bjhines

damn heavy piece...

The seats are Corbeu Forza... They were slightly modified to fit the factory rails directly to them... This involves drilling 4 holes in the flatstock mounting rails that are built into the seat... there is just enough space between the tube rails of the seat to accomplish this and still get a nut on the slider-rail bolts... the bolts end up VERY CLOSE to the tubes that make the seat... there is room though... The next step is to grind off the original Corbeu threaded mounting lugs... these stick down away from the flatstock they are welded to and they will interfere with the Datsun slider-rail... the top sides of these threaded lugs must also be removed to allow access to the mounting nut with a wrench... In order to do this without ruining your seat... you can untie the string that holds the lower part of the seatcover tight... and then pull it up and out of the way... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I decided to further lower the seat mounting rails to get absolutely the most room I could out of this set up... I ended up cutting off the tops of the rear mounting tubes.... then I replaced the tops with a piece of 14G trimmed to fit and lightened like the rest... I mounted my subframe connectors and tied the front seat mounting tube to the subframe connector.... Here is the completed seat mount modification... except ofr maybe one little detail... I still have to angle the front mounting holes the same as the rears... that will involve just a little more work with the punch and brake to fab 2 little angle brackets... ...

ahhhh mods my dears.... I have actually managed to get even more vertical spae with a few other mods I have not taken pics of yet... this managed to get me about an inch lower... I lowered them another 3/4" by changing the longitudinal tubes after these pics were taken... My rear set bolts protrude through the floorboards by almost an inch now...

I know that JT1 runs around track with stock s-30 seats... I guess he is ok with them... he runs fast... I have a Recaro in my current track toy and I really like it... it sits very low on the stock seat mounts.. it sits even lower in the car than the stock seats... I am using a set of Corbeu seats in my new project car.. they sat VERY high in comparison to stock and the Recaros... I am going to use them but I had to change the seat mounts to lower them... I also beefed up the floor pan... Another thing I notice is that the S-30s have relatively little vertical space... they measure something like 39" from mounts to roof... I checked a few other cars and found that most have around 43" of headroom... I am oging to have the side roof bars very close to my helmet.. but it looks like everyone else has delt with this same problem...

Well... just consider that the material you make the intercooler out of is only a small part of the equation... Air itself is not a good conductor of heat... it requires flow and turbulence.... and large surface area exposure.... It must flow through the intercooler with minimal restriction.... on both sides of the exchange.... Add all this up and you are going to end up building an expensive custom intercooler that works pretty much like a cut up truck radiator...

Im interested... let me do some math here.... and see what comes of Sparky's set.

even assuming the material conducts heat very well.... you still have to expose a lot of surface area to cool the air itself... It might see some minisculel reduction in size.... but if you are using an air to air intercooler... then it will still look like a standard intercooler... and it will be similarly sized. heat conductivity of the material will not greatly effect the size of the intercooler.... assuming you are using air/air exchange.... please explain how even a theoreticly PERFECT conductor would significantly reduce the size of the intercooler...

Looking at the diagram posted... it appears that this one has both the MAIN switch and the HIGH/LOW switch one right after the other in series(still last thing before ground though)... BUT... I swear I have run into a later 73 240/260Z harness that had them widely separated in the circuit...

A lot of cars send constant power through the fuse box to the headlights and horns, etc.... then the "ground" is routed back to the switch, button, etc.... The reason for this is to protect the switch from short circuits... the switch ends up last in line from the battery... if anything shorts out anywhere along the path... it will never draw high current through the switch... because the switch is the last thing in line... If your HEADLIGHTS STAY ON then you have a short along the path from the lights to the switch... somewhere... This path runs from the front clip.... back along the passenger frame rail, through the firewall grommet under the battery tray, up to the top of the dashboard, across to the steering column, through the switch and to ground.... If you were BLOWING FUSES... then you would have a short between the fuse panel and the healights... following almost the same path in the opposite direction... If ONLY ONE HEADLIGHT WORKS then there is an open circuit most likely in the front clip where there are 3 splices for LOW, HIGH, and GROUND connections... the splices are relatively close together on the passenger side frnot clip... right where the right hand lighting wires split off.... Early cars had lighting grounds on the front clip(subject to a lot of corrosion).... Later cars ran this back to the passenger side framerail near the starter(subject to poor splices)... Both designs have issues....

The window lip can be fixed... but it will involve cutting out even more than you see there... If you had a "donor car" then you could piece together that profile from another edge in good shape from the donor.. that can be a tough area to deal with... but it is almost always present... a good body shop can fix it... that kind of repair would be several extra hours of time on top of a complete tear down and repaint.... The worst thing for somone to do is treat it with rust converter and bondo over it.. there is a lot of damage going on INSIDE the lip... up in the far corners of the upper trunk area... The rust will continue to spread unless the area is cleaned inside and out... The trunklid is no big deal... The rear quarter damage is low to the ground and is usually covered with a bumper... you can pound it back into shape and use filler to smooth it out... again... this is a job for someone with more than one hammer in his box... if anyone tries to reshape the rear quarter with bondo it will crack and fall out the first time it is flexed....

It says """Datsun 240Z 3.1 ltr""" on the front windshield... ITB, dry sump, etc...

JM has a good idea... I will see what I can do with this... unfortunately I cannot complete welding the cage until this issue is resolved one awy or the other. I spoke to 2 guys this evening about their experience with the S-30 roll cages... They both said this was the same in their cars... they both said it was not a problem... riding around with your helmet knocking against the roof bar isn't as distracting as you would think...

Johnc.... I have mocked it up with tubes up high against the roof skin.... It seems to cause even more trouble because as you get the bar up higher it also must move toward the center.... the helmet takes up more vertical space as the bar location is moved higher and inboard... I simply cannot find room for my head.... My alternatives are... 1. lower the seat... easy enough.. I already did that... but it needs to be VERY LOW... the problem is.. I cannot properly see the front of the car... I am just barely looking over the steering wheel... windshield wipers absolutely must be removed for visibility... and besides... This is WAYYYY TOO LOW for autoX... cant see the cones 10' in front... 2nd option... put more bends in the A pillar bar... Illeagal yes... I could get another inch of clearance by finding a way to more closely match the profile of the roof... without moving the bars inward any... I could also cope the bars into the factory sheet metal... I am not going to do this though... 3rd option.... live with it... this is my most likely option... I have several 240Z bodies to mock this up in... one has an SCCA legal bolt in cage.. Autopower.... it has even worse headroom clearance.... in fact the bolt in cages look terrible.. they cut down visibility, the are weakly mounted, they leave very little headroom, they interfere with larger steering wheels, they bite your ankles because they stick out into the pedal area.... I am trying to improve upon this design with my own custom cage... but.. they headroom issue is a killer... I measured a friend's BMW M3... there is 43" vertical space from seat mounts to headliner... the Z only has 38" with my modified seat mounts.... I went through the shop and parking lot with a tape measure... most cars have considerably more vertical space 4" to 6" more than the Z car... I cannot imagine what a Z car with a chopped/lowered roof would be like... you would have to lay down to drive it...

OK.. I have a bigggg question for you guys.... Most of the A-pillar bars I have been able to track down in pictures have the same problem in common... Headroom.... I will literally have 1" of clearance to the side of my helmet... dammit... If I lean my head in a corner it will instantly come into contact with the roof part of the doorbar... I think this is a case for having a front and rear hoop with high placed roof bars tieing the front and rear hoops together.... It seems to be the only way to get a lot of clearance...

Keep in mind that the Z car slider brackets have no room for nuts on top... they are using pressed in "carriage bolts" that are nearly flush inside the rail... they cannot be mounted on studs in the car...

I don't think 1" tubing would leave sufficient room inside for mounting nuts and washers... I would have used 2" tubing but It would have left the rear mounting points almost as high as the originals... unless I dropped the tubing through the floor..

I worked on seating this evening... I removed stock slider rails from an old set of stock seats.... carefully cleaned and relubricated them... and installed them on the Corbeu seats I am using in this project... The first thing I found was that the seats were WAY TOO HIGH... with my helmet on I had <2" clearance to the roof... Im 6'... I have no problem with the Recaros on stock sliders in one of my other cars... ohh well... every seat is different... The seat mounts had to come out... I wanted something a little tougher than the flimsy stamping the the factory intalled... the original front mounting showed cracks and fatigue around the bolt holes... The front mount is very tall ~4"... the rear mounts are only about 2.5" tall... this provides an extreme rake back for aftermarket buckets... it is hard to apply pressure to the pedals without forcing your legs into the bolster... I decided to remove the front stamping entirely... I cut away all of the rear spampings except the rear part attached to the rear siffener strip on the floor... I seam welded the remainder of the rear mounts to the rear stiffener... I cut 2 4x6" plates to attach the front cross mount to the side of the transmission tunnel and the rocker/floor junction... I used 1.5" square tubing... coped to fit... I mocked it all up several times.. I built in a slight rake back... and I centered the seat better than the original mounting holes did.. this replaces the original seat mounts with a much lower, stronger, better angled, and properly lined up mounting surface... I drilled 1" holes from the bottom to allow access from underneath to the mounting nuts using a deep well socket... I will use rubber plugs to seal the holes... As a final touch I cross drilled lightening holes everywhere... I still have to tie the floor into the inside of the rocker with another plate... The front cross bar will also be tied into the subframe connectors with 2 L-gussets.. I have to mount the connectors and then finalize this part of the seat mount...

SCCA considers 2 bars X'ed together with a welded joint as ONE DOOR BAR... The "V" bent bars welded together and properly gusseted is considered TWO "2" bars...

I have a 1999 model truck Z71 4x4... I also have owned a 1998 Suburban 4x4 3/4ton... it had the same crappy brakes.. they are MUSHY as hell.. and it feels(has resistance) like you are pushing the pedal into playdough... I can't remember the procedure the last time I changed rear shoes on one of the trucks... but as I recall there is an adjuster wheel in there that needs to be reset for new shoes....

LOL.... the SR-71 has black paint for several reasons... it is a radar absorbing "iron ball" paint (just like current stealth) and it is meant to fly AT NIGHT... but there were soo many other factors in painting that beast... you cannot attribute the color entirely to "heat" effects... gimmee a break... Black body radiation characteristics.... Google it... "black" both absorbs and radiates heat fastest.... NOT!!! to say that just any old black paint will radiate heat better than the bare surface... there are numerous different compounds that can be applied to various metals (many of them are anodized)... these heat radiating coatings bond to the metal in such a way that they are not acting as insulating coatings.. but heat transfer coatings... Many small air-cooled engines have heads and cylinders treated this way... but these coatings do not significantly change the overall heat dissipation of the engine... they are only worth the effort and cost to apply on high performance/expensive engines...

More progress... I have just a few more things to do and I am on the schedule to get it final-welded this weekend... Reinforced the rear upper crossmember with a hunk of 14g plug welded between the rear suspension mounting points... Then I skinned the areas between the chassis frame rails and the fuel cell support rails... 18g... should provide some gusseting as well... It is welded to both sides of everything it touches... The diagonals for the rear hoop are done.... the lower/ extra diagonals are to reinforce the tunnel areas... right where the inside front pivot of the rear control arms are mounted... this is also where the front of the differential puts pressure... this is the 3x3x 1/8" mounting pad is welded directly over the bottom cross-rail... Ohh... and one of my little helpers was mousing around the shop... ....

hmm... I'll have to try some ospho on some scrap steel tonite... I was under the impression that it dries to a dusty surface with some white powder that must be brushed off before priming and painting... The instructions mention that this dusty white flash will keep comming back until it is covered in paint.

well... the POR15 website describes using their cleaner, their rust dissolver, THEIR RUST CONVERTER, and then POR15 on top of it all... and then using THEIR primer and their chassis paint over all of that... They even suggest using THEIR solvent for thinning and cleanup...... Im no spring chicken.. they are using the same chemicals that other maufacturers use in other products... they just want to sell me all of their high $$$ crap... I'll use the product.. but I'm not going to buy 3 times as much $$$ "stuff" as originally planned... but I was interested in information that could clear up what is actually necessary, and what is BS sales tactics... The OSPHO works as a prep coat using Phosphoric acid to convert the steel surface into Iron Phoshate to effectively seal the metal from O2.. OSPHO uses a different chemical reaction to achieve the same result as POR15.. the only thing about OSPHO is that it is not a HARD COATING... and it must be primed and painted to prevent it from developing a flash of white powder every time the humididty rises... To reiterate.. the entire car will get sprayed with OSPHO... but I wanted to coat the floorboards and sills with POR15 to provide a scratch resistant hard coating under my final paint

I have both... I thought The Ospho would get into nooks and crannies and between layers of sheetmetal better than POR15.. I got a can of POR15 to handle areas that get chips and scrapes because I have heard it is incredibly HARD when cured... The problem I am having is that the instructions for POR15 say not to apply over rust converters... as far as I know the Ospho is considered a rust converter... The question is.. should I carefully apply the POR15 to all the areas I want to cover with it and let it cure completely... and THEN coat the rest of the bare metal body with OSPHO??? or the other way around.??? The body is sand blasted to bare metal.. no rust at all...

I would love to see some side profile pics of the side skirts... better resolution if you can... I have those skirts and I am considering the airdam... I am interested in how exactly you mounted them.. try using Photobucket.. free account with lots of space and they pre tag all your pics so you can copy and past directly into the forums.