johnc

My only excuse, and its a pretty thin one, was that it was raining when I swapped the race tires for the street tires. Why I didn't notice the goof up during the two months of sunny weather since I made the swap...? I have no excuse. I'll be putting my perfectly good Nismo R-Tune LSD on eBay soon...

I am officially an idiot. Don't come to me for suspension questions ever again. Looking at the car I noticed: 225/40-18 on the right front. 245/40-18 on the left front. 225/40-18 on the left rear. 245/40-18 on the right rear. 10 minutes with a jack and a lug wrench solved the problem. A $1,300.00 lesson learned. God I'm an idiot.

No. Unfortunately I was too busy racing and having fun with the car to think about videoing anything. Bryan Lampe might have some video of the car. I"ll ask him one day.

On the Peugeot Pikes Peak video you can really hear the car's engine performance drop off at the higher altitudes. It wasn't as sharp and sounded a bit labored near the top. Its got to be difficut to tune the engine for 5,000 ft. change in altitude during a 10 minute run..

Found the full Hans Stuck ring video:

The M3GTR at the ring and Spa... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q8ZNkhxT04

Weight savings is minimal (3 to 5 lbs) and its very hard to find an undamaged, straight left and right front fender.

I know. I'm guilty as charged. Instead of properly diagnosing the problem, I picked the most expensive part to R&R. I was just being lazy - a customer's car is on the lift and I didn't want to crawl under my 350Z in the alley behind the shop. Another lesson re-learned.

Aaawww crap! New diff is in and problem still exists, although to a lesser degree. I think you guys who said it was a suspension issue might be right. I am swapping the CV shafts left to right as a test to see if they might be causing the problem. Now I need to get the car on a lift to disassemble the rear suspension.

Imagine drill with that thing. PERSENT, ARMS! RIGHT SHOULDER, ARMS! LEFT SHOULDER, ARMS! PORT, ARMS! FALL OFF THE BODY, ARMS!

Not an "L" engine as we think of it. Its a pushrod truck engine.

The original 140hp Elise's did not need a LSD on most race tracks for the reason's descirbed above. Similarly a lot of open wheel race cars (Formula Fords, Formula Vees, etc.) that run a lot of aero downforce also run open diffs. But, with the newer Toyota powerd Elise's... here on the West Coast of the US, all of the Elise drivers I know and have worked with have reduced their lap times by installing a LSD in their Elise.

Its a must have after you make the car safe and reliable and before you spend a dime modifying anything else on the car. It helps handling and acceleration regardless of how much power you're making.

What bunch of old codgers... I still drive a F350 and a Nissan 350Z that has 690 lb. in. springs all around. I think you guys need to go to the gym....

Oops! I'm guilty of being parochial. I forgot the Patrol is still being built and sold outside the US.

Its a factory/dealer fix. Keeps the rack from turning in its rubber mounts.

If that's your only choice in engines, then its OK. Otherwise, its a low rpm truck engine that works well in a truck.

I agree and I still think there's more to the problem then what Unitrax and I have been able to figure out. But, its time for me to move on and get back on the track.

Finally got to the bottom of this problem... and come to find out its not a problem. Some background: The Nismo R-Tune 1.5 Way LSD has three adjustments for preload - Low (51 ft. lbs.) Med (69 ft. lbs.) and High (101 ft. lbs.). Before the last even I had been running the diff set at Med which worked fine, except for a small push on corner entry, at the previous track events. For this Cal Speeday event I backed off the adjustment to Low to reduce the push and get the car to turn in a little better. At the track, the diff worked fine and the push was reduced. My 350Z is at Unitrax and they pulled the diff, tore it down, and inspected it. There's nothing wrong with the diff and its odd street driving power on/off behavior is the result of the design and me having the diff set on the Low setting. The best Unitrax can figure is that the combination of vehicle weight, engine torque, and differential design (ramps and preload adjuster) has the diff locking and unlocking randomly under part throttle. A lot of that may be because the preload adjuster is a poor design and doesn't appear to work properly on the low setting. They think it might be allowing 0 or 51 ft. lbs. of preload. Anyway, I'm going to pull that diff and sell it on eBay. Unitrax is installing an OS Giken Super Lock LSD in my 350Z: http://osgiken.net/products/superlock.html

Just to step in here as an admin. We've had a number of members start projects to build and sell parts for other HybridZ members. Most of those failed because the effort was treated as a hobby and the person doing the work didn't realize how much time and effort was needed to: 1. Design the parts. 2. Build the parts. 3. Sell the parts. 4. Service and repair the parts. 5. Keep up good customer communication. Failed projects like these leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth and pretty much every one of those HybridZ members who started something like this and failed are no longer members of this site - either voluntarily or after being banned. It takes a lot of work to produce parts for paying customers. About 10 times more work then it takes to make a part for yourself or a buddy. Keep all the above in mind when making promises. The admins, the membership, and your customers will remember your promises and hold you to them.

Guys, settle down.

Inboard disc brakes are also a pain to work on. And when you're racing, you're always working on the brakes.

E36 chassis BMWs are wonderful cars. I have two customers that seriously autocross theirs and both cars are amazingly nimble and quick.

I'm sure there's some slippage or working of the clutch packs but its very minor compared to the work they do under power in a corner.

75-80lbs is a little high on breakaway torque but for your application its fine. A differential isn't working as a diff if both wheels are spinning so I don't think you'll see much wear during burnouts. The diff works hard when its trying to work traction to both sides as the tires are gripping.