pparaska

Not impossible. I've seen an Eclipse with the engine turned 90 and a powerglide adapted to the "rear" of it. Sometimes, you can find people that make bellhousing adapters, etc. to do this. The input shaft length is another concern as well.

I think that DrewZ is actually correct, to a point, like I posted. When I was taking Thermodynamics class in college, I hated it, until I could see applications to hot rodding! That's where I got all that rot about the Carnot cycle, the Otto cycle, etc. Yes the heat that the cooling system and oil, and engine surfaces reject to the atmosphere is wasted energy, but the max power of an engine is theoretically greater for higher combustion temperatures (until pinging, melting, local boiling in the water jackets, etc.). I agree that if the oil is getting hotter and it's splashing on the underside of a V8's intake manifold, it's possibly a trade off. I tried to help that by installing a lifter valley cover to keep the oil from splashing on the underside of the manifold. I think the Edelbrock Performer RPM air gap intake is a much better way to go, but I had a manifold already. [This message has been edited by pparaska (edited September 24, 2000).]

Yes, I'd bet the SVT motor can be tweeked. I'd be looking to supercharge it, to get some more low end torque. I test drove a Contour SVT, and I was underwelmed. I ended up buying a regular V6 Sport Contour for the wife and kids instead.

Todd, drive one of these cars. You'll quickly realize that under about 3500 rpm, it's a dog. If you just want high winding, it's a good motor, but hey, a turbo L6 would do even better.

Actually, the efficiency (and max power) for any engine that tries to emulate the perfect Carnot cycle (our engines are known as the Otto cycle), the higher the temperature you can have at combustion, and lower intake temp before compression the better, until you get detonation. The problem being that as you appoach the boiling point of the coolant, the more of a problem you will have with nucleate boiling in the head waterjackets, and a hot spot in the combustion camber appears. Then you get detonation (or is it pre-ignition? I always get those confused). It's better to run a higher temp if your engine can handle it. I think this would be a great thing to test on a chassis dyno. Run with a 160, a 180 , a 190 F thermostat and tune to it, with fans blowing on the front of the car, and see how the power changes. The new cars have sensors that lean out the engine above 160F, so the hot tip for more power ends up being a 160F thermostat in that case. But Mike, with your low tech setup- carb, no computer (not knocking it, believe me!) I'd try a hotter thremostat. Remember, that puppy opens up at 160 or 180, and the cooling system still has to do the same work eventually. So putting a higher temp thremostat can be a power adder. With aluminum heads, I think you may be able to run a higher temp than iron. Also, a recent Stock Car Racing (I don't like the bump and crash NASCAR stuff, but the tech in NASCAR is phenominal) magazine had some really good articles on cooling systems. I'm interested in the "40 Below" additive, as they said it prevents nucleate boiling so that the hot spots go away. The Evans Cooling system looks interesting, a 370F boiling point, no water used, at 0 psi. Problem is I'd need to get their water pump and radiator, as it requires twice the coolant flow to work correctly.

Quads are good street carbs since they have lots of tunable metering for part throttle, etc. They aren't easy to get rebuilt correctly, in my experience. But when they are right, they are fine.

Glad I could be of some kind of help anyway. Have fun with the new place! Hope you moved "uptown" as far as garage space goes!

Pick up any Jegs or Summit Racing catalog and look for their urethane bushing stuff. Or go straight to one of the urethane bushing manufacturers. They make bushings (some include brackets) in many different bar diameters.

You have to consider that u-joints don't like angles of more that a few degrees when transmitting peak torque. The CV is MUCH mor e tolerant to this. When the Z squats on acceleration, the angles of the halfshaft u-joints are pretty severe (sorry, no numbers). I think that's why CV's are prefered on the halfshafts. If you are talking about a long driveshaft with small u-joint angles, then yeah, save the weight and money and us U-joints and not CVs.

jeromio, I love the Lego idea! I haven't played with legos in umm, like 25 years!

Duh, I didn't think about that. You're right! Maybe a right hand drive 280ZX rack flipped over? Hmm. Seems a 280Z rack might be something to look into, since it's a front steer rack and plentiful. You'd have to compare the inner tie rod ball to inner tie rod ball distance on both to see if it would work. Custom might be in order here!

You got it, a welding supply company. See if you can get some lugs that fit it, as alot of the automotive stores won't have lugs that big. The welding supply place I went to only had Aluminum lugs. Anybody have a source for 1/0 or 2/0 gage crimp/solder copper lugs, for 5/16" or 3/8" studs?

The 2 gage wire might be your problem. 1/0 or 2/0 welding cable is easy to bend and handles a bunch more current. The next time this happens, try measuring the voltage drop from the battery to the starter cable terminal at the starter. You'll probably see that there's a substantial voltage drop.

Jason's first paragraph is talking about Ackerman steering. The other thing to consider is bumpsteer. If you can bolt the steering knuckles on the struts so that they are turned around 180 degrees, and remount the rack at the same distance from the imaginary line connecting the ball joints, but in front instead of behind that line, the only variable you'd need to worry about would be the height of th e rack, which will govern the amount and type of bumpsteer. Making that adjustable once you get it close for welding on new brackets for the rack would be a great way to go. I think the above method would keep the Ackerman steering the same.

You and me both buddy!

BLKMGK, I deleted it. Yeah, I've seen mention of the better (cast iron?) shift forks in some of the Chevy mags. I wonder if this is any easy upgrade.

BLKMGK, I am close to starting the car, finished the electrics under the hood and now I'm working inside teh dash area trying to get all my modifications hooked to the stock dash and gages. I've tested the 98 GT Mustang fan with only battery voltage (~12.5) and I'm continually amazed at the air it is pulling into the AC condensor and radiator. You feel a very definite wind in front of it and behind it it's alot of wind. Yes, with the car 15" higher off the ground than usual and no hood on the car, I still feel a wind behind the car with it on high. I agree it makes the aftermarket fan setups seem wimpy in comparison. No real testing yet, but I have that wimpy 86 non-HD Camaro rad that JTR recommends. [This message has been edited by pparaska (edited September 19, 2000).]

I had and still have the same question. What I did was temporarily install some exhaust tubing (1-3/4" ?) over the strut housings tha was just larger than the strut tube. At the top, I put a bunch of lengthwise slits about 2 inches long, 1/4" apart, and bent the "fingers" in against the tube. Then I slid the collar down over the fingers, so that they would fit under that lip that the weld ring goes into (on Carerra threaded tubes anyway.) I did this so that the threaded tubes are at the top of the strut. I sectioned the front and rear struts 1.5". I'm running 10" springs (225 lb/in) in front, 8 inch springs (long story) (300 lb/in) in the rear. In the front, the tubing is short and rests on the brake hose bracket. I won't drive with this setup as I'm afraid that would shear the spot weld that holds that on. In the rear the tube runs all the way down to the casting that the strut tube goes into. I'll get the car fully assembled, put some weight (210) in the driver's seat to play "me", and adjust the ride height. Then I'll note where the spring collar is and figure out where I want my range of adjustment from there and find out where the threaded tube should be, take the muffler pipe out, weld the little C shaped sheet steel retainer where it needs to be and reassemble. That's my plan. The car need body parts, interior and glass before I can do this though. Sorry for the complicated answer, but I don't trust people on things like this when there are so many variables involved. ------------------ Pete Paraska - 73 540Z - Marathon Z Project - pparaska@home.com">pparaska@home.com -

Mike, you have a Griffin AL rad, correct? I heard that AL rads and the zip tie mounting method don't go together well. The aluminum is too soft and weak and the zip tie thing will eventually loosen and move and rub against a tube and eat through it (with vibration). Damn, I'm awfully pessimistic these days!

Thanks for that info. I wasn't sure how important equal legnth was. Sounds like it's importance is out of my league.

Lonehdrider, I want to welcome you to the forum. Just this morning I've ready a few very intelligent posts by you, this one I decided to respond to. Glad you joined! When I got my X-pip from Dr. Gas, it was about $90 just for the X, no other parts. I looked at it and got immediately pi$$ed at myself for not just making one myself. All it was were two 90 degree pipes, probably 2-1/4" in diameter that were probably mandrel bent and expanded on the ends to accept 2-1/2" pipe. They, of course made it exactly as you describe. The only thing I can say is I might not be able to weld down in the trough between the pipes at the front and back. So maybe $90 wasn't so bad. [This message has been edited by pparaska (edited September 17, 2000).]

There are 777 hp Vipers running around with T56s. I don't know if they've been upgraded to handle that though.

Mike that's great! I don't mean to rain on your parade, but it was pretty cool around Maryland and VIrginia today (60-70 F). I hope it still is able to cool things in that 90+ degree heat we get in the Summer. How did you mount it?

I have a full scale sketch of my drveshaft loop with some dimensions on my website at: http://members.home.net/pparaska/image/drivelinemods/loopsketch96.gif Scottie, I hope that helps. I wish I could make one for you, but I'm afraid it'd be wrong without having your car where I am making it. My shared welder is about to return to the other half owner for a while as well (sniff).

Matt - why not the T56?