone if the foam will react to chemicals) out or simply broken out in pieces. None of the bigger pieces have the foam in them, EXCEPT for new expandable foam that was put back into the quarter panels for purposes of water proofing the space between the OEM quarter, and the fiberglass quarter panel. This was only done after my decision to make the car street legal and the possibility of driving it on wet streets. After the foam was sprayed in, I cut the new "well" to shape and then undercoated. In your question I made the part, removed it, removed the foam inside, laid wet glass strips on the quarters at all locations that the new glass quarter panel would make contact with the OEM steel panel, then while the glass was still wet, I laid the new glass panel on top of this wet glass and set it. Then when the glass kicked, I popped the panel off, so that now the glass panel had a surface that now perfectly matched the contour of the steel panel in every way. Then I just pop riveted it on the top, inside the door jams, and along the rear panel and under the steel quarter panel (much to my surprise I have had many complements as to the "competitive" look of the riveted panels). I do not recommend any bonding of glass to metal. Always, and I will defend this opinion adamantly, a glass to metal bond will eventually separate, causing rust marks and cracks in paint (different expansion coefficients, vibrations, imperfect bonds, etc). I have not ever used the current technology epoxies, and these may work very well. This is why I always either bolt, rivet, or Dzeus parts on to steel (also makes it much easier to R & R if something happens). Now glass to glass works well, and like I told MIKELLY, if you want to heavily modify a front end with fiberglass, the best start is with a fiberglass front end that can have the new glass parts bonded onto it, instead of onto the OEM steel parts. (Sorry about the loooonnnng post) Terry

nezzie76 (and anybody else who may be interested), you can look at a more detailed description of how I built this body at http://www.carolinazclub.com/cotw/car1.htm with a few pictures included (a longer version of a previous post here at Hybridz). Also, there are some pictures of the "virgin" glasswork midway through the construction process at http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumList?u=1541023 (look under the "Z fiberglass work") for these particular pictures. Don't let this work intimidate you. All the cars on HybridZ are an accumulation of smaller, simpler, easy steps, that all put together make what appears to be large, complicated projects. Like lonehdrider said, learn on small projects like vents, scoops, anything you need to make. Heck, I even made the air filter holder out of fiberglass on my Z because the round ones wouldn't fit under the hood. Your imagination is the only limit. I didn't know a thing about glasswork till I read a book, which gave me about 20% of what I needed. Then making "stuff" gave me another 50% of what I needed to learn. The other 30% will take another 40 more years to learn. Terry

If I remember correctly (used to set up my 9" rear ends a lot) the coast side of the teeth will not neccessary be correct just because the drive side is. My guess is the backlash is excessive, BUT, if you tighten this up, then it may ruin the pattern already set for the drive side of the teeth, which really means re-setting up the rear again. I was extremely surprised at the small setting for backlash that the OEM R200 uses compared to the 9" set-ups I used to do. It really was hard to re-adjust my mind to feeling comfortable with these tight set-ups. Terry

Drewz has the idea down real good. Patience and allowing plenty of time are the key. If you try this in too few a passes, you chance stretching the lip, so a little bit at a time. The heavier the dolly the better the job will turn out. I even used a piece of 3/4" X 4" X 8" steel plate (it did not bounce back) covered with and old T-shirt. Once done, be sure to undercoat the area real good. This keeps water from sitting in the bottom (inside) of the lip.

I think I have the same bleeder (bottle with a magnet on it?) that you have, it it works very well for bleeding. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but the squeal on brakes is between the pad and the piston, not the pad and the rotor. With this compound between the two (pad and piston) it removes the metal to metal contact (vibrations). If you have the SS shim that goes between the two, this will help a lot too. Terry

I got Autometer to send me their package of 3 covers (green) for free. The sales lady made it sound very 'matter of factly' that this was a routine thing to send these out to those needing them. She told me to talk to the teck line and ask for them. I did, and they sent them free (with a catalog) Terry

Well, I hate to see any post go unanswered, so if I put a reply out here, perhaps I can get a rebuttal. It seems a while back on the 240SX site, that a string about this came to the conclusion (via some CHIP info some anonymous sender sent) the the distance from the ground up to the bottom edge of the wheel rim is "supposed" to be the legal minimum ground clearance. Now why any law enforcement group would ever enforce this, I wouldn't know, but that is the small amount of info I gleaned from that string. Terry

I'd love to take credit for doing this, but no, the drip rail is still on the car, and yes, I did strongly consider their removal. I have kept the integrity of the unibody thus far, and was very concerned about the loss of strenght and flexing (causing the re-welded seams to show thru later in life) at these locations. I am again considering the mod since I have to re-paint the car anyway. I did fill in the vent hole, and never regretted the looks of doing this though. Terry

Hi Ross You've pretty much already got the idea. The clip (plate) and spring can be put on from any other one. If I remember right, the inside of the boot was exposed when this happened and could have allowed some grit or dirt into the joint? On mine, I have to pull the strut out a an inch or so to put this plate and spring back on, so the same work I would think is involved with replacing the shaft as a whole. I can't imagine that there is no damage to the flange lip (how did you even find the spring when all this came apart????). If the car is only jacked up on one side, no fluid will come out that side of the diff. Good luck Terry

No tech pages here, but my 10:1 runs easily on 92. When I had 12:1 domed pistons, I ran combination avgas and premium which by my calcs was a tad bit above 96 with no problems. But John brings up a good point. Combustion chamber shape, plug heat range, camshaft variables that affecting dynamic compression ratio, any hot spots, timing, etc, etc, etc. This one has no simple answers.

I feel another key to this is the tire compound and size. When a 225 (for example) gets enough torque, it's going to be the weak link that breaks. Put a 12" wide, soft compound slick on the same car, and the resulting weak link may develope elsewhere. This is one reason I have not actively seached for a LSD. I get a nice pattern without it, but when one side (tire traction) breaks loose, I consider it a "popoff" valve for the drivetrain (note: this is for street use, as an LSD is most desireable for the road course). Terry