Dan Juday

Correct.

I've got the seventh edition and I'm looking at page 5-7. "The 1984-1988 Corvette bellhousing is on the left and the 1984-1992 Camaro bellhousing is on the right." The statement is correct in my book. I have a complete engine/tranny package from a 1991 TA with the angled bellhousing and tranny. If you plan on using the T5 you described it will have the angled mount. If you buy an angled bellhousing your tranny will bolt up to the JTR tranny mount flat without modifications. The shifter is also angled so there are no problems with it being straight in the car.

When we did the LT1/T56 into a 280 I'm glad we slotted the holes. The tranny fit much better with the motor slid forward. I don't see any down side to slotting the holes. In four years I haven't read any posts here of motor mount failures due to the slotted holes.

Looks good. How about a shot from the underside showing the reinforcement?

Mike makes a good point. This is a difficult subject because you have to balance between exposing genuine crooks on one side and the risk of slandering on a public forum honest people that may have a ligitimate dispute. I don't know how to do that on this wide open board. But, I think that the relative few posts about people getting "screwed" is a testament to the overall good self-policing here. I will offer this: If someone sends money for an item that was offered for sale on this site and the item doesn't show up after several months and the seller wont respond, that should be brought to the public forum for the seller to respond to or risk his or her reputation. Anything else that reasonable people can dispute should remain private. JMHO FWIW.

I'm running 265/50/15's on the front on 8" rims. I think with a 275 you could run 9" wide rims with no problem. But I still don't know if you could fit that in the rear wheelwell. I have 4 1/2" of backspacing but I have 10" coilovers and tall tires in the rear. I wanted to signifcantly lower the car so it was either that or use some rediculously short spring and sacrifice ride quality.

The battery and clutch MC are not that bad. I've worked on a Tomahawk and that body kits fenders cover that area where the inspaction doors are. O.k. the clutch MC is a pain but the battery is no big deal. The wiper motor, that is simply imposible. I asked Jim about that. He said if it ever fails he is going to cut a hole in the firewall to access it. Good luck with that, Jim.

ROTFLMAO!!!! Absolute genius!!!

Jim Darnell had the inspection doors and the cowl to fender seams on his Z welded and smoothed. Looks great and he didn't relocate his battery or clutch MC. Pic by Eric Neyerlin of Zparts.com

Thought you might have that in mind. I had an idea I never pursued because I couldn't find one in the junk yard. There was a particular body style of Toyota Celica that had two big and two little headlights (little ones on the inside) Kind of shaped like Taurus headlights. I thought they might fit inside the Datsun buckets and give it a unique look. Just a thought. Maybe they crash more Celicas in your neck of the woods?

Nice work Rufus! Make sure you give props to John W. for all his cool parts. 8) The cut line you decided on looks good. I had forgotten that you were using SubtleZ front fenders. With paint on mine I notice that the light bends around the area between the door and the wheel opening. A curved cut line that kind of matches the same curve would just about disapear in the light. Take your time finishing it or pay a good shop. Any misfit there is going to show up bigtime when the paint is on. Did you use a steel hood or fiberglass? FWIW, you will wish that you had cut out the holes for the headlights before you glassed the buckets on. Gonna be a PITA now. Don't mean to sould like wet towel, really. It looks great, very original.

What Pete says. It's more a function of the header design than head design. I have straight plug heads and with the Flowtech's I have two plugs that are really close. Conversely, we used Patriot blockhuggers on the LT1 (angle plug) swap and they clear the plugs with no problem.

I found the one you're talking about. I still haven't seen the mag yet though. Maybe they messed with it some. The mag did a two page artical with pics in the previous issue. I guess they had too many pics left over and decided to include another one in the next issue as well.

I've got coilovers and 4 1/2" of backspacing on all four wheels. That makes the front 0 offset and the back, uh, something else.

Is it this one? I haven't seen it yet. It's not photoshoped.

The wheels are 8" front 10" rear, four bolt semi-cutom wheels by Billet Specialties. Centerline won't make 10" wide wheels on a four bolt pattern for some reason. I wanted to go with 16" wheels but nobody made tires wide enough to fill the fenders in a 16". 17" would mean a very low profile tire and I didn't want that, harsh ride and I just don't care for the look of wagon wheels. Call me old school, (just don't call me old!). So that left me with 15's. The only really wide 15" tires are BFG TA's. The rears are Euro TA's because the standard TA's only go to 295.

The seat rails that are spot welded to the floor do add to the overall structural integrity of the car. How much is arguable. I personally think it's close to negligible. We removed the floor rails from a 280 for a seat swap and welded in new ones that better suited the new seats. I think you could do the same without any loss of structural integrity. Depending on your design you may even make things better.

Got that part number for the Holley that we used in the LT1 Tomahawk: #12-920 SW Holley FU.

That's pretty much the deal. Turns out the best place to attach the sub frame connectors is right in the path of the sway bar. You can run without one or get one of the rear mount types. I've seen ones that come with new vertical supports (the pieces that connect the rear "A" arm pivots and rear diff crossmember to the unibody). The new vertical supports have extra "ears" with holes to bolt the sway bar clamps to. Sorry I don't have any names, or links, or pics. Maybe someone else can help.

Maybe he was just being kind. So Larry, a.k.a. COZY Z COLE, high tails it over to Rio this evening to hang and yack Z's with me at the local Hot Rod diner. I'm checking out his very cool 350 c.i. sbc with BLOWER and he want's a ride in my little mouse motor 305 tpi powered crate. "Larry, please, it don't compare." Still the guy drives out here to meet and B.S. with me I'm not going to deny him a humble request. We pull out onto the main drag and immediately I give it a little throttle. Not a lot just enough to plant him in his seat. I let off and cruse peacably toward to the city limits. A mile up Hwy 12 we hang a right on Church Rd. Rotten road, take it easy. At the end of Church and we turn onto Airport. Nice smooth empty blacktop. I hit it hard, loosing traction in first, again in second, and a last chirp in third, (just so no one forgets those are 305/50/15's out back). I back out of it before speeds get too high. What a blast! And Larry is telling me how fast MY car is! Thanks Larry. I hope there was some truth to it.

Nice wheels, excellent price. Don't sweat a few pounds.

Welcome Greg! That was the most intelligent first post I've ever read. You will absolutely love a V8 Zcar. Even moderately powered cars like mine, 250hp/300trq, are a blast. The potential for a very fast car is easy to reach when you have so little weight to haul around.

Preparing for phase IV on my Z, the suspension. Question for you guys that have changed out your old rubber steering rack bushings for polyurethane ones. How has this effected your steering effort? My car: '73 240Z. I have the stock non-power steering, sbc iron heads in JTR position, 265/50/15 front tires with 0 offset, and a 13" Momo steering wheel. Needless to say, the 265 wide front tires and the 13" steering wheel conspire to make this a pain to park. Maybe down the road (phase X or XX?) I'll do the power steering mod. But right now it's not on the radar. So, will the stiffer rack bushing help or hurt steering this thing in a tight parking maneuver? (Or make any difference at all) Right now it seems like half the effort is used just to stretch the rubber to the point that it finally starts moving the tires. Also, a slight aside, what is all this I read about some people finding the rack bushings to be too tight while others find them to be too loose? What's with that? I know that the sizes changed between the 240's and the 280's but everyone swears they have the right ones. (shug)