blueovalz

Squid; I've been enlightened once again Oh, BTW, nice strut bar!

I believe that if'n you don't understand sumpt'n, then you should ask a question: Jon, what is with the "no squid" avatar? What does it mean?

I cannot imagine a Z hood without the center bulge. Now to expand on what you said about your original vent that you wanted, consider the GT40 (not sure which model) that was required by the FIA to carry a spare tire. What the designer did was basically keep the large radiator vent, but then inserted the round spare tire container that intruded into the up-ramp at the rear half of the vent, thus almost splitting the vent into two left and right halves. I looked very good, and had I kept the L6 motor, I would have done the same. I would have built the hood pretty much as I did anyway, an then build a bulge of sorts that would fit around the front of the valve cover (as part of the hood), thus splitting the vent into a left and right side.

Congrats! Effective and cost efficient at the same time. Good job.

Owen, I love the vents, and even more so, love the fact that you spent the time and effort to build them yourself.

Do I understand your "hourglass" design to mean increasing the area, or depth, in the mid section of the car?. This is similar to what many jet engine designs are based on in that increasing the area (in this case, the clearance from the car to the ground) slows down the air speed (anti-ventury effect), which increases the air pressure. It would seem this would increase the pressure under the car, which is a no-no.

It was strictly race, but the money got scarce a while back, and I gave up the truck and trailer, and it sat in a garage for years. My lovely spouse eventually suggested I race it, or sell it, but do something with it, so I embarked on setting it up as much as was possible for use on the street (exhause, DOT wheels and tires, lights, fans, etc). I then decided that if I was to drive it on the street, then some aesthetic enhancements were in order so that I could make the local car shows from time to time. Hence, the additional detailing the bodywork, rear end changes, exhaust changes, and miscellaneous other things. It's not wholly "legal", but close, so I try to keep from drawing the attention of the local constabulary when I do drive it by acting fairly civil. Now if I could only bring myself to cut up some of the cage so that I wouldn't be required to crawl in through the window......

Looks like a great job you've done getting these mounts set up. More pictures to follow????????

I knew there was some testosterone in your car somewhere.

I know this is of little consolation, but thank your lucky stars this was the only damage. It appears from the pictures that the only thing that got popped was the bumber and the panel below the bumper. I'd pull the bumper back out, and attempt to hammer out the valance (if you can find enough room behind it to hammer it out).

Ok, so I'm reading your post, and looking back at my rear (the Z, not mine) and am thinking, what is a power ranger and what are the dimples. Then it hit me as I saw it, and I had to laugh!

Spent the entire day painting less than 1/2 the car. But it's getting closer. Everything is painted except the front clip (sans the hood) and the metal parts (roof, pillars, and quarter panels. Tomorrow, the front clip, and the the main body hopefully by Tuesday. As the coon-ass would say, I-EEEEEE!!!! The tail light panel is now a semi-flat "gunmetal" color (as is the framing for the valance vent below the panel): And the clearcoat glossed out nicely. Me, reflected in the door.

If you wait long enough, a new picture will show up from Dan and Tim if their awesome hybrids. On a side note....Dang it, this is the last time I log on after drinking two (yes, only 2 measly beers) beers. I keep hitting the wrong keys, I have to batrack on every sentence, and I just now uturned my can over on the keyboard. Jeez!

Thanks Mike, you brought back some neat memories with that one. You and Ross were my first calls concerning the Kit Car article. I humbly appreciate you kind words

That's the way to fire 'em up Mike!

Jon, I ran out of the white paint (took 3 coats), so I had to go back an get some more for the roof.

But you probably thought it would before you'd see this. For you older members, it is official, the BlueovalZ is fixin' (that's Arkansan for "about") to be blue again (finally). Here is the preparation for the white stripes. Tomorrow I wet sand them, and then next week mask the stripes off, and then hit the overall car with Indigo blue.

Right on! No one ever challenges me any more, which has taken the fun out of a lot of the street theme. It's not that I thrive on street racing, but a hard 1-2 pull will satisfy me for a long time. A hard pull in 3rd starts getting scary for me on any street or highway. The other day, I kept waiting for a Ferarri 360 spider (can't believe anybody in Little Rock actually has one of these) to "talk" to me one day, but instead he eventually turned left into a Jeffy Lube To answer Ferd/289, my best estimate based on software and the engine's parts, I'm estimating about 395hp at 7800 rpm, but as you can see, the torque is not so hot. But with that said, it just about enough to ruin a set of 315's in 1st gear, but safely tractable in the rest of the gears, which was what I wanted. Not too much torque, but the ability to keep the torque over a wide rpm range. As soon as the paint goes on, I'm headed to the dyno here in town and verify these numbers.

This "shrinking" process is something to watch. One of my Tesla buddies made a quarter shrinker as well as a can crusher (uses same principle). In his set-up, the coil he used to produce the intense magnetic field around the "subject" pretty much vaporizes when the huge current discharge passes through it, and it doesn't explode quietly. He had to put all this stuff in a bullet proof box, and even then it was quite un-nerving to be in the same room when he threw the switch. Now he's working on a rail-gun (repulsion) project. So far he's slung a 6" copper disc about 50 ft into the air. Amazing stuff.

Yep, I've seen these cracks in the paint on numerous Zs. I've never experienced this myself, so either I am extremely lucky, or the methods of stiffening the unibody (cage and tower bracing) really do work.

Adding upon Tims comment, I used a cut-off tool to cut within 1/8" of being flush with the roof so that I had material to weld (the two exterior pieces come together for the rail). After carefully welding (stich welded it over time to prevent excessive heat concentrated in one area) it back together after cutting off the rail, I bondo'd it and primed it. I've got some photos as the site below (under the drip rail album) that shows what I did). It is a lot of work, but in my opinion it was well worth it in regards to aesthetics (especially being I dont drive this car in the rain).

The SS braided brake line I've used in the past had a teflon type of liner on the inside. Clamping the hose to the point of stopping all fluid movement would IMHO permanently weaken and disfigure the. I'd not do it.

To the best of my knowledge there isn't but one or two members with the S130 SBF swap. Perhaps one of them will see this post and chime in. In the mean time, if you've got the R200 rear end, you should be fine as far as the differential goes, but will be better off with the ZX Turbo half-shafts (these use CV joints) installed instead of the U-jointed half-shafts.

Your '77 should have the R200 differential, which is the "bigger" of the sets offered in the Z series. This differential should be plenty tough for the HO motor, and then some. The generally agreed upon weakness in the rear drivetrain area is the U-jointed half shafts. Some members here have had good luck with these, but I feel it's only due to nearly perfect angularity in the U-joints. For the most part though, the ZX Turbo CV jointed halfshafts are an improvement over the U-jointed ones. This requires some particular parts to work though; 1) 240Z axles and the ZX shafts and companion flanges, or 2) The conversion kit to mate the ZX shafts to the 280Z axles (which Ross at Modern Motorsports offers). After you've done this, then you should get lots of reliable miles out of the drivetrain. There are a variety of gear ratios, which I am not an expert on. But I believe they range from ~3.3 up to 3.7 in OEM configuration (And higher as I've got a 4.11) Victory British is where I purchased my carrier bearings and seals from, but they did not offer the pinion gear bearings for the R200. Last, but not least, do a careful search for this info in the archives being careful on key words (e.g. R200, CV joints, ZX Turbo shafts, etc). There is a ton of info on this subject just waiting for an eager reader such as yourself.

I don't think this resource for additional air flow is as popular as it used to be. I never saw much difference between the two heads (302 vs 351w) in performance. Being a bolt-on modification (without any porting) may have been what made it popular, but once porting is done, the difference becomes insignificant. As far as the milling to use screw-in studs, I believe the .2" is correct.