Mikelly

OK, Now that I'm done laughing at you for buying a twin post lift, I'm envious of your huge arsed garage and your nice Crapper! You have the only type twin post lift I'd own, which has all the controls in one location so you can safely raise and lower it by yourself. Mine is OSHA certified and passes ALI standards. It has been a real workhorse. When we sell our place I'm tempted to pull out the lift and take it with me! I'll probably put up a steel building when we do the next one, but you're right about resale. Yours will have much higher returns on the money spent! But you already knew that! Cheers! Mike

Two hours welding with a tapped vs. infinately adjustable machine, trying to weld 35 year old sheet metal to new metal will change your mind. With those tapped units, you are stuck with a few basic settings. Tuning the machine to the material being welded, especially if this is your only machine and you want to weld thin 20-22 gage sheet steel and .120 DOM tubing/ 1/8th inch plate steel, and most other metals we work with on Zcars. Welding isn't rocket science so long as buy a book or two, read, learn to clean your materials and prep them properly, and use the right gas for the material being welded and understand how to adjust the machine and the gas to that of the materials being used. Think about it... With mig welders You've got two knobs... The wire speed and the voltage/ heat and you've got a regulator with one knob on it. Most decent welders come with decent manuals to walk you through the steps and what setting to use for which materials and why. If you can't figure that out, you probably shouldn't be welding in the first place. Just my $.02 Mike

Just loaded up GTR and started playing it... CRAP This game is hard! Unfortunately the ATI Card I bought has issues, my primary machine has a CMOS virus and I'm having to use my stepson's machine to play it with worse graphics... BUt it is still fun! Gonna have to get my machine issues resolved. MIke

I have the Lincoln SP125 which is a couple of steps down from that 135 pro and mine is fabu... Loveit.. Great welder for less than $600 new... If you can get the 135 Plus or pro for under $500, you can't go wrong so long as the voltage control is a sweeping potentiometer and not a clicker with 4-5 settings... My lower end unit has a sweeping potentiometer, so I'd suspect the two you mention do as well... I love my lincoln. Mike

Made it a sticky... Mike

Come on Mike C. You know that piece of junk made by Chebby isn't worth a comparo Like that! :lmao: Mike K.

It still sounds like you're out of time somewhere... Maybe the cam gear is off a bit? Mike

You might want to replace the liner. I replace mine every other year just to make sure there are no feed issues. MIke

The battery is a small Odyssey 680 unit and I mounted it behind the passenger seat area against the wall where the boxes used to be for storage... I removed those two years ago when I severed an artery! Anyway, I ended up mounting it at the driver's side 1/4 window with some self tapping screws until I get to the point where I'm welding the brackets for the cage. Then I'll tack weld the bracket to the cage and the window ledge. I also ran all the battery cable today and mounted my switch/ starter box in the console... Managed to run a drill into my hand just below the wrist as a small drill bit broke on me in the process... Can you say PAIN? Anyway, I'm down to wiring the switch box and about 20 wires and then I can test it all! After that, I'm gonna start on the rear diff mounting for the R230, and start spending money on clutch hardware! Mike

John, Did you have insurance on it? This is my biggest fear since I plan to store my track car in my trailer when I get it. Mike

The evolution is simple... Kid gets his first car... He/ she either gets handed down the family commutor box which is normally a Honda, A Nissan Sentra/ Altima, Toyota tercel, Dodge Neon, or Saturn. ALL are front drivers and all are cheap to insure a new driver with. He/ She promtly totalls the car within months and the family is forced to either buy them another car or forces them to buy their own... With little credit worthiness, or a job. You can pick up hondas cheap and you'll certainly fit in with your friends at the school parking lot or local hangout, and they get decent mpg AND are durable as a commutor. People wonder WHY this craze has taken off and I just shake my head. If I had spoilers, wings, exhaust mods and cold air kits back when I was 16, My 73 Toyota Celica would have been the most clapped out garrish mass of bling parts on four wheels. I know in my own household we wouldn't let our youngest make his car faster. So what else could he do? It had to be fart pipe, tint, interior, CAI, and other minor mods... Nothing that would significantly enhance the performance of the car. We did do suspension work to the car, but that was it. The last thing I wanted was a young, inexperienced driver out on the roads in a fast car. His father thought otherwise and bought him a Turbo B16Vtec'ed 94 Civic Hatch, so the young man went off to live with dad and his new car on his 18th Bday. All we can do now is sit back and HOPE he is doing the right thing... On the plus side, our insurance dropped almost $3K when he moved in with his dad. It makes perfect sense why we see such a boom in the ricer car industry. It's all these kids have. They aren't going to get decent insurance on an RSX or SRT NEON, or evo8/ STI. Not unless mommy and daddy buy it for them and pick up the insurance bill too. It's expensive for a young NEW driver to get into the car thing, and all these mods that they think will give them HP share a common theme... THEY ARE CHEAP to do and THEY can BE DONE with hand tools in most cases. I say let them think they are driving around in 11 second daily drivers... The threads and stories they tell are amusing. They make for very good laughs... Every time one of my stepsons friends talks about a fast car, I take them for a ride in my old tired C5. They ussually are pricing them within 24 hours... I always get calls or visits from them asking for advice within days of a "ride"! The oldest stepson was eat up with the civic/ ricer scene from the age of 16-19. Then early this year right after he turned 20, he moved out on his own and shortly after bought himself an RX7 3rd gen. Three months later he sold it due to money issues and he bought a new Nissan Sentra SE-R SpecV and has settled into an RB25 swap into a 240SX. He has grown out of the Honda scene and hates them now as much as anyone does. He was complaining to me over the holidays about "those guys". I got a good chuckle later when I was thinking about how much he has grown up and how I'm so glad he isn't "one of them" anymore... The younger stepson will grow out of it too. I call it "evolution of a car guy"! Cut these little dweebs some slack. One day they may all grow up to be HybridZers! Cheers! Mike

Couple of things I'm aware of with these boxes... Moisture is not your friend, first and foremost and Vibrations are second in causing solder joints to give under vibration. MSD boxes are great until they start acting up and then they are junk... Mount it in a solid place, mounted away from rain potential. And while you're at it, shield all the wiring when possible because those issues are also known. Your box may be the issue. Try running the coil without the MSD and see if it runs well without misfire... THAT will tell you if the box is bad or not. Mike

Having built an B18LS and done a Vtec Swap onto an LS, I can tell you that the rods on the B series motors are junk and will fail. My youngest stepson is now driving a 94 Civic Hatch with a B16Vtec and a T3/4 turbo swap. The thing is a mini missile. But we're waiting for it to pop. The motors aren't built for longevity and durability. Sure, you CAN throw nitros or a turbo on it and get some mileage out of it... But much like any bomb, the clock is ticking... Pin is pulled... When it blows is the question, not if! http://tech.hybridgarage.com/ This site is one of the few I would use for accurate information... But be forewarned... These guys are even more strict with their site than we are here! Mike

Man, every time I see a car with a Gnose on it I want to find Les Heath and do violent things to him... :twisted: Nice looking car... Mike

Couple of questions for you... Are you planning to section your struts? What spring length will you run? This will dictate where you place your base for the threaded sleeve to sit. You need to decide on these before you can really set the spring up properly. I bought mine from Ground Control, but MML, Mike Gibson, AZC and others sell them at about the same price... The 280Z tubes will cost you about $20 more because the are an odd ball size. Keep in mind that you'll have to moch up the whole assembly on the car to measure for strut stroke as well... Most struts for the Z have 6 full inches of stroke, and you have to account for 3 inches stroke, 1.5 inches to top out, and another 1.5 inches for the stop, assuming you'll trim your bump stop down the way most do. John C. has an excellent tech writeup posted for sectioning. Ross at MML, as well as the guys at Ground Control are ALL good sources for instruction on how to do all the setup for what I've just described above. My gift, to you! Merry Xmas! Mike

Nope, Bang for the buck track day car would be a Miata if I was on a tight budget... MazdaSpeed 2004 model, with low miles for under $20K. The Elise is a car that is low on torque and you have to drive it smooth all the time and carry speed into the corners. It is the same concept as road racing 125-250CC 2 cylinder sport bikes. Gollum, You need to get out to the track a bit and really see what we're talkin' about. The Elise isn't for 99% of drivers out there. We lap those things like they are road hazards... Mike

They all look better than any thing I'd hope to etch out... I'm definately liking SBC_400's the most, and especially the front end treatment, although the flares look awesome as well! Both the other renditions are pesonal choice statements... I see good in both, but they aren't for me personally! That's what makes "personalizing" your ride so fun. Keep them coming guys... Mike

Merry Xmas to all of you guys and gals in Zcar land. I'm home sick while the wife is delivering presents... Funny how flu bugs come on like freight trains... Four hours ago I was washing my behemouth of a truck, and two hours ago I had cold chills and was sweating my fat arse off laying under blankets... It was a warm 56 degrees out side, so go figure. Hopefully I'll shake it all off by later this evening when the boys show up and we start our Xmas eve ritual. Bleh, I hate being sick. Hope all your holiday wishes come true gang, and stay safe! Don't climb behind the wheel if you're gonna embibe on the ole' "adult" beverages! Mike

Twice at VIR this past year we saw Elises hit guardrails due to similar instances where the snap oversteet caught the drivers off guard. That car, for all the hype from the magazines, is one of the hardest vehicles to get maximum performance out of. They require a very smooth hand and steady feet. One of my instructors told me that it is one of the most difficult cars he's driven. Mike

I'm almost done with all the wiring on this car and am down to the 5 circuit moroso switch box/ starter button and the battery cutoff... My car will have no wondows other than windshield and rear hatch and no door hardware as the nascar bars have taken that space... Can you guys post some of yours? Location recommendations would be good too! I know a lot of guys put them at the rear panel, but I'm trying not to do that. Recommendations??? Mike

Do a search here, as someone in the past couple of years had a similar issue and had guys pull measurements from their "same year/ same production date range" cars to compare measurements in order to determine if the car was out of square. You may be able to conclude after stringing the car that it was repaired properly... I don't remember how long ago, but it has been several years since the topic was started... Search in the body/paint or chassis section. MIke

I should have been more specific in my comments... KCElectronics is correct. You have to remove all traces of bronse from ALL of the metal. This may require spreading the seams to get it out. I'd still want to do that if at all possible to re-attach the material. My guess is you're gonna have minimum of $500 in a good frame alignment. Mike

I remember her from the Runoff's thread and associated pics! Sweet drawing! Mike

Me personally, I would grind that bronze off, and seam weld the whole engine bay after you get the car to another frame shop to confirm the car is square. You didn't have the work done, so you can't verify the craftsmanship of the shop that did it. Once you confirm it is square and worthy of re-enforcement, I'd weld those seams and call it a day... But do the whole engine bay while you're there... In for a penny, in for a pound! Mike