johnc

For those that might be looking for a welding helmet: http://www.weldingsupply.com/cgi-bin/einstein.pl?Next::1:UNDEF:AND:close*out*green::::

What about an orignal carb like a Quadrajet?

Only the 1969s had the 4 bolt. The 1967s - block casting number 3892657 - and the 1968s - block casting number 3914678- were all two bolt mains, but the 3914678 casting did have the large journals. EDIT: Forgot to list the 1969 block casting numbers: 3932386, 3956618 and 3970010.

As always, it depends on what "stock" parts you're talking about. If you're talking about the few and far between 1969 Z28 4 bolt main 302s then, yes, you can safely go to 7,500 without much concern. Those 302s came with: 4 bolt nodular iron mains Forged, tufftrided large journal cranks Full foating piston pins 3/8" rod cap bolts Shot peened rods 11 to 1 compression impact extruded pistons Cylinder head (casting number 3927186) with 2.02 intake and 1.6 exhaust valves 30/30 cam There have been rumors that the 1969 302 made 350hp at 7,000 rpm but, again, its just one of those rumors.

Yup, someone bondo'd over existing seams and the bondo has cracked. The crack occured either from rust underneath (bad) or the crack let water in and now the rust is starting (less bad). It doesn't appear to be anything urgent but it will need to be stripped and fixed at some point. It looks like there's a lot of bondo on the rocker panel in the first picture so my guess is that they bondo'd over rust.

I'm always so scared of something like this happening when I'm working on a customer car. John must feel like crap.

After looking at the material specs for 304L tube, I would never build a safety structure out of it. 30ksi yield is less then even 1010 crapo steel. Also, the only seamless (non-welded) 304L in the dimensions and thicknesses that I could find is military spec 8504 and when I asked for a price, the suppliers said, "How many tons are you ordering?" As you can see, its a little slow this afternoon...

Why yes you could! Figure about $6.00 to $10.00 per foot for 1.5" OD .120 wall tubing. You'll need about 50' of the stuff for a simple cage and you'll need .080 thick stainless sheet for the mounting points. Figure $300 to $500 for the materials. Then you need to bend it, which can really suck with stainless because the stuff is tough and work hardens quickly. If you pay someone to bend it, figure $25 per bend (if you're lucky) and you'll need about 10 bends. That's another $250. Most bending shops have a minimum setup fee of $300 if you provide them with a template or a CNC program. When it comes time to weld it you need to purge the tubing with Argon to keep from sugaring the inside of the weld. You'll also need to use 308L filler and make sure everything is really clean. Again, if you pay someone to do the welding figure at least $1,500. My guess would be a simple 6 point 304L stainless cage with door bars would be $2,100 to $2,300 minimum if you had someone do it.

But they never, ever, not in a million years, even in a lab, are constant. The precursor statement to a lazy man's arguement is: "All else being equal." Let's say the 6 cylinder engine is designed to run Miller Cycle. Even with more cylinders and a larger displacement it will most likely get better fuel mileage then an "all other factors being constant" 4 cylinder. BMW's eta 6 cylinder engines were designed to run with large throttle openings (to reduce pumping losses) at low rpms. BMW couldn't get a 4 cylinder to work with this type of tuning because of the lack of low end torque.

What kind of power the bottom end can take depends more on the machining, assembly, and how its run then on the basic design and metallurgy. With forged pistons, custom rods (Carillo), dry sump, custom crankshaft, and other mods the Electramotive guys ran 600+ horsepower in race trim and around 700 hp in qualifying trim. Now, don't just list your mods and expect us to be able to give you a sensible answer. You'll have to do some testing to come up with a reasonable limit based on the quality of your machinist, how well the parts are assembled, and how you use the engine (ie: road racing is much harder on an engine then drag racing and drag racing is harder on an engine then street driving.)

I dunno, maybe... Ground Control? http://www.ground-control.com/

For those of you in Virginia: http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/news.asp?ID=117

Busy making and selling regualr CF hoods for the Z. We've got the splash done from the Cobra R hood and we just need a break in the work schedule to make the mold. This time of year is very busy and "Stan, Stan, the Carbon Fiber Man" is busy making parts for Formula Atlantic and IRL cars.

The gear display is an option on the Quaife sequential transmission that I had int he Z. FYI... its on eBay here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7949020385 Check your e-mail James. Hood will be ready on Thursday!

Speedo? Speedo? We dun need no stinkin' speedo!

It depends. Do a search on R180 and R200, which are the two different rear ends available in the 280Z and 280ZX.

But, since Steve and Ian were (are?) running bias ply racing slicks, their alignment settings (in particular, camber) are very different then what folks running DOT-R tires need. When Bryan Lampe and I ran bias ply Hoosier racing slicks on his ITS 240Z for OTC 2002 when went from about 3 degrees negative in front to, at most, 1 degree negative. Ultimately you need a tire pyrometer to determine what camber settings you need. When I went from 245s to 275s on my car I actually reduced camber from negative 3.2 in front to negative 2.75 based on tire temps.

1/8" to 3/16" toe out on my car but I made no effort to change whatever Ackerman was built into the front suspension. In the small amounts we are talking about, the worst thing Ackerman can do is scrub tiny bits of speed in a corner. Since 240Zs are consiered fairly powerful road race cars, this little bit of scrub is not an issue.

OK, this is going to be a long reply with a big quote included from Mark Ortiz (a chassis/suspension consultant that is a regualr contributor to Racecar Engineering magazine). Terry is right about contact patch area remaining relatively constant and he's also right about tire construction itself affecting contact patch area and shape. There are a couple things that can contribute to reduced braking distances when tire camber is increased (remember though, we are talking about fairly extreme camber angles (+3 degrees negative). 1. Directional instability. Increasing a tires camber changes the contact patch shape and changes the pressure distribution across the tire carcass when the tire is not in a corner. This pressure distribution change causes the tire to be extremely sensitive to road imperfections. The tire will tend to defelct or follow any imperfection in the road and variations in load transfer also induce changes in the tire's slip angle - thus affection directional stability. 2. Contact patch shape. By running the tire on the inside of the tread we are changing the contact patch shape from wide and narrow to thinner and longer. This affects tire grip. Read the following:

We are elitist snobs! Why don't people understand that and why is it though of as a negative? We expect the following from our members: 1. Intelligence 2. Thoughtfulness 3. Courtesy 4. Enthusiasim I've read through the responses above and none struck me as rude. This isn't kindergarden and we're not here to: 1. Reinforce someone's positive image of themselves. 2. Hold their hands through the entire process. 3. Answer questions that have no possible answer. 4. Answer questions that have been answered MANY times before. If a first time poster (not directly picking on you MCTomTom) expects a positive, caring, comforting, non-threatening reply to a post that violates one of the basic rules of the site they are living in a Sesame Street world. Dan just spent a lot of volunteer time and effort making sure the search function works properly. I STILL use it a lot when answering answerable questions on this site. HybridZ is a reference site. Think of it as a big Wiki that luckily is almost real time interactive.

Search, search, search...

If you left a mild steel exhaust unpainted you would quickly get a light coat of surface rust but I've got a 2.5" mild steel exhaust system lying around that was on my 240Z from 1995 to 2002 and, except for the surface rust, its fine. A couple hours with a Scothbrite pad and some WD40 and it would look new. FYI... I'm in SoCal.

Most of these are old and most are not true. The winner was dedunked on Mythbusters during last year's season.

Borla. I've run them on all my 240Zs for years and never had a problem. Yes, the can be a little loud, especially the XR-1 Raceline I ran. A 3" exhaust would be the best for your NA motor but I wouldn't spend the money on a stainless system unless you're driving in the snow belt.

I saw it happen at a local car show here in Southern California and in the California Speedway infield during a NASCAR race. In both cases the cars were highly modified and were driven past the the BAR folks to a parking space. Now, I have no way of knowing if the smog checks ever actually occurred and maybe those guys were just BSing me. But, to have it happen twice?