johnc

In a sense you are reinforcing an already strong part of the car. Ideally you would want to reinforce weaker sections first. Think triangles instead of beams.

30 degrees from horizontal and the length of the spoiler itself was 7". The term "tall" actuall referred to its length. Below is what I built for my car back in 2004. I think its still being run on a FP 240Z up in the bay area.

Simple, focus on the BENEFITS of each. What's good about the engine you are proposing.

Just a word of warning, if this thread degrades into the 4 cylinder vs. V8 arguement, I'll shut it down, stomp on it, piss on it, crap on it, and say bad words.

Is there really two adjustable prop valves in line in the picture above? Someone has really screwed up the balance between the calipers and MC if two adjustable prop valves are needed. Maybe one of those is a line lock used as a rear e-bake?

G35 is for old men who need a back seat and an automatic. Buy a 350Z...

I had the steel NASCAR approved Tilton forward mount MC pedal assembly. The mount is designed to be bolted to a horizontal surface so my thinking was that the stock pedal box would handle the rear of the mounting surface and a knee bar would be needed to handle the front of the mounting surface. I was concerned that the column mount and dash wouldn't be strong enough because of the amount of material I needed to remove from the stock pedal box to clear the forward mounted MCs. The remote adjuster is an extra cost option for a Tilton balance bar. It may be included in the price of a Wilwood balance bar.

Don Oldenburg of DP Racing used to do number 4 for people. All you had to do is send him a pedal box and he would return it with the MCs mounted to the box, under the dash. A number of local guys got tired of waiting for Don to deliver and asked me to duplicate what I had on the ROD. What got built on the ROD way back in 2000 was the result of me trying to fit floor mount and/or hanging Tilton pedals to my car. With the hanging pedals I was uncomfortable mounting them in a car that didn't have a cage with a knee bar. I couldn't figure out how to make the floor mounts work without building a false floor. Unfortunately the price on the setup I sell is a bit high, but I could send out to China, have 10,000 built, and sell them for $39.95 each...

When welding diffs its important to pre-load the side gear by applying a little bit of torque to the stub axle inputs. Take up the inherent slack before welding and try to deposit similar amounts of filler on each gear.

Roll cage tubing for a Z is spec'd at .120" wall for a 1.5" OD tube. That's designed to take the full weight of the vehicle in a 80 mph impact. 1,000 ft. lbs. of torque ain't poop compared to that kind of load. Since you are building something with 2" and 3" tube you can reduce wall thickness by about 40% and still retain similar strength. .083" wall tubing should be plenty strong. Remember, you're not building an off-road truck or a forklift.

Very happy with the MXs when I ran them on the Corvette. They do better on heavier cars (2,800 to 3,200 lbs). EDIT: About 6,000 miles of street driving, three competitve autocrosses, one instructor autocross (MSA 2005), and one track instructor day.

Granted, I didn't go to the myspace site and review the entire cage... But the plating on the rear shock tower appears to not be welded on the top. That would mean the cross bar and the bottom legs of the "X" brace are welded to a hinge, not a plate. The side hoops appear to bend more then 90 degrees and even appear to bend back on themselves. That tends to make them more like springs and less like braces. The rear "X" brace meets earlier FIA rules but those rules have since been updated and now the FIA requires a diagonal brace in the main hoop, which is missing from the pictures I saw. SCCA has always required the main hoop diagonal. The boxes that main hoop sits on seem small to me. I would like to see more tying in to the rocker panel and floor or maybe the main hoop needs to rest on top of the rocker panel with extra plating to tie that section together. And looking at the the straight vertical tubes that cut across the front of the side hoops, it looks like they are not one continuous piece, but have been welded together top and bottom. Bracing is generally supposed to be one piece. The side hoop gusseting looks fine to me, although its probably a bit much for as light as that car would be. SCCA now required NASCAR style driver's door bars so, as the vehicle owner, I would be grumpy about paying for an X driver's door bar knowing that in 2007 it won't be legal for SCCA and NASA events. EDIT: With the amount of tubing used and the inherent strength required of all new car chassis I'm sure that car will be very safe to drive. Its not as bad as I first posted but I think a lot of weight was added that could have been avoided.

Its like someone looked at pictures of roll cages in various tuner magazines and then picked the stuff they thought looked cool.

The physical mounting of the steering rack is loose. The steering coupler has come a part. The steering shaft is not properly attached to the input shaft of the steering rack. The ties rods are shot. The tie rod lock nuts are loose. Broken steering arm. Offset camber bushing in LCA is loose. Camber plates are loose. Broken TC rod.

Most research documents done before 1985 are free. Sometimes you can't find an exact match to what you're looking for but you can find information from studies that are close: Experimental study of delta wing leading-edge devices for drag reduction at high lift Wind-tunnel development of underwing leading-edge vortex generators on a NASA supercritical-wing research airplane configuration

I use a Smithy Ganite 1324 to make bushings, spacers, shafts, etc. Works great on Delrin and Alumnim but is a little down on power for steel. What helps is lubrication and I use a mister with all cutting. I do have a problem where the X and Y axis' will shift if the I start getting a vibration in the machine. I think a lot of that has to do with the table I have it mounted on.

Although they are expensive, I've very happy with my Speedglas 9000 helmet and the Speedglas 9002X lens. I can weld stainless down to 20 amps and the lens stays steady, no flicker. Also, the side windows have reduced the amount of times I bang my head on things and the rear exhaust vents help with welding fumes.

As always, you can go a view the original research on these aerodynamic topics here: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/

That was my little brother, Johnny Jr. I used to beat him up all the time until he started spitting up flies.

Forgot to mention that I sent in a little bit even though the admins treat me like a bastard stepchild... I guess I just crave abuse.

Not me, I'm a welder. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2000/oct00/10-10devdays.mspx

eBay gets a lot of bogus fraud complaints from users trying to shut down competitor's auctions. When I first tried to auction off the Quaife transmission from the ROD another user selling a Jerico race transmisison told eBay my listing was a fraud. It was shut down and my acocunt suspended. It took a week to get it re-activated. The other user was banned - after he got his transmission sold.

Those are the numbers I used when I ran dual probes in the runners for #2 and #5.

BTW... I wasn't implying that powder coating, properly done, is bad for the wheels. What I have heard of is wheels that are powder coated and then baked at 400F for the normal 15 or 30 minutes needed to cure the coating. This probably is OK, but then letting them sit in the oven as the oven cools prolongs time at temperature and could act like another artificial aging.

No, an EGT gauge will not indicate detonation, but it can show you that detonation is very likey. Under load if you see the temps on the EGT gauge exceed 1400F you're engine is leaning out and will be more prone to detonation. Under load you want to keep the EGTs around 1325 for best power. A knock sensor will indicate detonation and, although I've never done it, you might be able can mount one on the head or block, provide power to it, and wire the sensor lead to a yellow light on the dash. Depensing on its output voltage, you might have to increase the signal to trigger the light.