boltmans

They pulled the new V710's not the V700's for tread splice issues. The V710's are the Hoosier look-alikes. My experience is when shaved they are quick espicially the first couple laps, but my belief is that Kumho has developed some quality issues. People used to claim that they would get 20+ heat cycles without any problems and now enough people have had problems that an article gets written in GRM, that's a little fishy. I am also a little sour because I tried contacting Kumho to volunteer my tire data and see if it was something I did, and they responded a month later with a name and number to call and after 10+ polite voice mails still no contact. I made it clear that I wasn't looking for freebies or anything, I was just after an understanding of the root cause of the problem, I guess that is the engineer in me... That being said my tire choice for this year is to stick with the Hoosiers and live with the cost/durability. If cost were no object, I would get a set of the Goodyear DOT's and upgrade to 15"wheels to try out the Avon's. If I were to go back to one of the cheaper tires I would be trying shaved Toyo RA1's.

I haven't tried the Toyo's yet, but I did run both Kumho Ecsta V700s and Hoosier R3S03's (no longer available) last year during my rookie season and here is a brief dissertation of what I thought of them. I started with full tread depth heat cycled Ecsta's on a gamble that it would rain or be cold during drivers school, well it was sunny and hot, needless to say they were abused. I ran them two more weekends abusing them worse trying to find correct tire pressures. I then bought a set of shaved and heat cycled V700's. Dropped 1.5 seconds off my times without a setup change. After the 6th heat cycle on two tires, the tread splices started to split (one completely across the tread about 1/4" deep) and the the worse of the two also chunked :mad: . These tires were not abused, I had tire temps and pressures well within the range that Kumho recommended. They warn that this would happen to Full tread depth tires if you abuse them, so I am not sure why it happened to not shaved non-abused tires. Grassroots magazine did an article on this and says its OK as long as you keep an eye on it, but I don't trust that since I can't watch the tire splice as I am driving. Me and my car are worth too much to make that gamble, especially when the price for shaving and heat cycling is same as the price for the 03's. Then switched to Hoosier 03's for last two races. dropped another 0.8 off my times. I was still adjusting the setup and getting used to the tires at the end of the season so I don't have any comments about number of heat cycles yet. Since the 03's are no longer available, not sure how good that information is as the rumor is that the '04s are better all the way around. Take this info FWIW since it was my rookie season, Also I still have my original tires that have 20+ heat cycles that I use as backups/intermediates. Bret 72 ITS 240Z 73 240Z

I have a dash with no cracks that I removed from a '72 (build date 11/71). I was after other parts, and the car just happen to have a perfect dash. I don't recall if that will fit a earlier car or not. If you are interested let me know. Anyone know what a '72 dash with no cracks is worth? Bret '72 ITS 240Z '73 240Z

David, Is there an internally oiled camshaft for the 240 that is "ITS" approved? If so, let me know which year so I can get one. As far as an opinion on internal, external, or both, I have run all three and each one works as long as every thing is clean. My personal preference is to not run both because the cylinder head has only one single small drainback in the rear of the head and putting that much extra oil in the head will probably force oil to drain back down the timing chain robbing power. I don't have any proof that this will occur, but if you take a look at other cylinder heads through today's current production units, there is significantly more drainback capacity on smaller heads. Bret 72 ITS 240 73 240

I had the same thing happen to me with my '73 during a track day at Gingerman. I had the factory electric pump and the mechanical pump so I don't think that just adding a electric pump will help unless you put some sort of reservoir after the pump. it is just easier to take extra fuel and add it during the day. The other choice would be to add a fuel cell with foam and an electric pump. That's what I have in my 72 ITS 240 and I have come off track with less than half a gallon in the cell and the engine never skipped a beat. Bret

Has anyone ever split an oil filter after plugging the oil filter bypass in the block? I see a lot of people warn against it, but Iwant to know if anyone has actually done it. I am planning to plug the bypass in the all new ITS engine I am building since the previous owner didn't plug it and neglected to clean the engine internals properly so the engine ate itself from the inside out. Note to all the engine builders, make sure every square millimeter of the engine is spotless before putting anything together.

Sorry to be another person to rain on your parade, but if I were you I would look for a used 280 engine and run that and save your $$ for the big engine. You can probably find one in good shape for $200 or less and put the rest towards the new engine. You could even freshen up the 280 with rings/bearing/timing kit amd probably stay within you budgetary limits. As you said your self, there is no replacement for displacement. If you are stuck on the 240 engine, I would be surprised if you can do all you want to do for <$1000 unless you have a full machine shop in your back pocket, and your getting the pistons for free. Also if you realy want to bore 0.120 over on an L24, you better find a "tuned" torque plate when you do the honing and make sure you use a fresh headgasket with the torque plate, not just a slab of steel. The cylinder walls are going to get pretty thin so your bore distortions are going to get much worse. This will give you terrible oil control and increased blow-by since the rings won't seal as well, which will rob your power, possibly enough to get you back to the power level you started with or even lower. Another way to get yourself some torque is to just put in a much lower gear 3.9 or 4.11 R200 rear end. It won't increase the available engine torque, but will increase the available torque at the wheels, but you will trade off top speed. You are probably going to need to upgrade the rear anyway for the chevy engine. I believe that the production R180 rear end is marginal for the V-8 swaps, but maybe someone else can elaborate on that.

I recently picked up a 72 ITS 240 which is in dire need of new shocks. I currently have Tokico illuminas with ground-control coilovers where at least one has no damping at all. The problem that I have is that the gland nuts were loose so almost all paint had been worn off the strut body, so I don't know what part numbers I have. I thought this would be a good opportunity to upgrade to something better for my track only car. Also, where is a good place to buy the shocks from? Also, what type of oil do you use in the strut tubes? Bret 72' ITS 240Z 73' 240Z