pparaska

A buddy at work has his RR mustang's T-5 at G-Force right now. They took it on without a problem and said it'd be about 2 weeks. Maybe G-Force has solved their gearset supply problems and now us non-pro's can get gear sets too.

Good to hear your back is better. BTW, after taking 800MG of ibuprofin for a day or two, my back is better. Not just masking the pain from muscle spasms, but the anti-inflamation properties tend to shrink the disc inflamation and get them off the nerve roots, etc. (Your spinal cord technically ends inches above your lower back, from there down it's still encsed in the dural tube, but they are nerve roots, not the spinal cord at that point). You have no interference from the clutch fork and the tranny tunnel? That's the typical reason to go for the hydraulic bearing. It certainly is nice not having the hydraulics go into the bellhousing where you can't fix a leak easily, etc., but the OEs have been running hydraulic bearings for decades and they aren't problematic. Of course, if you go with a stiff pressure plate, it exacerbates the problems of leaking hydraulics. But that's not something I'd do for a track car any way (if extra pressure on the disc(s) were needed to hold the torque)- I'd be looking at a dual disc setup with less pressure and moment of inertia.

Mike, is it just muscle spasm in the lower back, or nerve pain and leg nerve stuff? I was goofing around with the Dart block a few months ago (without the freaking engine hoist that was 10 feet away - duh!) and really screwed my back up. You know, "I'm stronger than the average bear and can man handle this thing." Damn I'm stupid sometimes! Resul: Acutely herniated L4-L5 disc that's pushing REALLY bad on the nerve roots there. Every thing from lower back muscle spasms, a shorter right leg due to the muscles always being tight, numbness in my right foot, the feeling that someone has always kicked me in the nuts 5 minutes ago, and walking with a MEAN limp. 1 epidural cortisone shot later helped some... Take care of the back, dude, we're not getting any younger (and some of us no wiser!!!) I hope it's just a muscle spasm. Oh, I did some shoveling today. We got like 14 inches or so. Thankfully my neighbor took care of 80% of it with his snow blower! Good luck with the clutch. Seriously, you're doing this the hard way - just do the hydraulic bearing!

I'm down to 3 options on doing a G-Force T-5: G-Force (dealing with Mark), Modern Drivelines, and The Gear Shop (see TimZ's post above for the thread with their new location). The latter two come hgihly regarded. I'm betting G-Force is fine to do the work too. Then again, I'm considering buying the parts and doing it myself, just for the fun and experience. (I have a broken T-5 that Glenn McCoy has checked out and says at least the case is still good!) Did you guys see this before? http://www.5speeds.com/t5/shims.html Seems a neat way to home in on just the right shim thickness!

Yeah, I think he's concentrating on building trannies and selling his parts and kits on ebay more than keeping the web site incredibly detailed. I will call soon.

I couldn't find it either.

Congrats! You probably know this, but it doesn't hurt to say it again: Be careful as you turn up the wick. I see SO MANY people post on the internet that they went for a few more PSI and wasted the engine, head gasket, etc. Datalog, Datalog, Datalog, and study, study, study. Scotty taught me this lesson by just reading his posts over the years. Of course, a good dyno tune that covers the entire useful fuel/timing map at constant loads, etc. is worth a lot of insurance. A 20% hit in HP at a mile high vs sea level. OUCH. No wonder you goes go for boost over NA so quickly! Cheers,

New web site too: http://www.thegearbox.org/pages/1/index.htm

Richard, Thanks for the laugh! Ron Stoy - what a tool!

Wayne, have you ever lived under the influence of the British? I love the sarcastic wit!

Is it just me? (I'm going to hit Enter twice now...) Why can't I have paragraph breaks? When I type, I see paragraph breaks (hit Enter twice between paragraphs). But when it is either previewed or submitted, the paragraph breaks disappear and I see everything in one paragraph.

Well, since the engine (406) went up soon after this happened, the car was off the road until recently. I rebuilt the 327 (will be for sale once I get the car back) and put it in recently. I just dropped the Z off at the body shop this morning. No idea when it will be done, I didn't even ask. They're not very busy so I doubt more than 3 weeks, but we'll see. They don't get paid until the end, so that's incentive .

As soon as my Z gets back from the body shop and I get a proper tune on the just rebuilt (I should say rebuilt and blueprinted by anal-retentive ME) 327 will be up for sale. Don't mean to hijack, just letting people know there will be a balanced and blueprinted ~350ish hp solid flat tappet cam, double hump head 327 (9.7:1) for sale soon on the East Coast. No, I won't ship it.

Man, I thought I was the only one who liked Cadkey better than Autocad! Autocad was never intuitive to me, but Cadkey was. Pro-E was not easy to learn, but once you get the idea, it's nice because changes are - parametric. I haven't used this stuff in years though.

Vinh - Congrats! BTW, John Hunter-Dailey (sp?) is the Zclub.net (British Z club) "american correspondent" for their magazine, which is also a very fine magazine. So it looks like you'll get into both mags .

Yeah, I'm the one "working" on this. Well not really, yet. I have the EDIS-8 parts and a 50 series 36 tooth sprocket I'll try to use as a trigger, but this project is off until the Z gets back from the body shop. I just got the 327 (which I rebuilt recently) back in the car and started today. It's off to the body shop to get the rear-end damage repaired. I hope to do the EDIS install soon after it gets back. I HATE distributor weights and springs. I HATE spark scatter. I WANT programmable vacuum and "mechanical" (rpm-related) advance. I already run the Megasquirt, and plan to go to MSnS E soon to get the ignition control. Paul, thanks for all the work you and Ron are doing on this. Oh, I love the "flux capacitor" you installed there

Paul, this is really great stuff! HEY!!! NICE FLUX CAPACITOR I see there!! Oh yeah, I seem to remember that the EDIS VR DOES trigger off of the trailing edge of the tooth, so your observations back that up. BTW, if you're looking for a used oscilloscope, go to "The Scope Man", Bob Garcia: Bob Garcia's email: esaronel@bellsouth.net or by telephone: 770-977-5701 (call no later than 8 PM Eastern time). I just called Bob on that number to check it out, and he's waiting for your call . He said he has a great selection at the moment BTW. I got an old but very good Tektronix 465 (nice little old scope!) from him. His service and PACKING are excellent. If you have any problems with your stuff, he will make it right. The first one he sent (after he checked it out) came DOA, due to a bad capacitor in the power supply. I shipped it back in the excellent packaging he sent it in and another showed up before mine got to him. The replacement has been working great and has been a great help with the MS debugging. You really don't need much of a scope to work on MS stuff. Even this old Tek 465 is overkill for what I needed. But like Pete said, Tektronix is the best bet!

A few comments on in-line pump noise. I know NHRA limits the length of rubber hose in the system, but adding some rubber (not stiff braided) to both the inlet and outlet will help isolate the noise as well. Rubber mounts help, but if you hook hard lines directly or with short rubber hose to the pump, it will cause noise to transmit to the unibody, especially if you tie down the hard line rigidly. Also, get the pump as LOW as you can below the tank bottom (while still being safe). It will pump better (especially with a low level of fuel) and it will be less noisy!

DHOC - you guys are too funny! I love it!

Hope you saw the smilie after I wrote "wimpy". Seriously though, there's nothing wrong with the 5.7 - 11.90s is fast for any street driven daily driver, in my book. I just didn't want people to loose site of the major increase in displacement the new Z06 has. It's a big part of the reason for the 505 SAE J1349 hp number!

Some troubleshooting ideas: Which ECU? Is this the old analog one, or the 4D or 4Di? Are your sure you have good power to the unit and harness? Enough wire gage to handle the current? What about fuel pressure and enough return line diameter so that the return line pressure is low enough (I think Holley recommends no more than 1.5 psi in the return). Are the injectors clogged? Spray pattern look even? What about vacuum leaks?

Check out the latest Hotrod Mag. They took an LS7, tested and corrected to typical environmental conditions like most dyno runs are done at (STP) instead of the new SAE J-1349, and got the following numbers: By using the stock manifolds and going without catalytic converters or exhaust/mufflers: 546 STP hp @ 6100rpm, 514 STP lb-ft @ 4900rpm With the SAE correction factors, that's: 522 SAE hp and 492 SAE lb-ft. The STP hp is 4.6% higher than SAE, torque is 4.5% higher than SAE. Then they put 1-3/4 to 1-7/8 x 17 inch primary tube headers with a 2.5" merge collector and got: 519 SAE hp@6373rpm / 495 SAE lb-ft@4824 Being so bold as to use the same 4.6% and 4.5% higher numbers: 543 STP hp / 517 STP lb-ft Next was the first step up new HOT cam and same headers: 554 SAE hp @ 6186 and 6374rpm / 508 SAE lb-ft @ 4812rpm or, using the 4.6 and 4.5% factors: 579 STP hp / 531 STP lb-ft By the time they had the hottest HOT cam in it with 1-3/4 x 26" primary headers w/ 2.5" merge collectors, it was at 600hp. 600 SAE hp @ 6803rpm / 526 SAE lb-ft @ 4873 and 5245rpm or, using the 4.6 and 4.5% factors: 628 STP hp / 550 STP lb-ft !!!!! One thing you don't want to forget is that the LS7 is 7.0 liters, not the wimpy 5.7 of the LS1/2/6!!! That's another 81 cubes, and at the 1.40 SAE hp/cubic inch that the last cam/header combot has, an extra 113 SAE hp!!! So don't think that duplicating this power with an typical 5.7L LS1/2/6 is going to be so easy. Also, the LS7 heads are very different internally than the LS6 heads. The ports of more "conventionally" shaped, and they flow like mad. How about intake flow of 360cfm @ 28"H2O @ 0.600" on a Superflow 600 flowbench? That's big-block territory for a little, light 7.0L package! Oh, they're 12 degree heads, unlike the LS1/2/6 heads that are 15 degrees. I wonder if the wife would miss $15K from the 60 month CD? Sorry, cast pistons or no, this is an engine that will last and has the potential for more power than most people are willing or able to use. All that with a 2 yr warranty? For $15K, I think it's a steal. I just don't want $15K in my engine. But if that wasn't an issue, I'd be in line.

I have a paid version of Ad-Aware, as well as Microsoft (nee Giant) Antispyware. I gave up using Spybot and Spywareblaster because they are too slow to update their spyware definitions, etc. I've also used SpyCop I had thought that Microsoft's Antispyware was pretty good, since it found things that Ad-Aware hadn't. Then I was reading PCWorld a few weeks ago and saw that Webroot's SpySweeper won their test. I bought that, for $20 (search, you can find deals!) It found a few things that MS's tool didn't. I think the moral to the story is that you need to re-assess your anti-spyware and anti-virus stuff pretty often and not be afraid to pay for good software. The guys doing the free stuff are saints and everything, but they can't afford to keep up with all the new spyware like the commercial places can. I run McAfee's Anti-virus and Personal Firewall, since Comcast GIVES them to me free. I have a router at home running a stateful firewall with all of the security jacked up on the wireless side (many of my neighbors DON'T!), so the firewall is probably not going to catch anything. I use Firefox almost exclusively. Unfortunately there are some sites, including one of my banks, that demand IE. Firefox 1.5 is very stable and fast. IE is definitely targetted, although Firefox is beginning to get that attention to. It will probably never get to the ridiculous place the IE is though. Mike, the other thing I do is do AUTOMATIC BACKUPs. This talks to the issue of just reformatting the drive and starting over. I have Acronis TrueImage that I make a disk image with and then have it do an incremental every day. That way I can go back to where the hard disk was at any previous time if something DOES happen.

I believe the R200 3.545 is 39 ring teeth, 11 pinion teeth -> 39/11=3.5454 (repeating digits) For the R230 to be 3.538, my guess is thats 46 ring teeth, 13 pinion teeth -> 46/13=3.538461 (repeating last 6 digits) 2 more pinion teeth for nearly the same ratio helps with strength, I'd suppose! Jim Biondo used to brag a bit about the 3.15:1 set he had in his V8 260Z's R200, saying it had more pinion teeth, so it was stronger because of that. Of course, it's probably more than the number of teeth, but the size and geometry of them. I'm guessing the 3.15:1 R200 set is 41 ring teeth, 13 pinion teeth -> 41/13= 3.153846 (repeating last 6 digits). If that's true, that's 2 more pinion teeth than the 3.545 R200, but the teeth are probably similar is size. The R230 teeth I'd suppose are larger (larger pinion diameter?). Any way you look at it that R230 is a pretty durable gear setup. I guess the only thing to look out for is wearing out the viscous coupling? I think those of us with the 3.700:1 (37 ring teeth, 10 pinion teeth) probably have PINION ENVY.