Mikelly

J, Jamie Taylor has the car, preping it for paint, and I recently broke my wrist and have it in a cast... I won't even touch the panel because I don't want the cast material to damage it... I've already damaged wood trim in my house by bumping it with this thing... Mike

I think it boils down to application of that learned in books and classroom. You can be the most educated person on the planet and still not have an ounce of common sense... I see it every day. Goodluck and have fun with your car! Mike

Good man Jody! Leave them be and be rodent free! Mike

Prognoses is good. I'm in A forearm cast for five weeks and all should be good, although I had to cancel my track day event for 9/10 september. Mike

I personally like it, and I think this is what the 350Z should look like... I test drove a Z4 before buying my ZMRoadster and was way more impressed with it than with the S2000 or Porsche Boxter I testdrove back to back with it... The Boxter and Z4 were both base models, which got me to thinkimg about revisiting the 2001-2002 ZMRoadsters, which I eventually bought! I haven't seen a new Mcoup yet, but have read reviews from a few who have bought them over on bimmerforums, and none have commented negatvely! Mike:cool:

Jonh, The wrist got caught in the "bark buster" grip guard as I was coming off it... I rolled and my wrist got twisted. I'll let you guys know the prognosis after the appointment tomorrow. Mike

Bike is fine.... This is broken bone #28 for me!!! Thought I was done with that part of my life!!! Mike

So this will be brief, since I'm hunt-N-peckin' with my left hand... Crashed dirtbike last night, and went to ER today for Xray... Small wrist bone in right wrist went snappy and I bruised my sternum... I'm officially in Lurk mode, and don't know the extent of recovery until Friday's visit with ortho-specialist... Mike

I was fortunate enough to have my taillite panel delivered during yesterday's Mid-Atlantic HybridZ Shindig... Pete Paraska, Doug Carrow, Glenn, and Tom were all there to witness the unboxing and unwrapping of the part. This part, to me, is as GOOD and probably better than 98% of the carbon parts I've seen out there on the market for imports... I'll be sure to post pics later, but everyone there agreed that it was well made and the quality was good. If you're looking for 100% top quality with zero flaws, and you're gonna pick apart the quality of a part, let me tell you guys what I found wrong in my panel... Where the license plate would sit, there are two small circles where you'd screw a license plate in... You can see the indentation for those holes, for which you'd put screws through ANYWAY. Then there was a very slight white line at where the license plate would also sit over top of. Other than that, the weave was very good throughout the part, with minimal to no wave/distortion in it. There's been a LOT of heated discussion over the quality of carbon parts, and I'm here to tell you guys that if there rest of Fazzt73's parts are at the level ov this part, you'll not be disappointed in the quality to price ratio. I'd put his parts on par with anything I've seen for Zcars to this point. Oh, And lets recap... I ordered my part about two months ago and got it yesterday. That's longer than I'd hoped, but hey this time around I got a part shipped in a box, unlike my last experience ordering a carbon panel. Not Vaporware... A PART I CAN PUT MY HANDS ON! Pic's will be posted in my New Zcar Pics folder at :http://photos.yahoo.com/dat74z They won't be there until later on today, so don't expect to see them immediately following this post.. Mike

Hey Van, How you been man? Long time no speak! Zguy, That's a huge quality of life issue... Making lots of money by trading your free time that you could be spending with family/friends/Spouse/Hobby isn't a good trade off to me... Often an officer will get hooked on that overtime, start living at that level, then administrations tighten budgets and the officer living on that fat $100K income is forced to live on $55-65K... Then the family stress of no money kicks in and an officer's stress level goes up even more... No, The allure of "OT" money is never a good thing and one that shouldn't help "make" that decision. Mike

I can't imagine anyone wanting to be an officer in this day and age. I have a degree in Criminal Justice, and am a graduate of the Federal Law Enforcement Academy and there isn't enough money in the world to put up with the lack of respect from the public at large and lack of support from city administrators in any major metropolitan City... If you have other talents and goals, I suggest you chase them. Mike

Before you get soooooo engrossed in DouRiftIng... Do us all a favor and go do a track day... My guess is you'll be so amazed by it that you'll actually want to learn how to do that instead of sliding a car around a track... Just a thought... Mike

Yup, WHat Grump and J-N-J said... That carb is MORE than fine for that application... Mike

Mark, Sorry to hear that what you suspected would happen did indeed happen... But look at it like this... Atleast you didn't get a chance to hold the part before SOME F'N SCUMBAG disappeared with it... Yea, ADD LES HEATH to your list of ZCAR SCUMBAGS who steal one-off and hard to replace parts... The guy had better damned well hope I never run across his path. There'll be a hospital visit in his near future when that day comes... You did pay with a CC?? Right??? Mike

Toe adjustment is better on the AZC arm than on his earlier design... I'm refering to setting up the Camber on them... Not sure how Ross does his, but The AZC unit isn't ON CAR adjustable for camber. Mike

YUp, And I think SEZ has it RIGHT! Majik, We've held off allowing other companies to advertise on our site. We don't like the thought of the popups or advertisements on the site... Quite frankly, it's annoying when you go those other sites and try to navegate through the site to read useful info. We've tried to avoid that and to make the site as useful to you guys as possible... As for this whole notion of sponsorship, I'm very neutral on it... I told Dan and Doc that I'd be happy to work as mediator between pinks staff and HybridZ if there was another PINKs car, and I can promise you that there would be no "You guys gotta do it two hours early Bravo Sierra" being pulled... If I'm involved, We'd tell them to pound sand and go home. I don't have that burning desire to be on TV. But first and foremost, Larry's wishes should he followed... The guy really was doing this in the memory of his late wife, and he's adopted HybridZ as his family to help get him through this loss. Let's get those parts auctioned off and figure out what the sum of monies is... Then we can talk about where we go from here... From a personal standpoint, I don't have time to work on a build, which is why JamieT has my Zcar right now, working on it for me. With my personal schedule, time is becoming more and more the premium as my company grows... Mike

I think you guys are arguing different points here... Gollum and Mr. Insane or both correct in the fact that it is still illegal if the swap isn't recorded and documented with the state, and approved at a ref station. Just Jim's point is that (and I agree with this to a point) if you don't tell anyone at the DMV, who'se the wiser, because 99% of cops aren't going to hassle you unless you get pulled doing something illegal in the first place *(after all, it is a pre-75 car, right??), and then most of them don't clearly understand the Smog laws well enough to climb around the car looking for the egr valve off a 78 Chrysler 318 in your 72 Datsun Zcar. Here's the rubb though... What happens when you get that one sharp cop? Or get reported by that neighbor that you piss off every morning when you fire it up at 5AM to go off to work??? Make your choice and build your car based on how much of the smog issues you want to deal with up front, or potentially deal with later at a ref station... Kinda like going to Vegas. Play the odds and roll the dice... Mike

I've installed the AZC arms and they are a royal pain in the arse to adjust and install... And NOPE, I'm not sure how you can make a claim that they are a "better" design... Better for which application? Mark's description of the two arms is pretty spot on from what I know about both arms. Ross designed the rear arm to be a good street/track arm with the ability to live on the street w/ some track day use... As Mark said, Choose wisely... Mike

I've been doing a fair amount of reading up on it, and there isn't a whole lot of power to be gained by going with a header or a cold air kit. Dinan Sells a different chip, but I'm not sure that with the extended warranty (100K miles), that I even want to mess with any of it. The car makes plenty of power, and truly a daily driver. Doug, Autothority is one of the companies that does a lot of BMW work locally... I'll check into a tune with them. Mike

So After a week of riding around in this little convertible, a few things come to mind... As most of you know about my previous cars... My latest car was a C5 Corvette that had every Z06 related Suspension upgrade and track day brake mod that you could buy. It also had a new heads and cam motor pushing over 450Crank hp and 386WHP/382#ft. torque to the wheels... This was necessitated after I spit two rods out the side of the original motor at Virginia International Raceway on Father's day weekend 2005, as I was heading towards the uphill esses and shifting from 3rd to 4th at about 105 mph. It happens... The car before that was a 1995 Mustang GT with every SVO goodie sold by Ford. And then of course there have been the 18 Datsun Zcars that have tormented me for all of my adult and most of my teenage years... The last two of which have had 383 stroker small block chevys in them, with race suspensions, coil overs, big brakes, roll cages, and enough hp and torque to detach eyes from sockets... So this M roadster is a slight departure from the two American Muscle cars... It's more nimble, fills up less parking space, less space on corner entry, apex and exit, trail brakes wonderfully, stops as well as all those track day upgrades on that C5 I mention above, and is very tractable when TCS is turned off... Want a four wheel drift on corner exit as the tires slip slightly to grab tarmac? No problem. Want to get the back end to step out to show the ricer in your mirror that the little German "girlie car" (his words) can drift and outpower him out of the corners? No problem... And slipping in under the speedlimit just before the rise in the road where the radar trap always is, while the above mentioned goon in the Acura busts it at over 80mph? Priceless. So night before last, I was coming back from dinner with the wife. My wife knows she has three children... Her two sons, and me. So we're at a stop light next to a red C5 Corvette. The Guy mentions something about "cute little car, is it your wife's?" and I ask him if he'd like to row a few gears... Having owned one in both stock and various stages of modified form, dynoing each step along the way, I kinda think I have a chance with this guy... Sure enough, Off the line his torque gets a slight edge, until the M gets into its gearing and power band... I real him in in first, as he shifts into 2nd banging his rev limiter, and I edge ahead of him slightly... On into third and I hear him touch the limiter again... Amazing what you hear in a convertible that probably was undetectible in other cars... I'm motoring along, see triple digets on the speedo and back way off... He swings past me, as I only had him by the length of the car, and pulls into my lane while hitting his turnsignal for the next parking lot... Being out of Scotch, and seeing the ABC store is still open, I follow... First words out of his mouth when he gets out of his car and walks over... "What is in that thing?"... I just smiled and said, Yea it was the wife's car, until I drove it... Then I sold my vette! (A fibb of course, but why let him know!) This little car has won me over... The one thing I liked about our mustang was the "feel" of it being smaller. The one thing I liked about my corvette was the "feel" of it being faster. The thing I've always loved about the Datsun Zcar, is the feel of it being a true sports car and a true drivers car... This M has all these characteristics... Up, I'm in heaven... This little car rocks.

You guys think? I always ask myself how much crap I'm gonna get from Pete Paraska, Jamie Taylor and Doug Carrow at the next MidAtlantic Zcar shindig... Mike

BRAVO!!! BRAVO!!!! I looked at those wilwood setups and scratched my head trying to think of how one would work. Problem I have with the TKO600 is the clutch fork hitting the firewall... I ended up not using the setup at all because of that, and went with the internal bearing setup... This is a much more cost effective solution! Mike

It's a 150 bored out to a 175. Just picked it up on Sunday... We're setting up a race circuit at the house that encompases the whole paved area and the gravel driveway, and I've got 4-5 other guys who'll be showing up regularly to race... Turns out it's almost 1/8th mile and 50% gravel/ 50% pavement w/ 8 curves... Mike

Yea, but I see two problems there... A: They're experiencing a limited numbe of motor failures in the existing Z06...Probably need to resolve those issues first. B: That limited number produced will end up in collectors private collections and never see the light of a track. Mike

My view (From the side?) is that we'll never make everyone happy. Quite frankly, We have a select group of members who could afford to do whatever they want with whatever car they wanted, and they just happened to fall in love with the Zcar... These members have vast resources and can contribute. Then there's the rest of our members. Many can't even afford to complete their own projects, let alone contribute to someone elses. There are other factors as well... A hybridZ team car would require storage, transportation, and constant maintenance. It likely wouldn't be able to be "tagged", if it was a group car. It would require some subset of members who would be dedicated to the car... And that's what got Mike S., Jeremy C. and others in trouble... they got to attached to the car, and forgot the other members involved in the process. Then there's the whole "It's not a XXX motor in the car, so I'm not playing" vibe that creaps up, as it did in the PINKs build. We'll never have "everyone" satesfied. Quite frankly, the PINKs debacle was such a mess that more than one admin wanted to walk away from HybridZ and quit Zcars for good. Why can't we all just get back to building our own respective cars, and showcasing our own personal and individual talents?? I guess I'm not seeing how this is gonna be "good" for HybridZ, or the members collectively... Now, that said, I'M NOT SPEAKING FOR THE ADMIN STAFF... GOT IT??? Keep kicking the ball around and you'll eventually get a goal... Mike