TimZ

I ran a pair of -6 lines for the supply and used the stock return line, and this has worked very well for me for several years. -6 is MUCH easier to work with than the larger sizes.

As I recall, the Tokico springs are progressive rate - the spring has two different winding rates, and when the soft rate coils all compress, you get the higher rate. So, that might just be how they work - you'll get the lower rate at times when the suspension is actually moving, but it sounds like this will happen only while the suspension is in "droop". I don't know if that's normal or not. As far as the travel not being enough - how much travel was there? There is only about 3" of compression travel at stock ride height, so for every inch you lower it, subtract that from 3" to get your remaining ride height. This is why people go to the trouble of sectioning their struts (do a search - I think there is at least one sticky on this) when they lower the car more than an inch.

Very good advice on getting deck height measurements. No telling what's been done to your block in the last ~30 years (unless maybe you've owned it that whole time)... Tony - is your Bonneville car turbocharged? IME it's not a trivial matter to get a turbo'ed engine to make power at really high rpm (it can be done, but the normal tricks like long duration/overlap on the cam don't necessarily work). Getting an L-series head to breathe at 9000rpm with cam timing that works for forced induction sounds like a challenge to me. Any thoughts on this?

:mrgreen:

Okay - one more time... All he has to do is adjust the clutch so that it stops interfering.

Problem is that with the amount of overbore the 89mm pistons require, you won't have any additional room left - if there is any cylinder wall damage form breaking the cast pistons you'll be replacing the whole motor. BTW, 350hp is assuming that you have a standalone EFI and real tuning experience. If you are a newbie, I'd move those limits down to 250-300hp.

What are your power goals? For under ~300-350hp, cast should work fine. If you want more than that, forged will be far more tolerant of tuning mistakes.

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=107420

Yep. Just quoting some of my favorite lyrics from "Joe's Garage".

Just couldn't stay away (GT4294R...)

Yeah, baby! :mrgreen:

As I mentioned - the problem is easily remedied if you wish to keep the spacer. It's maybe 10 minutes worth of work and no disassembly. So, if you are not already disassembled you have a viable option. If you are already disassembled, the question becomes "do I need to keep the spacer?". If the flywheel's aluminum is munged up/badly deformed at the bolt holes from previous over-tightening, then the answer is "yes". Otherwise you should be able to do without - just use the proper torque and red loctite.

What extra machine work is that? There is some block clearancing required, but that shouldn't be too big of a deal. The other main expense is in having pistons made that will have the correct compression height and yield the compression ratio that you want, but that should be a wash if you are having them made anyway. Did I miss something? (I do have a stroker with custom forged pistons, btw) I've had no personal dealings with them, but I have heard of others having problems with Paeco - I can't substantiate this, but you might want to ask around a bit more

The flexplate spacer is sometimes used with aluminum flywheels to keep the bolts from deforming the aluminum when being tightened. If you use the correct torques for the flywheel bolts this shouldn't be an issue. I used this mod for a while, but didn't like the fact that it leaves precious little thread engagement for the bolts - the aluminum flywheel is already a bit thicker than stock as I recall, and the flexplate spacer is pretty thick on top of that. This never caused any actual problems, and I was making in excess of 350rwhp at the time, but it simply bothered me. I also had the problem you describe, and was able to remedy it by simply adjusting the clutch travel so that it didn't disengage quite so far. There was still more than enough disengagement such that the clutch didn't drag. So, if it's still all buttoned up and you don't want to take it back apart, you could try adjusting the clutch pedal first.

Sorry - I wasn't ragging on you - just wanted to make sure it was clear.

BTW, if it's 1:1, it's not a rising rate regulator, it's just pressure referenced. The stock fpr will do that.

No - you were clear - perhaps I wasn't. I was trying to say that they hang down maybe 0.25" lower than the frame rails. Here's the pic again, it's kind of hard to see:

Here's those same flares, blended on mine:

Thanks guys. They are the Defi black face gauges - they did have me up on their JDM "Club Defi" for a while, but I don't think its there any more. They said that I was the first old school Z that they had seen their gauges in.

I tucked them in between the ends of the frame rails and the sway bar mounts, so the clearance is within maybe 0.25" of what the frame rails have.

Here is what I did on my Z: http://forums.hybridz.org/showpost.php?p=625867&postcount=31 http://forums.hybridz.org/showpost.php?p=648128&postcount=36

Here's mine:

No, it's not a dumb question and its not obvious. The Datsun tailshaft housing is unique in that the shifter box is located farther rearward than either the Ford or Chevy variants. The trans I showed above uses the gForce gearset with the Datsun bellhousing and modified tailshaft housing. Also, the Datsun gearset housing is non-WC and is too small, so you need to replace it with a WC gearset housing. We used a Ford WC housing for the gearset and the Datsun bellhousing and Tailshaft housing bolted right up. I was tempted to go with the dog gears, as Kevin was pretty sure he could set one up with a synchro'ed 1st and dog gears on the rest, but it sounds like it would be extremely impractical for the street. Here is a side view of a ford t5: Here's one for a Camaro: Compare those again to the tailshaft housing in the above pics.

The output shaft of the Gforce T5 is considerably larger that that of the stock Datsun T5, so much so that there is not enough material there to accomodate overboring to the correct size for an appropriate tailshaft seal. We had to build up the diameter of the end of the housing, then machine it for the proper seal. You'll notice that we even had to add some material on the inside of the shifter box so there wouldn't be a hole there. Gforce did not do this work - Kevin at the Gear Box did this work. To my knowledge, his is the only shop that has done this mod with the Datsun T5 housing.

The car I was talking about was a 78 280Z. Perhaps the shifter I am using (Pro 5-0) is taller than the Hurst shifter, but mine definitely required clearancing of the hole in the trans tunnel, and it wasn't even close to fitting in the hole in the console.