heavy85

Has it been that long ago ....

Um why would you want to duct extra air into the engine bay?

My oppinion is over the last 10 years the fast race Z's have gotten much more hp and aero. Back then JohnC stated the high power V8 or otherwise Z couldnt keep up with ITS car. Im somewhere about 7 seconds faster than an ITS car on a 2 min track so if John was right we've made a lot of progress on the faster end of things. Tuning at least for me is centered heavily around getting power to the ground and aero balance. <---- running modifiled stock front bar, no rear, and am testing 500/425 springs up from 425/375 last year. Yet to see which is faster.

Jon - I started with a shortened Camaro shaft. Only driveline part I've ever failed. Amazed how thin wall it is - think maybe 16 guage ish. They welded the living hell out of it and bang. Luckily it happend a block from my house not at speed so we just pushed it home. Now have Driveshaftshop Aluminum one and forgot about it.

LS1 use 241 heads - they say the difference is about 15 hp to the 243. I've been very happy with LS1. Stock except very mild cam and shorty headers and its 365 whp. They suck a lot of oil through the PCV so need catch cans if you keep the PCV system and need to keep an eye on oil level throughout the day. Also need some means to keep oil pressure, especially in long left sweepers. I've found 2 qt accusump and ~1 qt overfill keeps the oil pressure happy. The stock belt tensioner also doesnt like the rev limiter so either stay off it or upgrade to Katech or similar tensioner. Otherwise leave it stock and its just add gas and go. Very reliable. Do it, you wont regret it.

Interesting about the tune. I have noticed it takes a lot longer to get back to idle than it takes to close the butterflies. You have any details of this clutch set-up like brand, part numbers, etc?

Definitely think your spacers are the issue. Need to do the fish scale pull test to make sure you are not excessively preloading the bearings. When the nut is tight there should be just a touch of resistance when set right. The only way to adjust this is with different length spacers. You need a longer spacer and just a couple thousandths in length makes a big difference.

Weedburner - that sounds like a neat option and would get some weight out. Any idea if that could be had commercially? My transmission experience is limited to replacing a synchro. Cameron

Dont like the sounds of these clutches. A guy I work with swapped an LS into a 350Z and I drove it once. The clutch was touchy and very hard to use. Made it unfun to drive. Plus dealing with winch and standing starting, getting around pits, etc. Sounds like a PITA. Cant you just use a regular clutch - I've been and continue to use the factory original Camaro clutch and it works great? Faceplate + lightweight flywheel + stock clutch?

Thanks Cary thats just the info I was looking for. Several follow in questions: - Why faceplate 1st since you need a synchro to get started? - Any idea if $1k for face plating includes going through the rest of the trans? I assume any general maintnance would add to that? - You have any more details on the flexplate/button/clutch as I've never heard if it. Starting to google now.

T56 behind LS1. Currently 365 whp and dont expect to ever go over 400. All came from '02 Camaro and the flywheel, clutch, and transmission are factory originals from the Camaro donor. About 50k street miles and somewhere north of 50 track days on it. 2700 lb car for time trial, autox, and hill climb action. This transmission combo has served me well for several years and even today still works great. However it shifts sooo slow so I know its holding me back on lap times plus it weighs a bunch. 4 speed dog box would be great but more I look more confused I get and concerned it would cost many, many thousand $$. Can you modify T56 to get better shifting and possibly reduce weight? Is there a reasonably priced light & fast 4 speed? Other options? So whats the best bang for buck options in the following order: 1) reduce shift time 2) reduce weight 3) not cost arm and leg Thanks

Wow 2006. Geeze time flies.

Jon - more I look at this and Im worried about the whole front frame rails flexing excessively without some lateral and vertical support that the inner fenders would have normally provided. The factory frame rails are really thin.

Save the money, you dont need it. I raced mine for several year with stock half shafts and even on slicks (road course type stuff). This was with 3.7 and 6 speed so 3.54 and auto should be even gentler on the driveline. Only reason I switched to cv is the half shaft bolts would loosen up after a day on track. Always carried a spare half shaft but never needed one.

Jon - I wouldnt do that as its a hella load on that bolted joint to the frame rails. It may or may not break but it sure wouldnt be very stiff. If you think about load path, the load from the tires goes into the crossmember (plus a little into the TC buckets) and then to the frame. I strongly believe this is why its best to mount the engine to the crossmember. This way the body only has to move itself around in reaction to tire input and doesnt even know the engine is there. For this same reason the crossmember is only mounted with 4 small bolts as it only sees the load from the mass of the body which is pretty small in the front. Cameron

Version 2.0. The first ones I did were just straight down but they dragged on the trailer, had to remove to jack the car, made it harder to climb underneath, and were just a PITA. Neither lap times nor seat of the pants told me they did anything. So now I've added a flap in front of the rear tire and tied in a horizontal skirt. Also pulled the front fender out at the bottom so air in the wheel well can spill out on top of the skirt. We will see how this works.

You need rollbar, harness, fire extinguisher (hand held mounted in metal bracket), and full driver gear. You can run on novice license too which means pay the fee and you are in.

Its that time again already! March 22&23 just three weeks away. www.dragonhillclimb.com Car is almost ready but still need to decide on tires. I highly recommend this event if anyone is even remotely interested its well worth it. Beatiful country, awesome people, challenging road. Cant wait.

How significant is playing with rear track width in putting power down? Dan, I, and others with rod-end rear suspension can adjust this fairly easily but I have only run one event with them so havent yet. Have you ever tried a gear type LSD? I switched several years ago from a Nissan clutch diff to a cheap OBX gear type and thought it was a good improvement. Last thing is rear camber as I was getting inside rear wear last year at only around 1 deg of camber - you ever try less to maybe help with putting power down? Its really quite interesting that after many years of tweaking my car its currently very close you yours (2675 lb, 365 whp, 275 tires, just switched but yet to run from 425/375 up to 500/425 springs, Koni RACE single adj, stock front bar, no rear bar, same toe, etc). Im running this set-up in hillclimbs then change camber and run a street tire class on track. I've found too that aero is huge on a road course. Cameron

Z as many cars are limited in helmet clearance. Priority #1 get the seat low which means if you are tall to cut out the factory seat mounts. Using 1" square tube welded to the floor I actually had to raise the seat up about an inch to see over the dash with lots of helmet clearance (6'2"). Kirkey mounting brackets work you just bend then around the shape of the seat once you get it in the right position. Whatever is limiting moving seat to the right should be relocated if at all possible so you can move the seat over. Better for weight distribution and then the seat you want actually fits. 17" Kirkey Intermediate Road Race seat fit just fine without bending the wings at all if you heed the advice above. Good luck mounting seats are a real PITA.

Have you check alignment? Simple toe plates, straight edge, and an eyeball can tell a lot.

Very interesting. I only care about fully functional. Last year I ran vertical skirts but they kept getting hit, had to be removed to jack, didnt notice any performance gain and overall were just a PITA. Therefore have been considering changing over to the horizontal ones but hadnt considered lowering it like you did so the front fenders feed it on top. Thats a very good idea. How does the horizontal piece attach? Thanks for the pics.

Asking about the side skirt details.

You have any pics, dimensions, mounting details, etc you would be willing to share? Thanks Cameron

I would put money on the fact they corner weighed Z's back in the day. You are correct that first you need seat time and instruction. However there are some of us on the pointier end who will tangibly benefit from getting weight distribution as good as you can and then setting corner weights. Without radical things like that Camaro you likely arent going to get equal weight on each corner but there are some things like battery, seat, etc that can be tweaked to help. Setting corner (cross) weight is simply an exercise to tweak spring perch heights on scales. Doing so netted me 0.6 sec lap times and my starting point wasnt even that far off. Cameron