pparaska

Good point. But with the differential off to one side by 3/4" or so, and with the height of the pinion, it'd be hard to get 0 degrees. I have 1 degree in the vertical plane, not sure how much in the horizontal, as that's not as easy to measure. BTW, the originator of this idea is Ron Tyler. He let me let the cat out of the bag. Ron has some really neat fabrication projects on his web site. I only wish I could do the stuff he does! His site is: http://rontyler.com Scroll down and you'll see "Diff Mount Mod". Click that link and you'll see a few of my pics and his drawings! He said he could make them for people, but his schedule for the rest of the year is very tied up with that V6 510!

Cool! Ok, I gotta ask. If I were to buy stuff off of ebay used to finish this project (fuel pump, injectors, rails, manifold, air door, whatelse?) what would it cost?

Put it for sale on Ebay and point to the auction on Zcar.com and Zdriver.com forsale sections. Also, some people use these engines in some sort of small race boats, I've heard. Ebay should get those guys too.

Maybe I thought that way before, but the more Grumpyvette talks about this stuff the more I become swayed to thinking my next SBC will be 400+ cubic inches. Heck, the big bore of the 4.125+" block has breathing advantages alone. Or maybe do a big bore truck Gen III sbc block and build a 400+ cube LS6 type motor. The Honda S2000 makes a sweet track car, but I'd probably hate it on the street. Sure, I want to cruise around at 4500+ rpm all day, just in case I want to be able to really accelerate - NOT.

Heh. I thought you were just trying to be cheap by using the luggage straps as a final solution JK Thanks for the pics and the measurement. Looks like a great way to upgrade to EFI later on!

Ah, father-son bonding in a V8Z. It warms the cockles of my heart (Never new what that word meant either!)

Just wondering if you'd seen my design for "rear frame rails" if they are the same as what we've been calling "subframe connectors". Anyway, instead of bending, I cut, bent, and welded 2x3" tubing to make them. Pretty easy. Here ya go: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/pparaska/structuralmods.htm

Cool swap, jeromio! Just wondering - do you have the tank pushed all the way to the right in those photos? I am wondering from the point of view of putting two mufflers on the left side of the tank like I've done in my car (requiring OE spare tire well surgery).

Dontcha just love power induced AWD 4 wheel drift!? I love doing that in my Eclipse - every once in a while. In the rain is easy, but with my new Pole Position S0-3's, it's harder to do dry or wet!

I'd think the water in the air afterwards might help it cure, since its a moisture absorbing urethane. I've found this paint to be VERY sensitive to the tinyest bit of oil, etc. It seems to fish-eye very easily. I now use either brake-clean or Prep-sol to clean up and I wipe several times before painting with it.

Dave, Did you bench bleed the MC? It can make a difference. If you don't use the full stroke of the MC when initially installing it, you may never get all the air out. That's hard to do without doing it on the bench, as the booster won't let you stroke it all the way. Glad it's working though!

Well, I really hate driveline vibration into the cabin. The solid front diff mount that Jim Cook racing, AZ Z car and others sell CAN cause alot of interior noise - I've witnessed this in a few V8Z's that had the stock front rubber mount and the JTR cable wrap and then put in that solid front mount. Then, I hear people say that there's no more noise in their experience. Well, that wasn't a gamble I was willing to play with. If my car was a race car, I wouldn't care. But the noise I've experienced in other V8Z's with a solid front but urethane mustache bar mounts was unacceptable to me. Second, with the high placement that the front mount scheme below the differential nose gives (with the exception of Simon Degroot's [& someone else did the same mod, cant remember who,] and Bryan Little's mount) causes large u-joint angles. This mount I show above makes it easy to lower the front ot the diff to lessen those angles - in fact it's a given that the front of the diff will be lower due to the GM mount height. The high nose of the OE setup is another reason for V8Z (JTR especially) drive train vibration and possibly u-joint wear and breakage, although I haven't heard of the latter. To me this mod cures both the probable solid front diff mount noise problem and lowers the u-joint angles to optimal. Plus it's just more elegant, since you are compressing the mount under load instead of trying to rip it apart. I doubt you could fail the system I showed above even if doing a reverse burnout. And if you did, the front of the diff case would simply fall down less than a 1/2" onto the diff crossmember. That's acceptable to me. I really see few drawbacks to this setup. As Terry pointed out, there's alot of sheetmetal in the area, and alot of it is doubled and connected to the bulkhead forward of the package shelf. Sure, I guess if I had lots of torque and traction and I was drag racing turning 9's I'd beef it up there. But I'd have other worries then. The other thing to realize is this mount is wedge shaped and the tunnel is tapered. It's not going to move up easily at all. I doubt that good welds n 1/4" mild steel in this design is going to be a problem either, but I could be wrong. I haven't run the calcs, but I'd bet that this steel design is in the infinite fatigue limit range. It's darned beefy. If it were aluminum, it might fatigue at some point, but I'm not a weight savings freak so I think steel is the better choice. The weight of the front of the diff when it's in this lower nose position is very little - less than 20 pounds. That's alot less than the load on it in the upward direction when any appreciable amount of torque's being transmitted to the rear tires! If it fails, I'll figure something else out I guess. But I have faith in this design. Cheers,

Yeah, that link is hosed and a search on google came up with nothing better. Maybe try a phone directory web site?

Lone, thanks for the comps. You've had your Z for less than 2 years, and I've been tinkering with mine for over 10 years and poured way too much dough into it. Personally, I'd like to have a rougher V8Z as well, so I would have to hold my breathe while working on it! And no, it's not cad plated - I just drew yellow lines on the digital photo to show the outline of the mount - it's actually POR-15 black. Oh, and Keith, thanks for the heads up - I torqued a nut onto the pinion flange (120ftlb) and installed the driveshaft. Guys, I've let the original designer of this setup know there are customers. He may want to make/sell them, I'm not sure. I'm not really set up to do it. If he's not interested in making them and doesn't mind me passing the dimensions along, I'll do that. I'm not trying to be difficult guys, just not step on the original designer's toes. I agree it's a great solution - wish it had been my idea! Thanks for all the nice words,

...I got permission though. You may have seen this before. The owner didn't mind me copying the idea for a one-off for my car, so I have the same setup now: (Larger version click here) (Larger version click here) (Larger version click here) This mount does two things: (1) Lowers the front of the diff, making the u-joint angles smaller (mine are now 1 degree front and rear in the vertical direction) (2) Puts the rubber mount ABOVE the differential snout, reacting against the "axle windup" with the mount in compression instead of in tension like the goofy Nissan setup. The only drawback is there's little room above this bracket for the parking brake mechanism. I used an extra spring that holds the u-shaped part of the parking brake cable to the body. I bolted one end of this spring underneath the head of one of the bolts that holds the parking brake levers above the front of the differential and looped the other end of the spring around the rod that connects the U shaped bracket for the cable to the levers there. This holds the linkage above the new differential mount bracket so that it won't rattle against the bracket. I'm anxious to see if I have created a driveline that's truly free of the dreaded V8Z driveline vibration problem. I have an extensive write-up of all my driveline mounting modifications at: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/pparaska/drivelinemods.htm

Hi Adam, The left halfshaft is shorter, the right is longer. This is also true for the part that fits into the diff - the length of the left one is shorter from the dust shield to the end of the splined area. In your picture, The left one is the left shaft, the right is the right (passenger side in the US) shaft.

It's good to hear that there's a universal shim kit that will work. I'd love to get the brand and PN for it. When I pulled the carrier out of my LSD R200, it was difficult to remove and I had to gently pry it out. When I put it back together, the kitchen refrigerator freezer helped immensely You should have seen the wife's face: Anyway, it dropped right in. Of course, since it was mid Summer ni the muggy DC area, it started to sweat immediately. I put it together quickly and filled it with oil and spun it around to keep rusting to a minimum. No problems since. Oh, a guy that used to work for Nissan Motorsports turning wrenches on the race cars, and now the owner of SMC products told me a trick he used to use on setting up these rears. He said that since there's trial and error in setting the pinion depth and since the bearing is pressed on the pinion, he would take an old good one and hone the ID so it would be a nice slip fit on the pinion. Then R&Ring the pinion into the case was easy.

Hi Paul, Just catching up from not thoroughly keeping up with all the forums here. Your car is looking Awesome! I love the looks of the color, flares and ALL THAT RUBBER! Oops, got a woody on those pics!

Hi Purds, Sounds like that 350 in that car is pretty out of tune or something. I'd love to see pictures of the custom body work. 20 years ago I had the idea of putting 60's sequential Cougar tail lights in the back of my Z. I fell in love with them when I saw my friends 68 Shelby GT500 with the same lights. Welcome, Pete

Another thing to consider is the usefulness of a manual with a very high numerical first gear like the Tremec 5spd (3.27:1) with a numerically high rear gear and the typical 25-26" rear tire on a Z. With a 3.27:1 first, a 4.11:1 rear and that 26" tire, you'd have a pretty useless 1st gear. BTW, the 93 F-body T-56 ("400 lbft capacity") has a 2.97:1 first gear, and the 94-2000 T-56 ("450 lbft capacity) has 2.66:1 first gear. The later 2.66:1 is pretty good for a 3.7:1 or higher numerical ratio, I'd think. Hmm. But with a really steep first gear and a very tall 6th gear, you could go with 4.11:1 or something and just not use 1st gear.

Thanks Rick! I hope to get it running again this weekend. Been tied up with life in general lately. I hope to post pics of the diff mount this weekend.

Cool swap! Looks pretty affordable too! BTW, how much does that truck weigh now?

Those are great! Some of my favorites are: "A man's just gotta know his limitations." and http://www.clinteastwood.net/realfiles/soundclips/dirty_harry/thinking.ram "Ah-ah, I know what you're thinking punk. You're thinking did he fire six shots or only 5. And to tell you the truth I've forgotten myself in all this excitement. But being this is a .44 Magnum - the most powerful hand gun in the world and will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question--Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk! (Scorpio laughs, gets blown away, and splashes into the lake)"

yes, cc = cubic centimeter I guess it comes down to history. The US has used Cubic Inches for displacement until the last 10 years or so. And when you go to measure head combustion chamber volumes or the volume above a piston on a motor during the building stages, you use a graduated cylinder. The overwhelming majority of graduated cylinders that are available are in cc's. BTW, 2.54 centimeter = 1 inch (exactly) 16.387064 cc = 1 cubic inch (exactly) 1 cc = 0.0610237441 cubic inches (rounded off) 1000 cc = 1 liter = 61.0237441 cubic inches (rounded off)

Andy, I'm really surprised. THe FnF movie should have taught you one thing: YOU NEED TWO BOTTLES!