QWKDTSN

Aren't all Maximas FWD...? Or did they switch over a few years ago?

Just offhand, my dad brought up a very interesting point recently. Jags That Run might just be an obscure pun. I've always thought of it as Jags that haul ass, but he immediately thought of it at face value - older Jaguars (which don't exactly have five stars in the reliability department) that actually run! I was shocked that I had never thought of it before.

Hey guys... I've been looking all over the 'net and haven't been able to find a method of bleeding my clutch that will work. I'm using the plastic slave with the big ol' JTR adapter setup and -3 hose with a Howe aluminum 3/4" master cylinder (not sure yet if this is too small). Since all the parts are brand new, there was no fluid in the system at all when I started. I'm not sure where air will build up and how to get it out. I've tried holding the pedal to the floor and opening the bleed screw at the same time, didn't really work. I've tried opening the screw as the pedal is slowly being pushed down then closing it just before the bottom, didn't work. I've tried a combination of the two. Can anyone who's done this give me any hints?

Lone, I'm using a stock type clutch (with a 400hp rating), not Centerforce. And yeah, I did have to go at the hole just the tiniest bit with a Dremel but it slipped in there nice and snug and the clevis wasn't trouble to hook up. Just drilled it out and got another nut to secure it.

Hmm, I don't get it. The tranny mount hole should be at the rear of the crossmember so that there's less clearancing to be done, but it fits better when the hole is offset to the front. (shrug) I guess I'll go crawl around some more and work on it. Thanks for the help guys, I'm sure I will refer back to this post quite a bit. I've been at the Carlsbad dragstrip all day with my friend and his slow Mustang so I haven't gotten any work done

Yeah, it's unconfirmed. All I knows is, I spent forever getting a 168 tooth flywheel and clutch and it didn't fit under my bellhousing. 153 tooth fit with no problems. Guys, has anyone tried out the Howe aluminum master cylinders? I know Lonehdrider has one for his T56 but I'm not sure of the bore. Mine is 3/4" as specified by JTR. I can always switch to another, they're only $50 or thearabouts from Summit.

Hey guys, I've been working for quite a long time today on getting my tranny lined up correctly. Firstly I'm worried about the driveshaft angle, so I've been sort of eyeing it and seeing if there's anything in the way. I hammered room for the clutch fork, maybe too much, since there's a bulge under the gas pedal now (will have to hammer it back from the inside and refine it some.. i'm not sure where the fork is going to be when everything's right). Lined up the crossmember, saw that it needed room on the passenger side, and hammered it in a bit. After a while I realized that there was not going to be any hammering to be done on the driver's side, plenty of room between the crossmember hump and the car floor. Immediately after that I realized that if I continued trying to line up the crossmember where it was, it would be resting under the frame rail!!! There's an inch and a half of space between the frame rail and the crossmember on the driver's side and negative one half inch on the passenger side. I fiddled with everything and moved the tranny over to the driver's side enough that the crossmember would fit. Of course, this completely misaligned everything. The tranny doesn't even come close to the right geometry with the diff, and the shifter is waaaaaaay off to the driver's side (it hits the left side of the shifter hole even in fifth gear). Remember, I'm using the T5 so the tranny is tilted towards the driver. What pisses me off the most is that every underside picture in the JTR manual shows 'prototype' transmission mounts. There isn't a sinigle picture of their own tranny crossmember mounted up to a car in the entire book, so I can't get a feel for how my own setup should look. There don't seem to be that many of you guys using T5s, despite the information available in the book, so I haven't been able to find any pictures of what it all should look like on the net either! It seems to me that the only way to make the crossmember fit right and have the tranny fit right is to drill another hole in the crossmember (not fun, considering it's hardened steel). Can anyone please give me any hints?

Fast Frog, hmmm.. I'll check that out. Working on 'clearancing' the tranny tunnel right now. MikeKz, yes, the spark plugs fit no problem.

Thanks guys! RX0510, yeah, those are the Flaming Engraving valve covers (tall style). I'm wondering how you guys determine when the tranny is pointing directly at the diff - I'd hate to have it off by a little bit and have vibration. There's been lots of discussion on vertical angle but none horizontal. Since the crossmember is slotted, it allows for unprecise alignment. I hope it will all become clear once I get the car up in the air and start lining up the tranny crossmember, and once I get the shifter more into place. I think I may be able to slide the engine back a little bit, anyway. Frog, was your driveshaft length the same or near the same as the JTR specs with the T5 tranny?

They're what JTR sent me... I think they're just steel

I got mine for 22.50 from Ecology. So yeap, they can be found cheap. I actually found two of them sitting in two cars, right next to each other. I tested out the newer one and it pulls air like a mofo...

Finally, I slapped that motor into my car! I was waiting forever for my billet steel flywheel (17 lbs versus the 26.5 for the one I was going to be using.. yikes!) I bolted the tranny to the motor and got it al ready to go. Wasn't as hard as expected. I borrowed a hoist from my friend Joel and its legs were too tall to slide under my crossmember (remember, super low car..) and the arm wasn't long enough as I had it set up. He needed it back anyway, so I went and rented a hoist. Started to jack the motor up, and I realize that the hydraulic cylinder's not holding pressure! I had to wait yet another day. Ended up just trading the one hoist for another from the rental place and dropped her in today after waiting for two hours for my dad to get home from work. The hardest part was getting the motor mounts bolted up. I got the bolt into the driver's side no problem because the spacer on that side is so large. Getting the passenger side one lined up without having my wrist crushed by the header was tough. My dad got it threaded twice and both times I turned the wrench the wrong way and unscrewed it (doh!) But eventually we got it in there. Not a big deal. I still need to line everything up nicely and work with the tranny crossmember, but here's some pics of what she'll sort of look like when she's done V8Z photos

I have the regular red Energy Suspension kit and haven't heard one single squeak. My stock Honda Accord's suspension squeaks more than the Z does

Yep Jeromio, that's exactly how my struts are. The guy who did them works at Dave Turner Motorsports and does a ton of 510 struts. His name is Eric (so avoid him if you need this done.. ) I guess he doesn't do too many Z struts because he screwed them up... I think what he did was cut both of the struts, weld one together, and try to put on the collar. The collar wouldn't fit over the weld, so he ground it down and wedged the collar down over it. The second strut, he just put on the collar and then welded above it. He took so long to get them done that I didn't complain much, since it works. Mostly, I didn't complain because he hooked me up for a quarter of what he's supposed to charge me (which is why they took so long, he had other things to do that were full price so mine were on the back burner). Well, I don't know about the springs. Mike and John C. make it sound as though my springs are too soft for the struts, and I respect them both very very much. Can anyone else give some input to help clear this up? Are my springs too soft or too hard?

HybridZ'ers rule. This is the only forum that I've ever encountered where every post includes really useful information and there's not a lot of trash talking and joking around going on. Okay, so yes, My car's low.. I like it that way I can always raise it once I get some longer springs. I guess I will try a 175/200 since that will allow me to use my rear springs in the front and just buy a longer set of 200s for the rear, where I need them long. Will this be enough to compensate for the V8 or should I go to 200/225? The thing is about the spring length is, the guy that sectioned my strut cut the tube right where the threaded collar needs to go. There wasn't room above the weld for it, so he ended up putting the collar down at the bottom of the strut, so it's wedged under this weld. It makes it impossible to just put on a longer collar. But some longer springs will fix things nicely. I don't think my car's bottoming out. I can usuall tell when it does (not often, unless I'm totally wrong and it does nothing but bottom out). I do have poly bushings in the front arms, Mike, and I do have the cone-shaped poly bump stops. I will try the zip tie trick once I get the car back on the road. Yes, the 300ZX wheels do have a +40mm offset. I think I'd need to hear an explanation of how that affects things because they fit like they were made for the car. They could even be offset more, you can see that there's a fingertip between the tires and the UNrolled fender. I'm just sort of wondering about all this right now, since there's no way for me to drive the car and do different modifications to see the differences. I will put on stiffer springs and maybe raise the car a little, add some swaybars and see if I need to do the bumpsteer mod or add bumpsteer spacers. The car does have some negative camber. Imagine the A-arm sitting level and the body as a vertical line connected to it. The strut is the hypotenuse, forming a triangle. Shorten the strut and you shorten the hypotenuse (well, it's not really a hypotenuse anymore, since that would make it no longer a right triangle, but let's just pretend). The wheel hub attached to the strut leans over more, then, since the stut's shorter. There's a little negative camber up front and a bit more in the rear. But it's not bad like most of the lowered 510s that are around whose rear tires literally do look like this: / Thanks again.

You think I should get some stiffer springs? I probably need some new ones anyway because the guy that sectioned my strut in the rear put the threaded sleeve down too low and the car sits low even with the adjustment nut all the way at the top. Ugh. I was under the impression that I wasn't getting any bump damping out of the car because the springs were too stiff, though I know for a fact that 150 and 175 are really soft. So it was sort of a contradiction. The alignment on my car seems okay but I guess I'll get it checked again. The camber's off a little, of course, because of the sectioned struts but it's okay for the autocross. Just a little too negative for regular driving around town. The car sits low but the tires are tall... I mean, they're not low profile by any stretch. They were made for a bigger car and look big on the little 240. I was under the impression that bumpsteer spacers would mess up the roll center with the sectioned struts. I don't think anything's hanging up, I've put everything through its full movement. picture of the car's stance But do you think the swaybars will make a significant improvement all around? That's what I'm hoping for because it's a major component of the suspension that's being left stock with all these other parts being stiff.

Here's the setup I have: GC coilovers, struts sectioned 2". 10" springs, 150# front 175# rear. Illumina 5-way adjustable strut inserts. No camber plates. Stock front swaybar, no rear swaybar. Stock front arm mount (not JTR bumpsteer mod). Urethane bushings. Rear strut brace. 15" 300ZX wheels with 215/60/15 Yokohama AVS Intermediate tires. My car rides.. well, okay, I guess. It was always really rough over patchy roads, shaking me up a lot and getting a lot of rattling from the suspension. Over big bumps it bounced even with the struts set at a high setting. basically it didn't soak up bumps like it should, like any factory stock car does. I can't figure it out because my springs really aren't that stiff and shock settings, while they did change the way things felt, didn't help soak up bumps. The worst thing about this is that with my tall-profile tires and non-bumpsteer-mod, I get a lot of steering wheel kickback. A lot, like where in any corner with bumps I don't have much confidence in the roadholding of the car. The body doesn't roll all that much that I can tell, it corners nice and flat, but bumps are a big problem. There's one corner by my house with a manhole right in the middle that I always take at 35 in my daily driver with no problems, and taking it in the 240 was annoying because my awesome performance car with the upgraded suspension bounced off this little dip in the road like a pinball, the wheel kicking back hard against my hands and everything. On the autocross track, I really think I need some swaybars because the car doesn't take corner transitions well. it pushes pretty hard. I'm hoping the V8 will help take care of this, along with a rear-mounted battery, but I am definitely going to be installing the swaybar kit from MSA either before or after I get the car running with the eight. Do you guys think that the bumpsteer mod is anything I should look at? Why the hell do they want you to tack weld that washer over the old hole once you've drilled a new one? I doubt you're compromising any rigidity and by welding over it you can't ever go back to the stock setup. I've seen other guys drill the new holes and weld over the stock hole and it doesn't make any sense to me. Basically, how can I get my suspension to soak up bumps and still keep the car cornering flat? Swaybars should help, but don't necessarily mean that by setting my shocks softer that I'll get any more dampening because swaybars are basically just big torsion bars. Would different springs help? I usually have my car set on 3/4 front and rear on the illuminas and 4/5 for the track. I've tried switching the settings, but that stiffens the front and makes it push more. One major problem may just be that my tall sidewalls are rolling over in quick corner transitions - but shorter sidewalls certainly won't help soak up bumps! When I ordered my tires I wasn't really thinking straight, and I ordered the stock size for a 300ZX, which is where my wheels are from. They're 215/60/15s. I have a set of 205/50/15s that came with the wheels (they were on a 510) and was thinking that the reason they were so short is that the 205 makes the 50% aspect ratio really small... the 215 makes the 60% aspect ratio on my current tires really tall.. maybe a wider tire would fit if I had a 55% ratio? 225 or 235? And this would not be quite as tall... or maybe even a 50 series with the wider tread would fit and not be so tall. I don't know. Stupid planning on my part to get the tires I did. Anyone want them? Brand new, maybe 500-700 miles on them. Still have 'molding fuzzies' on the sidewalls. I'd love for this to be a car that I can autocross with a turn of the dial on the Illuminas and still take out on bumpy streets without rattling myself to death. It's probably wishful thinking, but is there any way to accomplish this without spending too much? Ideas needed

Well, it comes with a set of hardware to install the air dam. If you're getting rid of your front bumper you won't need any bumper hardware But if you're installing the front bumper you still use the original bolts, same as stock. The air dam's really not all that hard to install. You just want to be super careful when marking your holes. Remove the stock front panel and put the urethane air dam up to the fenders. Clamp it in place with C-clamps. This way you can shift it around and clamp it down again to make sure everything lines up perfectly. Once you've accomplished this to your satisfaction, mark the holes with a punch, drill them out, and bolt up the air dam. The hard part comes after you've got it mounted to the body - installing the stock turn signals. These are tougher because of the angle of the screws and the way they tuck into the air dam - it's way different than the stock front panel where they just bolt up. What I ended up doing is actually taking the lights apart so there was less to work with. This took the most time for me, and the most careful measuring and drilling.

but damn the difference between 4x100mm and 4x4 1/2"! It's really not much. It makes me wish that there was some way to reliably machine the holes on the wheels outward so I could use a set on my car

Pretty cool idea. I can see you drilled the holes for the two screws that hold down the straps. Annoyingly enough my car only came with two of the straps. I guess there were four, or something - this is the first Z I've owned and luggage straps aren't exactly high on my list of priorities so I never looked into how they worked. I have the two straps that screw down to the very back of the trunk floor. So attach the straps to the bottom of the fuel cell box, wrap them over the top of the cell, and then what? Of course I lost my damn Motorsport Auto catalog... I think I'm the most helpless, hopeless member of this forum I may end up building a top for the box that will hold the cell down nice and snug, I'm not sure. This was supposed to take three months but I keep on finding fun stuff to do to my car First it was just the motor. Now all of a sudden, I'm going to be welding in a fuel cell (my first experience with fuel systems as well as my first experience cutting and welding on my car..) Then I need a cage, and I'm being pressured to have the cage put in now while it's stripped down and there's no motor in it.. that's just more time..

Tim, what are the dimensions of the box you built? I like how the fuel cell sits below the floor, as opposed to Owen's. I was looking at the aluminum cell but I may take a closer look at the poly cell since it's cheaper and holds a gallon more...

YES! Exactly! That's the one I was thinking of! Great looking install, Tim! I hope to do the exact same thing you did, though my frame rails are in good shape. I may add some extra bracing back there just for fun. What brand fuel cell is that? I was looking at the Summit 20x18x10 fifteen gallon one (same as Mike Kelly I believe..). How did you hold the poly cell down since it doesn't have tabs on the bottom? Or did you just rest it in there?

Whoops, never mind, I think it was Owen's Sorry for taking up space on the board. If anyone else has done something similar I'd love to see the pics.

And now I can't find it anywhere.. someone built up a box that the fuel cell bolted to, with a hole in the bottom for the fuel pickup to drop through, it looked really nice. I'm going to be doing something similar soon so if I can get that site again I'd really appreciate it.. will post this in a couple of other forums as well.