Dan Juday

Zline, The suspension link is broken, so is the contact us link. I'm thinking SCCA Mike is out of the suspension business. Doug, Thanks, I've dropped a PM to Mikelly.

No. I don't care for the Arizona Z design or price. Mike cut the stock arms and added an adjustable section. That's what I'm looking for.

... like the ones Mike Kelly used to sell. Anybody making/selling these currently?

Years ago I owned a glass shop. You need to know what the tempering process does to the glass to understand why you can't cut it. In a post above it was mentioned that tempered glass is like a balloon. This is correct. To temper glass you put your finished cut piece of glass in an oven and slowly raise the temperature. As the glass approaches a molten state the molecules in the glass begin to realign. At this point it is removed from the oven and cool air is blown over the surface. This flash cooling (annealing) freezes the molecules on the surface in their hot configuration. Then as the interior of the glass slowly cools to room temperature the molecules inside realign to the their cold configuration. This sets up tremendous tension between the glass on the surface and the glass on the inside. This internal tension is what makes the glass so strong. FYI, the tempering process is very closely controlled. If the rate of heating and cooling are not precise and completely even over the entire surface of the glass it explodes from the tension. Even with high quality equipment and computer controls they still lose a certain percentage due to tiny unseen imperfections in the glass. So now you can see that cutting tempered glass is impossible. It would be like trying to cut an inflated balloon in half and hoping you could get two rubber bowls out of it. Once the surface is cut through the whole thing collapses. It is possible to scratch or etch the surface of tempered glass so long as you don't penetrate too far. I have sandblasted designs on 1/2" tempered glass as deep as about .060" Hope this helps clear things up.

If you want your Z to look like an AC Cobra there is a kit for that.

You're not going to cut tempered glass. For the de-tempering/annealling the temperature at which you need to bring the glass to will cause it to slump. You need expensive specialized equipment to even consider this. If you must have glass that is curved correctly you may find a custom glass shop that can slump a piece of laminate safety glass but this will not be cheap either. Go Lexan. This is a material you can manipulate yourself with some heat.

Not exactly. The previous contractor had Jerry rigged it. Suffice it to say, the thermostat was hanging off the wall on one screw with some wires sticking out from behind it. They had to twist together three wires together to bring on the A/C, then untwist them to shut it off when it got too cold. If they left two wires connected the unit would freeze up. When they discovered this they would untwist them and then the ice would melt and water would pour in from the ceiling.

David, good to hear from you again. You moved to Colarado? Glad you are proceeding with the Datsun V8 to Datsun Z swap. Can't wait to see some pics!

Come to my town. It's the expected norm here. You wouldn't believe the shocked looks I get when I show up. I showed up to fix an air conditioner this last summer. The customer had been waiting quite a while for the previous contractor to return with the right part. SEVEN YEARS!!! Yup, it's true. They would call once a year to see if the part had come in yet. It was a common universal relay. I have at least five or six on my truck at all times. You know, they weren't even angry at the other guy?????

Just set your Illuminas on 5. You'll never even know the motor's running.

I'd say without a doubt you have the MSA kit. The JTR kit would put the motor about 1 1/2" farther back, Scarab about the same amount forward. Big tell is that the three different styles of motor mounts don't look anything like each other. If yours look "just like the MSA mounts" I'd call that a lock.

Something is out of place though, Scumdog. Generally the setback (JTR) position prevents the use of long tube headers. Another posibility is that you have the MSA kit. With this kit the motor sits farther back than a Scarab but not as far as the JTR. You can use full length headers with the MSA kit. Any chance you could snap some pics and post them? What is the distance from the back of the heads to the firewall?

Hey Al, Good to hear from you. Glad to see you've updated your avitar with a more resent picture of yourself.

Alex, your manifold is done! Looks great. Who finally did it for you and what did it cost? Are you happy with it? What's it made of? If I missed your post on this, sorry, link me to the right one. Edit: That little green car has to be a Honda 600, right?

On the Tomahawk we used the green covers with the black faced Autometer speedo and tach to better match the remaining stock gauges. There is a definite drop in brightness, very similar to the dim stock 280Z gauge lights.

If you have the JTR book it has a good labled picture of the back of both 240 and 280 tachs showing clearly where the adjustment screw is. I have an EFI motor too but I just connected to the coil for the tach signal like a conventional set up. All you have to do is turn the adjusting screw to match your known good external tach (like you are doing). The adjusting screw is located under the hole that is between the two bulb holes near the top of the tach.

The ZG flares are contored to fit on the stock fenders. The YZ fenders deviate considerably from stock. There is no lip around the opening, no crease line at the door handle, and the rocker detail is completely blended out by the time it gets to the wheel openings. All this on top of fact that the shape of the fenders is also very different. As a concept it sounds good but I think the fit would be so far off it would just look goofy. I think you would have beter luck trying to fit them to the SubtleZ fenders.

Dave Greimann also had an excellent web site with tons of pics and great technical advice too. Don't know if it's still up. Good luck.

You have the question backwards. You upgrade the chassis to match the power. If you are going to increase your torque by 100 ft/lbs than certain minimum chassis improvements are required. If you are going to increase it by 1000 ft/lbs than other chassis improvements are required. How much power are you going to have? Members here that have Z's with similar numbers can offer first hand advice on how extensive your chassis modifications will need to be. Make sense? Welcome to Hybrid.

The story I've heard on this rear end (R200/3.36) is that in '79 the new 280ZX was offered with an automatic or your choice of a four or five speed manual. The R200/3.36 was only installed with the four speed manual. Since anyone wanting a manual tranny would prefer a five speed over the four very few of the four speeds were sold, thus making this a rather rare bird rear end. This is only what I've heard from a couple different places. I've no documentation to back it up. I don't have a phone number for Eric but his e-mail is eric@zparts.com

Hmm, I wonder if the old Mini Cooper wheels have the same bolt circle as a Z? GOT 12's!!!

Good post. I learned that on my last swap but never thought to mention it. Actually you can use the electronic Autometer speedos with any tranny that has a VSS with or without a computer.

I rerouted my brake lines AND wrapped them with some heat reflective tape. Depending on the type of headers you use they can get really close to the brake lines on the passenger side.

Sorry Alex but I love that! Got a link to where I can learn more about it?

Don't know of another gear set that will fit but I believe Eric of Zparts.com has one of those rare 3.36/R200's for sale.