HeatRaveR

Yeah, I had two 280ZX's. The Turbo is on the left, and the NA on the right. I was meaning to post up about this before the race, but the weeks leading up to it were so hectic that I just never got around to it. ^^ P.S. Wade, Rico has all your stuff, presumably at the shop.

I was the captain of Team Mock 5. We got knocked out about halfway through the 2nd day by a huge yellow American car with an 8-ball painted on the sides. The left front wheel/suspension got so pushed in, that the wheel/tire was rubbing against the shock! We still managed a 43rd place finish though (man, racing in a field of 83 cars is just crazy!). Our consolation is that even though the car that took us out continued the race till the end, we STILL beat them; they placed 60th. The Z didn't let us down and the drivers who hadn't driven RWD before on our team really liked it. Being that it used to be my showcar I'd put a lot of work into, it is heartbreaking to see it get hurt. But at least I sent her out in a blaze of glory. ^^ I'm planning on entering in the October Lemons event, and I've already got a car and theme/gimmick in mind. It won't be a Z again though. Despite how great the Z was, I don't think I could bear putting another Z through that (never mind finding one for that cheap).

It's a shame Smokescreen isn't in it, especially the latest incarnation of him, which is a Bugatti Veyron!

I totally agree. There was some pretty good "acting" on the part of Barricade (the police Mustang) in the way it moved as a car, and the way it looked, that made it very intimidating. Hehe, and the way it yelled at Sam, it sure sounded like a cop on a bad day! Even though the redesigned characters may have put off some fans, I felt they gave plenty of nods to the original series. Like, many of Optimus' lines were direct from the original series, or his bio. When he said, "One shall stand, one shall fall", you know IT'S ON Bee-yotch! =P

I've been thinking, some of the Devil's Z's backstory seem to take inspiration from Stephen King's "Christine". Like, how Akio becomes obsessed with it at first glance, even though it was in junked condition when he found it. And then he starts spending all his time working on it (haha, or that's just the nature of being a car guy) and how he refers to the Z like a girl and that they care for each other. But also how the previous owner died in it, and it always seems to recover from damage it takes. The eerie soundtrack, with the piano music, is a nice touch too.

It is. There were three 280ZX's in the original Transformers lineup: 1. Prowl - the police car version 2. Silverstreak/Bluestreak - street car version 3. Smokescreen - race car version Later on, there was a Z31 that was also a police car, and was part of the Protectobots combiner team (formed Defensor).

I like how they play up the Devil Z as being almost supernatural, like how all the previous owners had the same name and had terrible accidents in it. And then the way the main character kind of becomes entranced/obsessed with it, like it has a hold on him, makes it all a very intriguing backstory.

I know Blacktrax, by the Great Mall in Milpitas, has a dyno where they take your wheels off and bolt on the dyno machines to the hubs to test hp. And if you want a roller dyno, there's a place across from the Nummi factory in Fremont that has one (I forget their name, but they specialize in turbo, VW, and Audi stuff).

I'd have to go with a Miata as well. I'm actually planning to get one (as an addition to my Z) since it's the best, cheapest roadster one can get.

Well yes, I know it's more than just head temp that causes detonation. I've edited my original wording to hopefully clarify what I'm getting at. I was just wanting to see if it might provide some kind of warning in terms of being a contributing risk factor (vs being the sole cause) when I'm running the car "aggressively" (ie track, climbing mountains, etc.). My line of thinking was like, "If I see X degrees of temperature my odds of detonation just doubled" (or something like that). Well, at the very least, such a gauge should at least help warn me if I'm in danger of melting/warping something, right? Either way, I'm trying to find out about what temp I'm flirting with something getting damaged. I've seen head temp gauges that have a 270-degree range and ones with a 600-degree range. So knowing where the danger area is would help figure out which is more suitable.

Does anyone know at about what cylinder head temp that I'll start to really increase the risk of detonation on a mostly stock L28ET? (naturally, I'd rather not run the temp up unnecessarily to find out the hard way! ^^; )

I work in a heart disease/blood testing lab, so no one there would have any idea how it would react in an automotive application. I normally just buy a large container of bottled water and mix it with antifreeze/coolant. I guess I can't really wrong with that, right?

I work at a lab where I have easy access to de-ionized water. I've read that de-ionized water is about the same as distilled water in terms of rust/buildup and extending life of the radiator. But can anyone figure if it might have any effect, one way or the other, on the heat transfer/cooling ability of the cooling system? Here's some info I found on de-ionized water, but doesn't really answer anything directly about heat transfer except in fire extinguishing applications as a mist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deionized_water

Even though the Impreza just keeps getting uglier since the turn of the century, at least they're going in the right direction with the new Forester Sports models. They look pretty darn good IMO. But I also have to agree that the Evo is a far better looking car.

Maybe he meant Tiff was a LeMans driver in past. Or, if he really is a current LeMans driver, it could also be to generate publicity for the team.

I paid over $5k for my 280ZX Turbo without even bothering to haggle much. But at least in my case, it had less than 87k miles, was from the original owner (who was a middle aged woman), was unmodified/rust-free, had a virtually perfect uncracked *black* dash, and came with complete service records, and even the original dealer window price sheet. I wasn't counting on finding a better condition Turbo than this (and I still haven't seen a better/equal one to this day), so I have no regrets about what I paid.

Haha, I totally loved MASK! I wonder if I can ever find downloads of that show. Did anyone notice that Piranha was actually a Z31? It was that purple car driven by the evil red-haired chick, that turned into a plane. Speaking of Legos, I tried making a Lego version of my 280ZX, complete with Lego-Me inside. Sure, it's not a perfect replica, but not bad considering the scale (you just gotta use your imagination, but that's what it's all about anyways, right?)

Honestly, I enjoyed the trailer for the PS2 Wangan game better than this new PS3 trailer. The PS3 trailer makes everything look too shiny/slick and didn't have as energetic a song. The old PS2 one had more shots of the characters so it looked like someone's driving, as well as the gratuitously detailed shots of the Devil Z's L28T engine.

Anyone know anyplace to download this Wangan trailer, so as to save it on my hard drive?

So it sounds like this is a pretty "safe" country for Westerners to visit, eh?

That's not a DVD. It's a book. (don't let the "anime on DVD" website name fool you) I have it, and I have no regrets about paying the price for it.

Race tires perform best when warm (basically their heat range is shifted higher), so they do that wiggling/burning out to warm them up quicker.

Are those temp targets you list based on mounting the thermocouple in one of the runners, or in the collector? While reading around, they say the collector will read hotter, and is an average of all the cylinders. But if I mount it in one of the runners, it would give a better idea of what temp the individual cylinders are at, assuming they're all functioning properly.

So I've been trying to understand how to interpret an EGT gauge and did a Search on here. I know many people use it to help with tuning AFR's. But what I'm wondering is if the EGT gives any warning of detonation? If so, what reading am I looking for? And if not, is there a more appropriate gauge that does?