flatout

I had to buy them. If I had more time I would have gone an alternate route. Visibly they are heat treated differently and the spline cuts are cleaner. so I would suspect they had an issue with a supplier along the way and changed them. but I couldn't get any information from the guy on the phone. to put it nicely, the guy I dealt with was a "challenge" to deal with. took 5 phone calls and 4 emails to even get him to send an invoice.

Got the axle situation sorted with some new upgraded shafts. i replaced both sides just incase. and for your viewing pleasure some new england fall foliage shots.

not a great photo but i have an array of turn buckets hanging from the front tubular support I built. I do think it may get a little bit of a revision at some point as it comes off easy but its tricky to get back on.

I'm on day 4 of trying to deal with T3. The guy i keep getting of the phone rushes me off the phone and says hes gonna send me a quote via email but this has still yet to happen. Not sure why. I just want this fixed so i can enjoy the car the limited amount of New England season left.

well...first failure happens to be an axle shaft. kind of surprised by this. I ran lots of bottom 10 second passes in my 240sx with stock axles and this technotoys kit is supposed to be a "upgraded" and shortened shaft and stock 240sx joints. well it broke on the street. it was under power but in 3rd gear without any wheel hop or tire slip. luckily didn't do any other damage. just the shaft and the boot. I have sent them an email as its the weekend to see if I can get another and if they have anything to say about that.

I don't have any photos at the moment but i got some 1/16 ABS plastic sheet and trimmed it to fit. used an existing 6mm hole and 1 extra sheet metal screw in the top.

having just completed my first HPDE track day in my Z a couple weeks ago. I 10000% recommend at least trying one. Local clubs vary but cost to seat time to fun ratio is quite high. you dont need to have a track weapon. you don't need to be a professional driver. you just need to have fun.

I did full length frame rails, stitched the front towers, and a pretty involved cage in my 280. I know the 240s are a bit more known for issues but i think similar would be sufficient. Some guys add the inner fender braces, I didn't but they seem popular. Is your front strut tower brace triangulated or just straight across? Triangulated off the firewall would add a bit more structure. What is the design of your cage?

couple videos the wife had taken. looking over some datalogs this morning. Car never got over 201ºF in any log that I could see. I can't find a spot in a log where the oil temp even got over 200ºF. oil pressure never dipped on any turns or hard braking. Really impressed the car didn't skip a beat. For a shakedown i was pleasantly surprised. New track for me so i worked on me as a driver rather than swings at setup changes to bandaid a driver problem but my lap times where improving fairly significantly every session and was having so much fun doing it. 20260905_111217.mp4 20260905_173624.mp4

Last weekend i got the offer to run a single day of a multi day event if I wanted to shake down the car. So i scrambled all week getting a bunch of things checked off the list. a couple days getting up at 5am and working for a couple hours before work and then to 10-11pm after work but got it so i could run it. Added a front splitter. strut bar, seat belts. fuel cell bulkhead, fire extinguisher, coolant overflow, battery tie down and kill switch, tow hook, brake bias controller, some tuning changes and im sure a few more things. But i made it. My uncle and I loaded up friday evening and saturday morning drove an hour and a half to the track. Had a great time. car was an absolute trooper and didnt skip a beat. New track for me so had some getting used to the track and the car. but i did 4 sessions problem free, I didn't change a single thing all day. found one loose bolt after session 3 that i caught before it was a problem. Car performed well. Had a fairly competitive pace by the end. Anyway. huge photo dump

There is a point of diminishing returns on tire width. It varies greatly with many factors tho so no one size fits all. Its a balance of contact patch, corner weight and suspension geometry. The double a arm front will allow for a good amount of adjustment with caster, and KPI that we can't get easily with struts.

spent the last few days focusing on fixing some steering geometry. If you guys remember this car came with the 240sx knuckles and if you've ever done any research on that swap, its hot garbage. I spent some time adusting ackerman right off the bat and made it so it was drivable and made a small adjustment last week. My plan has always been to modify them and get all the geometry dialed to how i like it and then scan it. and make a billet version that is modular and can be tweaked in from there. Anyway. This weekends goal was to dial in the mechanical trail and some roll center correction. The 240sx knuckle on the wrong side of the car made the mechanical trail very large so the car had very very heavy steering feel. I did some measuring and made a decision. Clipped off 8º of angle off the ball joint mount. and offset the mount to where i wanted it. Designed and machined an adapter block and welded it on. came up with a quick bumpsteer kit as the knuckle needs to have the tie rod mount lowered by a good bit. didn't take good photos but the car drives SO MUCH BETTER. steering feels great. "light" (for manual steering) but centers still centers well and has good feedback. Took the wife to get ice cream last night and what a great feeling that was after a year of work.

This is how I feel watching some youtube channels. popularity doesn't mean skill or quality.

Thank you for the kind words. Im proud of this one and cant wait to get it dialed in a bit and get to enjoy it a bit on the street and track.

Got the the hood and inspection covers on. Happy