johnc

Reving the engine with the clutch pushed in does the exact same thing.

When you can get 100hp per liter out of a normally aspirated N42 head why go to the expense of the OS Giken?

The 600+ horsepower numbers thrown around are for their turbocharged L28 motors run on the 280 and 300ZXs.

Having gone through a lot of private weapons training with a lot a of peace officers and military, the "gun nut" types are few and mostly shunned by the professionals. One thing to be aware of in this day and age; if you shoot someone in self-defense and the cops, DA, and courts all say it was completely justified and your in the clear, you can almost guaranntee you'll be the defendent in a civil wrongful death lawsuit. There are lawyers that specialize in this type of litigation and they solicit relatives of the criminal you killed to save you or your family's life. The intent is to get your homeowner or renter's insurance company to settle. It will cost you a minimum of $20,000 in legal expenses, lost work time, increased insurance premiums (your homeowners insurance company will cancel you in a second and very few others will want to pick you up), and other expenses. This information was explained to me by a number of local cops, a county District Attorney, and a criminal defense attorney.

Jim Thompson at Sunbelt has a lot of the head information and computer models. John Knepp was the engine builder for Electromotive and he probably has everything or has given it to Caldwell at CDI in Vista. Bill Savage at SP Engineering in Vista did a lot of the chassis fabrication for the NPTI cars and he probably knows how to get in touch with Knepp.

Camber plates and offset LCA bushings. If its a dual purpose street/track car then run poly offset LCA bushings. If its a track car, run Aluminum/Delrin. Start with 2.5 degrees negative for the track and use the offset LCA bushings to get about 1/16" toe-in (adjust the front LCA bushings to get the toe). Be sure to string the car after putting in the LCA bushings to be sure it tracks straight.

Naaahhh, I was just harassing you Turbo guys. I drove a 1976 Porsche 911 Turbo for a few weeks back in 1985. The car was a hoot! Wish I still had it.

Just a pricing suggestion. Penske and Ohlins are the best racing shocks available to us mortals. Their technology is usually a couple years ahead of everyone else because of their involvement with F1, F3, WRC, NASCAR, CART, IRL, Score, ALMS, WC, GrandAm, etc. Penske shock parts are readily available in racing catalogs (Pegasus, Racer Parts Wholesale, Speedway Engineering, BSR, Behrents, and many others) and they have hundreds of specific applications through their various distributors (including struts for 240/260/280Zs). I've got a set of Penske 8760 triples on my 240. I think that Penske's are perceived to be unavailble because they don't advertise in SCC or some of the other "Street Scene" import magazines. That's funny because a great many of the latest 1/4 mile import records are being set with cars running Penske shocks. Penske only focuses on racing. I'm absolutely not saying that Tein's are bad shocks or anything. I'm just suggesting that pricing comparable to a set of Penske's might be a marketing mistake if you're trying to sell to racers.

Are you building a show car or a performance car? You'll get lots of props from us but why are you upset that the chrome and wax group didn't give you a pat on the back? You're short on the Armor All quotient as far as they are concerned. FYI... my car was there too and I didn't even bother to enter it into any class. But at the end of the day, when it came time to load it on the trailer, there were a couple dozen folks hanging around waiting for me to start it up. That's worth more then a simple trophy.

Motec M48 - $5,000 including all the sensors, ignition module extender, coils, switches, triggers, and connectors. Engine wiring harness and adapters to chassis harness - $800.00.

A set of double adjustable Penskes are about $5,000 complete. I think you guys might want to drop your price a bit.

Camber, camber, camber, camber. Did I say camber? Fiddling with anti-roll bars may make you feel better and you might see a little improvement with a bigger front bar. But, you're still only using 1/2 of your tires (the outside half) to accelerate out of the corner. BTW, do you have some kind of limited slip? EDIT: Just say the Quaife in your sig. Quaife's like a soft rear suspension so adding a rear anti-roll bar might exacerbate your current situation.

Both tires will have basically the same amount of rubber in contact with the road. One will have a deep contact patch and the other will have a wide contact patch. For drag racing, deeper is better.

You also really need to look at how tall the tire is. A 26" tall tire will make it difficult to lower the car much. Going from a 225/50-15 to a 275/45-16 tire forced me to raise my car 1" in front and 1 1/4" in back to get the camber curves correct.

Using what you have, try softening the rear Tokico's to 2, adjust front toe out to 3/16", and trail brake a lot to get the car to rotate early. You need better tires (as staated above) and you need lots more camber. You're stuck with a situation where the rear tires have to get back to vertical (from positive camber) before you can get power down.

For all you drag racers out there, a horsepower tip from Gary Penn the head of General Motors Performance Parts (as stated in the latest issue of Circle Track Magazine): "At the drag strip, we actualy run our [race] engines out of oil at 1,000 feet and run it with no oil pressure across the finish line at 7,500 rpm. The pump has it all in the top of the engine at 1,000 feet because we only run 3 quarts of 0W-10 in the motor. That frees up a few horsepower because nothing is going through the pump, it just cavitates. Plus there is no oil in the crankcase so you don't have any windage. Even though the engine is running for about two seconds with no oil pressure, we really aren't seeing any undue wear. That's a testament to the quality of synthetic oils out there today..." Either you drag racers are sadistic bastards or this guy is trying to sell a lot more GM performance parts.

The NAPA auuto parts store near my house recently had a sale on a combo: A 3.5 ton floor jack that was under 5" lowered and had a 28" reach. 4 7-ton jackstands that extend to 30". All for $160.00.

I can walk across the alley from my shop and get AN/MS military hardware that is much better then the supposedly grade 8 stuff sold at hardware sores. I just need SOMEONE to give me the diameter (most likely 5/16") and the grip length (the exact length of the unthreaded portion - remember, no threads in the fastened parts). I'll also get hardened washers and half-height nylock nuts. I'm running the exact same type of fasteners connecting my custom driveshaft to my R180 flange. EDIT: never mind.

FYI... here's a high horsepower Supra that competed at the OTC: http://www.otcsupra.com/index.aspx. They dialed back a lot of power so the car would last through 7 events and be driveable on a road course.

tt350, I might have missed it in this huge thread, and I'm not trying to be a dick, but have you raced wheel-to-wheel on a racetrack before?

You might want to get an engine builder involved in your project. Its very common on a new head design to end up with a port/combustion chamber combination that is not much better then the stock parts. You've also got some work to do to figure out the cam drive, intake/exhaust manifolds, coolant flow, etc. Good luck.

Mike, Shoveling 20 tons of gravel? Let's see, each shovel full will hold, maybe, 20 pounds. 20 * 2000 = 40,000 / 20 = 2,000 shovel fulls. Assuming perfection you could toss a shovel full in 2 seconds so, now we're a 2,000 * 2 = 4,000 seconds. 4,000 / 60 = 66 2/3 minutes.t So, if it took you over two hours you're obviously a slacker...

I can get AN/MS bolts, washers, and nylock nuts. Diameter should be 5/16" (.3125) with a grip length of about 7/8" (.875). You'll have to measure yourself and verify. Let me know.

A 240Z tub even with a 12 or more point roll cage will fatigue crack in a number of places in short order with the loads you plan on introducing into the 30+ year old chassis. ITS road racers with "only" 200 horsepower and 8 point cages deal with fatigue cracks all the time. Fundamental parts of the 240Z chassis will have to be significantly altered if you choose to use the tub. Things like the front crossmember, front frame rails, radiator core support, firewall, trans tunnel, rear bulkhead, all the strut towers, rear diff mounting structures, and rear subframe will have to reinforced or redesigned and built from scratch. It will be much cheaper and safer in the long run to build a silouette 240Z similar to the SCCA GT cars. Build a tube frame and hang a fiberglass 240Z body on it. If its done well people will still be able to identify with it and you'll have a vehicle that you can trust on a race track. To keep it street registered you can transfer the firewall, the dash, and the inner panels of the two front strut towers to the tube chassis. Remeber, when Dodge built its GTS-R Vipers they determined the stock Viper chassis couldn't handle the 800hp and 800 ft. lbs. of torque their engines were developing and that chassis design is 30 years newer then the Zs and designed from scratch to handle 500 ft. lbs. of torque. Please keep us informed on your progress. Despite some of the skepticism in this thread we all want you to succeed!

The triple Webers/Mikunis look great, sound great, and make good power. But they tend to be a pain in the ass to get setup correctly. FI, particularly the programmable setups like SDS, Haltech, Electromotive, DTA, and Motec are easier to setup and will ultimately produce more horsepower and torque.