pparaska

you want the 79-81 version. It has two resevoirs and bolts up easily.

Mike, I'd think a hi-flow cat and a low restriction cat back exhaust would make sense.

SWEET! What are you doing for a rear, tires, wheels, etc. to get that torque to the ground?

I was there, but didn't witness the altercation. I was REALLY upset though. Sal should have fired Kurt for that nonsense. Sales people are everywhere looking for work. I also will not buy parts from them unless they are the sole source. All my Nissan parts come from Courtesy or other discount dealers. Special stuff that only they carry I will either do without, find or make a substitute or buckle under only if I REALLY wanted that part that only they sell. Too bad, I've given them lots of business for years. Not anymore. I think John Williams (heck of a nice guy, BTW) should find someone else to market his stuff to us "racer" types, "performance Zcar people", etc. through others like Mike Gibson, Ross Corrigan, or ZF racing. I smell a purist, btw. No room for that in an industry selling to Z car people, who mostly love to modify. That'll cut your bottom line. Bad business decision, IMO. I was thrashing like mad to get my Z ready last year and drive it cross country to the MSA event. Well, I missed being ready by days. I was kind of happy I didn't make it. Almost all the nice cars that I saw there I had already seen pics of and it wasn't worth the trip to see them in person, really. I was hoping for some new stuff. The only good thing about it was meeting HybridZ people and hanging out. The rust and ugly beaters really bugged me too. A show is a show for nice cars not stock rusty beat up junk. Just my opinion. Fine if it's a little rough but has some nice engineering, but a rusty stock beater doesn't belong. I was overwhelmed by the number of cars, impress with some, but overall put off by the junk.

LT_ZT: I didn't mean to knock it. If you like the way 19s would look, that's great. But I think it'll be an expensive way to find out how bad a car can handle and ride. A 245/35-19 is about 25.8" in diameter. The sidewall is going to be very short and be a rough ride, and prone to bending the rims when you hit sharp bumps/potholes/etc. Plus it won't handle well except on very smooth race tracks. If you put power to it, the stiff short sidewall won't allow much forward traction either. But if looks is where you're headed, you could do it - make sure a tire is available in a size like that. Here's a calculator to try out: http://www.ucalgary.ca/~csimpson/Tech/Calculations.html Cheers, Pete

If you are using the stock fenders, etc. you are limited to about a 26" or so tire diameter, or you will start running into the inner fender at the same ride height. If you tub and do flares, this goes away. With a 19" tire, you'll be running a 30 or 35 section tire to have any width. That's going to ride like crap, and straight line traction will stink. Handling will be worse also, except for mirror smooth tracks. JMO, but 17" is too much for a dual use car. You give up straight line traction with the short sidewalls you have to deal with in a 25-26" diameter tire. 19's will be horrible, except for impressing the ricer crowd.

Depends on which Comp Xtreme cam. Go to their catalog: http://compcams.com/catalog/056_057.html (That's the page for the flat hyd. Xtreme cams) and pick a cam. Then look over to the right in the Valve spring column, and note the part number. Go to the valve spring page with those springs spec listed: http://compcams.com/catalog/303.html and check the specs for those springs (986-16 or 981-16). If your springs have alot of miles, you're better off just replacing them with the correct ones.

John, what about the V6 Altima? Not that I'd buy a new on, but it looks tempting to get a year old one, etc.

Mike, at least you have a plan and alot of parts and some $$$ to start with! You'll be kicking butt soon. The decision to have a pro put a CM cage in Chris's old car is killer. Good thing it's a 240Z, so it'll not have to deal with smog . Hopefully Dave can get that engine assembly balanced for you and you can get an engine back together soon. A custom geared Tremec or better yet, a Richmond 6 spd (tougher, better shifting) behind a nice 500+ NA EFI smallblock is going to be killer. It's going to be killer, since you've been through it all and learned a bunch of stuff. This time it'll be a better driver AND be fast.

Curt, welcome, and Glad We Could Help!

Make sure you use a pry bar to try to lift the front of the diff off of the crossmember. It can look fine, but the rubber rips loose from the metal.

Oh, so true! Where I live, many people are into the "Look how big my...(body part) is"oops "My car is SO COOL!" Same difference really. Saw one at a dealer last sunday. Silver, slush-o-matic. I REALLY tried to like it. I've BEEN trying to like it. Still don't like it. Went back yesterday (Saturday), and they had an orange (whatever) color one there, still had all that white plastic on the paint job - fresh off the truck. Touring model, $34K. This was an extra. If I ordered, I could have one in March. They're selling these things as fast as they can buy them. Funny thing, the salesmen were not looking at the 350Z in the lot when I got back to my car. I guess they know what that's like. They were checking out a certain blue 240Z. They seemed to like the sound of the engine too . I agree on the new car thing. I've bought two. Mitsubishi lost tons of money on my 92 GSX Eclipse. They paid for two new transmissions, 5 rebuilds of trannies, a new transfer case, a new driveshaft assembly ($1K for that!). Any profit they made was lost in the 6 years they were doing that work. My wifes 99 Contour Sport was the second. $15K out the door. Dependable, fun to drive car. My next daily driver won't be a new car - it'll be used. It probably won't be a 350Z either - I need room for more than just me and 1 passenger.

Sure it's not a broken front diff mount?

It's expensive, but your best bet is to just go with the Nissan stuff. I had an old version of the Precision (whatever) aftermarket stuff and it fit horrible. The newer version MAY be better, but the Nissan stuff just plain works. There is a door seal off of a Hyundai Excel that works on the Z, with trimming to length.

I'd want to know what compression ratio you're running. Have you run a compression test? That'd help. It sounds like you're considering putting in different pistons in the 350. If you put in flat tops with 4cc valve reliefs, a .039" thick composition head gasket, end up with a 0.025" deck height, you'd have about 9.75:1 compression. That might be asking alot for an iron head 350 on 89 octane. A 10 or 14 cc dished piston would give 9.1:1 or 8.8:1 compression. I used pistons from Probe Industries data sheets to come up with compression ratios: http://www.probeindustries.com/Pistons/Pistons_SRS/srs_home.htm With that kind of compression, I'd think a Comp Xtreme XE262H or XE268H would be good. Here are the Dynamic Compression ratios for those 3 static compression ratios and those two cams, installed as suggested by Comp Cams (106 intake centerline): 9.75:1, XE262H: 8.2:1 9.1:1, XE262H: 7.7:1 8.8:1, XE262H: 7.5:1 9.75:1, XE268H: 8.0:1 9.1:1, XE268H: 7.6:1 8.8:1, XE268H: 7.3:1 I'm thinking for 89 octane, you'd want to stay at or below 8:1 dynamic compression. Maybe the 9.75:1 with the XE268H? That might be a bit near the ragged edge though. The 9.1:1 with XE262H would probably be a stump puller. I USED to recommend the 750 vac sec. That's before I was shown the light by Jamie T, Mikelly, and others here. My rear tires hate my double pumper, but I like it much better. The hit when the secondaries come open NOW usually wastes the tires in the lower two gears. With the

Sounds like fun, Drew! Is that like a Jim Cook Racing "California Z"? What's it look like?

Cool! Don't you just love the looks on the neighbor's faces when you're in the garage spinning the Z on the rotisserie!? All my neighbors thought I was nuts! (they were correct, of course) .

DON'T rely on cardboard, I don't care how many layers to handle the trans. The input shaft will stab through many layers (ask me how I know). I'd either make a small pallet and bolt it to it, or build a crate that has internal stuff to keep it from moving around. You should see the beautiful little coffin that Scottie-GNZ made to ship an R200 to me - very nice.

I think Tomahawk hit this one on the head. Radiator and Waterpump alignment (vertical) make the mechanical fan and shroud a problem to fit. Those offset Chevy shrouds that the JTR book shows are getting hard to find. Let me clarify what Jim was referring to with my car. It WAS NOT overheating. The (re-calibrated Autometer) temp gage was reading a bit higher than I liked (220-225) with a 195 thermostat installed. But the engine coolant wasn't actually that hot. The sensor was sitting in the superheated steam over the coolant, as the system had some air in it in the top of the intake manifold. After I worked that out (actually moving the heater valve control open and closed a few times) the problem went away. But the car never overheated. So before you think the engine is overheating, make sure you have all the air out AND that the gage/sensor you have are reading correctly. I've seen Autometer sensor gages be off by 15-20 degrees - all four I've tested with a laboratory thermometer! Fans - if a GOOD electric will do the job, why not just make it easy on yourself and the water pump shaft and bearings and use an electric? Be ready to make sure you do some heavy duty wiring and keep that alternator belt tight .

Well, if you're driving it on the street, low end torque and throttle response will make you smile. Just because an engine doesn't keep making the same power when it revs above 6000rpm doesn't mean it's any less fun. In fact, with street gearing, etc., a wide fat torque curve that starts out high and stays flat and high but tapers off at 5500 rpm or so will give you better 1/4 mile times as well. It's not about peak hp, but "area under the torque curve". Plus, driving on the street will be more enjoyable at low throttle openings and response better with a more mild larger displacement V8. Just my opinion - plenty of people think hig strung engines are more fun, just not me.

That systemmax cam is lazy - that's a ton of duration between seat and .050" lift. I'd go with a Comp Xtreme or Crane Powermax cam - they typically have about the same "intensity" (less duration difference between seat and .050"), allowing more performance with the same idle characteristics for a 268 adv cam. Even the Magnum Comp Cam has better numbers. I always vote for more cubes now, especially if the engines weigh the same!

I agree with spending a bit more to go forged, but consider a few things: -Forgerd pistons can give cold engine piston slap. -TRW forgings are pretty heavy. -Probe Industries makes some nice "low expansion" SRS forged pistons that are pretty reasonably priced, and lighter.

Mayhem, I know what you mean about that 3.27:1 first. Mikelly, if you're listening, and doing a custom ratio'd Tremec 5spd, think about a steeper gear for first, etc. I start in 1st on the street when just driving easy,etc., and I've tried using the tires as the clutch by starting out hard on a launch in 2nd, and that works. Radical can be fun, but I'll see what this ends up like. If too much, I have the other two cams/lifter sets that are broken in to just swap in there .

That sounds correct. I agree. That sounds good!

Agreed. High hp/displacement ratio is a nice thing to brag about and great for a race car. On the street, it just isn't as much fun, especially if the HP is all up in the stratosphere rpm range. To me, bragging about a 1.6l engine having higher hp/displacement than a larger engine that has a bunch more usable torque and HP is just high tech snobbery.