Dan Juday

Sorry. It's a big, big secret.

If you have an f-body T5 just buy the bellhousing that goes with it. That way the tranny mount AND the shifter will both line up just fine. Just check out the manual transmission section of the JTR book, it explains it all very clearly with pictures.

Nic is right on the money. The repairs look just like that, a repair. Don't dismiss the caps. If they are installed correctly they look very good. Most people can't tell them from the real thing.

On this web page are 15 under-car pics of custom exhaust systems on Z cars (including a few of mine). Some have sidepipes.

Paint it the same color. Looks best IMHO.

I cut my tranny mounts off with a sawzall. Went very quickly and not as ear shateringly load as an air chisel. You do get metal dust that you don't get with the chisel. like TZ, I left the flat section with the spot welds and just sprayed it with rattle can undercoat. If anybody asks I just say it is "extra frame strengthening". Nobody asks. With the f-body T5 (15* angle) you need to dimple the floor near the gas pedel to make room for the clutch slave cylinder. This adds an extra complication as now you need to trim off about an inch from the bottom of the pedel so it won't snag in the carpet and get stuck in WOT. Not that you won't spend a lot of time there anyways. But, occasionally, you'll need to lift. The only other spot I "clearanced" was a spot on the passinger side to make room for the JTR tranny mount. I needed to do this to get my tailshaft to line up better with the diff. If you have a 280 I think is not necessary due to the differaces in the floor pans. If I ever get my car back from the painter I'll put it up on a hoist and take some pics with a ruler in place to show how much to smack. It's really not a big deal. Like the other guys say, you never notice it inside the car. If it were me I woundn't worry if I did it before of after any other work. If you do it before and just guess, you will, no doubt, have to fine tune it later anyways. JMHO, Dan

Welcome to hybrid Aphex. John Washington is in the process of getting his fiberglass business back together. He offered two kits for the ZX. One a convertable and the other a Ferrari Daytona. You can e-mail John and get the latest info on when his kits will be available again. john@reactionresearch.com Also, John is a member here. If you do a search in this forum you can read about him. The Z car fiberglass business is a little flakey to say the least. Funny how some businesses just attract that type. John is not that way. I bought several hundred dollars of products from him. He is a consumate professional and sells only quality pieces. JMHO, Dan

Jeggs or Summit, they're Flowtechs.

I wouldn't put a lot of stock in that "don't back up in cold weather" thing, Izzy. Go for it Georgia, fire that baby up and wake the neighbors. Enjoy the noise, you won't hurt a thing. That's your victory cry. Heck, that's a right of passage for all us HybridZ guys.

Moves a cable, right? Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought that's how they work. If so 3" or 4" forward or back shouldn't matter. Right? Or am I showing my ignorance here. BTW, very cool looking shifter.

Great work. Talk about fun with sawzall! Can't wait to see more. Looks like you are going to need a little more width on the YZ fenders to tuck the wheels up. What's your plan? Just a suggestion: Your pics are too big to see the whole thing. Even with a nice big monitor like mine it's like looking at small sections of a huge road map. Slow load time with a modem and lots of scrolling. If you can resize them right you can still have the detail you want and make them viewable. Dan

Don't know why you would want to fuss with the cast iron (those things are as heavy as, well, cast iron) when you can get ceramic coated blockhuggers delivered to your door ready to bolt up and look great for <$200. JMHO. BTW, I had a cousin from W. Virginia pronounce it Come-mirror-oh.

Yes, all good info. Here is a shot of that fan mounted on the van radiator. I liked the factory look so I used the plastic top mount from the f-body. The radiator is all rubber mounted with the oem rubber. JY parts, cost me $80:rad $40, fan $40. Easy install with the JTR lower mount (lower it another 3/8" so your cap clears the hood). Only thing else you need to mount the fan is a simple piece of sheet metal bent into a Z shape to attach it on the drivers side.

Wow, sounds like the perfect hybrid candidate! You grab the torch and I'll get the sawzall. Whadayasay...big block? Can anyone else hear the screaming over at zcar.com?

Mudge, thank you. Excellent, concise history of the T5 as used by Ford. (Was worth putting up with all the pop up windows) Got a link to a page that explains the GM/T5 history?

sball, we don't do that here. Lots of guys go to the daily active topics page. Multiple listings of the same post just spam up that board. Also you end up with a split thread that can often become more trouble than it's worth. Guys here are happy to help. If you post and get no responce just "bump" the thread. Like someone else said on another version of this same post/thread, some people don't visit here on the weekends. So just bump it a couple of days. If you continue to multiple post you will find that people will just not respond to you. And we don't want that. We like you guys from down under. You get lots of cool cars we don't get to see state side. Thats all. And welcome to HybridZ.

If the rim in the pic is 0 offset than that's about a 10" wide rim. The 7" wont look as deep. Steve Cameron has those on his Tomohawk. (I know, but underneath it's a Z) His are 8" and 10". Nice pic of Steves car

Alex, you probably gave him the money because he looks like you. You said he looked like an ex dot-commer. We always have the deepest sympathy for those that remind us of ourselves. Next time you feel like helping the disadvantaged, and want to be sure your money goes to help those who really need it, send $20 bucks to City Team in San Jose. An excellent organization that I have had personal ties with. They do more to help people in the south bay get off the streets and into a meaningful life than all other charities in that area combined.

Nice ride Jon. Wise move making him drive with the helmet. I've heard about alternators coming apart on those cars at speed.

Yup, like John said, that's normal. A good alternator should put out at least 14 to 14.5 vdc.

About the time I joined here there was a guy that had big beutiful shots of his 260 painted Viper blue with white stripes. Sadly, his site is no longer up. Knew I wanted a blue. After looking at scores of different blues I just couldn't get that car out of my mind. It's really just a deep rich blue with extra metalic in it but it is stunning. With those huge rear fenders it should look nice. Wifey refuses to let me put stripes on it though.

If anybody remembers the Rio Vista Hob Nob and swap earlier this year, there was a restored '57 T-bird there with a 312ci V8 in it.

Gene, all excellent points. I was not attacking electric fans. I love electric fans. For heavens sake thats a pic of MY electric fan. I just wanted to defend Jims remarks and point up the oft underestimated importantance of shrouds as Mike Kelley mentioned. Each type has it's +'s & -'s. In a hybrid the electrics make things much simpler which is always big in my book. Wow, this thread was gotten off topic a bit, eh?

Mike, I'm using the one from the Ford van. It was about $120 at Napa. Sorry I don't have a more specific app. I'd have to dig through my receipts. Had all that info on my windows machine before it died. It is quiet. Here is a poor pic, sorry again. It may be so quiet because it is mounted in a rubber sleave with rubber covered straps on a bracket that I rubber mounted to the frame.

I just got to throw in my .02. Jim is right on the money. You can't get around conservation of energy. In fact I'll go even farther: The efficiency factor of the alternator (must be<100%) means that the electric fan robs MORE hp from the engine than a directly coupled mechanical fan. Again, this is considering all other factors are equal. Mikelly's statement needs highlighting here,"The key is the proper shrouding..." This is essential. You can move all the air you want, but if it doesn't go where you want it, it's wasted. I firmly believe this is the big problem with aftermarket electric fans. Not the fault of the motor or blade, but the lack of a good shroud. The Taurus fan works so well because it has an excellent shroud. If your shroud doesn't cover the entire core than your not using all your radiator. There, I've shot off my mouth enough.