bjhines

I know a lot of folks like the alfas... We include the local Alfa club in our THSCC race series events... along with a lot of other enthusiast clubs for all makes... But.. the Alfa guys bear the brunt of many jokes at our driver's meetings... They are slow cars... In ANY FORM.... race street or hybridized... they are unreliable, hard to find parts for.. and they tend to loose a lot of parts and fluids on track... You have to keep in mind that the 240Zs absolutely CRUSHED damn near ANYTHING offered before 1970... It always amuses me when I come up behind a historic, race-built Alfa smelling like race gas and synthetic oil... and then I overtake it so fast I barely avoid clipping it... I have little interest in historic racing prior to 1970... the cars are often out of reach price wise... and they are just about as fast as a mid 1980s Ford Fiesta... I would put a 1995 Toyota Camry WAGON up against most of the historics and bet against the historics... even a low end minivan could beat 90% of those cars on track... Even the lovely looking Jaguar race cars in this thread are piss poor race cars... they have a lot of power.. top speed is IMPRESSIVE... but they DONT TURN!!! honestly they don't even accelerate very quickly.. they just have a 200MPH top speed... if they have a couple of miles in a staight line... they can break 200MPH...

I have several rear decks that I can modify for this experiment... I was thinking of cutting one up and making a steel "pantera" style hatch... I might reinforce it for a ricer wing as well... There are several other options on the table as well... We may try to find time to get a total of 3 cars in there... one demo dog... and 2 very different race style bodies... My biggest fear is that we find out that it will take a lot more than just one day at the wind tunnel to get real scientific data... I am hoping we can satisfy people with enough data to warrant a few hundred dollars spent... I need some fabrication time to get ready for this... that is hard to come by... but I look at this as part of my V-8 track car buildup... just more money and time spent... I don't feel too bad putting the rest of the project on hold to really dig into bodywork right now...

I found some more pics of the cooler locations... ...

Play with the 240sx and keep the Z in a dry place... eventually you will get back to the Z.. it is inevitable...

You can look up the brands with google... then look at the specifications on the manufacturer's website... I think Stock Car Products uses Aurora bearings... Their COM12 monoball is a middle weight ratings wise... another consideration is the material the bearing outers are constructed of... You dont have to worry about stainless and hard chrome rusting... another consideration is teflon lined bearing races... this usually comes with a higher price... good teflon lined balls will last a long time with zero lubrication... steel on steel balls can be stronger... but not always... some of the cheaper lined bearings can "beat out" their teflon liners... When using spherical bearings.. you should always ensure that failure of the bearing cannot allow a piece to fall off or come loose... backup washers and good design can eliminate this possibility... It seems to me that the rear suspension arm bearings are captive even if they fail....

The Mustache bar bends into an -S- shape when the drivetrain loads up... it allows the differential to wiggle around enough to fatigue the front crossmember... The fatigued mount I have was on an L-28 track car with an R200 3.54 rear... several seasons of track use... The mount is much worse once I removed it entirely... all of the bolt holes have dozens of radial stress cracks all around them... there were several cracks that went all the way through the upper stamping... leaving only the bottom stiffener plate holding it all together... the big cracks originate from the bushing clamps(chassis bolt holes)... NOT the single center mount hole...

I have to agree on the band saw... great tool...I use it as a table band saw rather than a horizontal pipe cutter... I also learned the trick of having a local fabrication shop shear scrap metal to commonly used widths... I walk out with an armload of sticks and wedges for $20... 18guage to 1/4" plate...

Ohhhhhh.... Ahhhhhhh.... nice work JM!!! I just have to do something like that too... Could you post some pics of what you did to the inner part of the control arm...???

You know what.... the solid design of this bar might be stiff enough even with poly bushings installed...

Mike... I was wondering... If you don't mind.. what were the final bills for the cage?... and the bodywork?... and the paint?....

I was a little hard on the speed bleeders... some guys really do like to use them.. I am sure that for someone who bleeds his brakes every event the speed bleeders are a good thing to use... They are more problematic on a passenger car because they get used once or twice in a 5 year period... they totally corrode and won't work... The thing is....With the speed bleeders you have to get down near the ground to open the bleeder nipple... then you have to get INTO the car to push the pedal... then you have to get out of the car a few times to refill the MC cup... think about it... you have handled everything from the shop floor to the messy wrenches, to the dribbles on the bottle of brake fluid... and then you have to handle everything in the car to get in and out and push on the pedals, add fluid, etc... Many racers have been surprised when their foot slips off the pedal due to oil or brake fluid from someone's hand or foot... If you use the pressure bleeder systems... you only handle the wrenches... and you never touch the interior or the hood area once it is hooked up... Pressure bleeding is clean... and it keeps your grimey hands and feet and butts out of the car... it is fast because you never have to worry about adding fluid... It is reliable because it forces fluid through the system under pressure... which is exactly what the seals and bleeders were meant to deal with...

Well the problem with speed bleeders and any of the suction devices is that the bleeder nipple threads do not seal very well... You can put all the check valves in them you want... the threads will still let air by.. I think the speed bleeders are a waste of time... I have aquired them on past cars and ended up throwing them in the trash after I found that the various parts in them had corroded after a few seasons and gone to complete shiat... they wouldn't evn allow fluid to flow... ======================================================== ONE of the proper ways to bleed brakes is with 2 people.. one on the pedal and the other on the wrench... the wrench man always closes the bleeder before the pedal pusher stops pushing... that does not allow air into the system... That is the classic method... The other way to do it is with a pressure feed on the master cylinder cup... there are lots of systems designed this way... they are typically around $60 for a professional model... the trick is... It is only a GD pesticide sprayer... get the smallest cheapest model at your hardware store.. $10... drill a hole in an old master cylinder cap to attach a hose... put a few ounces of brake fluid into the sprayer and push it through the system... A few pumps on the handle will flow fluid continuously until you close the bleeder... then you just move to the next bleeder and open it until you are satisfied it is bled... you usually won't have to pump the sprayer more than once at the beginning of the session... The neat thing here is ... you wont ever have to add fluid... just make sure there is fluid up to the low mark... the pressure bleeder will add fluid as it displaced fluid out of the bleeder nipples... as long as you have a positive seal around the MC cap... you won't overfill the resivoir... god forbid should you get that part wrong... it will make a mess if you don't get a good seal there... and I know some of you are thinking... they put a "special" thread sealant on teh speed bleeders... Yea... for ONE or possibly TWO bleeding sessions it will seal... realatively well... then it just falls apart... and then it is just another mess on the threads that needs to be cleaned off... and then the threads don't seal anymore.. and then the speed bleeders don't do one damn bit of good... those things are a farce...

What happened to the idea of the Ron Tyler style mount??? or the other swaybar bushing method mentioned just a few posts up???... Or the cable over the nose of the diff???... Or the bracket and bolt welded under the original mount???... or any other number of good approaches that allow driveline angle changes to suit any custom driveline???... The billet front diff mount would go well in tandem with the Arizona Z-car billet rear differential mount if you want it solid.... they are both solid... so it works fine... I think that Dave at Arizona Z-car will custom drill the holes to suit your needs... there is a thread named "Ron Tyler style differential mount"...

Take a look at the pictures I just added in the above post... The car is attached to those posts... the wheels are very weakly sprung to roll against the rollers... the ride height and angle of attack are changed via hydraulics in the chassis mounting rods...

I talked to the operators of the wind tunnel... Here is their website... http://www.aerodynwindtunnel.com/ they have 2 of these facilities operating now... The first available dates are after Jan 20th... I spoke at length about how to get the most out of our little experiment... It looks like 8 hours is what it will take to get the info we need... that is a steal at $3500 for all day... breakdown... 5 hours on the plate with a mock up vehicle... and switching parts and changing angles and such... 3 hours with another completed 240 Z race car... I am thinking that Redbird owned by Mayolives here would be the one to test... I only considered Redbird240Z because it is more or less a stock z car body with an interesting underpan and rear end diffuser... It really looks to me like Redbird will get some unique results with the well thought out rear diffuser... $3500 is a LOT of money... and there are a lot of parts to procure... there is a lot of work to prepare for the test (mocking up parts and such)... any of you who are will ing to help please chime in... funding this project is going to be a little more expensive than I thought.. I can also get a professional videographer from Discovery channel to film the event for us... who knows where that will lead... Here are some pics of the facilities... they are small wind tunnels designed for race cars not airplanes... Here are some pics of the New facility... .... as you can see... some brackets have to be made to attach the cars to the force plate... coilovers are a must because the tires are only put under light pressure to roll on the rollers during testing...

The solid mounts using the stock mustache bar(poly ends or not) will crack the differential mount x-member... The mustache bar is a spring... it cannot be made solid enough... the front billet mount is rock solid... the differential housing is rock solid.. the crossmember is FORCED to FLEX.. it will fatigue and literally FALL APART in a few seasons of use... I personally think that the people who sell those mounts should be shot.. it is a stupid design.. guaranteed to cause failure unless the rear of the diff is solidly mounted as well... Those billet mounts were never intended to be used on a car with a stock mustache bar(regardless of the eye mounts).. they were developed for use along with custom rear uprights and rear mount reinforcement that ENTIRELY REPLACED the mustache bar.

... well... we already know that the 240Z is terrible at plowing through the wind... we were going to focus on achieving ~some~ downforce... 3 hours is not a lot of time to go around switching all those stock parts AND testing other modifications... We are hoping that we can reduce drag along with adding downforce... or at least impacting drag as little as possible... I is looking like a G-nose is going to be out of the question... for one... because no-one I know is using a g-nose... or owns a g-nose to test... If someone has one to offer up... then I will contact you when we are ready for the parts...

The diff X-member braces the back of the tunnel... the trans X-member braces the middle of the tunnel... the firewall braces the front of the tunnel... I was just looking at that area... with some 2"x2" box... you could make a new rear floor frame from side to side... and incorporate the monoball housings into it...

I will get the details ironed out soon... It looks like this is going to be a project for early 2007... I have to get through the end of this year to find any more time... The facility appears to be booked fairly solid until then as well...

I would say that eventually you will wind up spending the same amount of money/time on brakes within a dozen events... no matter which way you go... the factory type conversions are nearly as expensive as the Willwoods... Willwoods have cheaper pads available and they are brand new units... Brake friction materials have come a LONNNGGGG way since the Z cars were originally raced... you can pick and choose pad materials to proportion your brakes... I can really throw out the anchor when I get them biased for track conditions... The easiest upgrade for those of us not limited with brake modifications... is exactly what I have done... except the expense and custom relining nature of the rear shoes... The rear drums cool almost too well... I would bet that the cast iron drums would work more consistently that the composite aluminum drums that came on the 240Zs... The real issue I have with the rear drums is the lack of consistency and the 2-step pedal feel in street use... I don't notice it on track at all...

Well.. I have a set of 15x10s with 5" BS they are Revolution classics... They are a bear to find tires to fit... The most affordable set up is the 17" sizes... but the sidewall profile will still determine what actually fits... Short springs in the rear are generally required for 5"+ back spacing...

Well.. you will end up with a neat looking Z car with the super wide... deep lipped rears... but that would suit a dragster, a Porsche, or any other rear engined car more that it would suit a front heavy Z-car... As far as bearings lasting with high offsets... Obviously track conditions are far more punnishing than street conditions... I doubt that drag racing is much worse on rear bearings than the street....

I went through what you are dealing with... track use on stock disks is NOT ACCEPTABLE... I fought with them for a long time... I'm knuckle headed... I added multiple cooling ducts and a modified backing plate, ATE fluid, freshly rebuilt everything... you can buy higher temp pads compounds... but then you will start burning caliper seals and cracking disks... I finally gave up and installed a set of spacers, 1984 300zx 4 lug rotors, and the later, larger model Toyota calipers... It was instant bliss!!!! Ohh btw... the 1990s Z32 front pads fit the largest Toyota calipers... so pads are a dime a dozen..... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I am using front Toyota vented disks, rear drum brakes, stock master cylinder, stainless lines, stock 72 proportioning valve.... My current issue is that the rear brakes just don't do enough without custom high friction shoes... they are EXPENSIVE!!! nearly $200 with shipping... I am sick and tired of that money pit... For my last few events I have been using a more affordable "performance" metallic compound and it is as slick as teflon... the damn rear drums don't even get hot... they are not doing a damn thing... The cost of relining the rear shoes is enough for me to give them a big thumbs down

you got it briann510... backspacing it key to bolting them on... That does not mean that it is the best thing to do to your bearings... You should keep offset at zero no matter what size you run... hence the guys running coilovers to fit 9, 10, and 11" wide wheels with whatever backspacing keeps them at or near zero offset... coilovers will allow up to 5.25" backspacing IIRC... You can mount a wide range of tires on a given rim size... generally each brand and type will have unique shaping and profiles in the sidewall area... That means that you will have to try them out to see if they will fit.... most people like to see the rear track width WIDER than the front... that is where the wider, deeper rear wheels come from... most people who track these cars run all 4 wheels and tires the same size...

Hey... ease up... that writer has learned English as his second language... The form and style also shows some cultural differences... He describes everything in layman's terms... He is also non-specific... for instance> He does not specify the actual tire size or brand... but his description would get the point across... I get the impression that this guy is selling a solid, interesting, ... uhh .... basket-case... and the price is right... I wish I found something like that on the east coast...