fl327 Posted October 25, 2001 Share Posted October 25, 2001 who knows, if i was jtr would i have beaten the ones that got away? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted October 25, 2001 Share Posted October 25, 2001 All the above buddy... I'm 28 now but I used to be a very avid street racer. Since I've slightly grown up and been through too many busts and black marks on my driving record. I live in Discovery Bay and used to do alot of racing in Stockton and alot of racing on Marsh Creek (1989-1999. My Chevy orange 70 El Camino used to be pretty well known in the area and was one of the quickest daily driven cars back in the day. You wouldn't believe how many "11 second" blown 5.0's Ive slaughterd in my high 12 second ride. All you have to do is leave with the tires hooked up and get half a car and the rookies just light the tiresup. Race over, thank you very much. Give me a call at work, 925 833 9871. Ask for Jason. I really like to physically talk to other Hybridz members, just ask DavyZ, Pparaska, or Pete Wolbach. Get in touch with me, I work at a performance car parts store and know all the local kids and older racers, I hear about all the local street racing and usually know which nights to go t and which one's are gonna be high school guys doing donuts on old back roads... ring me anytime(soon!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpeedRacer Posted October 28, 2001 Share Posted October 28, 2001 Always suprised me how much larger the 240Z-280Z is than the '90+ 300ZX TT. It may be a lot heavier but it sure won't push as much air. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpeedRacer Posted October 28, 2001 Share Posted October 28, 2001 Well, that didn't work so try this URL http://www.ofoto.com/PhotoView.jsp?UV=936732686719_32559444203&US=0&collid=50754495103&photoid=30754495103 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted October 28, 2001 Share Posted October 28, 2001 I've driven both cars, a 94 300zx tt and my 240z with just a stock 350. My car would drill my brothers old car off the line, no question at all, not even close. But, after about 120 (or much sooner), I suspect the TT would be all over me like a jimmy cover and from there on to its top speed forget it. Granted my Z doesn't have the anywhere near enough ponies for that sort of party, but I think we're missing the point (at least in my view). As Mike said, apples and oranges. The 240z with a V8 even with a fuely engine is no where near as plush and comfortable as a 300ZXTT. The ZXTT was a high end sports car using the best technology it had at the time, making it extremely plush and quiet, yet always a favorite by testers (motor trend, car and driver etc). It wasn't as quick as the cars in its class (the last gen Rx7 was much quicker), but it was the car that the testers felt they could live day to day with. The 240Z was a 'affordable' sports car, it didn't use the highest technology of even its day, and if you want to be brutally honest, it was a cheaply built car. I still love it, but I understand what it was and as such I don't try to compare it to later luxury sports cars as IMHO that would be rediculous to even try and compare them. Different cars, different target market, different approach altogether in the two cars. If you want to say the 240zv8 is quicker, I agree, if you say its faster, well maybe, but you'll be in a fight when it gets real fast due to bad wind resistence. Which car would you rather cruise across the country in? Umm, I'll take the 300zxtt. Regards, D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MegaShaft_2000 Posted October 28, 2001 Share Posted October 28, 2001 I agree with almost everything you said except this: quote: Originally posted by lonehdrider: It wasn't as quick as the cars in its class (the last gen Rx7 was much quicker), but it was the car that the testers felt they could live day to day with. The 300ZXTT usually came out on top on 0-60 and 1/4 mile tests. Most magazines rated the ZTT at a 13.8 1/4 mile while the RX-7 did it in around 14 or 14.1. But I agree about the Z32 vs. 240z. [ October 28, 2001: Message edited by: MegaShaft_2000 ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fl327 Posted October 29, 2001 Share Posted October 29, 2001 300zxtt, big entry price and smog 240z , can be had cheap and no smog... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted October 29, 2001 Share Posted October 29, 2001 I realy enjoyed reading this discussion and have one observation to make. As a private pilot you learn to calculate the center of gravity every time you fly, the addtion on just one passenger in a small aircraft can upset the handling so I assume the same is true for cars also. I have no practical experience yet, but for these reasons I am looking for a Ford 5.0 as I beleive it's lighter and I will try to install it as far back and as low as I can get it. PS if any one in the NJ area has a sound 5.0 I'm interested. I'm sure I will be posting more often as a skin my knuckes on this project. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted October 29, 2001 Share Posted October 29, 2001 Mike makes a good observation here. Variations in CG and PMOI best describe vehicles which are truly free to move about in all three dimensions. Our cars only experience basically two of the three dimensions, both of which rely entirely on friction between the road and tires to effect traction (starting/stopping) and changes in direction. IMO all other factors which effect handling are secondary and subordinate to the friction coefficient. Changes in fuel load, and passengers effect overall handling and any discussion should include these variables. Blanket statements about improved handling based on the one factor of engine position oversimplifies the handling equation. Handling when... where... how fast? In one breath we talk about rear end traction based on weight shift to the rear, then just as quickly excessive steering effort caused by front end weight. Yet both of these subjects are effected by spring rates, alignment geometry, tire compounds, rim widths/offsets and tire widths to a greater degree than any amount of antisipated weight shift pluses or minuses realized by the mere shifting of the motor forward or backward by a maximum of 2.75 inches! Early 240's weigh less on the nose with a Scarab position engine, than 280's do with a JTR install, yet the assumption is that the Scarab suffers from greater steering effort, all the while every other factor of steering gear ratios and geometry remain the same! I simply take issue with statements of fact made without consideration for the the big picture. Reliance on the promises made in the JTR manual have caused at least on individual I know to blindly make assumptions about handling superiority based purely on engine position, which almost cost him more than bent sheet metal. I do not dispute that from a sheer engineering standpoint, equal weight balance SHOULD in certain circumstances and uses, be advantageous to improved handling. My question is: Does the actual percentage of improvement live up to the proclamations and statements made in the JTR manual? Is the difference that colorable? On one hand we readily acknowledge that there are many variables based on everything from differences in driver weights to actual curb weight differences between the several production years which entail greater total weights than the amount of weight shift the engine position provides, yet still the belief survives that this single change in engine position will effect all of these cars in the same way. WHY? This book goes to some lengths to extol the virtues of offsetting the drivers weight, yet competely ignores the loss of oil pan clearance! A fact which is never mentioned even once. For me this is a need to know parameter which any person anticipating the use of the JTR mounts should have been made aware of by the author. Compressed oil pans can be seen in several places in the book, yet no mention of how they came to be that way is discussed. The issue isn't whether any one of us does or does not find the loss of clearance a problem, that decision is up to each person on an individual basis, but the fact that this loss of clearance is virtually unavoidable, should have been made clear up front to the readers of this book. We are all capable of making informed decisions, so long as all the facts are presented for comparison. Dropping the engine lower into the chassis also causes a greater disparity in total driveline inclination. Valuable rear wheel horsepower is lost making up for the additional degrees of change in the driveline. How many? The rule of thumb is one HP per degree of angularity. The importance of maintaining a parallel crankshaft angulation to the differential pinion is a given which is never mentioned. Dropping the motor lower in the chassis and trying to satisfy the angulation requirement causes even greater loss of clearance for the exhaust and bellhousing, not to mention the transmission oil pans if so equipped. The chances to add such information to this manual have been many, as it has been re-issued at least six times that I know of. In short this book is the opinion of one person and not necessarily an unimpeachable source of information regarding V8 Z conversion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted October 29, 2001 Share Posted October 29, 2001 mikeholmes, not trying to start a ford/chevy debate but you might consider an LT1 with aluminum heads or an all aluminum LS1 since the Chevy swap is more common and therefore more of the bugs are ironed out. I guess I can't say for sure what the weight differences are though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikelly Posted October 29, 2001 Share Posted October 29, 2001 I'd do the Ford swap over the LS1... Cost is the major factor. Chris Cloude just e-mailed me yesterday and one of his first comments was how cheap stuff is for his newly acquired early 90s Mustank. I think you could get much more bang for your buck. And quite frankly, I'm not a huge fan of those modular motors...and lets not forget about Optisparc... On to the other post above: JTR is a manual based on what Mike Knell THINKS is the best way to install a V8. If you take the one comment he makes, and exclude everything else, His statement of moving the weight further back and lower should be spot on. Every Supercar or Race car today employes the same technique. Now, add the issue of ground clearance and you have a potential problem. Now, I only know about one JTR install, Mine. I drove mine from Central Va. to Washington DC once per week all summer, 2000. Not once did I drag my 7 quart 8 inch pan. I drove to car shows on weekends, cruised parking lots with speed bumps in them, and never, not once did I scrape an oil pan. I didn't have coil overs at the time, and I was using MSA springs and Koni oil filled struts. I also ran 15 inch rims and tires. At one point someone on this board asked about pan clearance and I went outside and measured mine in the garage and I think I came up with 6 inches of clearance at that point. Might have been more. Now, I've driven several V8 Moded Zs, and I will tell you this: Steering a Scarab/Hooker style setup is different. The feel is different, the push from the rear is different and the cars have LESS tracion. The added rearward transfer of weight in the JTR install helps. It gives overall better weight distribution, and that is fact. That simply can't be disputed. What it boiles down to is this: If your DRIVING STYLE better lends itself to oversteer, light rear vehicles, then the Scarab swap and its much more simplified install is for you. The current trend in some racing classes is sort of going back to a oversteer, looser setup. Some of the young guns in several of the series are experimenting with this. However, If your driving style requires a more neutral balance and distribution of weight, You would be better served to Go the JTR route and maybe buy a Canton Shallow RR oil Pan (As I'll be doing since I've now got coil overs). To me, and I've driven a BUNCH of fast cars, including a few open wheel cars, there is simply no comparison, but my training and time behind the wheel is better suited to a 50/50 weight balanced car. Mike kelly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLKMGK Posted October 29, 2001 Share Posted October 29, 2001 Hrm, oil pans... I'm pretty sure that if you use th eCorvette pan mentiond in h ebook that clearance isn't an issue. However I used an extended sump Moroso pan. It hangs a noticable amount below th ecrossmmber and while this worries me it's yet to ever scrape. Speed bumps, railroad tracks, a few pothols - it's been fine. The one thing I fear most though is a road being paved with one of those damned manhole covers sticking up! I've spoken to tons of people who've had problems with those to inculde one Mustang that had it's entire rear ripped from the car when a lift bar snagged one! That would kill my pan for sure. Right now it's not got a scratch on it. Ford swap? Yeah, MUCH cheaper if you're doing EFI. Look at the grief I'm going through for manifolds - the Ford guys have got them all over the place. Throttle bodies are much cheaper too! Some of the prices for SBC EFI stuff is insane - nearly $1K for an intake?! And with no fuel rails or TB?! Brand new T56 can be had for less with the Ford too which maks no sense to me (sigh). IF I were doing it again the Ford swap would be REALLY hard to resist. 351W, aluminum everything, EFI, T56, and I think it it would be reasonably priced. Perhaps Mike Knell will wake up to this and start selling motor mounts for the swap? I think that's the one thing missing to really make the Ford swap take off... How's the 351W shortblock compare to the SBC weight wise? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pparaska Posted October 29, 2001 Share Posted October 29, 2001 Kim, I agree that the two drawbacks of the JTR are important and should be spelled out in the manual. 1)oilpan and auto trans pan clearance and, 2)driveline angles issues. I've addressed both of these issues in my conversion. For one, I'm using and old style 6 qt Corvette pan (PN 359942, discontinued). It's about 7" deep, vs 7-5/8" for the standard SB pan of that era. Every little bit helps. Since this pan could be even shallower, is discontinued, and some Z's will be used for hard cornering at speed, I'd suggest anyone doing a JTR swap to consider the Canton 6 qt baffled and trap doord 6.5" pan. Do it before you have your exhaust done too. There's a 5 qt version, PN 360866 for the old corvettes (63-79 also). I wonder if it too is shallow, like the 6 qt pan. 2) The driveline issue is important. I had to leave out the frame-to-crossmember 1/2" spacers, adjust the trans tail height, and raise the back of the R200 by about a 1/2". This got me to 3 degrees of u-joint angle. If I loose 3 hp, I'd never know it. It's within the range of acceptable angles for the power I'm delivering, according to one driveline specialist source. Yes these are issues, and they should be mentioned in the JTR manual, I agree. But they seem to have fairly simple remedies (unless one insists on 1 degree u-joint angles). Since the internal rail manual trans conversions really require a JTR type placement, I think we must keep this all in perspective. Not everyone wants an automatic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLKMGK Posted October 29, 2001 Share Posted October 29, 2001 4.6 uses a T45. I'd go DOHC before I'd touch the SOHC. The SOHC can be made faster but the same effort into a Cobra yields a monster. 8k shifts anyone? Ask me nicely, I know someone that's sitting on a couple of DOHC Lincoln Navigator 5.4s Seems they came into the dealer making a litle noise and Ford directed that they be swapped. The engines were supposed to be tossed but were intercepted before hitting the trash can (thank goodness). Or at least that's the story I was told. (shrug) That's a BIG motor though and the DOHC 4.6 would proably be a pretty tight fit as it is... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpeedRacer Posted October 30, 2001 Share Posted October 30, 2001 Idaho Z Car - Since you seem to be hung up on oil pan clearance I figured I'd go measure the darn thing. Mind you, although I use Eibach springs that lower the car about 1", however I have 15" rims and fairly tall tires: P205R70X15 front and P225R70X15 rear. So, sitting on my level garage floor the front crossmember is 5.875" above the ground. The 5 quart oilpan sits a scant .5" lower than that. Doesn't look like much to worry about to me. If you want additional oil capacity there is lots of room in the front part of the sump and even some room on either side for growth. Anybody else measure theirs? If you don't mind I would like to clear up another small item. Yes, you are correct that moving the engine back a couple of inches may only change the weight on the rear tires 55-60 lbs. IF it is between the axles. With the Scarab conversion quite a bit of that weight is in front of the front axle which causes a cantilever effect. Therefore the effective weight differential is quite a bit more than your estimated 55-60 lbs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted October 30, 2001 Share Posted October 30, 2001 Speed, Your choice of words is very appropriate. Getting hung up on the oil pan is no fun. I also measured my oil pan/crossmember clearance today. Years ago I lowered the car an inch for better handling. My final clearance under the these two items is 4.25 inches. The headers are an inch lower than this. (3.25 inches) This car is on the deck. In this application there simply isn't room to loose another inch or so of what clearance is left. If I had simply bought the JTR book as so many have, and followed it to a "T", I would have REAL clearance problems now. The essence of my last post is that the clearance question should have been fairly outlined and submitted in such a way as to allow a basically intelligent, thinking, but unlearned new reader of this manual to make an informed decision regarding this issue. This thread began as an inquiry from a person seeking advice about these very issues. Each of us forms our own opinion as we go along, but we form these opinions on the basis of experience. Something the novice simply doesn't have until they get their feet wet. This car enjoys a low CG all the while keeping the pan up out of harms way. I remind you that the Chevy oil pump pickup to oil pan clearance is approximately one half inch. Even a small amount of compression of the pan into the oil pickup tube could cause oil starvation to occur. Important? I think so. I was just comparing the factory advertised curb weights for the 240 and the 280. 2355 lbs and 2875 lbs respectively, a 520 lbs difference. You are right, my car will NEVER have as much front axle weight as a 280 regardless of engine position. It follows that the rear end also will NEVER have as much weight on it as a 280 regardless of engine position. At a final conversion weight of 2440, I submit that extremely accurate balancing of this car can be easily had by the addition of weight in advantageous areas. Weight added to the spare tire well would have the same cantalevering effect as the weight over the nose. Simply moving the battery to the rear (mine weight 48 lbs) would more than solve any nose weight the car currently carries. Simpler yet would be to bolt down an addition 60 lbs of lead shot to the same area in the rear. (2500 lbs curb weight total) Even with the additional weight, the car would still weigh less than a converted 280 by at least 200 lbs. My point is that there are simply too many variables to make blanket statements regarding final handling results based strictly on engine position! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fl327 Posted October 30, 2001 Share Posted October 30, 2001 i read in some 5.0 magazine that you can get a 4.6 sohc with t5 long block for 2500... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted November 7, 2001 Share Posted November 7, 2001 the problem is not the V8 Z's handling.The problem is that a V8 Z is classified in "E Mod" by SCCA rules which means it can weigh as little as 1500 lbs. and is indexed by a numerical factor as such, which means you will NOT be competitve. I use(qualifying compound) road racing slicks on my Z, and while my car is always the fastest "street" car out there, I PAX in the lower 1/3 of the field. I'm sometimes as much as 10 seconds faster than some cars. as a side note I took the wifes bone stock 86 300zx2+2 slush box out once and placed 3rd overall. so it cant be my driving. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted November 7, 2001 Share Posted November 7, 2001 So the question is, what did all this debate accomplish? Not much, people still have they're opinions and we can debate it from here to eternity, but its up to each drivers own preference. Some drivers like cars that handle on the tight side, others like it loose, it comes down to personel preference. I used JTR and like it, others are fine with scarab. Personally I have to think the engineers in the group that want to get the weight more in the middle have a reason for that. Not to say others don't, but some of the finest handling cars around are mid engined. Must be a reason apart from just racing bodies rules. In the end, use what you like, I'll lose no sleep either way. Regards, Lone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted November 7, 2001 Share Posted November 7, 2001 Lone, I cannot agree with you that this discussion did not accomplish much. I hope you are not suggesting that such discussions must somehow bear tangible, quantifiable results in order to justify the energies spent by everyone who contributed to this or any particular thread. From the volume of personal email I have received it is clear to me that this thread has been one of the most thought provoking and introspective topics which has occured on this board in a while. Many who emailed me, did not contribute to the discussion openly. A fact which bothers me somewhat because they made it clear that they recognize that Scarab is in the minority on this board, and as a result they choose not to contribute for fear of ridicule or worse. I hate to see anyone who has a Scarab mounted Chevrolet V8 in their Z car feel this way. On the other hand, opinions HAVE been changed, or at least some degree of tolerance and understanding has been gained with those who had already formed an opinion on the subject. If this is all that this discussion accomplished, then IMO it was worth the effort. I learned many other good things about this subject which I hope we can discuss in the future. Sincerely, Kim @ Idaho Z Car Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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