Mikelly

Just the rotor outter portion is going to cost over $300 each and the bolts are supposed to be replaced each time as well, costing over $58 for bolts, so expect $700 per pair for rotors. That to me is outragious. It might not be a big deal for anyone running a them on the street. However, We get an average of 3 track weekends (6 days total at most) out of a set of the same rotors for the Corvette. Most guys chuck them after 2 weekends to be safe. The Vette and Mustang rotor are the same blank, so I suspect that would be the same with the cobra rotor. Do the Wilwoods last 5 times longer to justify the cost? They probably do, and Wilwood claims they do. However, I'd have to try them first. I may eventually go that route for the track car, but I still think it's pricey! Not as Pricey as rotors for the GT3 Porsche, as those front rotors and pads are $1200+ just for the fronts. Mike

I still say it does matter when you're talking about 500HP cars (doesn't matter the powerplant) and serious terminal velocity. JohnC.'s car was making in the 300+whp range, which is no slouch, but I'd still want minimum of 12 inch veined vented discs. Jmortensen, a 12inch rotor is going to weigh a bit less than a 13inch setup... Considerably. What's sad is I could have weighed the various combos since I've had most in house, including the wilwood setup from AZC, the Outlaw setup sold by Mike Gibson (12.19 inches), MML's extreme setup, and the 13inch cobra setup that Jamie put together, as well as the Wilwood version of that setup, since we replaced Ross' front setup with the ford overhub design and Jamie's hubs. Of course, I didn't, so all these chances are missed... Those of us that had the chance to pick up the MML 13inch rotor setup were amazed at how HEAVY a 13inch 2 piece rotor design could be. That setup is atleast 2-4# heavier than a 12 inch setup. That is what we should be comparing to a 1piece 13inch cobra setup, not a 12inch rotor setup. As to the weights, I read your post and ran outside in a freezing cold rain with the bathroom scale, grabbed a stock FOMOCO 13inch rotor and did my little weight test for you. It is only as accurate as the scale and the idiot holding the rotor. Mike

That's absolutely not correct... I just went out and weighed a cobra rotor on my bathroom scale and got 16# subtracting my weight from the weight of me holding the rotor. Now if I'm racing for that big payoff and the huge sponsorship deal and the trophy girls smooching me on the cheek, MAYBE I'm spending way more on those other rotors... But if I'm left with choosing a good rotor that is a bit heavier, or the gucci units to save 3#, well it's just a choice each of us has to make! That said, three pounds (Maybe more like five... I Mean a BATH SCALE, Come on, how accurate can that be, right??? ) is a bit of rotating weight. You offset that on my setup by going with a super lightweight wheel/ hoosier slick combo, which saves more than the three to five pounds from the rotor... Although it is a bit of weight, I agree... I just look at it from the whole "consumables" standpoint... Mike

You still need a regulator. It is a must on those setups... Mike

That "heavy" cobra rotor... Here's a little thing we learned when we had Jim's setup from ross... It ain't so light... Pete, Doug, Jamie, and I all picked up these two piece rotor/ hat combos and were dumfounded at how heavy they are. I'd guess there is less than two pounds savings from that whole deal with the two piece vs. 1 piece rotor. I Strongly recommend weighing them if you can before you dive into something thinking it is a true "benefit"! Now, that said, some of the two piece rotor setups are worth it because of the material used in contructing the outter rotor and that difference makes those heavy duty rotors last much longer in race and HPDE style events. Mike

SBC400, it comes down to pad selection. Getting enough heat, along with the right aggressive compound pad is the ticket and actually quite easy. I've had Ross' kit in hand, and actually drove that kit on Jim M.'s car, and I've had Jamie's kit and installed it (Cobra 13inch rotors) on my own Zcar and have experienced the cobra kit on my 95 Mustang GT. The calipers/ rotors/ aggressive pad combo is absolutely the way to go... Forget about Brembo BLING rotors, as they are WEAR items and will wear out frequently if used properly and driven with aggressive pads... You want to continue paying $$$ everytime you need to replace rotors? One of the beauties of Jamie's setup is you can use over the counter rotors from Ford, Napa, or whomever you choose, and the brakes are a fraction the cost of those 2 piece rotor deals. That's the route I chose, and I priced Brembos and could afford them. My money is better spend elsewhere! Mike

Nope, Are those flares steel or glass? They look a LOT like the steel ones VB sells... Mike

I thought I was... Then I decided I really wanted to go with an LS1 style setup for the track car... That said, I need it painted first so I can finish wiring, install the dash and gages, lexan and get the brakes buttoned up, the fuel blumbed, and install the rear differential. Once I get myself billing on a contract, this project will become job one again... Until then, I'm ringing phones and beating the streets. Mike

Since you're in Canada, I recommend you chat with Ross at Modern-motorsports.com. He'll provide you with everything you need. By the time all is said and done, you'll probably break even on buying from him instead of someone in the states who might be a few bucks cheaper hear or there, so give him a shout. Mike

http://ddperformance.com/

Terry, This is a common issue with the C5's as well. What those guys are doing is setting front toe out to 1/16 or Zero and setting the rear toe in to about 1/16th to 1/8th with better stability for street driving. Also, Newer technology low profile tire designs are incorporating better tread patterns and altered sidewalls to combat this "hunting" on uneven road surfaces! Might be worth investigating for the Zcar suspension setup! Mike

Go here and look at my rails in the "new Zcar Project" folder... http://photos.yahoo.com/dat74z ...They are exact copies of the Altered Z blueprints on Pete Paraska's website (http://www.alteredZ.com) and work much better than the other two designs being sold here because they truly tie the front and rear subframes together. I recommend 2X3 inch boxed steal in .065 to .095 thickness and some 1/8th inch plate steel to close off around the TC box and at the rear to finish the tie in to the rear subframe. Grab a sheet of 18-20 gage steel sheet and cut your own floor pans and be done with it. It will be time consuming, but you'll have less than $150 in materials IF you can do the welding yourself. Mike

I gotta disagree there. Only because we're talking about a V8 which will, even in a mild build will most likely produce twice the torque of the original L6 motor. Couple of brake options you could go with are the AZC 12.19 inch wilwood setup, the brake kits Jamie T. is putting together with his aluminum hub assemblies, the units that Ross at Modern Motorsports sells, or get with SCCA (Mike Gibson) and sweettalk him into building you a setup with the Outlaw brake components he wholesales. I've had hands on every one of those brake kits listed above and they are all top shelf and you won't go wrong there. As for suspension, If you're replacing the struts and going the coil over route, I'd recommend an Energy Complete master bushing kit for the car. This will truly tighten the pickup points and make the car feel much more exact in the steering and suspension feel. Mike

Cross drilled rotors are JUNK! I strongly recommend against them for anything performance oriented. Unless you're buying something in the range of a ultra high performance Wilwood or other (BREMBO/ AP) high end LARGE setup, cross drilling does two things... Provides places for heat checks to develop into cracks, and removes brake surface area. KVR sells rotors that you could use that are decent. I'd not recommend any of the cad plated rotors being sold either... 10 minutes and that plating is gone! On the rears, I used the 85 Turbo rotor which was a little larger diameter and cleared the brackets I was using from the JCR rear disc conversion kit from the 90s... Depending on the rear and if it was turbo or not there is a slight variance in the thickness and diameter. I had the setup your refering to on a Zcar, and although the clamping force of the Toyota Caliper was better, the added weight was certainly not good, being that it was placed on the suspension and you could feel it in how the car performed. A better alternative would be the Z31 caliper to go with the rotor, or upgrading the caliper and rotor to larger rotors with a better, higher performance caliper... Nice wheel/ flare combo by the way. Mike

Looks like a very nice alternative. I sat in a Kirkey intermediate at OG Racing and thought it would be a nice seat to swap my new Corbeaus for. I want a non-reclining seat and mine recline. You can see pics of my cage fitment here: http://photos.yahoo.com/dat74z in the folder "new ZcarProject" Pete Paraska, Jody and David are all from Maryland and are coming on the 3rd. You might want to snag a ride with one of them and come down. We have a very good show and tell, and usually put a car on the lift and tinker/ kick around ideas... It's a true car guys day! And most of these guys will be seeing my cage work and other stuff done to the car for the first time and possibly taking a joy ride or two in the C5 with the new motor in it. Mike

You want to make sure there is not a issue with a helmeted head contacting the halo or your hands aren't to close to the a-pillar bar. Make real sure it'll all work out... Come to our little shindig December 3rd, bring a camera and take pics and measurements of my car. Mike

With adjustable control arms, there is no modification to the suspension "brackets"... Not even sure what you're refering to there, but bottom line is worst case scenario is you drill out the holes in the crossmember to 3/4inch hole for the bolts or burn out the steel sleeve in the existing control arm and reuse that and the factory Nissan inboard control arm bolt/ nut. As to the other comments and questions, I can give a direct answer to the correlation between the double A arm setup of the Vette compared to the single upright lower I arm of the Zcar... We comped a set of our arms to Steve and Ian and they set their Zcar up with them using 7+ degrees of caster or more. The end result was less negative camber, more contact patch on the ground at static load, and much less problems with the car on smooth autoX surfaces. That car rules most circuits and won most events they entered, and is still very successful. The only issues they encountered was making sure the car settings didn't change over events. They had two drivers, and beat on the car, which had hard bushings (some were aluminum I think) in post pickup points and ran on very sticky slicks on a very stiff suspension. This is harder on a car, and this car was a specific track only car, gutted and weighing about 2000#. Positive Caster directly aids making the car steer better, and in my opinion is more important than negative camber because we often forget about the natural dynamic camber loading of the suspension, plus the bumpsteer/ Ackerman relationship. If you can get the most contact patch at all times (very difficult in the best of circumstances) then you have more traction to work with at all corners... Mike

He's been very helpful on the site, and I would be surprised if he didn't answer your questions with lots of good info... Katman challenged a couple of things he saw in my cage and they were good questions to ask... So I called up Piper Motorsports to get the answers. Otherwise, I might have been caught in a situation later where I was at a track, in the tech inspections tent and getting declined to participate in a certain type of event or race... I know what needs to be done now to make the car pass tech. So I'm glad he pointed those things out. Seemed helpful enough to me! Give him a try! Mike

Yup, Carb sat from Last October when the motor was removed from Jim McNemar's car and the gas was drained, BUT I'm sure there was varnish remnant in the bowls... The Edlebrock is the absolute easiest carb to pull appart. Remove the screws on the top half of the carb and pull the whole assembly off... Go to Edlebrocks site for an exploded view and step by step on pulling it appart. The beauty of the Edlebrock is you can pull the top off with the bottom left on the intake if memory serves me... Now, onto the gas that dumped into the intake and leached into the oil pan... Drain the oil, pull the plugs out of the motor and dry crank it to get any excess out, and then let it sit over night so the last remnants of gasoline will evaporate. This will aid in ring seal issues that might otherwise crop up from the floats sticking wide open. Mike

We've sold a couple of cars on ebay and done well. Two RX7s and one 240SX. Hell the 240SX didn't even have a title and one of the RX7s had been in a roll over accident. I'd ebay it and put what you truly want as your minimum, and don't waste time with a buy-it-now price. It is a bit of a gamble, and yes you'll deal with a few peckerwoods, but you deal with those every day you leave your house... That's what I'd do if I really wanted to sell it... I don't think you really want to sell it though, now do you! Mike

Do a search on Jamie's or on John C's posts on this subject. It was John's hood and this particular hood doesn't have vents... I got to see it when I was at Jamie's new diggs, and it is top shelf stuff, but then again every thing John C. does is! Mike

http://www.pipermotorsports.com/ Ask for Mitch. Also, the only reason I point out that my cage is NOT legal, is because I've had a BUNCH of offline emails from people lurking on this site informing me that the cage isn't legal... So I figured I'd head some of that traffic off at the pass! Also. have you contacted Katman? He is in Georgia and has probably got contacts that could assist. I know when I was at Road Atlanta three years ago I ran into a couple of shop owners who were campaigning ITS Zcars. These shops are known in the Zcar community, but the names of the shops slip my mind at the moment... I even sold one of those shops a set of my control arms for a customer... but age and lack of memory are getting me this morning... Mike

I'll Search for the number, but it is located in Manassas Virginia and the Name is Piper Motorsports... Mitch and another member of the shop both came from Peter Farrel Supercars when that shop shut down. They started their own shop about 4-5 years ago and have been very successful. Do a search on google and read the various posts from others who've had them do their work. I'm certain that you could find someone in the Atlanta area, and for that matter, I used to know a builder in Daytona Beach. I'll look up his number for you as well, but he may have moved... There are a couple of serious fabricators in the Daytona, Jacksonville and Orlando Areas that could do the work, but I've not personally seen their work... Also, YES I know that my cage would not meet SCCA ITS rules, and my car wasn't built to those specs. My cage would require a waiver from NASA and SCCA tech inspection only because the main hoop has additional bends in it. However, that said, Every car I saw footage of at this year's runoffs had more than the required maximum bends in the main hoop. It seems that more and more builders are trying to get away from the maximum 180degree main hoop bend to fit the cage tighter to the chassis. Will your cage meet acceptance by a ruling club? I don't know, but based on my own findings and questions to both SCCA and NASA, with pics included, The only heartburn either had was with the Plate gussets on the a-pillar and the roof. Again, My car was built for HPDEs only, so I'm less concerned with rules, but the cage could be slightly modified (Remove the Plate Gussets) to make it legal in a number of classes... Of course, the big V8/ Large brakes/ and other mods would clearly not pass rules, so I wasn't concerned with building to a rules spec... Keep that in mind when any of you build your cages or have them built... Providing a copy the rules for your class and club is highly recommended. Also, I chose to NOT go with cromoly, because I weld mild steel, and can now weld my own tabs for window nets and other items. I don't tig weld. So I had the cage constructed of 1.5 DOM of the minimum SCCA required thickness tubing. Mike

I'd not do an adjustable arm without the TC ROd. It is an integral part of the whole package. Something to keep in mind is if you get more positive static caster, you will be much better off with less static negative camber. I'd like to be able to fabricate a Tie Rod that is longer for the Z, that would allow even more adjustment of the TC and control arm... Side note: Most of the current higher end sports cars are pushing much higher numbers for positive caster, and require less negative caster to get the maximum performance out of current technology tires. One example is the C5/C6 corvette. When equipped with V710 tires from Kumho, a C5 with 7 degrees positive caster and 1.5 degrees negative caster will perform as well or better as a similarly equipped C5 with Hoosiers on it. Hoosiers require more negative camber to work well, and therefore aren't as "street/track" friendly... The hoosier is simply more of a track tire and requires a more aggressive setting to make it work to optimal setting. kumho designed their V700 series tires with this in mind... most guys would like to just slap on a second set of wheels and tires for the weekend and not have to get the car re-aligned before a track weekend. Hence their performance with lower negative camber required. Mike

Go here to see a couple of examples of the HPDE track car I'm building... http://photos.yahoo.com/dat74z Check in the New Zcar Project Folder. I had an auto power Cage in the car located in the "My Photos" folder of the old white car. It started out as a four point bolt in bar I bought from MSA, and had the front points welded in by a speed shop, and was NOT as good a design. I've also had the S&W 12 point cage kit ( http://www.swracecars.com/ ) and would not recommend it for HPDE or SCCA stuff... After placing my cage pieces in the car and mocking it up, I wasn't happy with the placement of the main hoop and sold the kit at a loss. It also isn't a bolt in design at all, and you must be able to weld and fabricate. What I would recommend is you find a shop within 50-75 miles of you, and you strip the interior out of your car and take it to them to have the cage welded in. I also recommend you print out the SCCA/ NASA or other specs for the club ruling on cage design and come to terms with the shop before you drop the car off... Get them to ballpark the cage cost for you. My cage was going ot be around $2000 and ended up being $2400. It sounds steep, but when you price your own time and the question of if it will be acceptable with club rules, (and what if it isn't ) paying for the work to be done right was the way to go for me! Regardless what avenue you choose, you'll get a lot of "opinions" on the cage you have built. Seems everyone has an opinion on the right cage for the job... Most important thing to do is FIND a shop that specifies in Sports Car Club of America, ALMS, SWC, NASA and other styles of cages for sports cars and NOT NHRA or NASCAR style cages. If you go a drag specific shop, it won't be strong enough for road course and won't pass tech. If you go to a NASCAR shop, it'll be built like a sherman tank and add 400# of material to the car. The going rate in my area was $75 per hour. If you're not concerned with ITS rules or building to ITS ruling, then go crazy and make is SAFE. My cage was built by a shop that builds a LOT of BMW, Mazda and Porsche race cars for SCCA competition. Piper Motorsports cages were in a large number of cars at this year's runoffs. The turn around was one week on the work I had done. Hope this helps! Mike