preith

That statement seems a bit contridictary to me. In my eyes, that's exactly why this should never had happened. One would think a company that's spending millions on R&D just for these cars would be able to prevent this. Ultimately the FIA gave them the most feasible solution which was something to the effect that they could come in as much as they want and change the tires. Ferrari has made many controversial moves in the past, but this is not one of them. If your competitor had any other thing on the car that was questionable, would the decision have been any different? Earlier this year Ferrari blew out a rear tire, went back out and blew the front. Those are the risks you take in racing.

Thanks Katman!

I watched the beginning of the race in disbeleif. It's amazing how Michelin was so quick to point blame at everyone esle when it was entirely their fault. This has to be one of the biggest blunders of all time. Apparently there was a test session earlier this year that NONE of the Michelin F1 teams went to. Also, the oval was repaved this year, but I guess the contractor did a really bad job and they had to bring a diamond grinder in and this consequently increased the traction greatly because of the grooves. They suspect this was part of the reason they had problems. Some of the guys on speed speculated that tire test info from Firestone trickled over to the Bridgestone guys and they were able to compensate for this.

Katman's right, don't even think about subframe connectors. When building a cage for IT, it's almost like you have one arm tied behind your back. You cannot have any firewall penetrations, and you cannot tie the unibody into the cage any where other than the termination points on the floor. For the rear strut bar, just weld a bar across the two strut tower down tubes to get around this. This works also serves as a great point for the harness shoulder straps. There was a good series of articles in the old Zcar Magazine which featured IT car build, including one issue/article entirely on cage construction that came out in about '97 or '98. The rules have changed a bit since then, but for the most part it's still a good guidline.

I just rebuilt a halfshaft and had forgotten how difficult they can be. I found it took a lot more patience than I originally thought. While putting them in with a press I found they wanted to get jammed sideways in the bore, and the more you tried to press them in the worse it got. I'd have to press them back out clean any ridges in the bore and try again.

There's not much more to add except that I have not done this yet, but plan to with the hex tubing that you mentioned. Also in going along with this, I still want to make a new crossmember and mount a Coleman or Appleton steering rack in place of the stock one. These come threaded for the inner tie rod ends and you can play with the height on that end too. The racks are square, easier to mount, and it wouldn't be too difficult to make a slotted mount tab to make VERY easy Ackerman adjustments. Cary had mentioned you can achieve all of this by modifying the stock rack, but I'm pretty much set on doing it this way. The only drawback, which I consider a positive, is because the splines on the stock column shaft are different, it can't be used, and I can't find any type of adapters. I was going to swap this all out with the stock car style shafting and rod ends. It my sound a bit complicated, but I don't think It'll be too bad. They also sell intermediate colaspable shafts which also double as and easy way to remove it from the car. I would think the end result would shave a little weight off too.

I agree, but he does have a link on there from an actual Fram engineer who felt their filters weren't up to snuff and vowed never to use one again.

There's a good study on filters that most of you have probably already seen, but here's the link: http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oilfilterstudy.html Unfortunately K&N was not included in the research, and that one I'd really like to know more about. IMHO Ford Motorcraft are one of the better bangs for the buck.

Like I said, check out the rule book. Maybe John can chime in, but I believe he had raced in ITS, but his last car was definetly not legal for that class. He was in some sort of open track challenge. ITS (improved touring) S just being the letter designation for the particular group which the Z is in, is very strict with how much you can do. The motor can be .040 over and balanced, but everything else MUST be stock, including the intake, AFM, etc You can't even run forged pistons, but I hear many guys are anyways. Vintage is another venue, and can be very liberal depending on the group, but I doubt megasquirt would be legal and or would be frowned upon.

I beleive John has some good info on his web page, which is linked in his profile. Buy an SCCA GCR if you're seriously shooting for actual wheel to wheel racing, and no time trials or Solo 1. The GCR is $65. Many other clubs run with the SCCA rules in mind. With that said, and no rule book in front of me, my guess would be ITS, but you have run either the stock FI or I beleive you may be able to run SU's. I beleive you can still run a stock fuel tank. Another spot that I can think of with a unibody car would be the production classes (EP for the Z), where the cars are much more prepared, or modified, but only the 240 and 260's are allowed. You can run the 280Z in GT2, but that's a very expensive class, and you'll be hopelessly outclassed against the tube frame cars. On the other hand, the GT2 fields are pretty sparce, and depending on your region, you may be the only one, which isn't any fun either. Going one further, a variant of GT2 would be SPU (under 3 liters) or SPO (over 3), but these are wildely modified cars which are typically tube frame to start with. This is gaining popularity in the souteast I hear.

I'm real curious too. My car has an all steel body except for the hood, totally gutted including doors, and aluminum dash, glass winsheild w/lexan side and rear window. The cage is basically an IT with additional front bracing through the firewall. It weighs about 2250.

You're comparing apples to oranges. The cut out problem is only with webers and mikuni's. Sorry if I was a little testy. You have a valid point, but personally I've had too many bad experiences when going to a professional. More and more I find that a little patience and learning from my own mistakes will gets me further ahead in the long run. The less I have to depend on outside help the better. With that said, thanks for your input.

If I followed this advice' date=' I'd never be able to afford my car. For the most part, I'm self taught, and am tired of hearing this. There's so many "professionals" that aren't much further ahead than the average guy who's willing to put some time in and learn. I agree, partially. I wouldn't think twice about putting on used carbs that I have no idea what condition they're in an haven't had a rebuild, but only Isk knows the serverity of the fire. If they have been rebuilt, and the fire a quick flash, this might be an over reaction. The goal is not more power, it's to prevent the carb from curtting out under hard cornering. It is a common among the Datsun racing crowd to run about 4 PSI with a lower float bowl level to compensate for this.

Refered to as the needle/seat assembly, which could be the culprit, I didn't think of that. I don't know if this is a common item to wear or give you problems, but could be. Also, Honsowetz specifies running 2mm seats. I think mine had 1.7 or something to begin with. Maybe I'm being anal, but I don't know if just a visual check is sufficient to check the floats. I happened to have a spare and swapped it, but I suppose you could remove it and submerse it in water just to make sure it doesn't sink.

Technically Titlon master cylinders come with both the AN and standard flare adapter fittings. I had considered AN fittings, but already had most of the components with flare, and wasn't quite sure how to convert hard line to AN? Also, I had a few different flaring kits, and the dies were different. I found one design was much better than the other and didn't have near as many problems.

Do what ever you can to get the nicer shell. I had a '77 that the salt gods did a good job on, and I tried in vain to restore it. I'm glad I finnally had the presence of mind to scrap that one and start with a nice rust free AZ car. It might be changing, especially with some of the prices of the 280's lately on Ebay, but IMHO if you're trying to restore a 260 or 280 because of it's rarity, and or value, you're restoring the wrong car.

Iskone, why isn't this continued on your other thread? You probably had this condition when the carb caught on fire. Regardless of the gasket on top sealing very well, when the car's at a stand still the fuel should NEVER be high enough to flood the jet chamber.

Commonly reffered to as an afterfire. This may sound kinda funny, but it's more like a pop rather than a backfire from the tailpipe. This is a pretty easy way to tune in the pilot jets. Just keep stepping up until the poping goes away, then go one larger yet, and fine tune with the miture screws.

The newer Mikuni's are designed so one doesn't have to remove the bowl cover. These have the set screw/10mm nut on the fuel inlet side. Turning it down raises the bowl level. You can pull out one of the emulsion tubes and measure from the cover, but I forget exactly which point. I beleive they cover this in Honsowetz's book, and it was supposed to be 21 or 24mm, can't remember that either.

I had similar problems when setting up my Mikuni's. I was trying to run a low float level at 4.5 pst, but it seemed to have the opposite effect and once in a while the bowls would flood. Gas would start running out the venturis and eventually it caught fire, not too bad; got it out right away. Also, the carbs have a tendency to spit gas out, but technically not backfiring. I wonder if this happened enough to the point where the filters where saturated enough and light up? This is one reason why I stayed away from the ITG filter. I was told that eventually the inside would get singed to the point that I'd have to replace it. At $200 a pop, no thanks. EDIT: It sounds like the carb is ok. I'd leave it as is double check the float level, and or replace the float entirely. Maybe try some different size pilot jets?

This is a bit misleading. The first thing my racing club told me was get a BC only. The A is for wood and paper and this is the most corrosive part of the chemical.

I'm not trying to be sarcastic, and some of you may disagree with me, but a pic with wheels, on the ground, and clean would speak volumes even though it's technically not finished. From the pics this doesn't look too difficult. Heh, group me in with the "cheap" bunch too!

They're a regular at the Brian Redman Challenge at Road America. They rent almost all their cars out. EDIT: Checked out their web page a little more. The Z costs $1500 to rent "per diem", but "These rates do not include transport of the car /crew to and from the event, out of pocket costs for crew lodging, tires, fuel and of course any damage you do. " Ouch, that has to be one big bill!

http://www.nc4x4.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1795&page=1&pp=10