pparaska

I believe the Hampton / Newport News area is nicer, but it's been a while since I lived there. Welcome to the RIGHT coast! There's a Tidewater Z club and I believe still a Z type shop over it the Tidewater area (north of the tunnel). Mike's Shindigs are SO laid back. You should make sure you do it. It's great to finally meet HybridZ people. And we don't just like V8s - Jaime comes and shows parts from his RB26, Doug (Synlubes) is an inliner and other L6 guys have shown up and I think had a good time. Mike - I can do a shindig the second week of June. Can't make June 30 - 2 Jul - I got invited to an expenses pay trip with a high school bud to take his daughter, me, my daughter AND his 65 GT350 Shelby to VIR for the Shelby convention - along with an offer to take in on one of the track day sessions! I'm not sure I want to take a $200,000 car much over 6 tenths though! Ought to be a blast! bast - welcome, and get over to Mike's even if he doesn't do a shindig!!! Bother Doug too - he's close!

Thanks for all the advice and well wishes guys. I will post as soon as possible, probably Thurs or Friday.

Thanks, actually the pain isn't that bad now. The Prednisone fixed that pretty well. What's worse, I think is the thought of losing the use of your leg (especially the right pedal leg!) and feeling in the foot for the rest of your life. The doc thinks that will all go back to normal though. Losing feeling in the private parts and/or losing permanent control of the bowel/bladder would be no fun either!!!

...doesn't mean your spine can handle the load!!! I just found out I'll be going in the hospital for back surgery on Wednesday 4/26/06 - operation at 1300. This is a great lesson for those of you that might be stronger in the body than in the brain, like me! I'm probably stronger than your average guy that sits at a computer all day, but only in the body, by this account! Back in November 05 I was wrestling the new Dart block (aftermaket SBC engine block) from a stool onto the engine stand. My son was holding the stand still while I did some (what I thought minor) lifting of the engine block and mounting yoke into the engine stand reciever tube. Well, the SBC Gen I block is typically 150 lbs, but the Dart block is 200! Very stupid thing to do. The hoist was 15 feet away, but no, I had to man-handle it! I felt something go pop, not painful, but I'm betting it was the disc between L4 and L5 in my lower back bursting. I didn't have any symptoms right away, but a few weeks later just working out in the garage bending over the Z, etc. putting the 327 back into it my lower back got sore - you know that feeling you get when the muscles get tired and burn. Later that evening after getting up out of the couch for the first time after sitting down, the muscle spasms started. And disn't stop for 5 days! I laid on my back for 5 days. I got an MRI and your could see the disc had busted and herniated forward into the nerve roots. Just pushing on them, not really going forward more than half the distane of the spinal canal. My only symptom was lower back pain. The doc put me on Predisone for 10 days, and Darvacet for the pain. I got 2 cortisone epidural injections, 2 weeks apart, and that did relieve the symptoms. O.K. NEXT STUPID MOVE!!! : Then LIKE A TOTAL A$$, I helped my dad's neighbor move the wood from a pretty large tree (18" log sections) that my dad had taken down to my house and the neigbor's house. This was a few weeks after I had been feeling better. That flared it up BIGTIME. A few days later I got out of bed and I had weekness in my right leg and numbness in my right foot. It continued to get worse and now the back of my leg and most of the foot is numb, and the leg is so weak I limb badly (can't lift my weight with the calf). Sometimes my leg and lower back are painful as well - weirdly, the pain is felt in the leg but the cause is in my lower back. Another (3rd) cortisone injection didn't have a chance of fixing that, but we tried. A subsequent MRI showed the disc guts squirting out into the area where the nerve roots are in the spinal canal, pushing the nerves very hard to the sides and forward of the spinal canal, making my right leg weak, numb, and painful. The MRI showed how much worse it had gotten since the wood incident and even the homeopathic back doctor I was seeing until this point said surgery was the ONLY thing to do, even though he doesn DO surgery. That's when you know it's BAD! The issue is the possibilty of permanent loss of strength and feeling in the leg. Thankfully, the emergency symptom of incontinence hasn't developed. Once your private parts start to get numb or you start to lose bowl and/or bladder control, they tell me it's an emergency situation and you need an operation withing 8 hours, as these nerves don't regenerate well. No, I don't want a numb pecker or have to wear a bag, etc. for the rest of my life!!! The surgeon put me on 10 days of Prednisone (great stuff, I feel much better!) and assures me that surgery will fix things although I may have up to a 20% chance that the Discectomy part of it would need to be done again later, since the disc may herniate more in later years. He also says the risk of having nerve damage during the surgery is very low. If you're more interested, the procedures planned are: - BiLateral Laminectomy of L4 (cutting a "window" through the back of the vertabrae to allow the following): - Partial Discectomy of L4-L5 disc (part that has herniated, leaving what remains between the vertabrae) - Foraminotomy (enlarge the passageway where a spinal nerve root exits the spinal canal) http://www.spineuniverse.com/displayarticle.php/article554.html - Partial Medial facetectomy (during this procedure part of the facet joint is removed to increase space) Probably more than you wanted to know Being a nuts and bolts kind of guy, I asked for the parts that are removed so I can inspect them Damn, the Z is getting out of the body shop next week, I guess I'll just be able to look at it. I hope this is a warning to those of you that are like me and think that if your muscles can handle it, you can shield your spine from damage. That's a very big untruth!!! Cheers,

The 60-70s vettes had a 7" deep (vs the standard 7.5" deep) pan. They are NLA as far as I know, but you can still buy the special oil pump pickup needed. Here's one of the pans on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/CORVETTE-SMALL-BLOCK-CHEVY-SIX-QUART-OIL-PAN-TRAP-DOOR_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ38657QQitemZ8056172694QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW I have used this and it does give a bit more clearance, and adds a quart capacity, and has a door and baffle in it. Maybe start with that and cut 1/2" out of the height? I'm not sure it'd be worth the trouble though. I think the Corvette pan is as shallow as is practical and needed.

If you don't want to search the Internet, search here long enough to decide, or buy a JTR manual, I think you should give up RIGHT NOW. You obviously don't have the required patience.

I've had people want me to copy my manual or parts of it and send to them, because of the "high" cost of the manual. If $40 is too much for the manual, you don't even want to think about this swap...

Congrats!!

Ian, the Tremec takes getting used to, and if you drove a truck, you'd feel at home . I haven't changed the fluid in over 5000 miles, so that might be why mine is a bit more notchy than it used to be with fresh fluid (Synchromesh). The Pro 5.0 shifter helped, but I can still miss a shift because of the notchiness just driving around town taking it easy. Not often, but it does take some concentration that I don't need driving my other 2 manual trans cars. I'd consider having the T-5 rebuilt with the G-Force parts, personally. Alf, thanks for the response. But I need to stick with a 10.5" clutch, as the bellhousing I'm going to use (the new one from Tilton Sonic for 153 tooth flywheels only) won't handle an 11" clutch. MikeC, I agree it'd be a lot easier to go to an 11" clutch to get the holding power. But as you can see, I'm stuck. I COULD use the Lakewood bellhousing I have now and go with a larger flywheel and clutch, but that stuff already has a new home promised, and I'm not sure I wouldn't have starter / T/C rod bracket interference, (referencing the JTR manual). I hope I don't have to go to a twin disc to get the holding power! That would mean a different Hyd TO bearing setup, a different flywheel, etc. etc. $$$$ It seems that to get enough grip with a 10.5" clutch, you have to go to a puck design that can be prone to giving you an on/off action, and/or a stiff pressure plate that I don't want either (heavy clutch pedal). Something tells me there's technology to get around the above though - like a kevlar/ceramic disc and a light pressure PP. I'll have to get on the phone and talk with the tech people at Sachs, Ram, etc. to solve this I think.

Pyro, I'm using a 153 tooth sized blow proof bellhousing, so I'm stuck with 10.5" max clutch diameter. I'm going to guess that a 3000lb clutch PP was pretty stiff to push in. Since this is a street car, I don't want a bunch of effort needed to disengage the clutch. How bad was the pedal effort, and was this in a Z? What clutch linkage/ hydraulics setup did you use with it?

Thanks for the thoughts on the flywheel, 331CI 280z. The 15 lb. nodular iron flywheel (PN 14085720) has been used in racing for years and is recommended in the Chevy Power manual by the racing engineers. It's not your typical OE flywheel. Quote: "This flywheel in new condition has been tested at speed to 10,000 rpm and is quite suitable for most small block racing applications." They go on to say that if you overheat the clutch, it weakens the flywheel and rapidly lowers the burst speed. I believe thats true for any flywheel, let alone pressure plate. Since I have a blow proof bellhousing, I've been willing to risk the flywheel not being SFI approved. But I may change my mind and get an SFI approved AL/steel flywheel. Mike, I'm concerned that the 1LE clutch pp won't be able to hold the 400 once it's tuned correctly and I'm running drag radials. If I do get 550 ft lbs of torque, I'm concerned that flywheel, even with the McLeod Dual Friction disc won't hold it. I'm still looking at options for disc, PP, flywheel.

Bill, glad you realized what I was getting at with how some of the vendors sell this stuff - I think it might be a mistake on their part, but showing both parts in the photo linked to just one of the parts is very misleading. Yeah, Summit can be pretty expensive on some stuff. For general V8 stuff I've found CVProducts.com has a huge selection and the prices always seem competitive (and generally the same or lower than Summit and Jegs) and flatlanderracing.com is not bad for engine parts prices also. I look at Summit and Jegs for their great online catalogs, and then take the part number and go shopping .

Well, I buckled under the weight of G-Force's supply tactics to other tranny builders. I sent my T-5 to G-Force a few weeks ago. I'm dealing strictly with Mark, who is a very easy to talk to and seems to know what he's doing. A guy I know at work just got his T-5 back for his Mustang from G-Force. No word yet on how it works. But he'd been through 3 broken T-5s, so he's happy to have found a probable solution.

For the last several days, I've been getting an email from subscribed threads for EACH NEW POST. It used to be you'd get an email for the 1st new post only. Dan, did you change anything that might do this, or is my profile hosed?

There are several reasons it took me 11 years to build my Z. A large part of the time was spent fixing rust all over the car, about as bad as Mull's car. I didn't know how to weld or have a shop full of talented guys and tools like Mull had. On factor is how depressing it is to work on a car with rust, at least for me. I would get quite frustrated while fixing rust, and not go back into the garage for a while due to it. I know you say you don't have a lot of money, but that project will nickel and dime you to death. It would be better to save and get a shell from Arizona or something, IMO. Just speaking from experience....

Thanks for the info!

I have the A4s in my Z. I used the stock Z sliders and used some flat stock to make them fit the A4s. Since they are not that wide, you can shift them over a bit and although they come close to the door panel, they don't hit, in my 240Z anyway.

How about a G-Force modified T-5, like TimZ and Speeder run? Mine's at G-Force at the moment, getting the "treatment". My TR-3550 Tremec is already sold.

Hey Van, Long time no hear! Doubt I can make it out to the show Which Z will be there with you? The OrangeCrate, or "The Project"?

Really clean install! Awesome! BTW, I really like the color . What color code is that/what car did it come from?

John, I have to disagree with you slightly here. I think there are plenty of technical trade-offs in the choice of engine for someone's HybridZ that are based on factual information. The major one is one's intended use for the car: Daily Driver Weekend thrasher street/mostly-strip Strip only Road course only and varying mixtures of the above Weight plays a big factor in deciding the gearing/tire diameter and secondarily, the power/torque curve rpm band. Once that is decided, the choice of final gear/tire ratio (transmission top gear times differential ratio * tire diameter) helps select the transmission. The engine's power/torque curve and the overall gear ratios/tire diameter will be aligned with the intended use, or some mixture, which will cause compromises in the selection of the gearing and power/torque curve rpm band. For cars that see the street, MY PREFERENCE is that cruise rpm needs to be reasonable ( less than 3500 rpm max preferable a good bit less, IMO) to get decent gas mileage and keep "buziness" and "nervousness" to a tolerable level. Then there's engine wear, which is lower with lower cruise rpms, but this may not be important for a seldom-use car. So now it's down to power/torque curve rpm band, and this DOES get subjective, but only in the sense that people have different desires in how the engine's power should be delivered (NOTHING ABOUT EMOTIONAL STUFF THOUGH, YET). If you pick a cruise rpm for top gear, MY PREFERENCE is that there should be a "reasonably impressive" amount of torque at the cruise rpm in whatever gear is usually used for cruise, and/or that turbo lag should be minimal or preferably absent at this operational point. PREFERENCE ALERT: Well, that's me anyway, I hate being in the wrong gear/rpm in my Eclipse on the highway and not being able to move out somewhat quickly (without lag, or totally out of the torque curve) without shifting down. You get in tight situations where shifting might not be comfortable or even desired from an "appearance" standpoint, IMO. Are there a bunch of personal choices in what I've written above? YES. But are there engine and drivetrain parameters that are factually based that make one engine more suited than another? DEFINITELY. There's no emotion in those choices, just preferences based on how you want the machine to react on the street or track. There ARE bad choices you could make if you ignored the factual parameters and selected the engine based on some emotional attachment to one engine configuration or another. I think a great case in point is the NA 4cyl 11000 rpm thread that's running. That choice for a street car is almost ALL emotionally based. And I think having factual debates on HybridZ about those parameter choices is EXACTLY the kind of discussions we should have - as long as those debates can STICK WITH THE CORRECT FACTS (not fabricated BS) while the parameters, uses, etc. are discussed. But it's clear from the thread referenced above and others like it that we need to police these threads closely if we want to keep HybridZ a place where people can come to read current and old threads and make informed decisions based on these FACTUAL debates. I do agree that if several engines can meet the parameters needed for the preferences in how the car will react, drive, cruise, race, etc., THEN you should let the TRULY emotional things like "how the engine sounds, what we fell in love with as kids, or some other emotional reason." I don't agree that how an engine delivers power (it's power/torque rpm band) is really an emotional thing - I think it's a rational choice of parameters that someone makes, just like choosing a PC that's fast enough to do large calculations in a timely manner. But to let the emotional choices override the debate you should have with yourself about the use of the car and the operational parameters you want out of the combination is only going to lead to your sadness and disappointment. To rationalize your emotional choices, over the intended use of the car and the operational parameters of the engine choice (especially if it means posting INCORRECT information about other engine choices) is NOT something that should be allowed on HybridZ, IMO. One thing this site has done for me is shown me other engines I hadn't really considered (but hadn't crossed off either) for my kind of uses for a HybridZ. But that's only because people STUCK WITH THE FACTS when they posted performance results, their observations about how the engine contributed to the driving experience in a performance parameters sense, and then, yes, the visceral parameters that they liked.

Be careful with absolutes like "everybody". Absolutes are really dangerous. I know you may not have meant me when you said "everybody", but no where in that thread did I show emotion OVER fact. The only times I showed emotion in my posts is where I was responding to people that were MAKING UP INCORRECT INFORMATION AND PASSING IT OFF AS FACT to make their engine choice look better. I think the real culprits of bringing hybridZ down are those that make ridiculously INCORRECT techincal arguments that are fabricated to make their engine choice look superior or someone else's choice look like a farm tractor engine. Read that thread again and make your own list, but I think you'll agree that my name will NOT be on it.

Mike, I think you're referring to read/unread posts (regular or bold font in the "Posts Last xxx" search result? That's different than the automatic log off cookie, although that cookie does seem to affect the read/unread posts function.