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Mongo's Z-Car Build


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  • 2 weeks later...
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Mongo stopped by with his Mona Lisa today. He kindly offered the keys, so BRAAP and I took it for a short trip. A little more tuning and this car is gonna rip. But... but... but... the intriguing part is the rear suspension. An unfamiliar car with a prototype suspension demands some discretion, ergo the drive was decidedly cautious. However, I will say this... the only Z's I've driven that ride this good and deliver this much power, squat excessively... and Johns car does NOT. Definitely keeping an eye on this Z's future.

 

Two thumbs John! :2thumbs:

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Hey skib! They are the wheels from the group buy. 9" front, 9.5" rear. I wasn't sure if I liked the 17" wheels, but tire availability forced the issue. I have decided "I like em"

Mongo

 

 

 

 

 

nice John!

 

 

how wide are thos rear wheels?

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As Ron mentioned, John brought the car over yesterday evening. Those wheels are GORGEOUS with those flares.

As Ronholio mentioned, once the carb fine tuning and ignition gets sorted, this car is going to be wicked quick! It is already quite fast as is, pulls very hard in the upper RPMs, feels like it is easily into the 12's as it sits. :burnout:

 

The rocker arm rear suspension is wicked cool to watch in action. Must get a video of that. I spent most of the ride in the passenger seat staring at the rear suspension doing its thing through the bumps and turns. Ride quality was quite nice. Very little if any squat under hard acceleration in the lower gears.

 

Very cool ride, thanks for bringing it over John. :2thumbs:

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Skib, the car will definitly be at the Fly-In. See you there?

 

Ron and Paul, I set the base timing to limp-mode by discoinnecting the SAW(it was advanced 3 Deg.), and checked the Float levels. The Secondary Float was set correctly, the Primary was very low!

 

So after reconnecting everything I took it for a quick spin.....HOLY S..T!! It ran pretty good before, but now it is Friggin SCARY!! WOOHOO!!

 

Frankly I don't know if I will be able Auto-X it. Things are happening must faster than I may be able to think. This is gonna be fun!

 

See you at the Fly-In!!

 

John

Edited by MONGO510
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I have some more pics of the car as it nears completion. Paint will be done next winter.

As I fine tune everything it is getting much more civilized. It has been a long time since I drove a really high performance car. The SRpowered 510 runs really good and is pretty fast, But the Z is in a whole different league!

This is probably the sweetest ride I will ever own!

 

Anyway here's some pics.

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post-1170-073655200 1279154898_thumb.jpg

post-1170-072500900 1279154927_thumb.jpg

post-1170-011917800 1279154945_thumb.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi, My name is Rick Kingsbury....I grew up with John.....I have been watching this project from a distance....It looks like a typical "rebuild" that he starts.

Step 1. Purchase somewhat fast sports car with the intent of rebuilding it to factory specs and performance levels.

Step 2. Drink Jim Jones cool aid / too much coffee or God knows what....gleem in eyes as they turn every color of the rainbow.

Step 3. You see the results in the pics above....I like the Holley....but I know it will go....a Gearcharger or twin turbo setup with direct injection has most likely already been ordered and he is just keeping quiet about it.

Damn nice project !

Edited by Calpump
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  • 3 weeks later...

Went for a ride with my son today.... He drove and I tuned the Megajolt Ignition Map. I added a bunch of advance in the cells that coincide with a 6th gear cruise and it seemed to run much cleaner with the extra advance. We then stopped by the homes of RTz and Braap and had them take a look at the map. I am sure glad I did.. They were able to write a map in minutes that I would have been afraid to run. The car now runs very much better and I gained enough knowledge to do minor tuning to it in the future, without fear of burning down the engine..COOL!

 

Ron and Paul... THANK YOU!!!

 

Mongo

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Mongo,

Thanks for coming out, was nice to see you and your son again. Sorry I wasn't able to help as much as I'd like, I promised my wife that I'd bring up some firewood and start a fire for her this afternoon, she wasn't feeling to well. Sounds like Ron was able to get the timing curve sorted out for you. :2thumbs:

 

LOVE those wheels on your car. That exhaust note and those wheels with those flares gives your car a very menacing, purposeful, supercar-eater appearance. :burnout:

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  • 2 weeks later...

We survived the 3 day test session in Packwood Wa. We had as many AX runs as we wanted and ran the cars till we were to tired to continue.

Sorting the Z-car was my primary goal and I think I have made much progress on the engine tune and sorting the suspension. To begin with, the car was hesitating and blubbering badly when the pedal was pushed to the floor. I made several runs while datalogging the Wideband and was able to make it run much better by leaning the mix. I finished the jetting session with several runs down the hiway, with my Son driving while I monitored the 02

readings. I continued to lean the primaries and secondarys until I had good full throttle #'s and was not so lean that I had surging or a lean cough.

The car is running much better and has had a substantial increase in power...WOOOHOOO!! I got 22MPG on the ride home!!

I did manage to break a Half-shaft U-Joint, but I had a few spares in the toolbox. The U-Joints were the originals that came with the car and were an unknown factor. I did not drop the clutch at any time and was making fairly easy starts with minimal wheel spin. I will have to consider my upgrade options in the future.

Now. as for the rear suspension.... It seems to work fairly well. We started the testing and found we had some pretty bad power understeer and trailing throttle over steer. There were no sudden surprises and the car stays pretty flat in the corners. we raised the front tire pressure and softened the rear shocks to try to gain a little better control of both ends of the car. The changes helped a lot but there is still work to be done.

I need to make the rear toe adjustable and put in a little more front caster. I may also need to soften the rear springs a bit. I will confer with some of the local experts and get their opinions on where to go with it. I think in the final configuration it is going to work very well. We will see.

The 510 ran great all weekend and it loves to run with a disabled wastegate! It was making 13-15 lbs of boost and could spin the tires at will.I may have to run the Drift event at "Smackdown" in 3 weeks.

The Pride of our Fleet, my little Datsun 310, ran and ran and ran!! This little car is a ball to drive and I will probably set her up as a dedicated "Cone Killer". We nicknamed her "Petunia" and she has a lot of class for a $100 car. She's a SweetHeart!!.

Here is a short clip of a practice run in the Z. LOL

 

 

 

Mongo

 

 

 

.

Edited by MONGO510
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Hey there mongo! My name is Trevor, and i work just up the street from you at Wilsonville Honda. I have driven by your place a couple times to see the progress on your new Z car, or try and gaze at your beautiful 510. (saw it up close at the datsun canby show this year, boy is that thing awesome) anyways, I saw you drive this beast past the dealership the other day and was wondering what might be under the hood once i noticed the 2 exhaust pipes comming out the back, and looky here, I was right! I was wondering if someday after work, or lunchtime i might get to come meet you and chat about your car? Ive got a 73 240z im doing coil overs

on right now, and need to mount my fender flares soon as well. Im sure I could learn a lot from you if youre interested in meeting up? or you could always stop by the dealership. Im sure parker would get a kick out of your car as well!

 

Thanks!

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  • 1 month later...

I went to the local drag strip last night and made 2 passes before I broke a U-Joint.

After breaking I removed the broken shaft and drove it home without the left side halfshaft.

 

1st pass was very slow at 9.45sec(73.98MPH)-(1/8mi.), 2.41sec.-60ft. (Wheel hop, missed shift)

 

2nd pass was 8.748sec(79.96MPH), 2.073sec(60ft) Easy launch, missed 3rd gear, rev limited to 6100RPM on 7200RPM cam.

 

3rd pass, broke on line. 8(

 

I think it will go much quicker if I wasn't afraid to launch it.

I will have to change to CV joints to find out!

 

Mongo

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