pparaska

Frank, unfortunately, I don't have info as to what models this mirror came on. All I know is that it's the cheap, unpainted, non-remote one from about the mid 90's Tercel, and probably the DX trim line.

I don't understand you guys - I want to buy it! Is it on Ebay or something? I especially like the air shocks with the car jacked to the sky in the rear! The black/grey pvc piping on the hood is killer! It'll start a new poser fad, I'm sure!

My condolences. Sorry to hear that. Sure, we don't like to be caught speeding by the man, but we also respect very much what they do for us. 99% of the peace officers are cool, and just want everybody to be safe. My hat's off to them.

I used two Hayden 12" fans on the stock 240Z radiator in my Z when it had the L6. They did a fair job, but it was a VERY tight squeeze. The motors were on either side of the WP pulley.

katman, you have me drooling - I've heard that some people have built FE models of the 240Z, but I've never known of anyone. I'm an old FE guy that used to put the meshes together with a text editor and then moved on to IDEAS, FEMAP, etc. Of course, I'd love to have such a model to play with. Edit: I just figured out who you were - now I know where you're coming from (hi kt) Terry, I've heard of the "tube-through-the-rail" before. That's the ONLY way to do that kind of a connection, IMO. From what I've seen, you drill holes top and bottom the size of the OD of the tube, insert the tube cut to length about flush with the top and bottom surface, and make plates top and bottom to spread the load. Weld it all together. No more crushing.

It's all a function of yield and ultimate stress/strength/factor of safety and fatigue life. If the one-time stresses in the thin strap go beyond ultimate strength of the material - boom, failure. If the multiple loadings go beyond yield (or even lower) strength enough times, then you could have a fatigue failure. The nice thing about steel over aluminum is that you can design something to have an infinite fatigue life, if the stresses are kept low enough. So yeah, if it yields (stretches) permanently several to many times, it can end up fatigue failing. It's a bad idea to design something like this into a realm where any part of it has permanent set after a max loading. The dynamic loading aspect tends to magnify things, so that's a factor too. Of course, if Scottie were to have seen that strap permanently stretching after a few runs, I'm sure he'd have just made a thicker one. So many things can be "gut" engineered .

John, I like using that lower part of the cowl area box - it sould be pretty stiff for/aft. It's about 6" below the cowl panel. Do I have this right? : You're putting a plate of the engine side of firewall that goes from about that spot weld line that indicates the bottom of the cowl box, out toward the hood ledge? Then I guess the gussets are longitudinal (for/aft) tieing in the firewall like those wimpy stamped steel ones that we were referring to above?

Mike, you referring to me? Esteemed? probably not me then . Ken got rid of that lift elsewhere I believe. I had to say no, unfortunately. I was surely pissed when the wife put the kibosh on having that 2-post lift 1 foot from her car passenger door. Can't say I blame her. This taught me a lesson though - build the bays 12 feet wide or more (and of course, 9+ feet high) if you ever plan on a lift. That's out of the ordinary for builder houses (typically 20'x20' in my area for a 2-car - mine's 20'w X 25'deep).

Dave, sorry I stole your thread - guys thanks for the responses to my question. Dave, I had a flakey mother board the died much like that years ago. MB's aren't too expensive, and you can upgrade the machine pretty cheaply and get lots of kick for the $$$.

Yeah, if it's a 280ZX caliper, the e-brake adjusts it. but you can just yank the lever on/off a few times to get it adjusted up to rule that out. BTW, teflon lined braided hoses can have the inner teflon liner break away from the hose and block the hose. This is why they have a minimum bend radius rating on those hoses. I've seen people do nasty things to those hoses (tie them in knots, let a caliper hang by them and putting a tight bend in the hose). I always cringe when I see that. I'd try removing the hoses and checking for this problem. Like Mike said, check the right hose - that's probably the side that has the problem.

I agree with Terry. bore/stroke, rod/stroke ratio, cam lift/timing/lobe shape, head port/seat/chamber design, intake design and exhaust system define the VE of the engine (along with a few other things like quench, piston dome/dish shape, etc.) If you don't want to depend on those things alone, give mother nature a hand and add some boost! VE is a function of throttle angle, rpm, etc. It's not a constant. Your idea of changing tire diameter is one way to cruise, etc. in a better VE area that your engine has.

Those "supports" behind the firewall that go to the windsheild area and down to the bottom of the cowl box are very thin. Although they have a cup shape, bends etc. in them for more stiffness, I doubt that I'd want to depend on them alone. I think the idea of reinforcing the firewall like Terry did makes the most sense - to distribute the load over that 22 gage sheetmetal firewall to get to the ends where it's supported for/aft.

Very cool. Can't wait to see some pics of the mounts, etc. Doesn't someone make a bellhousing (blowproof) to mount a Tremec 5spd to a Mopar block? That'd open up tranny possibilities.

v8dats, I do modeling, but in involves computer modeling mechanical systems, ballistic missiles, etc. 26ounce, No those mirrors aren't spring loaded - that would be a good feature to find one that was! I'd imagine that there are quite a few sedan mirrors that could be put on the Z like this. The bracket is pretty simple to make and install, it would just be the interface to the mirror that would vary a bit.

It's easy to hook a full size keyboard, mouse and monitor to a laptop - problem solved! Then when you want to program your stand-alone ECM in your car, you can just shut down, unhook from that stuff and go to the car with it! I also want a laptop next, with Svideo input, etc. to be able to download stuff off of my digital video cam and edit it, etc. Any ideas on how to do this cheaply appreciated!

Jim, I agree - make sure the cooling system is in order - then start working on more powerful fans. Lock, I put water wetter in my Z's V8 engine, but I also think at the same time I got some air out - I saw 20 degrees lower temp just sitting in that garage, and the fan cycled off and on much slower than before. Hard to tell what did it. The fan I have is off of a 98 GT Mustang. It's about 19" in diameter overall. The pics on my website (top of this page has a link) show the top brackets. The bottom was bolted through some existing tabs on the fan housing down low to the bottom radiator bracket. Pretty easy. But I'd probably due the dual Taurus fan as it has a nice shroud that covers the Z/Camaro radiator.

There used to be a page on the web that had info on reprogramming MSD RPM pills. It's gone now, but luckily I printed it out! Anyway, if you remove any pill from the rev limiter, you won't have a rev limiter! How about taking the pill out and see if it still breaks down? That way you'd know it's not the rev limiter. The page mentioned above showed a few things about the pills: 1) They consists of a plastic housing and two pins that you can see and inside is simply a precision resistor. 2) The relationship (within 10% error supposedly) between Resistance of the pill and the rpm limit is (screwed up in my printout - see below). 3) Use a quality metal film resistor, not a carbon resistor like you find at Radio Shack. 4) To open a pill, peel back the label on the pill, pull out any hot melt glue with tweezers, and use a desoldering tool to remove all the solder from the inside of the pins. The pull the resistor out of the plastic housing. Add your own resistor and solder the leads to the pins. Here's a table of values that I reproduced from his list (I check against my printout from the page as well): code: From the original web page entitled "Reprogramming MSD RPM pills" (The formula given was hosed up, so I fit this one to it:) Ohms = 0.044569*(RPM/1000)^5 - 1.2032*(RPM/1000)^4 + 14.865*(RPM/1000)^3 - 49.539*(RPM/1000)^2 + 780.6*(RPM/1000) - 313.2 RPM R(ohms) RPM R(ohms) RPM R(ohms) RPM R(ohms) 100 2600 1593 5100 3691 7600 6399 200 2700 1668 5200 3786 7700 6523 300 2800 1744 5300 3882 7800 6649 400 2900 1821 5400 3980 7900 6776 500 3000 1897 5500 4078 8000 6904 600 3100 1975 5600 4177 8100 7034 700 3200 2053 5700 4278 8200 7165 800 3300 2132 5800 4379 8300 7298 900 3400 2212 5900 4482 8400 7432 1000 3500 2292 6000 4585 8500 7568 1100 3600 2373 6100 4690 8600 7706 1200 3700 2455 6200 4795 8700 7845 1300 3800 2538 6300 4902 8800 7986 1400 3900 2621 6400 5010 8900 8129 1500 4000 2706 6500 5119 9000 8274 1600 4100 2791 6600 5230 9100 8420 1700 4200 2877 6700 5341 9200 8568 1800 4300 2963 6800 5454 9300 8719 1900 4400 3051 6900 5567 9400 8871 2000 1151 4500 3140 7000 5682 9500 9025 2100 1224 4600 3229 7100 5799 9600 9181 2200 1297 4700 3320 7200 5916 9700 9340 2300 1370 4800 3411 7300 6035 9800 9501 2400 1444 4900 3503 7400 6155 9900 9663 2500 1518 5000 3597 7500 6277 10000 9829 So that's the gist of that page. I just found out tonight that the guy had the equation all screwed up, so I broke-out the Matlab program and did a curve fit to the data he had in his table. My answers above are within 10 ohms or less of his and should be plenty close enough to give RPM results within the tolerance needed. Heck, 1 ohm is about 1 rpm so it's not worth worrying about getting the resistances just right anyway. Way more than you wanted to know, I'm sure .

I know, I have no room to talk maybe, because my car is not finished, but a 12 second V8Z is a pretty mild NA buildup, with a good driver. Sure, the L28ET can do 12s and 11s too, but that's after a few mods, I'd think. BTW, here's Andy's 1/4 mile times page: http://grannypotts.freeservers.com/Times.html I know that's in no way a statictical study of what engine in the Z makes for the fastest car. And what's interesting is that at this date, there are 2 V8s and 2 GN motors shown in the 10s.

I'd think a stock cast crank, stock forged or PM rods, and cast or better yet hypereutectic cast pistons would be fine. Keep it out of detonation and below 6500 and I'd think those parts (if magnafluxed, prepped and assembled correctly) would live fine at those power levels.

katman, if I you lived closer I'd invite you out for a beer so you could draw that. But I'm still interested if you care to sketch it up, scan it and upload it.

Jim, no toes stepped on here. But I just want to point out that alot of the electric fans on the aftermarket are wimpy marginal things. Even the BlackMagic flexlite 150 electric fan that looks very impressive really doesn't pull that much air through the radiator. No doubt that running the fan pulls power from the motor - I see a 150 rpm drop at idle when my fan comes on high - although the idle carb settings are messed up a bit. I had to tighten the alt belt a few times to get it to stop squealing when the fan came on at idle. My point is that electric fans do work, but many people just go to the local parts store or Jeg's, etc. and buy a big fan they think will work, but in actuality is a wimpy fan, compared to the ones the OE's use and the mechanical ones.

RacerX, thanks for sending all those previously and posting here. I really enjoy seeing the pictures of the basket cases brought back to perfection! BTW, are you Dick Goodman's long lost brother? Speedracer's been looking for his brother for 30 some years now.

Looking SWEET! Details, we want details! And more pics!

My vote: Skyline Turbo Engine!

Well, with the relatively medium low starting price for that engine/tranny/ecu, if 550 hp is not an astronomically priced upgrade, I'd say go for it!