DrSideways

We will be having our monthly meeting at Logan's Roadhouse in Greensboro. More information here: http://www.triadzclub.com/index.asp?inc=monthly We have a pretty laid back affair. There should be some video from the latest VIR North event. Alan

I had the spring perch cut off and length cut on a lathe. Then cut the threads in while we were at it. I took the tap to the shop for them to use, but I think they cut them using the lathe because the tap still looks unused. Alan

I would have to say that instructing at the track is my most rewarding time I spend there. It is great to extract smoothness and confidence from any driver, from the grandmother in a Miata to a certain dentist in a fire breathing V8 Z Car. Over the past four years I have been lucky enough to have an average of four days a month on track at VIR various other tracks in the Southeast. Most of the time has been in a student's car. Communicating with a student at speed that is spending his/her first time at the track can be a real hoot most of the time. Only a couple of times has it been a chore. There are some instructors out there that just do it to get track time. They seem to be the ones who don't impart much information to the student. Then wonders why on Sunday morning the student is driving way over their ability with the "I've got it dicked syndrome" that comes from sleeping on all of their mistakes from the previous day. Anyway I am sure that if all instructors were the same they would all be the way we would not want them. Quiet and selfish. When I was getting ready to write this post and thinking about great times at the track one time came to mind while re-reading Katman's post. Back in 1982 or so he was driving at Road Atlanta in the Walter Mitty Historic races with his blue Z Car. I was watching from inside of the track right at the bottom of the dip. (before the track was ruined) He was chasing a well driven 928. Each lap he was getting closer and closer. The cars were under get compression right in the bottom of the dip running at max revs. Right now I couldn't tell you if Katman made the pass, but it was the concentrated chase that was the impressive part. See you guys at VIR in a few short weeks. Merry Christmas, Alan

It sounds like you are doing fine. It is taking you less in funds to start that than it would for me to bring a race prep shop into fruition. As far as keeping the CPA staff...... surround yourselves with the best folks and let them do their jobs. Of course proper and timely suppervision will keep them from going to the islands with the booty.. Happy Holidays, Alan

Hmmm....Since they now know about the whole schedule my approach wouldn't work. If it were me I would have been upfront about your own wedding and vacation time. Then I would have called in sick for the two days later. Done deal. Just make sure to use your cell phone to call from out of state or country. The caller ID wouldn't look good with a Key West tag on it. Alan

So if you don't get a hood or hatch it could be less. I have $1600.00 in my hood and hatch. They are carbon. Hoover has also offered to let Les and his guy use his car to pop a mold from the rear flares. If we stay after this things can still fall into place. Personally I like Hoover's rear flares and the #47 front end for my use. $5k for all of those parts is high, but they are the genuine real deal. I have seen the work from Les and Co. on other parts. The hand laid is the best I have seen. If he does one for me I would prefer the hand laid for strength and weight. Think about it and stay in touch. Alan

That is a great photo of the Primo car and the profile of the "out & down" flare. That looks like a Hoover tag on the back. Did he have that car before it came east? His red turbo car has a vary similar flare. Maybe he made a mold???? I like your profile using my wheels. You should be very close to having that completed. A.

If you can find photos of the white Primadonna kit you will see the correct rear flares. I have been on the hunt for them for quite a while for my vintage racer. Dr. Allan Robbins in the North East may have a line on some molds for the Sharp set. He has a fleet of x Sharp cars and the Fitzgerald #38 Z Car which is chassis # 006. The white Primadonna car was for sale last year iin Tennesse. Still kicking myself for not grabbing that one. From what has been found from nosing around, the Primadonna molds have been disposed of. Les at Classic Datsun has some molds and will make a set. You will remember writing the check. The quality is very good though. Going this route will be expensive no matter which set you use. Good luck, Alan

Hey guys, I heard on another board that R&T and Car & Driver had a Nissan pull out ad included in subscribers latest issues. Ron Carter's BRE replica is in the ad along with some other Z Cars. While at the track this past weekend someone asked if I was in the latest issue of R&T. I was on the grid and did not remember the comment until I saw Ron's post. So, does anyone have the issue and can check to see if my red # 99 Z Car is in there? Apparently it is only in subscriber issues and not newstand copies. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Alan

Bob may have one of them. There is also one on the market right now. Baldwin Motors in Louisiana has one. It is a Turbo ZX. His website seems to be down, but they should be in the phone book. Baldwin also has a nice 510 Vintage racer too. Alan

I just caught this thread. I spoke with Smoothline this morning. They said a 280 spoiler would be 10 weeks out. I see someone posted a pic of one actually mounted to a car. Is this spoiler still in good shape? If so would the owner be willing to let us make a mold? Apparently the only thing available for the 280 is without the vents. I used to get them from Dobi and Motorsport Auto. My next race is towards the end of May. I used up my last one that had been repaired a couple of times last weekend. Switching to another setup really would be a pain. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Alan

Mike & all, It was good to meet you this weekend. All in all it was a great time. The car ran fairly well. I wish I could have done a just over 1/2 second faster to beat the BMW Saturday for the overall TT win. I hope someone here took some photos and maybe can post some soon. You guys are correct about getting to VIR. Over the past 4 years I have been REAL lucky to spend about 4 days a month year round on track there. Most of those days have me on track for six hours. Two hours each for two students and two hours each day for me to wear out stuff. So @ roughly 60mph you can do the math. (Of course the time in Icard's car is much faster) ... We may bring the car back for the South course event in April. I do need to do some service work and may be out for that oe to be ready for the Gold Cup @ VIR in June. Alan

Liners or no liners, somebody should kill a block to see how far it can be bored. At 84.5mm it would seem to be a stretch to make it out to 90mm. Even with a liner it would have to have some of the block to slide into. It could well be that the bore castings could take a large bore like a LZ configuration in a gas application. The best way would be to get a block and have at it. I have seen a turbo LD28 in a Z Car. It seems to be a tight fit for the hood. You can slot the engine mounts at the block and let it slide down a bit for clearance. It sure would make for a nice torque motor. With a 5 1/4" clutch setup and FI you could get some revs out of it. Get one and do some research. Alan

Just for kicks ..... pull the vacum line off of the fuel pressure regulator while the engine is trying to run at idle, or whatever RPM you can get it to while you pull the hose. Plug the hose with your finger. If fuel comes out of the port on the regulator it has a cracked diaphragm. Go get a new regulator. Keep us posted on what you find, Alan

Right now mine is at 14.2/1. We also use the Sunoco 112 leaded. Another unique deal on this current motor is a 140mm CtoC rod. That puts to rod stroke ratio close to what a 240 would be. This is used to cut down on the scuffing on the bore sides. The head is a E31 with a Gerolamy type porting job. I agree with the dome not letting the flame travel as good across the chamber. However the jetting has been easier with this combo than any other so far. It pulls like a mother right up to 7300 or so. If in a tight spot it can run higher. Generally speaking though I shift to not let it hang out in the 7500-7800 range too much. The harmonics are such that it is better on the crank to have an 8500 rpm redline and cruise through the high sevens than to rev it to into the high sevens and let it hang there at the end of a straight. I might even short shift into the next gear to let it have more torque time for additional speed. This is where the extra compression helps out. I guess it $$ were no object it would be nice to do an 85mm stroker with another billet crank and dry sump it. That would give the good compression and a flat top piston. That should pull a G-nose IMSA body up the track pretty well. Alan

Jamie, I was there for the Shelby deal. We brought two GT 350 cars. A red '66 and a green '68. Both of them are street cars. We were parked right across from the Shebly trailer/display. That was a fun weekend. The Z came up shortly after that for the HSR event that summer. You should make plans for 10/15-17 for the SVRA. That will be a hoot too. If you can't make that then try to come down to Kershaw the next weekend for the Triangle Z Club school and Time Trial. These two events will be the last of the season for my Z Car. Alan

Yep. They did run a 240/280 car. The time frame seems to be between the B210 and the ZX. There is a photo of it on the factory race poster with the original Camel GT 260 and the Devendorf B 210. By the way the ZX that is currently on Ebay also was a Camel Pace Car. That car went to Ralph Seagraves when he retired from RJR. Ralph is the guy who Junior Johnson went to see in 1969 or so for a sponsorship when the TV ads got banned. Ralph and Junior then went to the RJR board and it was decided to sponsor the whole series thus making "The WinstonCup." T. Wayne Robertson took over Ralph's position after his retirement. Along in there Ralph gave the ZX to his son Bill. T. Wayne was killed in a tragic boating accident in Louisiana while courting the Tobasco sponsorship. Shortly after that the car was given to T. Wayne's son. I saw the car on the street here just a few months ago. It still had the Camel livery on it then. Too bad the paint was ruined. Really the car was purely cosmetic in preperation. It was supposed to resemble the Bob Sharp / Newman twin turbo V8 IMSA car built to compete against the Porsche 935. Anyway that is the long and short of another Camel car. There was a last pace/show type car that was sold at auction though......... It was a 1985-86 or so March GTP car. It would not go into reverse. RJR sold it while house cleaning. It went to under $2000.00. Of course I found out about that after the fact from someone who was there. Shame, shame. Alan

Great PICS!!! The 610 is for sale. More info here: http://www.september8th.com/CLASSIFIED.htm If you go to the front page for September8th.com and click on the races button, scroll down to the VIR SVRA link you can find a shot or two of my car in action. more on the 610 here: http://race-cars.com/carsales/other/1084660140/1084660140ss.htm Ernie..... do you have a rear shot of the Devendorf or Leary car? Those have one more version (my favorite) of the rear flare. I am also very interested in obtaining a set of the Sharp type or Devendorf rear flare for my vintage car. Speaking of the vintage car.... we will be running it at VIR next weekend 10/15-17. Make sure and stop by if any of you can make it to the track. This should be a great event with the 1967 Mark Donahue light weight Trans Am Camaro. There will also be a '94 Benetton F1 car trying to reset the track record. This event will also have the largest field of S2000 sports racers in recent memory. Even larger than the SCCA Runoffs. Alan

That would be me. I did make an issue of Classic Motorsports magazine. We probably did meet at an autocross in the '90s. While I was building the car I ran the local autocross program. I plan to go up to spectate at the Grand Am also. I hope the rain is done by then. You should come on up for the SVRA on that Sunday. That is when the actual races will be run. Two events in one weekend can be a hoot. After all you will have a clean car..... A.

Well' date=' I learned something today ! I have lived in North Carolina all my life, most of it 50 miles from Winston-Salem, and have known people who worked for Spevco, I also have been into Z's for at least the last 17 years, and I did not know any of this !!!!! DrSideways, I should probably know you, or at least of you....[/quote'] Jason, I think we have emailed on the Internet Z Club mail list some. It has been a few years ago though. I don't subscribe to that list due to a lack of time. You should make plans to come see the car run in the SVRA event at VIR. We will be there 10/14-17. The track at VIR is worth the trip by itself. The car are an added benefit. You can check out SVRA.com to see what type of cars will be there. We hope to have my Z and at least two 510s there. There should also be another Z or two. Alan