bjhines

We could not test all of the parts available. I figure just testing them all in all possible configurations could take several days. We tested several ranging from a BRE "spook" to an MSA Type3 airdam. The type 3 does a lot of things the spook does not. But we could not test them all. Yes we tested the Zenon Ureflex(one of my favorites), but it was included in a package and not tested on it's own. We learned that proper installation of the airdams makes a big difference in their performance. We also learned that(obviously) the front intake area is just too big and can realize gains by blocking it off.

The info has to be reduced to layman's terms, but there are a lot of interesting trends that we found. Opening the windows on most configurations causes air to enter every possible crevice in the back of the car. Our little telltale strings found ANY possible slit or crevice and poked right into them. Air comes from the sides and top, turns around and SLAMS into the rear vertical surfaces of the car. It even runs UNDER the rear valence and under the gas tank. Our telltales on the bottom edge of the rear valence all point down and back under the car. This would certainly explain the exhaust smell so common to the Z cars. The most effective aero combinations seemed to improve this area somewhat. One of our biggest worries was that most of the available parts wouldn't do squat. This could hurt some people's feelings(manufacturers especially), but it turns out that nearly everything we tested WORKS!!!!(except the Pantera hatch I made). It is ALL BENEFICIAL, with one caviat, It must be installed CORRECTLY or you may hurt things more than help. This is especially true for the large airdams. The Type3 airdam was initially tested by simply bolting it on. Initially there was no attempt to seal the inlet to the radiator or the sides. It performed poorly in this configuration. We were so discouraged by the initial results we almost didnt blow it again. We were surpised that adding a little bit of a shelf between the radiator crossmember and the inlet of the airdam not only improved things, It actually transformed the entire car. We blew it again with even more tape sealing off even more of the area behind the airdam and things improved again! There is not much physical difference in what we did. A simple strip of foamboard and some extra tape on the sides COMPLETELY out of view turned the airdam from a total failure into a dream come true! Another interesting effect was from the smallest modifications to the roof of the car. We added a "visor" strip to fair the top lip of the windshield moulding into the roofline. We left a lip sticking up and past the window gasket(~1/2"). Imagine a typical sun tint strip(made of aluminum) added to the OUTSIDE of the windshield overlapping the gasket and hanging past the back edge of the gasket. This leaves a sharp edge facing rearwards at an angle, sticking 1/2" up. We added Vortex generators(a dozen small ones on a strip) to the rear edge of the roof(far enough forward to open the rear hatch). These modifications made large improvements in both drag reduction and increasing the effectiveness of the rear spoiler. The Bi-wing offered some adjustability. It worked very well. We found that setting it as flat as it would go performed very well. Increasing the angle of the wing had some side effects. We think there is a happy medium setting and we feel that raising the supports up higher may further improve the Ricer wing. This thing looks good on the car. It also shows that these wings really WORK. We had some Ho hum results with several types of side skirts. They will most likely play a role in an aero package that can maximise their potential. They may be considered in part of a package of modifications. I don't recall them helping very much on thier own. ZG flares improve the airflow on the back edges of the wheel wells. We think they may contribute a fair amount, but we have to eek their effectiveness out of the data to be sure. Hood vents do what they are supposed to do. They vent air OUT! Side vents(gill vents) have a small effect but may not be enough to warrant cutting your fenders. The wiper cowl vents definitely suck air IN. In fact I have to wonder where all that air GOES! They really take up air at the base of the windshield. I bet the drain pipes have hurricanes running through them. The rear lip spoilers are all effective. Especially with the roof treatments. It seems that they really start to work well over 5" tall. They do add a fair amount of drag(we have to run the numbers). These may not be the best thing you can do(The wing could beat them on all counts). We tried some combinations and found some really GOOD packages. We will run the numbers and get some more info out of this for all of you. Thanks EVERYONE for your donations and we REALLY want to get in there AGAIN! We have SOO MANY ideas we must do this again.

WOW!!!! what a day... We have a lot of numbers to crunch and this will take some time. We have great video and thousands of pictures of our tests. These will be posted ASAP. We had quite a collection of nice cars there. Parts were falling out of everyone's trucks and trailers. MSA came through with everything we asked for. Roddy, Tom, and Mark fabricated an array of custom mods. I built the Pantera hatch and the rest was bolt on parts from common suppliers. We did test Vortex generators and the "Ricer" wing(this was a highly developed piece of hardware). A lot of work was put into preparation and it SHOWED!. The tunnel operator complimented us on the number of "blows" we managed to get in the first day. We managed aorund 30 blows in all. That is a lot of fevered swapping of parts on several cars.

There is radiant "invisible" heat if there is heat at all. Look up "black body effect" to see how color(and finish) can affect heat radiation/absorbtion. Coatings can act as insulators. They can also act as conductors to increase heat radiated away from an object. There are many types of coatings that are used in motorcycle and aircraft engines that actually help radiate heat away from the object they are applied to. As far as the coatings on the V-8 intake manifolds... The bottom coating is insulating and reducing the surface area of the bottom of the intake manifold. It also helps the hot oil to drain off faster and impart even less heat to the intake. The top coating is conductive and usually matte black to increase black body radiation and increase suface area on a nano-scale. White paint was used on header pipes in aircraft as far back as WWII.

I seam welded everything. That was one hell of a job. I can tell you what I used and why. I removed the interior sound damping sheets by spreading crushed "dry ice"(frozen CO2) I purchased from a local grocery store. I used around 15lbs of the stuff. I crushed a pound at a time and just spread it out over a few square feet of area. The bond is realeased as soon as the temperature drops(within seconds). I used a scraper to "pop" large chunks off. Then I spread the ice around again so I could scrape off any remaining spots. A trick to this is to make a dam around the area you are working on to keep the ice where you need it as you scrape. The seam sealer was a project of biblical proportions. There is a reason why race car builders buy unpainted bodies from the manufacturer. You WILL have built up your forearms and improved your grip when you have completed this task. I used scotch-bright and wire wheels to get most of the material off the surface. I tried several approaches to getting the sealer out of the seams and ended up using a set of picks(like dental picks) with several bend angles to scrape and pull the material out of the seams. The sandblaster can bore a hole through solid steel but it has little effect on the rubbery seam sealer. any attempt to blast this stuff out of the seams will erode the metal around it faster than the seam sealer. Chemicals may remove this stuff. I forsee issues with stripper getting into the seams and making matters worse when welding. After I pulled all of the material out of the seams I used a sandblaster to clean up the crumbs and remove the primer. There are areas that you cannot reach with a wire brush. I have been sandblasting outside. You can make a temporary blasting booth with 2x4s and plastic sheeting. It allows recovery of the media. You MUST use a respirator and a protective suit and helmet.

We are talking about a heater here. The "Hotness" is going to be the same from an aftermarket system. I would grant that the original unit is heavier than it has to be. The real trick would be to use the low volume aluminum heatercores from more modern cars. I would make the heaterbox itself out of vacume formed plastic. Of course stick with the hand operated controls for lightweight.

Keep in mind that using hardline will require more fittings and work than replacing with one piece of braided line.

It seems there is a problem with mounting complex headlights into the S-30 240/260/280Z cars. 1.There is very little room for hardware behind the headlight bucket. Lenses and electronics must be divorced from the lights.(or pushed out into the front of the headlight bucket) 2. The area is directly sprayed by the tire with water and mud. There is really no protection from water and debris from ANY angle. If you go through a puddle... your HID lights are SOAKED with high velocity torrents of water. I am waiting for something that can be packaged within the confines of an original PAR bulb and will actually outperform the sealed types available today. I would consider a drop in power requirements a significant improvement even if the light pattern is not significantly improved. Most of the guys I have read up on with these conversions in older cars have problems keeping dirt and water out of the modified light housings. Many of them come with bulky lense, motor, and electronic assemblies that must be divorced and then repackaged and relocated. I consider these light upgrade to be street-mods. If I am building a race car I would not want all the added weight and complexity of these lights. If I was to use them on the street then they would have to work in the rain. It makes no sense from an engineering perspective to try to improve the lighting while making it unreliable in the process. I have looked into several options over the past few years.

Your heater valve is not shutting off. The core is staying hot and the def vents are just where it happens to be comming from with the floor ducts closed.

It was a standard Dynomax turbo muffler. It is fairly quiet at low RPMs but it is still loud as hell at 6kRPM. I don't doubt that an open pipe would work better but then I could not drive it around town.

You guys don't forget that we want to do a followup test date to allow for some developement of ideas gained from this initial test.

Just keep a tire block in the car and turn the wheel to curb it on hills. Don't rely on the engine to keep it in place. The cylinders will leak down.. I have noticed that often it will sit still for a few minutes... but once it gets rolling it just keeps on creeping down hill. The thing I was always hassled about was the AIR pump. I have a nice original AIR Injection kit I slap on the car to pass. I got by without an original exhaust manifold. I was lucky enough to have a header with AIR injection ports in the right places. I also have an original 72 AIR tube set that bolts in. Some inspectors won't pass these old cars without a meticulous check. I have learned to take it in to shops and I avoid the Inspection only places.

In car L24 with header and 2.5" with a turbo muffler on the rear... I have to admit that a lot of what you hear is the 6 trumpet Weber intakes. This is with an airbox muffling them too. I swear the intake makes a lot more noise than my exhaust with the airbox open.

I have been using the technique of starting the arc and letting one drop of filler fall onto the surfaces. then I release the trigger and wait ~1 second for the area to cool. You press and release the trigger repeatedly to form a bead. The wire starts the arc and shrinks back while the arc melts the parent metals. then the drop of molten filler sticks them together. This does a very good job on thin metals when you get the timing right.

I think that most of the problems with improper gas mix on stainless are related to the tendancy for the welded areas to rust afterwards. I was under the imprression that stainless "welds" easily, but the anti corrosion properties are easily lost in the welded area.

I am poking through the available options for fabricating my own exhaust. I am thinking about mandrel bends in stainless. I have considered purchasing one of the Elcheapo $300 light duty TIG welders. I am open to anyone's opinions or stories about these. I currently have a MM 140. I now have 2 tall Argon cylinders. I have considered trading one cylinder in for a different gas mix. What would it take to convert my MIG over to weld stainless. Is it just wire and gas mix that needs to change. I have read that Pulsed arc uses Argon with a tiny amount of O2. I have read the Short Circuit welding uses Helium/Argon/CO2. I tend to use the pulsed method now for thin stuff. Could I use the same gas mix that I used for the regular steel on stainless steel? This is a picture of 20g sheet metal MIG-welded with the pulsed method.

spot welds is right... I move along spotting, waiting between each weld ~1second. Believe me, there is no problem with penetration on 20g. I still blow it out occasionally. MM-140 with (voltage on 2) and (wire feed on 60-70). It is much harder to get this technique to work when welding 20g to thick metal. I still use the circular pattern for that. I just concentrate on the thick metal more than the thin.

I have been using the Hawk Blues on the front and the Hawk blacks on the rears... I love the bias, but the disks wear as fast as the pads. $$$

http://www.mittlerbros.com/ There are other sources for these tools as well.

The red car is Mayolives' Turbo 280Z "RedBird" Here is a pic of my fuel cell install... My car is not done yet. I have mocked up this install and I found that I could cut the original filler neck shorter. Then I install it... spun 180degrees so that it points towards the drivers side. I can then clamp a connecting hose between the tank and the filler neck. It has a downward slope similar to RedBird's filler and seems to work fine for RedBird. My tank has a pretty sophisticated rollover valve system in the fill plate. I will still cover it up with sheetmetal.

Here is something I kept forgetting to do... Rear strut tower braces are an open U-channel structure. They seem flimsy, but now they are much sturdier with minimal weight gain. 20g. steel... bent, punched, and flared. Welded in place. I have figured out a MUCH better way to weld this thin stuff... scope it out those beads. ...

I can think of aleast a dozen NON-boltup items with this conversion. Having the brackets milled is only a small part of the "custom" mods.

Mittler Brothers Machine / Tanner Racing Products same guys. 25 count bag of 16g. taco-gussets #40312 = $41.50 + shipping. http://www.tannerracing.com/ click on the Chassis Acc. tab, then scroll to the bottom of the page

I agree with your point about useless material high in the car. One concern I had was that my front roof tube is bent forwards in the middle. It is situated in such a way that it is cantilevered forward of the upper corners of the A-pillar bends. The car's front roof lip is not that strong either. But I thought that connecting them across about 12" in the front might lend more strength to the front roof structure as a whole. Another concern I have is overstressing the welds between certain sections of the car. Here is an overhead rough sketch of the roof bars and gussets.

JM.. That is exactly what I started this thread for... I realize that many of the cages the real race car builders on this site have fabricated DO NOT allow extra gusseting to the chassis. Most of the grass-roots style race cars are trying to keep the cage as a safety item ONLY. The whole idea behind Improved Touring is that the cars perform much the same as their street legal counterparts. A heavily gusseted chassis would not be anything like the street version of the same car. It is pretty easy to add a lot of weight to little gain. The gussets we are discussing are high in the car and are putting weight where we least want it. I noticed right off the bat that the front windshield upper lip is very weak... just leaning on the front edge of the roof causes it to bend and flex. the sides of the roof are strong(relatively speaking). The rear edge of the roof has a fairly substantial crossbar in it. Another thought about this hot rod cage design is that we might be able to remove a lot of structure surrounding the roof and rely completely on the roll cage to support the car in a rollover. hell.. remove all but the outermost layer of roof metal and even that could be replaced with a carbon fiber roof cap. I bet I could pull 25lbs of roof metal off the top of the car and still have a roof shell... Take a look at the major U-channel support that goes from the top of the rear strut towers to the front of the rear sail. That sucker was made to hold up the entire car.. It is dead weight with a strong roll cage in the car.