Dan Juday

When I had that nose on my 240 I made a simple aluminum pan that attached to the bottom of the JTR lower radiator mount with four or five screws and at the front it slipped into the space just above the return on the bottom of the airdam. I attacked it to the airdam with black RTV. The pan was full width and provided a lot of support even though it was only maybe 18 gauge thick. I made the mistake of filling the gap between the (fiberglass) fenders and the airdam. Even though the airdam was very ridgidly mounted, and I used quality products, the seam still cracked. If I can find pics of the aluminum pan I'll post that too.

That's freighting to watch. A good reminder of the dangers of high performance cars. Even going two miles an hour you could lose a foot or worse in an "accident". I had a somewhat similar story this last year. A few years back I sold my wife’s Suburban to a friend. He daily drives it and has taken it back to Texas a few times (from California). He doesn't race it but he's not easy on it either. This last summer he was staying with us for a few days before heading back to Dallas. I rode with him in the Sub on some errand and noticed a vibration that it didn’t have when we owned it. When I asked about it he said it started about a year ago after he heard a bang under the floor while on the freeway at about 80mph. He figured something came up off the road and wacked something but he had been too busy to investigate farther. And, anyways, the vibration was not that bad. More like a gentle lope than a shake. After a few days of thinking about this it bothered me. I climbed under the truck one afternoon to investigate myself. In the dust cover bolted to the bottom of the automatic tranny’s bellhousing I found a nice slit that looked like it was cut with an axe. It was about three to four inches long and about an eighth or an inch wide. I grabbed Mark and we pulled the cover off to investigate farther. With him rotating the motor from the front and me poking around with a flash light I discovered a chunk of the flex plate, almost as big as a CD, was missing! Ramps, floor jacks, tools everywhere, and about two hours later we had the tranny out and the torque converter unbolted. The next site I almost couldn't believe. The center section of the flex plate had completely broken free of the outer section and had re-indexed itself about 15-20 degrees and then re-wedged itself back together (with the aforementioned chunk completely gone). What was mind boggling was that he had driven this truck over 15,000 mile in this condition. After we secured a new flex plate and re-assembled the vehicle we examined the magical flex plate more closely. Wondering how close to complete failure it had come we tried to separate the two pieces. We could not, with our hands, with wrenches, with hammers. It now hangs on the wall of his garage in Dallas... as a spare in case its replacement breaks.

You've got to have a lot of love for your Beretta to go that far. Is there a hybrid Beretta web site? A place where you can go and chat with other Beretta enthusiasts? Learn about high performance motor swaps?

Thanks for the info. They're close by too. I have a pair of hood hinges I want done. Do you know if they do small stuff too?

Looks good Yasin. Is that 1/4"-1/2" before the lower perch interferes with the tire, or is that all the threads you have left on the collars? It looks from the pictures that if the lower perch in screwed down to the last few threads on the collar you would run out of strut travel and bottom out on the upper perch.

Re-sizing the driveshaft was one of those "A few other things as well..." . If you go with a T5 or a T56 (not a lot of other options for 5 or 6 gears, and I believe all are going to have the shifter come out of the top of the tail section) then you will want to change the mounts to JTR or else the shifter is going to be were your fuse panel is now. And if you change to a JTR mount you'll have to shorten your driveshaft. It's just simple geometry. If you read Mike Knells swap book, the position of the shifter when installing a 5 speed was the original reason for doing the set-back of the motor. The shifter location dictates were everything else is going to go.

Looks like the Scarab/Hooker mount. If you swap in a T5 you'll want to go JTR to get the shifter in the right spot. That also means adjusting your exhaust and maybe changing headers/exhaust manifolds. A few other things as well but worth it IMHO. Nice catch. Keep us updated.

Even if the drip rail is only two layers the flange that the drip rail is adds to the overall stiffness of the outer roof structure. Sticking out from the edge of the roof contributes to countering twisting forces in the roof, and thus, to twisting in the unibody overall. Through great efforts at gnashing of teeth and structural analisys we could argue and calculate the size of that contribution, but I doubt it to be negligable. When you consider the metal fatigue that butt welding the seam back together adds, the argument gets stronger for keeping the rail. On the other hand, if you are going to cage the car it makes no difference, stucturally.

My BD frame rails are plug welded through the floor over the the original rails and then welded to the rear subframe. I then thoroughly seam sealed (two tubes) the entire installation. My floor metal was in good shape. The original rails had some rust and dents, not too bad. My car had very little rust for a '73. The BD rails were part of an overall plan of reinforcing of the unibody. IMHO the BD rails are an excellent product for a very reasonable price. If you have ever tried fabing close fitting parts made with 16 gauge steel you will appreciate the quality and the low price of the BD pieces. After making front frame rail caps to mimic, and tie into, the BD rails I would have gladly paid twice for those pieces.

Here's one that sound's like it might be a candidate. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=115734&page=36

You might try using an elavator bolt in this place. It's like a carage bolt in that it has a square sholder under the head but the head itself is flat and about as thick as a washer. It may give you enough clearance for the slide to move over top of the bolt. Just a thought for those poor souls handicaped with excess height.

My laughter startled my son and the dogs. Both dogs are barking, son is shouting, "What, what!", and my eyes are watering. Thanks, that was great.

I would be cautious of making the edge of the trunk lid too thin. You might think about doing both, a little filler on the fender tops and a little sanding on the trunk lid. On the other hand, if it's just the ends of the trunk lid that have warped upwards then I would add material to the bottom of the edges first and then grind off the top. The thinner the fiberglass gets the harder it is to work with. Measure it first. If you plan to grind away 1/8" on top then get out your mat and add an 1/8" to the underside first.

Actually I don't have an oil cooler. The remote mount I'm using has the extra fittings to run one but I'm not using them for that. One is plugged and the other has my oil pressure sender mounted to it. This mount has an IN and an OUT on each side. I chose this one because the other type with only one IN and OUT have one of the fittings on top. My mount allows for a lower profile and points the hoses directly where I wanted them to go without adding an extra elbow. It cost a little bit more but not much. It was only after I had it mounted that I discovered it would be a convenient place to mount the pressure sender. That orange car is obviously well executed but oil filter changes would require some clean up. All drips from my filter changes go directly to the pan (or the floor!).

I've thought about this idea as well. Like SHO-Z was saying, the unibody re-enforcement would follow the same path as a convertible: rocker re-enforcements and diagonal braces from the rockers to the tops of the rear wheelhouses. Rather that trying to make the removable top section structural though, I would follow Porsche's route as on their 911 Targa and make a fabric top. The car is going to twist some no mater how well you re-enforce it. A hard top is going to bang up the corners unless you bolt it in (maybe even then). Wrenching it on and off is impractical. Another route. like hunterzed was saying, is T-tops from an S-130 donor car. Though it's not a true targa it's close and you will have a hard time finding another S30 like it. Also it has the advantage of using an already engineered design. The S130 roof is very close in dimension to the S30. Rory Bateman used an S130 T-top roof as the basis for his S30 Tomahawk top. Either way, like cockerstar said, this is a 17 project.

Yes.

Mines in almost the same place as Pauls. I mounted mine vertical rather than angled though. One of my hoses runs though the factory hole in the motor mount tower. I used a four fitting filter mount and ran my oil pressure sender off of one of the fittings (no cooler used).

If the motor is a sbc then the tranny is likely a GM T5 and slave also a GM unit. But if you take a picture of it and post it we can tell you what you have. With the GM T5/slave you need to use a 7/8" master to get enough slave travel. Some people have gotten away with a 3/4" but most (like myself) have had to swap up to the 7/8". This is a common issue as older editions of the JTR manual said to use the 3/4" master.

It's not for the McBurnie kit but John Washingtons Velo Rossa manual is very helpful. Pretty much the same process but without the top. http://www.reactionresearch.com/ordering.html

Wow that is scary. I'm going out to the garage right now to check mine.

This is the best time, and the 308, probably the best Ferrari to but right now IMHO. Not that many years ago my wife and I were seriously considering buying a 246 Dino. At the time they could be had in the $25k to $35k range. It would have been a stretch for us but I really thought they were going to take off. We didn't and they did. Check out what decent 246 sells for today on ebay. (still kicking myself) When the economy recovers my guess is the same thing is going to happen with the 308s and the 328s. If you can do it now I'd jump on it and just park it. I love your Z, and I'd never sell mine, but seriously, is there any chance of our old Z cars appreciating like a Ferrari?

Driveline shops should have those too. Probably even cheaper.

Ohhhh..... I want to do that! Don't they have something like that in Australia?

There, someone thinking outside the Z31 box! There are several kit car bodies available for Fiero's. I wonder how difficult it would be to adapt one to the front of a Z31?