pparaska

Spectre and Holley both make a cheap kit with a one-way valve and drill bit to put power valve protection in the older Holley's - I installed one the other night in my 600 vac sec carb. You can check the power valve by sucking (after all the fuel is dried off!) on the large side of the valve and seeing if air leaks through. There's a tester adapter also, but I don't think it's necessary. I have a cam with the same kind of specs (236/240 @ .050, .501/.510 lift, solid flat tappet Comp Xtreme PN 12-677-4) in my 327 and it's pretty lopey at idle. With that kind of cam timing, and 10:1 compression, it's difficult to get idle below 1000 rpm with an auto in gear. It's the price you pay for having a lopey cam that'll make the engine breathe above 6000 rpm. I'm going down to a 600 cfm carb from a 750 to try to get better idle and transition performance -af ter much brow beating by Jamie and Mikelly . I may try the 600 body with the 750 throttle plate after grinding a transition in the body. I've heard this is a good way to bring the venturi signal up on a carb, and it gives about 650 cfm of flow. This is the same setup a 650 DP (4777) uses.

I think the diff and case width are the same, if they're all R200s. But the issue is that the 300ZX CV shafts are too long to use in a Z and probably a 280ZX also. I'd think you could just put the 280ZX Turbo (and some 2+2) CV shafts in and it'd all fit and go together.

Wait, the stub axle where the wheel bolts on is where the 25 vs 27 spline thing is. And that's between the 240Z/280ZX and the 280Z stub axle spline count.

I've heard a few horror stories about gear whine and bearing failure from simpling bolting and unbolting the pinion flange to make the swap - so leaving the 300ZX flange on makes good sense. I haven't looked, but there's a spicer page at: http://www2.dana.com/expert/wc.dll?DSD~dedsec~2~2~ where you might be able to find a flange yoke that will take a 1310 or 1350 series joint to make a driveshaft for.

Guys, thanks for the pics of this event and sharing with us the discussions, etc. I found Eric's pictures and critique of Dan's custom body work most interesting. Dan, get some paint on that thing, and it will look absolutely killer! I love the product of all the mixing and matching you've done. Great out-of-the-box thinking there! Mark, Lone, I never would have guessed - j/k! Aux, that Z of yours is stunning I love the wheels! Oh, and I like the shot of the "CIVIC" Acura Integra - what a loser! Eric, it's a very sad thing to hear that 4 good Z shells may get cut to pieces. I'd KILL (well, almost) just to have one of them to put in storage. And that Z you talked about being across the street from Dan's would probably fetch way more than $300 here on the mid-east US coast. Sounds like minimal work compared to what I went through!

Matt, I apologize as well if I offended you - I was having a bit of fun too - at your expense. I have the same kind of problem with my sense of humor as Jim - and it can lead to trouble. Sorry. Looking at that picture, I was wondering if the top part of the strut is jammed in there. Is there any indication that the part visible from the top is jammed? I also agree that besides pulling it apart, shocking it like Jim's talking about might help. But that's alot of trouble for a strut - I agree! Hope I didn't offend. Sincerely, Pete

Well, Len's and my definintion of "Rice" definitely don't agree - My opinion is that just because a car is made in Japan, that's not a sufficient nor necessary reason to call it RICE. I see totally stock non-riced Hondas everyday. I also see riced Chevrolets, Fords, VWs. I'm with Arch. Tasteful mods are cool. And everyone's taste is different. But poser stuff, if followed by an attitude of "it's mine, it's modded (stickers, etc.), therefore everyone should think it's cool" doesn't necessarily wash for me. To each his own, but don't expect everyone else to think your ride is cool. Again, it's the ATTITUDE that sucks. BTW, not all of us gray hairs from the 60s/70s had cars with air shocks with the rear end jacked to the moon, shag carpet, big tires in the rear and motorcylce tires on the front, etc - yesteryears trendy stuff... My high school car was a lowered 70 Camaro with wide radial tires all the way around on Corvette rally wheels, HD shocks, and of course a lumpy 327 under the hood to back up the image. Pro Touring before it's time, baby!

Jim, I was thinking the same thing. If it came out, it'd end up in the radiator of the Chevy. If it broke the chain, that gas meter is kinda close I'm also amazed it hasn't come apart. Any chance the thing fritction welded itself together?

Rick, where abouts in Laurel? I'm actually near rt 29 and rt 216 - Howard County Seriously though, for the money, the deep rumbly sound and flow of the Dynomax Hemi Super Turbo muffler is hard to beat. One can handle almost 200hp without interrupting the hp curve of the engine. Less than $40 too. BTW, that's a sweet daily driver! And yes, that diff mod should be posted over in the driveline forum, so people there can see it - nice mod!

I was MIA on the Internet for a few weeks and missed the end of this thread. I just wanted to add the following about how I feel about grumpyvette: I'd PAY MONEY for that bookmark/favorites file, BTW, no kidding!

I think Mike Kelly may have plans for something like that. I agree - there's alot of money to be made. Get a product developed, have it ready to sell lots of them, and make a pile of money. The problem is trying to think like a Ricer and coming up with the next killer product. I just can't think like that. It doesn't compute for me... Now, that's a good side to the story!

Terry, for some reason (hmm...maybe it's that low-e coating ), my pipes, even the exhaust that's coated to before the mufflers, stay hot for at least ten minutes after shut down. And I coated my exhaust for the same reason you coated your headers - I hand built it with mandrel tubes, probably 80 or more hours of labor, and I figured I'd preserve them a bit, as well as try to cut down on heat in the car. Oh, that's one of the 3 pics I took just before the drive. It shows the color better, and someone was asking for one that had a better rendition of the color. I need to get the other mirror on before I do another exterior photo shoot...

One interesting thing about those coatings: radiant heat does go down. I had my headers and most of my exhaust system stainless/ceramic coated by Baxter Custom Engineering (thanks for the tip, Scottie!) - now under business restructuring and not doing coatings at this time. The stuff is nice. But here's one observation. One of the reasons these coating are nice is the low-emissivity of the material. Low emissivity means that even though the material and pipe are still very hot, it radiates less heat than if uncoated. But that can be dangerous. I sit here with many scars and burns on my hands from accidently touching the hot pipes working on the car lately. The problem is we have been trained that if it doesn't radiate heat we can get close to and maybe accidently bump into the exhaust system. Not so with this coating. It can be very hot to the touch, but the heat it radiates is very low. The other great things about it are that it looks good and prevents corrosion wonderfully. Since it's a low emissivity coating, you don't want it on anything that you want to STAY cool. As Scottie points out, doing the total intake would be a mistake, as it would very inefficiently radiate the heat that's conducted into it by the engine, etc. When it's polished, it reflects heat well.

Thanks John. Maybe I'm not so stupid after all. I moved my active retirement account money out of a bunch of LOSING tech heavy funds in Vangaurd and moved to ones that have done well (Gee, most of them start with the letters "WEL" also ) over the past 10-20 years, and haven't been STOMPED horribly in the past year or so, like the "value" type funds I was in before. My Merrill Lynch advisors are telling me to keep IRAs from a previous job in the tech/pharmo funds and bonds mix they're in. They continue to inch downward and are worth 2/3 or less of what they were 3 years ago when I dumped my Thrift Savings Plan accounts into them. I think I'm going to call them and talk about the farce of "buy and hold".

I think there's a big difference between a "Rice Burner" (something with a Japanese engine) and a "Riced-out" car. You see "Riced-out" Japanese, German, American cars. It's an attitude, a way of modifying a car, and really has little to do with the make or origin of the car. Well, in my opinion anyway.

I, for one, am not upset about this thread. Like Mike said, to each his own, but I don't see HybridZ as being everything to everybody that has a Z. Zdriver.com, etc. have forums where show car stuff fits better.

Bryan, thanks for letting me re-think this (old-to-me) problem. Without the stock diff front crossmember (use a pinion snubber arrangment instead, or maybe none at all), and with no exhaust taking up room, you could build an arm to go from the front of the diff housing, underneath and to the side of the driveshaft, to the tranny. Those two things being out of the way opens up alot of room under the driveshaft for this sort of thing. Make it a tall arm (in cross-section), like a 2x3, with the 3" side vertical, attached (welded) to a bracket that captures the front of the diff housing using the 4 vertical bolt bosses, and a bracket under the transmission mount pad and any other mounting points, with the mount under that to the tranny crossmember. That might just work. Transmitting the torque from the back of the tranny is the tough part. I'd be concerned about reacting all the torque rigidly through just the tranny tail housing. The 3rd gen F-body T-5s had a few lugs on the tail housing for a torque arm, that'd help. But I'd like to see it maybe carried forward to where the trans case splits also. Hmm.. Just another brain fart, but maybe there's some merit there still...

I posted that idea over 10 years ago when the Internet was just a place for email and ftp. It was on the email list now known as the IZCC list and Paul Richer (a member here) took that idea and many others of his own, mine, etc. and made up what you see now as the V8 faq on the IZCC web page, www.zhome.com. Anyway, it was a brain fart. There's no room to do it, without alot of tunnel surgery. I wasn't up for that, so I left it alone. I still think it'd be a good idea, and would tie in well with a Lotus-type "spine" chassis configuration. If you're up for modding the tunnel to make room, it could be done, but you'd be encroaching on the interior space in the seat area, where width is already a scarce commodity. There's a bit of history anyway...

Jim, I hope you heal quickly and that the $$$ start coming in soon. I've seen people get into a temporary $$$ pinch, sell something they love for pennies on the dollar just to get a little bit of $$$ and then months later fall into the money they needed and REALLY regret selling the things they enjoyed. I understand everyone doesn't have a financial support system to help when they're down, but swallowing some pride and getting a short loan is always better than losing your ass selling something you love for pennies on the dollar and having to do without it for a long time later on or going broke replacing it! It drives me nuts when I see that happen. I agree with Owen and Kevin. Read, Read, Read, Plan, Plan, Plan. Then you'll have the intellectual ammunition to go out and find deals on the stuff you really need for a kick-ass Z and the plan to do it with! Hope you feel better real soon, Pete

Guys, when I saw this post, I thought of all the overdone interiors in the show scene these days that have so many gadgets around them (to be able to "compete" that it's hard to find the controls that actually operate the car. I was just saying that that kind of mod isn't going to be very popular here (of course some people here might like it) and that I'd go other places to find it. What I don't want to see is HybridZ become a place for that kind of over the top show car stuff. To me this place is about performance and tasteful body mods (usually done for aerodynamics, to get big tires under the car, etc.). I don't want to see someone ask months down the road for a forum for wild show interiors or one for putting hydraulics under the car. I'd rather that kind of stuff be kept on the other sites. JMO. Dan, I don't think you flairs are gaudy, nor do I think Terry's are! I can't wait to see you paint them the same color as the car though . Like Lone said, tasteful interior mods are cool, but what I see in show cars these days with tons of electronics, screens, Nintendo, etc. well, I don't think that's what this site is about. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Even a 280Z is not that stiff. Add subframe connectors to a 240Z and it will be as stiff or stiffer than a 280Z, in my estimation. Check out my site under "Structural Mods" for plans for subframe connectors. If you do that and add a cage that ties well into the towers front and rear, you will have a "brick" that's probably still less than most 280Zs and much stiffer. Power to weight, Baby! Finding a 240Z may be more difficult, but you'll have fewer smog law problems with one, and you won't have to swap the ugly bumpers like you would on a 77-78. The R200 swap is so simple, it's not even worth worrying about on a hi-po 240Z project. It's a simple bolt in with a mustache bar and maybe a rear cross brace if the 240Z is a 70-71. Sorry , I'm partial to the 240Z styling (interior and exterior). I say start with a lighter version if you're trying to build a high power/weight ratio car. If you take the car into the 11s (not difficult with a V8 or a turbo 6), then you'll need to put a roll bar in anyway, and a cage is not far from that. The handling and braking aspect follows along the same lines with lower weight.

O.K. Before this turns out bad, I'll post. My guess is that HybridZ is not going to be a good place to ask this question. This site really is oriented towards Performance Mods and body mods that AREN'T GAUDY. To me, an all out fancied up Z interior with all that stuff takes away from performance, althought I have nothing against someone wanting to do that sort of thing. I just don't think this is the site that will have many (some I'm sure) people interested in an interior chock full of gee-gaw electronic gizmos. I'm sure the members will set me right if I've read the membership incorrectly. Hopefully, my post will stem the tide of what I think could turn into a somewhat volatile thread.

Van, I agree on the mirror issue. I recently was sent some pics of a very nice Z that had rectangular mirrors on it - they just look out of place to me. I think the Z screams for mirrors with not straight lines but are all made up of curved surfaces.

Sweet! Man, that thing must really turn heads when you drive it!. Beautiful!

Sorry to hear that it broke so much. Sounds like you have a plan for that. Consider the "Pinion Snubber" that's a thread in the Drivetrain section. I recommend it as a streetable replacement for a high torque Z.