johnc

Taylor builds, services, and has adapted Jerico transmissions to the Datsun L16, L20, and L24. Also, having owned a Quaife sequential dog box I can tell you that using the clutch on upshifts is a sure way to damage the dog rings on any dog box. Just lift and shift very quickly. On downshifts its more critical to properly rev match then it is to use the clutch. I put over 25 hours on my transmission and when it was opened up and inspected it the dogs were barely even nicked. Per Scott at Taylor the transmission was basically brand new. You can easily drive a dog box on the street if you know how to shift.

Additional attachments will help the Autopower bar. The roof tabs go from where the hinge mounts are, forward to the roll bar main hoop. One additional rear brace going to the strut towers will also help along with a bar across the strut towers. But, once you start doing all this welding, in hindsight it would have been better to pay for a proper welded in roll bar.

I bet you tell that to all the boys...

Well, I'm a SAE member and I just searched their list of power measurement standards and there is nothing that I can find that references chassis dyno power testing for automobiles. There are standards (like J1349 for automobile engines) that cover all aspects of measuring power on an engine dyno for things like: Gas Turbines Commercial Diesel Rotary Engines Rotary Snow Plow Power Units Gas Turboprops Agricutural Tractor Power Hydraulic Brake Power Rating Hydraulic Motors The closest I've found are the following:

I think what Keith was saying was that chassis dyno numbers are inherently all over the map and not repeatable. For my engine in my chassis I saw: I made no changes in engine tune after the first baseline at 276. Subsequent chaissis dyno runs were done chasing a cooling system problem and breaking in a new ring and pinion. The differences I saw were 6.5% which shows how inaccurate chassis dynos are for measuring power. One of the big issues is that there are no SAE standards for chassis dyno setup, operation, measurement, and correction. Without those standards there is no way to compare numbers generated from on chassis dyno to another or from one day's testing to another on the same chassis dyno. Just because I have a chassis dyno run showing 294 whp doesn't mean my engine is making more power then someone else's chassis dyno run that showed 276 whp.

This was by customer choice. I recommended no X pipe and a longer merge collector with a 14 degree cone transition from 2.75" to the 3" tail pipe (notice, no muffler on this system). But, the existing exhaust already had an X pipe and Dave wanted to re-use it. It worked well but I've always wondered if it would have worked better with a coned merge collector and no X pipe.

Packaging that 3" exhaust under Dave's Camaro was very difficult. It was very tight over the the axle because the panhard rod mount takes up some of the available space. He previously had dual 2.5" pipes over the axle going through the same spot and they fit much better because one of the pipes was routed to a different side of the mount. With a 3" pipe I had to route it outboard of the mount and I needed a very specific bend (5.5" CLR) to keep from hitting the mount, floor pan, and fuel tank. I know the exhaust pictured above looks very simple, but it took a while to get that simplicity. I'm not an engine guy so I can't give many intelligent reasons why X works better then Y. I do spend a lot of time talking with engine builders about exhaust systems. I've also spent some time talking with fabricators like Andy Bondio who builds a number of the Trans AM team racing exhausts. The engine builders like to have the exhaust work with the entire engine as a "system" from the throat of the carburator/throttle body to the exhaust tip. Often when I ask about header primary tube length I'm given a measurement to build to that goes from the exhaust valve seat to the point where the primary tube necks down into the collector. So, I guess I can't really answer "why" a single exhaust seems to work better then a dual. And I do know that there are lots of racing examples where duals are used when there are no rule or packaging restrictions. My only thinking there is that the engine builders are looking for ultimate horsepower and very high rpms (F1, ALMS LMP, etc.)

320hp at 6,800 rpm and 275 ft. lbs. at 5,900 rpm (SAE corrected and tested engine dyno). At least 200 ft. lbs. of torque from 3,800 rpm to redline at 7,500 rpm. From 276 to 294 whp on 3 different chassis dynos. 13.6 to 1 compression, 3.0L, Motec, lots of other stuff. Not streetable and not happy under 4,000 rpm.

Keith is referring to L6 engines. Dual exhausts have been used for years mostly because light weight exhaust tubing sizes over 2.5" OD were extremely expensive and mandrel bends in those sizes were difficult to find, at least until the mid 1970s. A single exhaust (even on a V8 engine) can produce more torque and horsepower then a dual exhaust. Most Trans Am cars run 180 degree headers and a merge into a 5" exhasut system. Unfortunately, all street and most race cars have packaging issues which preclude a properly designed single exhaust. Those Trans Am cars have the header collectors and exhaust taking over the entire passenger seat area. Another example was the development effort Guy Ankney put into making a fast B Stock Nissan 350Z. All the dual exhausts (including a complete custom system) he tried showed little (if any) horsepower or torque gains. When he had a custom single 3" exhaust build with a properly designed 2 into 1 merge collector he saw a multi-digit percentage torque increase across the rpm band with a corresponding horsepower increase. And, yet another example was the exhaust I built for Dave Schotz's T2 Camaro. 2.5" primaries, X pipe, and a merge collector into a 3" exhaust. He saw a 14% increase in torque when that exhaust replaced his previous 2.5" with X pipe and dual 2.5" out the back. Also, an X Pipe simulates a single exhaust with a merge collector. Its basically the same as 2.5" tubing feeding into a proper merge collector and a 4" exhaust from the collector back. But again, packaging issues with tubing over 3" precludes most folks from running a good single exhaust on a V8 powered vehicle.

I would say no, having owned a racing 320hp 3L. To get real horsepower numbers around 300 and above you have to start bumping the compression beyond what 91 octane can support. The biggest horsepower number NA L6s are all racing 2.4L engines with some 9,000 rpm "special" engines reaching a rumored 365 horsepower. There are probably some drag racing stroker engines over in Japan that make bigger numbers but I know nothing about them.

Unfortunately Andy's not the "mentor" type. When he welded all the chassis, uprights, and suspension parts for NPTI's Nissan GTP cars he had to come in at night to do the welding because he didn't get along with anyone in the shop.

I love driving and racing cars. I love it so much I walked away from a $150K a year job to open my own shop building race cars. Unfortunately, I have a whole lot less money to spend on cars so the quality of my daily drivers suffer. I make do with a 240Z that has a shot clutch, broken front diff mount, and at least one bad rear shock. Yesterday at a Superbowl party a friend showed up driving a brand new 2006Porsche 997 Carrera 2S. A Porsche like this (actually a 997 GT3) is on my life list of "must haves." But, it will be decades before that happens. For this guy (the consumate ignorant driver) buying and driving a car like this is not a big deal. I was completely stunned that he bought this car. Here's our conversation as I'm looking over this wonderful vehicle: Friend: "Yeah, I was tired of the Maxima I had been driving for two years so I thought I would stop in at Newport Beach Porsche. This car was in the back of the showroom and stood out because of its blue color. I like blue." Me: "Why did you suddenly decide you wanted a 997?" F: "A what?" M: " A 911." F: "Oh, I liked the color and I wanted something sporty." M: "A $90,000 something sporty?" F: "Oh, it was more then that. It has every available option except the ceramic brakes. I think I should have got those too because the salesman said they are not dusty. I'm also having trouble with the clutch." M: "Really, what's wrong with it?" F: "Oh, its just hard to get the car going. I stall it a lot." M: "How are you starting off from a stop?" F: "I just take my foot off the clutch out and then press on the gas. Sometimes it stalls and other times it bucks and then goes." M: "That sounds funny. Does the engine sputter when you apply the throttle or is it hard to feel the engagement point on the cltuch?" F: "What's the engagement point?" M: "Have you ever driven a car with a stick before?" F: "No, but the salesman showed me how when he test drove the car for me..." Life is not fair....

Taylor Race Engineering in Plano, TX puts Quaife sequential 6 speeds behind L6s. Same basic setup as the 5 speed sequential I had. Figure about $12,000 all said and done.

Compression.

Based on your spring rate you heed to determine how much compression travel is left in the spring with the vehicle sitting on it. For a strut suspension on a car driven on the street you'll need about 3" of travel before coil bind. That means, at static ride height with two people in the car, full fuel, etc. a 6" spring shouldn't compress more then 1 to 1.5". For a typical street 240Z you have about 650 lbs on each corner with two people in the car, full fuel, etc. That means a 6" spring would need a rate of about 600 lb. in. to safely keep from coil binding. That's stiffer then any spring run on a racing 240Z.

Evan, Trust me, as a soldier if you screw up off base you not only have to deal with the civil authorites as a civilian you also have to deal with a really pissed off chain of command, from the base commander all the way down to your platoon seargent. "Permanent Latrine Orderly" is a term that comes to mind for those that screw up off base.

Go to http://www.burnsstainless.com and look at some of the work that Spoon does. Also, I've watched Andy Bondio, using a .040 tungsten and .030 filler, lay a .035 bead all the way around a 5" OD .039" thick stainless steel tube.

When the sparks from the front crossmember ignite the fuel in the fuel tank, the car is too low and probably unsafe.

If I had a CCW, this would be my "little friend": http://www.smith-wesson.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=11601&storeId=10001&productId=14810&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=24802&isFirearm=Y

Despite what I originally thought (and was told) the 280Z chassis probably isn't any wider. The bottoming issue with the halfshafts only occurs when the car is lower significantly (3" or more.)

The Supra manifold is made from industrial Cherry-Burrell Weld Ells. You can get them as schedule 40 aluminum, schedule 80 steel, or 304 stainless.

Team Rusty Old Datsun presented a tribute to Porsche drivers Mike Marshall and Harry after they beat TROD's ITS 240Z at the very first Open Track Challenge in 2002:

With a few exceptions (security guards, couriers, etc.), you can only openly carry a weapon when actively hunting or in a county with a total populaiton of less then 200,000 people.

Start your learning here: http://ag.ca.gov/firearms/forms/pdf/cfl.pdf And yes, if you had told him the loaded gun was locked in the glove box or if he suspected and searched, you would have violated California's Concealed Weapons laws. Weapons transported in a vehicle in the state must be unloaded and locked in a box (the glove box is specifically exempted from the definition of a "locked box".) If this was a first time weapons offense the officer has the option of treating it as a misdemeanor with a fine of $200. Otherwise, felony, jail time, and your right to keep and bear arms would have been lost for the rest of your life in California and all other states due to reciprocity. For more information check here: http://www.packing.org. It is very, very difficult to get a CCW in California and typically costs $500 and takes 6 months. You also have to "know" someone reputable as a reference who is also known by the county sheriff. Even then, the CCW is only legal in the county where issued. Take the gun out of your car and put it in the house. You are jeapordizing your plans on joining the military and the rest of your future.

Warnin' lights? We don need no stinkin' warnin' lights! I worry 'bout brake problem at da nex corner, rite now my foot is on de gas!