blueovalz

There is an open passage from the shifter to the main case, and I have added oil this way. The issue is that the openings are small, and it takes several minutes for the oil to slowly reach the main case. It was time consuming, but it was easier than through the plug at the time I did this.

That's what doing something no one has ever done is all about. Even doing it in one piece will present some minor warping. You will find (as I did) that when the welding is done on the single whole link, when the piece is cut in half, that it will "boing!" into place slightly differently than prior to the final separation. It's the nature of the beast when you weld. Just keep the filler material buildup to a minimum.

And to add to DAW's great suggestion, stick a pickle fork in between the steering arm and the rod end's housing prior to popping the steering arm with the hammer. Then when the arm momemtarily relaxes, the pressure on the rod end will help pop it out.

Glad to see you working on this project again Jon. I know you wanted the turnbuckle as close as possible with the plane of the link(s) mounting surface, but this should work fine as long as the bolts are not loosened to much when you make the adjustements. That way, the torque applied (this far off the mounting plane) will not distort or "bow" the new link assembly during the pull/push the turnbuckle creates during adjustments. Then when you cinch down the bolts after the adjustment is made, you've eliminated any small changes created by re-staightening out the link. You will be quite happy with this when finished. If it was not for the link I made last year, I'd never be able to "experiment" with various rear toe settings, and I have been quite surprised at how little adjustment is needed (as small as 1/2 turn - I'm using coarse threads) to change the character of the car (perhaps these wide tires amplify the toe issues). As obvious as it was, I failed to realize that 1/2 turn on a turnbuckle is equivalent to a full turn of thread pitch in regards to the bushing movement (the turnbuckle pulls/pushes on both threads at the same time). Over the 18" span of the bushings, a course thread 1/2" bolt (13 TPI) was equivalent to a toe change of .49º / 1/2 turn (no calculator here, just going on what I think I remember from last week). I'll quit rambling and ask for more progress pics when they come available.

This is an excellent example of what could be a "Pace Bus," or perhaps the "EMT transporter" for LeMans.

Very nice improvement Larry! I like the wheels too.

Thanks for the input Jon. My experience of progressive rates are two different rates of coilover springs stacked up on top each other. Wheelman; It sounds like you've had some good folks at Tokico to talk to, and this whole thing sounds like it will eventually work out fine (I'd swap out the springs as several have opined, especially in light of the fact you've still got some weight to put on them).

Interesting information there! If no spring compressor was used, then the free length of these springs must be fairly short, and would corraborate the spring rate you've stated. I would try to see if the Tech has internet access so that he could view your photos. Any progressive spring with the softer coils bound up at the static ride height is not good (and you don't even have all of the bodywork back on the car). Looking at the photo, I'd say you've got 1/4" to 3/8" gap between coils (only 7 coils), which means spring bind with 1 3/4" to 2 5/8" of suspension travel, and that again is not good. I don't like anything I see here other than a nice spring rate. How much additional weight will be added to make the car complete? Obviously, shortening the strut housing will not help at all (if this was a future modification)

Man, that appears to be one sorry-a$$ed spring. I've never seen one compress this bad before. I'd love to see what the height of this spring was prior to the install. It very much appears to be much too weak. BTW, is the left and right front springs reversed (it appears on one photo the top coils are compressed, but on the other side the bottom coils are compressed)? I assume these are variable rate (which are now linear rate)?

The 240z insert will work fine with a 240z strut tube. The "other" inserts are for those people, due to a lowered body, that have chosen to use a shorter insert (which is because they needed to shorten the strut tube). Unless you drop the car by more than an inch, and have some weak dampers, then you may be fine with the OEM length inserts.

Pop N Wood pretty much summed it up. The angularity issue is more for the lowered chassis. Add the typical Z quat on take-off, and the angles become dangerous to U-joints when combined with good bit of torque. We have had comments of long life U-joints, but I think these were with nearly perfect axle geometries.

Keep up the good work and keep the pictures coming! Can't wait to see it "all together."

As you can see in the photo below, the swaybar link is forward of the halfshaft (one that uses 280ZX joints). With a front mounted bar, I don't think you'll get into any problems, but with the rear mounted bar, you probably will. I did have problems at full droop, which is why I cut off the ends of the swaybar, and welded "L" brackets onto the cut ends. This bracket offsets the link (a Stanza ball/socket link) just enough so that no interference takes place.

Oooooooo! Titanium! And if I place this just under my "go fast" stickers (so everybody can see it) than the increase in hp is proportional to the square of the number of stickers I have. I've been looking for an easy fix to my timing chain noise and it's been under my nose all this time.

My view of the oil cooler is more a reliability/maintenance issue and not necessarily one of performance. In my car, without an oil cooler, my oil sits around the 210ºF, and on some high speed runs it may get up to 230ºF, so for me, I would not want to run it any cooler than that. There was a string not long ago about oil operating temperatures (try a search) and the problems with running oil not warm enough. Performance wise? I'd believe that the lower the temperature of the oil, the more hp it takes to circulate it through the block, plus the added weight of the cooler and plumbing. So it's a question of "do I really need one?” If you do need one, than the cooler is a means to prevent premature breakdown of the oil (or aid in keeping the engine temperatures down)

I taped of the entire wheel except for the center (this is why the masking took the majority of the time spent to paint these) with 3m masking tape. Near the edge being blasted I only had a single layer of the tape, and it held up fine with my little ol' home blaster (old Craftsman 1 quart aluminum jar 70 psi thing). The tape may have not lasted with a different medium or a higher pressure blaster, but this set-up etched the wheels very well. Here is a photo of the masking and base coat prior to the clear coat application.

I think I had my wheels (16 X 8), dang smilie, Eight) set for a backspacing of 4 5/8" which left about 3/8" between the section width and the strut. In regards to your last question, the wheel size of 7.5" is measured on the inside of the lip (where the bead of the tire is). The lip is usually .5 inches wide each, so the outside width of a 7.5" wheel is 8.5," PLUS the advertised width of a tire in millimeters (e.g 205, 225, etc) is the section width and not the tread width. So a 7.5" wheel is 215mm wide if measured on the outside edges. A 225mm tire on this wheel will have a "bulge" of about 5mm on each side with a tread width close to the wheel's width (or less).

I know! Is that not wierd how the light reflecting off the paint does that. After I looked at the photo, I had to go back out to the car and actually LOOK at the tire to make sure it was not as it seemed. Nice point on the front Tim. I remember thinking the same thing back when it was primered, but it never crossed my mind again (Hmmmm, I think something could be done here without damaging the paint....).

I had thought about powdercoating, but my compressor motor finally gave up the ghost, so the powdercoating money had to go into a new compressor motor. Thus I went the cheaper route (especially since these centers are so "deep", which will help reduce and potential chipping problems) and painted them. What I used was a Valspar DTM 2K epoxy product (DTM...Direct To Metal) instead of the acid wash. I blasted the wheels with a medium called "black beauty" which is an awesome fine medium which I believe is a coal slag product). Then I sprayed the DTM primer (2 part), The base coat (a dark charcoal/blue metallic), and then a clearcoat. The masking took most of the time as the painting was done in one afternoon. I tested some of this on a piece of aluminum, and it adheres very well. The shop salesman said this was what a lot of shops use to paint aluminum body panels. Caps are not finished yet.

I've always been a big fan of dark centers and bright rims (shells) and wanted to do this for years. Before: After:

The steel fenders add little to nothing in terms of stiffness to the unibody and yes, fiberglass can be heavier than the steel parts they replace, but this rarely has been true in the cases that I've witnessed. I'd go fiberglass, but I'm kinda partial to this stuff anyway.

The welding I did to the front strut was pretty straight forward. Datsun used a good quality steel in this area (I was so used to parts like this on American cars being cast iron that I was afraid to weld it) and welding it was very easy. Typical, good penetration, welding is all that is needed. Not sure what you are asking. This Supra set-up was put onto the car after the car was retired for street duty. I'm always screwing around for something to change on the car, and this was one of those things. I've recently even put a Cobra 13" rotor on a ZX hub that I was going to try, but these Supra rotors have only hit their thermal limits a couple of times since I've had them (no fad, but the pads were gassing). So I figured, why add a bunch more mass when these do fine for me now.

For the first time in 18 years it finally has a somewhat descent interior.

I'd like to know what specifically could be done to fix this. My understanding about using these coils is once the new threads are cut, and you still have problems, you're basically SOL. With that said, I'd consider legal action (even if it would be a "small claims" court). The excuse of a "performance engine" is BS because this has nothing to do with performance, it has to do with their work. Man, this kind of stuff burns me up.

No John, we (Yes, I'm the world's worst) like to see ourselves as "generous to a fault"