ww

If I'm not out of town on the day selected, I'll definitely be there. I may even bring a sacrificial 'ricer' Honda Civic for everyone to laugh at!

I'd go chrome on the cover with lettering painted to match your exterior. That way it matches the other chromed engine parts and you get a little contrast on the lettering but it still compliments the car with the body color. I'm going with stock 'pebble' black valve cover with silver lettering and red accents (ignition wires, loom's, etc.) to match my black and red interior over a white exterior. Cheers, WW

Fully welded diff... Hmmm... It'll be great for the drag strip and pretty bad for everything else including road course, auto-x or street. I wouldn't even drive it to the track, but trailer only. That is cheap, but I'd hold out and keep looking for an '87 to '89 300ZX turbo LSD.

25psi on an N42 in my 3.1L L6 But, the P90 is going to be completed in the next several months. I'm looking for 30+psi and the N42, even heavily worked, is not the right head for that.

That is AWSOME! The bleed over is very minimal from what I can tell in the pictures. You did an excellent job. Those look very bright even from the angles. I'm about to come into a pair of extra '82 ZX tail lights that I'm very seriously considering using trying this mod. A list of part's and their sources would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and again great job! Cheers, WW

I'm turning BLUE!

I'm in the east bay (Dublin/San Ramon/Pleasanton) but wouldn't hesitate to take it where it'll get done well. Thanks, WW

I was just run off the road today and caught a sign post about 6 inches in front of the rear bumper. The post slid right between the tail light and the bumper destroying my passenger rear quarter panel, blowing out the tail light, ripping off the rear skirt and pushing the top of the quarter panel underneath the lid of the rear hatch... ;( Luckily, it was a wooden sign post... This is really depressing as I'm leaving the state for the Christmas 'vacation' Sunday morning. So, the Z is going to sit in the garage for the next two weeks while I'm out of town sulking. I was about to get the whole car repainted anyway, but I really didn't want to have to do any 'extra' body work. Anyone know a good body shop in the SF Bay Area? Even though I'm insured, I'm gonna pay for it out of my pocket, so I'm looking for good work for a reasonable price. I don't need a museum quality paint job like I was quoted last month. Thanks, WW

That looks like a great upgrade. Seeing as how I have a spare T5 sitting here waiting for a rebuild, I may take a shot at the G Force. Only issue is the ratios. The G Force uses 2.94, 1.94, 1.34, 1.00 ratios for 1 thru 4 and 0.59 for 5th/OD (That's gotta be nice on the gas mileage). The Nissan T5 uses 3.50, 2.144, 1.375, 1.00 and 0.78 ratios. Going from a 3.50 to a 2.94 1st gear would make the launches quite a bit different. You'd need to go up to a 3.90 rear end or shorter diameter wheel/tire combo (or both) to make up some of the difference. The good news is you'd get a better 1st / 2nd shift. It's a LONG way between 3.50 and 2.144 on the stock T5! Which in the ZX's is only rated at about 250ft/lbs. I don't recall the vehicle weight off the top of my head though. T5 = Driven Hard... Shifted Softly...

Curious. It says it must be registered within 30 days of purchase for the warranty to be in effect on my paperwork... Is Taylor doing their own work and just billing it back to Quaife America?

Why are you getting rid of the Quaife? Did you register it so it's under warranty?

Sorry dude! Ever since the board migration, the Date/Time stamps have all been messed up, I wasn't able to tell when the thread was originally posted. I just updated my profile and removed my original php date format string and everything's straightened out now... Glad to hear you put him in his place. By the way, my dad was one of those original hot rodders. 1939 Ford with a flat head 6 and he was smokin'em all over town in San Diego. Cheers, WW

Yeah, your teacher is full of crap. I'm running 18psi @ ~ 362 rwhp with a T04. I haven't been comfortable enough with the tune to turn it up as high as it'll go, but it will go to 25psi in the current configuration! I strongly recommend 98 octane or better gas to make sure you don't burn a piston or blow out a head gasket. I don't run anything but 100 octane, but it's also not my daily driver so $5/gallon fill-ups don't happen very often. I'm gonna do some more tuning on the dyno and get it tuned up to 400rwhp. I know it will do more than that! It's a 3.1L with T04, IC, MSD, KV85's, forged pistons, scat billet crank, race preped N42 head on F54 block, stainless valves and 3.9 R200 Quaife LSD. With the right tuning, yours can do it too. Make that ass eat his words. Let us know how it goes. WW

Unfortunately, the world is full of idiots. This is why I could never work in retail!

That's the idea. You should ONLY buy a welder that will allow you to add gas later. The flux core welders are fine, but as mentioned earlier, flux core wire is twice the cost of standard wire and that'll make your practice relatively expensive. It'll work just fine on auto-body panels, but I strongly recommend you either wait until you can afford one with gas capability already installed or get one that you can inexpensively upgrade to gas later. The Lincoln and the Hobart are the way to go in that regard. Cheers, WW

Do NOT buy a cheap welder, especially from Harbor Freight. Harbor Freight is the largest importer of cheap Chinese mass produced crap. Anything listed as 'Chicago' Electric is just a name to try and make you believe you're getting something built in the US when it's actually built in China so cheaply, they can still sell it for nothing after paying to have it shipped to the US. Think about it. I use a Miller, but Lincoln is also a good choice. Hobart is owned by Miller and has the same build quality, but fewer options and some plastic components are used that are aluminum on the Miller. If you're really hard up for cash, save your money a little longer and get a Hobart. You can get a basic Hobart flux core welder for $365 online and you can convert it to MIG for $95 later when you get the money or you can save a little longer to get the extra $45 and get the Hobart MIG for $410 and save yourself $50 in the long run. In the link below, you can get a reconditioned Lincoln SP100T MIG welder from a reputable retailer for $369! This is a great starter setup and will work fine for auto-body sheet metal. The thicker stuff will take a little longer and be a little more difficult to get a good bead, but it's a good start with a 'REAL' welder. http://www.welders-direct.com/merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=WD&Category_Code=MW There are many Miller/Hobart and Lincoln dealers around the country that can service your welder if you get one of them. The importance of this will become apparent the first time you need to get service from Harbor Frieght if you go with that option. Good Luck! WW

Was it necessary to block off the entire hatch area? I would have thought removing the spare tire carrier, 'squaring' the hole and recessing the cell 'mostly' below the hatch floor occupying a large part of the old factory fuel tank space would make for a cleaner install and keep the center of gravity created by the cell lower would be an advantage. Just throwing out some thoughts. Any comments are appreciated. I'm interested in a fuel cell installation as well, but still want use of at least some of the hatch area when it's done. Cheers, WW

Do a search. There have been a couple of long threads about the PowerGrip. I think the consensus was that it's more a gimmick than a real tool. I considered it when I was still naieve. The cheapest is to find an 87 to 89 300ZX Turbo in a junk yard and grab the R200 w/LSD. Nissan doesn't sell the 10mm LSD assemblies anymore so, the next cheapest would be to grab a 12mm non-turbo R200 from a junk yard and buy the 12mm LSD assembly from someone like West Coast Differentials at: http://www.differentials.com/ Last I heard it was about $550 for the LSD assembly. You supply the Diff. I picked up a non-LSD 12mm R200 for $75 from a local yard. The most expensive and I would argue the most rewarding. Quaife. $1299 + $15 = $1314 delivered from Bildon Motorsports: http://www.bildon.com/ It's drilled for both 10mm and 12mm and carries a lifetime warranty.

Do you recall what year MR2? I assume it was from the later years and not the 'wedge' years? Thanks, WW

What material do you recommend? I'm up for the challenge. It would have been easier to start with a reasonably close one that only needed slight modification to make it work.

I believe the starter is on the opposite side of the tranny as well. I was looking at one next to my T5 and they were definitely reversed. That may be why someone was talking about cutting the both bell housings in half to adapt the two.

The Taurus 2 speed fan upgrade is generally done with a V8 swap. Since the V8 is considerably shorter than the L6, it drops in with no problem. A stock radiator with L6 motor only leaves about 3.25" of clearance between the radiator and the water pump pulley. Some people I know have offset the electric fan to clear the water pump pulley with moderate success. I've installed an aftermarket aluminum radiator and lost another .25" of clearance but am still going to use an electric fan: #BCI-75014 from Summit Racing. It's a 16" fan that moves 1600 cfm and is only 2.5" thick. http://store.summitracing.com/default.asp?target=esearch.asp&N=100&Ntk=PartSearch&Ntt=BCI-75014&x=18&y=11 I'm hoping that with the aluminum radiator the 1600 cfm will be enough to keep the temp down. If not, I'll just add another one on the front as a pusher. Out of curiousity, has anyone ever installed a fan on their intercooler? I'm sure someone has tried this but nothing relevant came up in my search... Cheers, WW

I tried several FM transmitters including the iPod and they all really stink. I live in a pretty highly populated area where a 'free' frequency is rare so there was a lot of cross talk and overlap whenever I tried them. I finall got so sick of it I started looking around about 3 years ago. Now, almost all current head units have an AUX input and many have them on the front. I went with a cheap AIWA w/ 55w X 4 channels and front mounted AUX input for $189. Take your pick: http://www.crutchfield.com/S-PBUXa3oTF5V/cgi-bin/ProdGroup.asp?g=62700&avf=Y My wife has an Alpine with rear AUX input in her Outback and I've got a Pioneer with rear AUX input in my Durango. In both I installed RCA cables with an 1/8th inch stereo mini-jack that terminates in the ash tray. That way, when the MP3 player isn't in use the wires are tucked away out of sight in the ash tray. My 80GB Archos plugs right into all three and my wife can use the same connector with her 20GB iPod and we don't ever have to fight over who get's to drive what car because all of them are hard wired now! Unless of course we're riding together...! That's when the fight is ON! I also use an AC/DC inverter tucked away under the passenger side of the dash.

How big of a buffer pad do you want? I just pulled the wheel off one side of my grinder and replaced it with two 3/4" buffer pads from Home Depot and used a couple of good washers to cinch it down so it didn't spin freely around the shaft. http://www.kamikazeracing.net/dl/grinder-buffer.jpg