johnc

That was a front impact at over 80 mph into a dirt berm at LVMS. The roof of the car and the roll bar did crush down about 3" and his helmet was damaged, but he walked away. The roll bar took at least 3 impacts as the car flipped end over end and there was a race seat and a 5 point racing harness installed.

Jeeps. They've had DOT approved roll bars and in some cases roll cages installed for years. The design and installation is such that, for the 90th percentile driver, there is little change of head impact on the bars. From the roll bar (not cage) installations I have done and from the design of the Autopower roll bar there appears to be little chance of head impact on the roll bar if installed with a modern automotive or race seat and shoulder belts or racing harnesses. Anecdotal evidence from four accidents I've gathered information on tends to support this. An additional data point I have is from the 24 Hours of LeMons competitors who raced a 1982 Toyoya Corolla with a full cage that I built. They were in numerous accidents over the race period at speeds from 20 to 40mph and at no time did their helmets touch the roll cage. They did have a race seat and a 6 point race harness in the car and all drivers were under 6' tall. One driver in particular (Sean) had a helmet with a $1,000 paint job on it and he was particularly worried aobut it. No damage.

Send a private message to Frank280zx (Frank Poll). He's from your neck of the woods and is running around in the US for the next couple weeks buying Datsun stuff.

Where the fuild remains when the system is turned off depends on the orientation and plumbing of the cooler. Think about how fluid seeks its own level within a system.

You would also need the ECU, sensors, decellerometer, wiring harness, and more.

NAPA Gold 1515R.

Classis Datsun and Pierre Z did most of the restorations with Datsun Alley finishing up the last few and handling warranty repairs. One of the reasons the restored cars didn't sell very well (per a salesman I talked with at Courtesy Nissan) was that the restored cars drove like a car from the 70's (surprise!) and a lot of potential buyers who thought the cars were "cute" ended up buying an Altima or a Maxima.

For a street and autox driven car the Autopower wheel well mounted roll bars are fine. Rollover and impact speeds are most likely around 30 to 40 mph which the bar can handle. For lapping and open track use where impact and rollover speeds are double the above numbers a roll bar will need to attach to the floor, rocker panels, and strut towers. For wheel-to-wheel racing a roll cage is required because of the frequency of multiple impacts in a wreck.

Doesn't your right hand get tired?

Pretty much anyone who's tried it... Be careful. Its very easy to get hurt starting out on dirt bikes. While riding, its hard to tell how tired you actually are which leads to wrecks. Stop often and take breaks. A good indication of "time to stop" is when your forearms get pumped up and its hard to take your hands off the grips.

What Tony and Paul said... Engine and engine part longevity have more to do with the care in assembly, break-in, usage, and maintenance then material type. Any fool can break anything given enough time, money, and/or momentum.

The Rusty Old Datsun In grid at Sears Point: Thunderhill: Z West Coast Nationals autocross driving school: In its first incarnation:

Any long term HZ'er.

I've run both the Toyo Proxes RA1 and the Kumho Victoracer V700 in 225/50-15 on a 240Z. For autocross the V700 has a definate advantage. For track use it still has an advantage but not as significant. Given a choice between the two I would go with the V700 for the extra performance. If I was on a real tight budget, the RA1 will last longer (maintain its level of performance) then the V700 so it would be my choice.

You should be fine, but maybe run a duct from the holes in the side of the core support that points at the headers around the spark plug wires.

I can do a set of 280Z struts but you'll need to send me 4 good 280Z struts to build on. Or, I can build you a set of 240Z struts and you can install them. The 240Z struts work fine on a 280Z. I'll do the numbers on Monday and send you a PM.

Shoot, 14 days? You've got all the time in the world. Might think about a new paint job within that time frame...

Yeah, the original dyno chart posted here made me think these shocks were way wrong for the 240Z. Talking with Dan at Tokico and having him send me dyno grpahs of more appropriate inserts changed my mind. I'm getting both sets of inserts and will build a strut package for each. The shorter insert is needed for cars running 14" wheels (a lot of the Vintage racing guys) but with a 5" stroke the shock will only have 2" of droop travel. I think we can space the shock down from the camber plate and gain another 1/2". The longer body shock will be fine for cars running 15" wheel or taller.

The lower the tire pressurs, the more the V710s grip, assuming good temps across the tread and no rollover.

Have you already ordered the wheels?

The price differences you see between coil over kits is because the high priced kits like mine are completely assembled, ready to bolt on the car, and the lower priced kits require strut shortening, painting, assembly, bearing installs, etc. All of us vendors pay pretty much the same for parts and our profit margins on the parts are probably similar. The significant price differences are the labor involved with each coil over kit. In essence you're trading time for money of you do the assembly work yourself or trading money for time if you buy a completely assembled kit. Consumers in the teeny, tiny 240Z market are lucky they have that choice.

Without camber plates you'll have to watch for rollover. Look for the treadwear indicator triangles on the side of the tread. Adjust air pressure until the scuffing just meets the top of the triangles. Start high (35 psi cold) and work down. On my 3200 lb 350Z with 1 degree of negative camber I run 29psi cold front and 27psi cold rear and ajusted hot pressures to 30F and 28R. Back when I ran 710s on the 240Z and had lots of camber, I run 24psi cold front and rear and adjusted hot to 26 all around.

If you guys would just look on eBay from time to time, you would find gems like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Mitchell-Manual-Electric-Service-Repair-Imports-1970-82_W0QQitemZ140107911102QQihZ004QQcategoryZ6762QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

At the MSA show (and since then) I've spend a bunch of time talking with Dan from Tokico about an HTS insert application for the 240Z. Previous postings in this thread of shock dyno graphs for the HTS led me to believe that they were way overvalved on the compression side. Later discussions with Dan identified the specific dyno graph as a rear Mustang (live axle) shock application so it wasn't represetnative of what's available for the 240Z. Right now I'm trying to decide between two off the shelf inserts for a build and test later this summer. The first has a 5" stroke with a 13" shock body and the other has a 6" stroke with a 14" shock body. It seems that we will either lose 1" of bump or droop travel. The valving on the shock with the 6" stroke is a little "softer" then the valving on the shock with the 5" stroke (as expected). I'm kinda going in circles on this decision and want some input form the locals here.

I be me, in La Habra.