bjhines

That is MEAN looking.... killer body!!!!

Hmmm. A couple of things about that top design... The steering joint is an unknown... How much abuse can that really take??? It might be plenty strong... I dunno... The sway bar will attempt to twist the arm as it works... That seems wrong... It is obviously not on-car adjustable.. And it may have a greater range of adjustment... but it is still locked into incremental changes... just like everyone else's.... in fact the ball joint will have to rotate in 360* increments... not just half turns like the Heim joint end... If the designer made those claims.. I would not trust his workmanship at all...

^^^^ That sounds like a pretty nice offer... especially if it includes intake, carby, JTR Z suitable oilpan, small dia. balancer, flywheel, and ignition... That is the price of the circle track crate motors without carby or ignition...

I am not inclined towards used factory-stock engines... $1500 is pretty damn cheap though... almost disposable... It is my understanding that the LSx engines need significant modifications to make reliable track engines out of them... unfortunately those modifications make the LSx engines much more expensive than a GEN1 once they are fully adapted to race use with a T5 tranny behind them... Remember... the T5 is significantly lighter than the T56.. bling factor aside... Custom parts to adapt trannys are rediculous $$$.. in fact a lot of LSx aftermarket parts are freaking $$$... That was my impression anyway... Im gonna spend some time investigating that route again...

There are the circle track crate motors... but they are $5300 long blocks... without any ancilliary components...

I am not against the idea of using an LT1 engine and fuel system... or another EFI system... I did not want to spend the $2000 for the Holley EFI systems...

I am reaching a point that I need to decide on my engine package... Here are a few of my needs... JTR V-8 install kit I have purchased a WC T5 with clutch, flywheel, bellhousing, slave, and driveshaft from a 1988 Camaro... I would also like to eliminate the rear distributor for clearance... and servicability...(I have heavily reinforced the firewall area)... I would like the lightest weight SBC that I can afford... This is going in a road race car... so it needs to be durable for sustained race use... Horsepower is low on the priority list... 350WHP is target... $$$ is tight... I had an engine lined up for this project... It was not exactly what I wanted but it was reliably built and race tested... and it was only going for $2000 with the intake and carby included and highly tuned... it was nearly complete except for the starter and ignition system... This engine is no longer available to me... dammit! ohh well... Some specific questions I have are related to lightening the rotating assembly and alternate displacement(strokers) and their effect on the overall weight of the engine... I can easily add up the reduction in weight by using aluminum heads, intake, flywheel, and waterpump.... but is there a lot more to be reduced in the rotating assembly???? I need a reliable engine for hard use.. This is going in a track days HPDE/TT car.. I can baby it to some degree.. but I do not want to kill it in one or 2 seasons of relatively hard use... any suggestions would be welcome...

OKOK... But why are there 2 DIFFERENT GREDDY part numbers for R200 differential covers... one for the S14/15 cars and another part number for the BNR32/34 Does anyone know HOW they differ????

An R200 is an R200 cover wise... you can mount ANY R200 cover to ANY R200.... as far as I know the S14/15 covers have different mustache bar bolt spacing... wider for the S14/15 cars... I am afraid that the BNR32/34 may have had an entirely different mounting method and cannot be easily used on Z-cars... That is what I would like to know.

ok.. Hold the presses... I am tossing this Idea around.. Greddy offers a huge capacity cover for the R-14/R15 cars and a slightly different cover for the BNR32/BNR34 cars... Does anyone know what the rear cover differences are between these units and how they compare to Z-car fdactory parts.???

Helix.. It is my understanding that the radiator/intercooler presents a very odd flow restriction... In a nutshell... It will restrict the air flowing through it to a little less than 20 MPH no matter WHAT speed the car is moving... I have seen data on this that showed speeds all the way to 200MPH and virtually no change in airspeed through the radiator... So.. that faster you go the more stagnant this area becomes... and you will find that even though the radiator may be several square feet in frontal area.. You only need a 2"x4" slit to allow air to enter the nose at highway speeds and above... even if you don't mask off the front of the car.. It will only allow this much airflow at speed.. so It might as well have a mask on it...

Hmm there are some known errors in some of the manuals... You can look at the sides of the differential and tell the difference btw the R180 and the R200... The R180 has a ring of bolts around the halfshaft output flanges... The R-200 has no bolts on the sides at all...

That comment Stagefumer11 had is spot on... Thanks man!!!! I went out and looked at a blade I recently sent to the scrap heap... It would not cut straight... I looked and saw that the reinforcing cloth was bunched up on ONE side of the blade edge... It was definitely wearing more quickly on one side than the other.... That was probably why that blade was cutting crooked... It was beveled to one side!!! Thanks Stagefumer11 !!!! The beveled crappy blade was a Dewalt brand from Lowes... I also had problems with a Dewalt blade that stated on the label it was a "long life" blade... It would get hot and stop cutting on anyhting but the thinnest tubing... I also tossed that one in the scrap heap... Hmm... 2 bad Dewalt blades... I think I will try Harbor Freight cheapos next...

The hardest thing to learn for me is definitely geting used to the dials on the lathe... They are all different graduations.. The combination slide is fine adjustment with each mark = 0.001" The cross slide is medium adjustment with each mark(wide marks) = 0.002" The main traverse wheel is coarse adjustment each mark = 0.02" but a big dial with one turn = 0.2" travel It turns out that I didn't really need the combination slide for this job... I takes too many damn turns of the wheel to do anyhting... and I made good use of the power traverse to get a nice even finish...

I managed to lock the saddle by disengaging the traverse rod gears... then I engaged the traverse handle to hold it still... I preloaded the carriage to get all the slop out... It works very well now and cuts without moving... I am going to make a gear shift mechanism to engage/disengage and reverse this sucker... currently I have to open up the cover and loosen an allen head srew to swivel the gear plate away from the drive gear on the spindle... Then I have to get them correctly meshed again in order to use the power feed... I found some neat ideas on the Web to make this easier... I made some more useful parts last nite... It was fun... It took about 4 hours..lol.. I am learning... These are very low tolerance parts... but I took my time and put a little more into it than was required... They are bushings for my hiem jointed front inner LCAs... The rod-end is 3/4"... the inner LCA bolt is 9/16"... I needed to offset the arm forwards in the crossmember(one bushing longer than the other)... These little parts had to do a lot of jobs and need to be a light as possible... I also wanted to use a stepped bushing design... My local machine shop wanted an hour labor to make them($75)... The steel bushings on top are not wide enough(heavy washers) and they do not allow much offset forwards... on the bottom I made a set out of 6061T6 rod... drilled to 9/16 and turned to fit inside the rod-end with a step... one longer than the other... It was fun.. and my first few turnings with this tool have all been highly useful... Hell the coilover sleeves would have cost at least $100 to modify all 4... and the bushings are worth one hour labor at the machine shop themselves... That is half the cost of the damn lathe already...

That is not a bad idea for a tweaked engine with problems bleeding air from the system... nice way to visually check... The thing is.. They should have put an airlbeed in the thermostat housing to purge the air for the one in the video... In addition.. If they had warmed up the engine fully and then let it heat soak a few minutes... they would not have had to rev the little engine to make the water flow quickly... Who ever heard of glass getting brittle from exposure to low pressure hot water...??? non issue...

nice info...!!!! I will look for some of those attachments... I need to do some more research... I have been reading Virtual Machine Shop archives http://jjjtrain.kanabco.com/vms/ That is some neat stuff... but a lot of it presents me with a need for a mill... LOL... I mentioned that to my wife and got The Look in response. I did manage to confirm that it will cut a flat face on 1" stock(grade 8 too)... I need to dig around and come up with some larger diameter stock to confirm... Cutting that grade 8 face with a C6 indexable tip moved the carriage on the bed... There is no saddle lock on this lathe... I will have to make one... I had to move the geartrain to stop the crossfeed rod from rotating... Then I engaged the crossfeed threading nut to hold the carriage still... I preloaded it to ensure it did not "settle" against the gears... That seems sufficient for now... I had to stack some square stock and feeler guages to get the tool at the right height... A nice tool holder is definitely on the list... I also noticed that the hardened steel REALLY needs a lot of lubrication... after a really rough first cut and a chipped bit... I indexed a new tip and I coated the face of the stock with cutting fluid and went to town... the oiled surface came out nice and shiny... I also learned to reduce the feed rate as I got to the middle... I also tried a few different speed settings(200-1000 RPM)... I was able to get good results with a variety of speeds... Though it did seem that the slowest speeds would end up tearing/galling the metal giving it a poor surface quality...

Thanks Datsunlover... You are right.. the chuck is really inappropriate for the long, thinwalled sleeves... But I tool my time and made small cuts with a really slow feed rate at around 150RPM... I have the geartrain set up for turning a smooth surface... But I hand fed all the cutting on the coilovers because I was making that step.. I did not want it digging into the step and going straight to hell... I have a lot of custom woodworking experience... I am used to working with lathes of a different sort... I will say that the speeds are MUCH higher on a woodworking lathe.. and the parts are typically >36" long... I have a healthy respect for the woodworking lathes.. The metalworking/machine lathes seem much less dangerous...

Thanks guys.. I found those websites... I was hoping some of you might have some better ideas.. more Hybridz oriented functions and accessories... like how to incorporate grinding tools into the function of the lathe... lbhsbZ... That is exactly what I am working towards... The mill is next I have a pretty well outfitted shop.. But I am tired of farming out small parts work... The lathe and later a mill will round it out fairly well... My first project... Changed the I.D. of some coilover sleeves I purchased to fit the 240Z struts.. Well... they didn't.. but now they do.... I had to make a custom tool from one of the cobalt cutters... It was pretty easy.. I mounted it and back ground the rear of the tip to clear the workpiece inside... then I ground a tiny radius on the 90* cutting edge to make a step with an inside radius... It also makes a nice finish on the workpiece... Chucking those coilover sleeves is tough... they are flexible because they are thin... but the 3 jawed chuck did a fine job on these low tolerance pieces... I was at least as accurate as the original machinework before anodizing... I actually forgot to oversize it slightly and had a really tight fit.. so I had to rechuck both ends again and make a last pass.. I was able to get them to within 1 thou accuracy every time with a dial guage... it only took me 5 minutes making minute adjustments with my chip brush handle.. then a final check after tightening...

I picked up a beginner lathe for my V-8 project... It is the 8x12 mini lathe that Harbor freight sells for $440... plus shipping... I comes with a few dozen swappable gears for inch and metric thread cutting, one MT2 center, one MT3 center(don't see what this is for), 2 sets of chuck jaws, all the wrenches and allen keys to assemble the lathe http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Category.taf?CategoryID=267&pricetype= Shipping is reasonable at $61... The problem is.. It weighs 275lbs... I have a commercial delivery address for truck freight.. But I have no forklift for that sort of thing... So I chose to have the store handle it since they have forklifts on site... I used a chain hoist to get it out of my truck... The next problem is the fact that i have no real practical experience with a metal working lathe... I have some experience with woodworking lathes and some woodworking router based CNC machines... But the metalworking aspect brings some questions to mind... especially in the name of safety... The lathe came with virtually NO TOOLING... I purchased 2 sets of cutoff tools.. one 1/4" indexable cutter set... and one 5/16" carbide set... I figure the indexable set is great for repeatable cutting.. and I can grind new shapes on the carbide set... I am looking into my options for inside cutting... I think I need a bore bar set... But those things can be expensive... What would you guys suggest for inside boring???... The lathe did come with 2 centers... one MT2 and one MT3... I can see how the MT2 fits into the tailstock... But what the hell is the MT3 center for???... it makes no sense.. the only thing it would fit into is the lathe chuck... and what good would that be???

They are building a THRID Tunnel... to give you an idea of how busy they are.. The paint hasn't dried on the second tunnel yet.. and they already need a third facility... That one is going to be the biggest and most sophisticated yet... They will have movable "traffic" in the tunnel so they can develop designs to provide more stability and are harder to draft behind...

That is sweet... I am spending a few dollars on cad plating and there are a lot of colors to choose from... I thought about cad plating the struts.. But that will get too expensive... As it is.. I can fill one basket with hardware and brackets and have it plated and color dipped for around $75.... as soon as I get the struts involved the process goes to over $250... Cad plating is great stuff.. It wont chip like paint.. and it is self healing to a degree... But eventually it will corrode... especially if it gets stuff like wheel cleaner on it... and it does not hold paint well.. It tends to shed paint pretty fast...

It is turning.. Not drifting.. It is leaning the right way... Sliding is usually the slow way around...

helix112 has a point... but there can also be points up higher that can create lift.. Like an overhanging bumper or the hood lip...

rebuilding the Carbys is usually not the problem... It is maladjustment of the various parts... You should get the video from ZTherapy FIRST!!!