johnc

FYI... On Kodiak Racing Wheels I can sell them for about 10 to 15% off list if anyone is interested. They do take about 2 months to get built and shipped, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter. I did a set of 18 x 10s for a customer's 240Z and they came out at 18.5 lbs.

Used to have a pretty bad one, but it no longer exists: http://www.betamotorsports.com/products/rod4sale.html I think Dan Baldwin, Jon Mortensen, 1 Fast Z, Brian510, and few others are in the running.

Vintage Motors 3rd Annual Open House & Toy Drive Satruday 12/9 Noon to 4pm 647 S. Palm St. Unit D La Habra, CA 90631 http://www.vintageride.net/ Bring your car and/or yourself and a new unwrapped toy and you'll get a commemorative t-shirt. The show is open to all makes and models of cars, no snobbery at this event. Bob, the owner of Vintage Motors, is a Nissan Master Tech and likes old Datsuns.

You need to work on the rears. Manually adjust the shoes so that you feel a light drag as you spin the wheel and tire. You will need to do this after EVERY track session and don't rely on the e-brake to keep the rears adjusted as tight as they need to be for track stuff. Also, new shoes should be contacting the entire drum face, not just 2". Your friend is mistaken. Did you get the drums surfaced? Its also very important to bed the brake pads and shoes properly before using them hard. The pad supplier should have included bedding instructions, if not check the StopTech site for proper pad bedding. Did you change out the brake fluid? If you're going to do track days, replace ALL of your brake fluid with Motul RBF600, ATE 600, or Ford Heavy Duty truck brake fluid if you're on a budget.

I can add some information to this discussion... VLSD - Good for a street car and an occaisional use track/drag car. They can be very successful in professional road racing but the VLSD units used at that level bear little resemblence to what you or I can buy for under $3,500. Quaife - Great for a street car and an occaisional use track/drag car. They are also very successful in road racing IF the chassis is setup specifically for it. Swapping form a clutch pack LSD to a Quaife and making no suspension changes guarantees lots of inside wheel spin. Then there's that lifetime warranty thing, but you pay for that in the price of the unit. Clutch LSD - Good for a street car and an occaisional use track/drag car. Been around forever but will need rebuilding at some point in its life. Can be tuned via ramp angles, preload, clutch type. They can be noisy on the street in tight turns. Folks who race their 350Zs tend to toss out the factory VLSD in favor of a Quaife or a clutch LSD (Nismo, Kaaz, Cusco). The VLSD works unpredictably as the diff heats up. I've raced cars with all three diff styles and I prefer the Quaife. It takes some development time to tune the car's suspension to the diff but the results are impressive. I dropped my lap times by 1% when I went from a clutch pack LSD to a Quaife in the Rusty Old Datsun.

You will (almost) never snap a rear LCA because of engine power or torque, not even a stock one. Rear LCAs rarely fail and the root cause is almost always: 1. Improper bushing/ARB installation. 2. Damage. 3. Lateral loads on a race track from big wheels and tires. I say "almost never" because there are people out there who can break anything given enough time.

McMaster Carr sells a nice stainless steel 6.5 hp, 185 cfm, 10 gallon drum, two speed shop vac with stainless steel extension wands, large cart wheels in back and swivel casters in front, 35 ft. cord, 8 ft hose. $536.67. The 6 gallon model is $229.70. The also sell the vacuum motor top, hoses, accessories, and a cart that attaches to the top and bottom of a standard 55 gallon drum.

Nope. The dash number refers to flow rate of the hose compared to a metal hard line OD measured in 1/16" of an inch. So, a -8 hose flows the same as a 1/2" OD metal hard line. A -8 hose ID is less then 1/2" and the OD is greater then 1/2". Generally you don't thread a AN threaded fitting into a hole unless the hole has the 37 degree taper at the bottom that the fitting can tighten up against. You can put a AN fitting into a hole if you use copper or o-ringed washers get a good seal. I would only do this in a low pressure (under 50psi) application. Measure the thread diameter and pitch of the AN fitting to determine the proper tap.

I'm more familiar with the West Coast setup. Here's what I know about both. East Coast More roll stiffness in front, softer rear. Slight bias towards understeer. East coast tracks tend to be faster and have a smoother track surface. Spring rates: 300 to 375 front - 250 to 325 rear. "Typical" is 350 front and 275 rear. ARBs: 25mm front and 15mm (or none) rear. Alignment: Not sure, probably simialr to West Coast. West Coast Roll stiffnes more balanced front to rear. Softer overall compared to the East Coast setup. Slight bias towards oversteer. West coast tracks tend to be slower and have a bumpier track surface. Spring rates: 275 to 325 front - 300 to 350 rear. "Typical" is 300 front and 325 rear. ARBs: 25mm or 27mm front and 19mm or 21mm rear. Alignment: Front camber -3 to -3.25 (depends on tire width) Rear -2.25 to -3 (depends on tire width and horsepower) Front caster: +5 to +7 Front toe: 3/16" out to 0 Rear toe: 0 to 1/8" in Ride height: 5" to 5.5" front and 5" to 6" rear. A recent experiment by Bryan Lampe running his ITS car at a VARA event showed a 1 second per lap time improvment at the Willow Springs Big Track (fast track) using the East Coast setup. A similar experiment at Buttonwwillow (slower, more technical track) showed that the West Coast setup was faster. What that tells me is that suspension setup/tuning is track dependent (Duh!)

I'll add three for Southern California (in order of price, from cheapest to most expensive): Maaco Auto Body and Painting 13261 Imperial Hwy Whittier, CA 90605 (562) 777-0010 Ask for Lance. He owns a 240Z and has painted 2 of my customer's cars. Both are happy with the work. West Coast Collision 561 S Cypress St La Habra, CA 90631 (714) 447-1030 Ask for Brent. He's painted a friend's 56 big window Ford pickup which turned out great. Brent has painted some non-car things for me and done a good job. A more traditional kind of paint and body shop where the quality is good but your car might end up in paint-jail for a few months. Lanzini Body Works http://www.lanzinibodyworks.com/ Ask for Mitch. The best and you'll pay for it. As seen on the Overhauling TV show, Mitch does a lot of work for Chip Foose. Mitch repaired and painted the Rusty Old Datsun years ago and did a great job. The paint on the car was much better then the car deserved.

Exhaust tubing is always measured in OD.

Wonderful product. I've used it many times and, although the installation is more involved then with a Helicoil, its a much stronger and more permanent fix. I have the site bookmarked. http://www.timesert.com/ Doug Hayashi's NSX (http://www.pulpracing.com) had all 12 of the rear subframe mounting holes stripped in the aluminum frame as a result of a dumbass mechanic using an impact gun. I installed 12 Time-Serts and 12 new subframe bolts and he's been racing on that setup for 4 years without any problems.

Yup, front fender needs to move back but if its one of the Chinese made ones you might be out of luck. As a last resort you can very carefully weld a 1/8" bead on the back edge of the fender and then file/sand it smooth.

The majority of welding mistakes are caused by three things: Poor fitup - that parts are not fitted close together and the weldor is welding air. Poor preparation - the parts are not thoroughly cleaned. Poor penetration - not enoughheat is used to weld the parts together. Look at the recommendations in your welding manual or go buy: "Guide for Welding Mild Steel Pipe" AWS D10.12M/D10.12:2000 from AWS (http://www.aws.org).

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards 201, 208, 214, and 216.

Took 5 days to figure that out?

Did the guy look like this and have a funny accent?

Kinda similar, but not really. The low hoop front bar style of cage used in open top, no windshield cars requires: 1. The front low hoop be as high as the cowl of the car. 2. A line drawn from the top of the main hoop and the top of the low front hoop should be higher then the driver's helmet when seated and strapped into the car. 3. Two additional braces that start no lower the 6" below the top of the main hoop and run forward connecting to the low front hoop no lower then 6" below the top of the hoop. These braces are in addition to the required double door bars. 4. Two additional braces that run forward starting no lower the 6" from the top of the low front hoop and ending at least at the firewall, preferrably at a frame member. An example is here, although this type is no longer legal. The rear main hoop must run the full width of the car.

IMHO... Most in radiator trans coolers are too small to flow engine oil properly. Keep the trans cooler in radiator and just add an additional tranny cooler after the cooler in the radiator. Add a small oil cooler in front of your radiator.

Unfortunately you will have to design the cage to fix inside the box (unibody). The most important reason to install a roll cage is for safety. Chassis stiffness is a distant second in importance to safety and, unless you're extending the roll cage forward of the firewall, there's not much you can do about chassis stiffness with a cage. The big issues a roll cage design must take into account are: Roll over Side impact A roll cage exists to transfer impact loads throughout the chassis. Knowing this, you need to design the cage to minimuize the concentration of loads at an expected level of impact. For a mostly street driven car you probably won't see an impact at speeds greater then 80 mph. Even on the track you're looking at a top speed of 140 and a likely crash speed of under 80 mph. You don't need a BTCC, ALMS, or NASCAR style cage. And don't ignore the sanctioning body rules. They have been develoepd from years and years of real world experience and are a very good primer on cage design.

. I hope they do come back. Here on the west coast most of the 240Zs that ran ITS moved to vintage with VARA and HSR West. They are just now starting to get competitive with the 2.4L Porsche 911s, which we gauge by the amount of whining from the German camp. Unfortunately most of those guys are having so much fun in vintage none have expressed any interest in returning to IT.

For a racer, the above is true regardless of the vehicle driven to the win.

I think this FAQ is the single greatest post on this site.

That's nice. Hope your friend remembers to tell the new owners about this little "fix."

I read that article a long time ago and then forgot about it. Thanks for th elink. Its dead on accurate and should be a required read for anyone thinking about racing a 240Z or 300ZX. EDIT: Thier predictions at the end were correct, except the E36 BMW rules supreme, not the 300ZX. Now the BMW will be moved to the new ITR class which makes me wonder if anyone will resurrect or build a 240Z for ITS.