bjhines

I have thought about it a little while, our cages have a lot of similarities. I believe we have the same thing in mind but we have chosen different methods and features. I used a lot of sheet-metal gussets and you have used more diagonal tubing. I decided to keep the passenger compartment open while you added the center support. I tied my dashbar into the upper torque-box(cowl) and reinforced the firewall. You used a straight dashbar and a tube down to the tunnel. As far as the gussets go... I started mocking things up with the "taco" gussets and a lot of custom gussets in mind. Many of these parts were formed and fitted before the cage was welded. Several of these gussets were welded before the cage was fully installed. Your cage is mostly done. Many of the improvements the gussets might have made have been compensated for by the additional diagonals. I would gusset areas that could result in a tube comming loose and impacting the occupants. Look at the footwell areas and perhaps the center rib and it's junctions. I made a decision early on to minimize weight, and maximize chassis stiffness. Many of the things I have done are not intended to deal with hitting another vehicle(low and penetrating). I am more concerned with retaining wall impacts and rollovers. I have also made some tough decisions to accomodate a passenger seat(no halo-diagonal or petty-bar). I also decided that the center tube running through the passenger compartment will be a liability in it's own right. Most race cars run the bar away from the driver right where the passenger seat is. I don't think compromising the center bar's location to accomodate a passenger was the best choice for me.

go weld up some tubes with gussets. Trust me.. it will impress you with the difference they make.

I played around with some misbent tubing sections and a few gussets to figure out how to weld them and how to deal with the warpage they can cause. My dash bar is critical that it fits exactly where it does. I found that the gussets add considerable stiffness to tubing junctions. It is much harder to cause a complete failure of the gusseted junctions. They also make it much harder to bend the junctions the way they would in a T-bone impact. The process of welding the gussets can also cause considerable warpage if you rush things and get the area too hot. I primarily reinforced the front seciton of the car with 14 wrap around gussets. I used 4 massive 14gauge gussets in the double door bars. I have only a few gusstes in the rear section. I have more tubing junctions and triangulation in the rear. I decided not to use more gusstes in that area. There are serveral dozen other types of gussets throughout the chassis. I was going to take pics of every one like this, but it got too time consuming. I used a different style for attaching the front A-pillar bars to the rocker and floor.

hehe... You can also raise and lower the fenders along the hood line.

SWEET!!!! I am here to help.

Hmmm.... Long strand fillers are a lot more like fiberglass resin, they take longer to set up and they are a bitch to mix, but they provide unparalleled strength and resistance to cracking. Medium strand and short strand fillers are much easier to form for filling holes and depressions. They are easy to mix and they set up quickly like bondo. Sandable fillers are often thin, easy to apply, and easy to sand. They set up quickly and are only suitable for small imperfections in layers less than 1/8" thick. These are the most used and most abused. As far as porosity, I am not sure everyone is on the same page here. I primed and sealed the areas I am applying filler. I also used OSPHO under everything. I could care less if they are porous.

I asked around on several forums about the OSPHO and other types of phosphate/dichromate primers. I heard all kinds of myths about them in general. I can tell you that proper drying time and cleanup of the excess is hard work and absolutely essential to getting good results. I highly recommend OSPHO. But it does add a great deal of labor to any paint job. I have used POR15, OSPHO, and other types of Rust reformers. The only problem I have ever run into that was not related to improper application or preparation was that the "Rustolium Rust Reformer" will turn into a caustic mightmare when heated by welding on that area. I have had problems with the welding fumes from the Rustolium-rust-reformer causing every pice of exposed steel to flash rust. Whatever this stuff turns into when heated is BAD NEWS! The OSPHO seems to do just fine when heated. I have had no heat related issues with OSPHO coated metal. I have never welded a piece of metal that was coated with POR15, so I have no idea what that does under extreme heat. To give you an idea of how I apply the OSPHO; I used a garden sprayer to literally SOAK the chassis from head to toe. I liberally sprayed the insides of the frame rails and behind every piece. I used several sponges and a rinse bucket of water to clean up the puddles. I used an air gun to blow the ospho into the seams and behind every piece. I let the Ospho dry to a tacky film and then wiped it down AGAIN with a damp sponge(rinsing often in clean water). I then let it dry for 24 hours, Then I wiped up rough areas AGAIN with a damp sponge. Throughout this process you will find that excessive OSPHO forms a gooey, bubbly foam that must be knocked down before it will completely dry. You must be careful not remove too much OSPHO or it will become dry and form a whiteish powdery surface. I use a sponge dipped in new OSPHO to recoat any areas that I removed too much of the OSPHO from in the cleanup process. When you are done you will be left with a TOUGH, dry coating that seems impervious to flash rust from handling. The properly applied coating hold paint VERY WELL>>> but I have noticed that too thin coating will form a whitish powdery suface that is harder to paint.

LOL... I am an audio engineer. I Design, install, and operate mobile TV production units. Me or EE is a good start to get into this. A day at the "office" Head office The "desk" The basement Field office Satellite office ...

LOL, CC are so damn proud of themselves. I won't even speak of the tiff I got into with a local police officer over there. Needless to say I am still a member of CC, but I have nothing to add to their site. Jon, You are building a time-trials car... right. You simply cannot make an E-prod cage and have room for a passenger. I am an instructor and I am constantly asked to give rides to other instructor's students because their instructor has a "petty-bar" and no passenger seat. I love the attention and the fact that so many people have been around in my cars. I chose to reinforce the "torque box"/cowl box and firewall to do much the same thing the dash and center dash bar do in your car. ...

The front end of the Z is not appropriate for the crossmember supported A-arm designs. How many of you have cut open your crossmembers. It is going to require a cage and specific reinforcement to the front end to support the crossmember mounted A-arms. The stock Z car has a highly reinforced TOP side to take the struts loads. The frame rail also spreads out these loads by keeping over a foot between the X-member and the TC buckets. If you guys try to bolt on one of those fancy crossmembers it will buckle your frame rails.

That only costs $12,000. I can buy a beater BMW Z-3 and have money left over to spend on the suspension. 4uck!

Hmmmm... I don't know what is really wrong with that job. It is not a classic that he will keep for 30 years. The rust eliminator does a good job as long as you cover it up with paint. I covered my entire car in OSPHO. It is an excellent rust preventative. Just don't sand it all off when doing the bodywork. Then primed and seam sealed. ...

It is a V8 track car. A friend who has helped keep me on track with this project with moral support and encouragement told me to "put down the bondo and walk away from the roof". He would agree with J. Mortensen that I have spent too much time on a track carr's bodywork. I got the doors done last night. They are truly straight. They are MUCH EASIER to get right than the roof! The inside is sandblasted and caoted with OSPHO ...

The original poster seemed to desire a "bolt-on" modern suspension. I pointed out quite clearly that you are not going to make any drastic improvements without cutting up the car. I have an extensively modified chassis(with struts), that has involved hundreds of hours of chassis modification. It would have been equally difficult to hack off the front end and tube frame it in the process. For the sake of sanity I will repeat... Buy a Z-3. There are too many things wrong with the S-30 design to expect major improvements with minimal effort and cutting. Ohhh.. and please read what I wrote before you get offended. There are some MAJOR problems with your proposal. For ONE!!!!! we need a rear steer set up, retaining the original rack and crossmember pretty much cuts that out. In fact, retaining the longitudinal driveline pretty much rules that out.

Holy cow, what a pain this is. I was lucky to have a relatively rust free 240Z shell to start with, But someone had a party on the roof. I knew it had problems, but I had no idea how bad it was until I sandblasted it clean. Even then I had no idea how much effort it would be to get it straight. This is one of those times that I am glad I did this myself. I would have had a hard time understanding why this kind of fix either looks like crap or costs a thousand dollars. I have spent 3 DAYS(20+hours) just getting the unibody blocked and filled. I still have doors, fenders, hood, and hatch to go. The roof has taken most of the time spent so far. I am still unsure of how this will turn out. I think I can put up with a little wavyness. Roof start: I wish I had a good shot of how bad it really is. There are 3 MAJOR dents that want to pop one way or the other(2 in front and one big one at the rear). I worked the metal enough to get them close to level and relatively stiff. I tried to get a few hammer marks to stick up to the point I want the curve to follow. I used a straight edge and a cardboard template I made off my other 240Z. That way I use the hammer dents as a sanding guide. When I sand through to the "guide" dents, I know to stop. I started the filler process with Tiger Hair, long strand body filler. This stuff is like laying up glass. It is hard to mix and it takes a long time to harden. It does lay out nicely and feather well. It is tough to sand though. The bright green stuff is Everglass with short-strand glass/Kevlar. This is actually the second filler coat. Here is some progress with most of the heavy duty filler sanded out and leveled. I am using a lighterweight sandable filler that you can see in white to get things leveled. the heavyweight fillers require too much pressure to get them level. The white stuff is called Halftime. It is good to 1/8" but it is backup up by some pretty durable undercoat. More progress through the stages: Here is the roof 90% straight. Most of the work left to do is filling pinholes and feathering some edges. I am going to prime it again tomorrow and see how it looks. The rear clip had "normal" amounts of filler work, but I spent a lot of time metalworking this panel. I even used musicwire to reinforce the edges and the dual exhaust cut outs. ...

I talked to gandad tonite about the Type-Zero paint scheme. He jokingly said he would shoot at anything painted that way. He drives a Lexus by the way and LOVES it. He also bought a 1972 240Z Automatic brand new. He cleared up the facts around that encounter. They were flying night missions using radar. They were flying back to base still several hundred miles out. They picked up a blip flying a paralell course at daybreak 30 miles out. They assumed it was one of their planes also returning to base. There was no way to know the size of the contact. They began decending to the water. They thought it was one of their seaplanes also returning to base, but several seaplanes had been shot down by American night fighters and a destroyer also took down a Mariner. They were at a sensitive range comming home to roost and they decided to take evasive manuevers as a precaution as well as a signal to the other plane that they were a seaplane returning to base(No fighter would EVER have dived to the water as a defence). The plane altered course to intercept them and by the time they got a visual they realized it was a ZERO comming along parallel to them. They were still trying to get into the turrets and get the guns ready when the Zero pulled right up beside them and waved exitedly with a big, toothy, ear to ear grin. Grandpa figures the Zero pilot was hopelessly lost and knew that the seaplane would be making a beeline for base at this time of the day. The Zero pilot used my grandfather's course to figure out his own location and bearing to get home. Grandad says that they were puzzed by the encounter but the manic and gleeful waving by the smiling Zero pilot said it all. The dude was crapping bricks, lost at sea, unable to land and probably with only enough gas to get home(Phillipines). He was SOO GLAD to see another plane which he KNEW where it was going. Apparently there were few fighters even allowed to fly at night. Grandad has no idea what the ZERO was doing out that early, that far from home. A little about Seaplane self defence. Being a Boat-that-flys, they have no guns on the bottom. The belly is a huge soft target and also carries the fuel tanks. Standard evasive tactic was to dive for the water from their seahunting altitude of around 6000 feet. The altimeters were pressure based and inaccurate. They would pull out of the dive at around 300ft. and decend at around 200ft/min until they bounced off the water. then they would skim the surface while firing from the multiple roof, tail, and side mounted turrets. The men operating the turrets would NEVER fire until the command was given, especially given the multiple friendly fire incidents that had recently occurred. Would a Zero destroy a Mariner? Well the fact is that in my grandfather's encounter, the Zero could have easily killed them because they were still trying to man the guns when he pulled up beside them. They were all worried about getting shot down from the moment the radar contact came up. They all assumed it would be friendly fire they had to worry about. Luckily the Zero was VERY GLAD to see them so he could find his way home. My grandfather knew of no shootouts between a Zero and a Mariner(not that it did not happen). But grandad knew of several instances where Mariners were blasted out of the sky before the attacking AMERICAN plane could even visually identify the friendly target he so easily blew to pieces. I doubt a Zero would have taken any damage in a dogfight with a Mariner.

Then you can just build the standard S-30 set up. The S-30 chassis IS NOT your typical unibody. We have a front engine, rear wheel drive, longitudinal driveline, with the cockpit in the back of the chassis. You cannot just slap a newer/different suspension on the car. The front end is ESPECIALLY different than most modern cars. The front frame rails are lower than most cars. The driveline is not mounted using subframes. The strut towers are WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY out in front of the firewall. We have a front steer set up. The overall spacing of the components is suited to Zero offset wheels. This is totally different than modern set ups. If you want a different car, buy a different car. The BMW Z-3 is very close to the Z in overall layout with a much more modern design.

Hmmm... I have a few comments on this approach, I might do a few things while retaining the stock struts. 1. convert the front end to rear-steer: This would allow small dia tire and wheel packages(If you could buy them anymore). The problem comes from the fact that the steering knuckles interfere with big-brakes and wide wheels when combined with typical lowering mods. This forces the use of 16"-18" wheels depending on the mods. The larger dia. wheel packages weigh more and raise the overall ride height. The rear steer fix would allow the steering arms to angle away from the inside lip of the wheels and away from the brake disk. While maintaining proper ??ackerman. Unfortunately the rear steer idea might not work with the rearward facing TC rods. The frame rails might also have to be cut to allow the rear rack placement. The other issue comes from the fact that there is no where to put the rack while keeping the longitudinal engine tranny in place. You could weld a transverse front end onto the car. TC RODS: The TC-rods also need the pickup points raised to maintain anti dive properties. Unfortunately they hit the frame rails if they are raised much at all. Again we need to look at cutting the frame rails. The strut towers could be widened and moved slightly rearward to allow easier adjustments and increase caster without pushing the front wheels into the front lips of the fenders. Rear suspension: For the rear and I like the horizontal arrangement of the rear control arms. many of the retro-fit rear ends have used a trailling arm design. I don't like it. The problem comes from the driveshaft angles and the work involved to relocate the lower-control-arm pivot points to correct geometry when lowered. Most fixes I have seen involve cutting, extending, and rewelding the rear spindle castings. I have also seen a milled aluminum block that was used to lower the rear outer pivots. The inner pivots would again involve cutting into the chassis to raise them. Those are just a few ideas. There is one overreaching factor that keeps popping up. The chassis must be heavily modified to allow the fitment of fat wheels and lower the ride height. Even then we are still using the old school/cheap strut type suspension. Just getting that to work on a lowered car means cutting it up, you might as well just buy/build a kit car that uses common/modern parts.

I have a decent 240Z tank I will sell.

I used some music wire to reinforce the rear valance and added a passenger side exhaust cut out. The rear tial clip is much neater than original, There was a lot of extra body filler here from the factory. I kept it neat. ..

Here are some fun shots... I added tabs for the hood pins. front hood tabs rear hood tabs window-net tabs ...

The bodywork continues... I have repaired all rust, sandblasted, cleaned, Ospho coated, NASON primed, and finally seam sealed the entire chassis. I have put a gallon of primer in, on, and behind every surface. I even went back under the car with some dichromate primer and an airbrush. There is not one damn spot that does not have at least 2 types of primer on this chassis. The seam sealing took 4x $17 tubes of 3M sealer. what a freaking pain in the ass. It took several passes to get everything properly sealed without making a mess. I used 3M's solvent to smooth it out as well. I am now applying BONDO, actually I am using several fillers. Much more work continues tonight...

There is one aspect of this test that bothers me. It appears they are using a mockup head and turning the cam with an electric motor at controled speeds. The problem I have with any data gathered on resonance in the valvetrain is that THE ENGINE has it's own modes of resonance. There is a good chance that conditions are very different in an actual operating engine.

Holy crap. The world really is comming to an end. droughts, fires, what next? Good luck and be safe!

Man, I can only tell you that it is expensive to get someone to back you up on this legally. I can usually get satisfaction by thinking through what I want, figuring out what can be gotten back out of a bad situation, and finally putting my side of the story together in such a way that clearly describes exactly what I want and what is wrong. On a side note, I have an friend who always gets the short end of the deal in these situations. It has a lot to do with how he comes across and his relative lack of debating skills.