gramercyjam

Throw out bearing collar, the part the throw out bearing is pressed onto which is the part the clutch fork pushes on to move the throw out bearing back and forth. I can't recommend a clutch other than OEM, maybe an OEM turbo upgrade that would require a turbo flywheel too. I always had good luck with them. I currently run an itty bitty Tilton flywheel with 7.25" dual disk Quartermaster. Old school very high performance, light weight, racing only, super grabby, better-not-slip-it-if-you-want-it-to-last, super pain in the rear clutch if you aren't into changing out disks a couple or 3 times a year.

I've got a '73 and an '83. Took both completely apart to see what the difference was with the collapseable portions of the shafts. Either will spin endlessly. What stops them turning is the rack (or the tires hitting the chassis with really wide tires). I didn't like the rubber or the urethane couplers. They both flexed too much for me with the big tires. I built a custom setup using circle track race car U joints, bushings and tubing, but I have a race car.

That depends on how strong you are and how fast you are going. I like the way my car turns in with a lot of toe out, but the wheel gets yanked out of my hands that way so I just use a little, probably between 0 and 1/16. I can't tell you with any precision since I use the at-home string method for alignment and a lot of trial and error testing.

Glad to hear the setup is starting to work out for you. A backup car? Sounds like you are pros

If you are interested, see my album on what kind of job fixing that frame rail is.

Since it involves removing the spindle pins from the rear suspension, one meelion dollarz.

Gland nuts loose?

Prices like that takes the fun out of it for me. I doubt I would be "into" Z cars if it was like that back when.

Can't agree. I also saw resto-mods going for high 6 figures when stock examples were in mid 5 figures. It was the quality of the work and quality of the parts in the resto-mods that made them so desireable.

It looks about the same as mine. My e31 was shaved for flatness, and .020 in was taken from the bottom, .010 in on the top. Even after the milling, the head thickness measures within .002 of what the "How to modify" book says stock thickness is. Your pistons won't bang the head unless you run a head gasket that is thinner than 1 mm (Ok, you could probably go thinner even, but not very much since the pistons poke above the deck slightly at TDC. My ZX flat top pistons poke up about .025" on an L28 block/crank/rod combination). Maybe your machine shop is talking about the valves banging the pistons? New valves will not be sunk as deeply into the head as old stock valves and a head shave will bring them closer to the pistons, but the valves should clear the pistons OK with stock cam and flattops. With a .572" lift cam, my intakes just touched the flat tops, Anyway, to confirm if a head has been shaved, I would want to have the head thickness measurement or the cc measurement of the chambers. As far as compression ratios are concerned, what are you putting the head on? How much do you want to spend for gas? You may want to use that extra thick head gasket anyway if you are putting even an unshaven E31 head on an flat top L28 block. If you are building a turbo motor, forgetaboutit.

Must be a kilo of heroin in the spare tire.

Hey! I'm an engineer, but all this engineering stuff makes my brain hurt. I don't think I have anything heavy enough to hang to deflect the bar by 1" (well maybe if I could hang the suburban from it), but I think that measurement would be the rate.

Oh man! I barely have the patience to bead blast! Thats a good amount of work there. I partied in Port Aransas, beer, margaritas, and sunburn on the beach Sat/Sun , then went home, slept till noon Monday, got up and pulled my Z motor/tranny and tore them down.

Pancho, The 300# springs on my car are the spring rate (Eibach ERS, 7" springs in the front, 8" springs in the back). I run a 1" sway bar in the front that mounts like a stock sway bar so the dimensions are similar and a 7/8" in the back that bolts to floor just behind the seats in the area that slopes up. I don't know the brand, I got the bars second hand from Dennis Thoney's GT car, but they are pretty stout solid forged material. All bushings on my car are the poly type. I run my 16" wheels and tires extremely close to the struts (you can slip a piece of paper between the wheel and strut) and that affects wheel rates somewhat, giving me a little more stiffness than the typical race tire'd car. The stance feels like it handles pretty level and flat in all situations. Here's a pic of the car in an extreme braking/cornering situation at the end of a long straight with me braking way too late .....

I might have misread your initial post sopwith21. I was thinking you had already made the suspension changes and it still handled badly. If you havent bought those springs and shocks yet, you consider many dedicated racers use quite high spring rates, and the tokicos aren't valved for those extreme spring rates. Something to consider. I didn't know about the koni 8610 option when I bought my tokicos. I don't know anybody that has gotten the tokico illuminas custom vavled for high spring rates. I know there are 2 schools on which end to put the softer springs. Both schools seem to work so I imagine that once you have made your choice, you can tune either to work well. My suspension setup is in about it's 4th iteration since I started developing the car and if the past is any indicator of the future, it will continue to change as the development progesses. I have heard about 300# springs is about as high as you can go with them. I'm running tokicos with 300# springs on both ends (contrary to popular opinion it seems to work at the level I'm at. You can spend a small fortune on shocks and such, but I'm not sure I want to go there with this car) and I don't have any complaints so far but my experience with my setup is low speed autox and a little high speed time trial driving so ymmv. (I may have a little push with that setup but it has been so long since I had new sticky tires I can't really recall. ) I don't run a full cage and that makes a difference what springs you might use too. I know a very experienced driver with 400# springs on both ends and a full cage and he is very happy with his setup too.

It sounds like you need to soften the front. If your bushings are stock, do those. I've used both Gmachine and others. I really don't have a preference. They all work for me. Also, I would first try switching the rear springs to the front and if you got an extra $100, switch to a pair of 275# springs for the rear. See how that works for you and go from there. If the tokicos aren't blown, I would wait on the decision to replace them until you test the other changes. Also, Hoosiers start out very grippy but don't stay grippy long. At 80 laps, they could be gone. It is hard to judge that though if you haven't driven on a freshly scrubbed in set before. Check camber and toe in. That makes a big difference. You shouldn't have more than a couple of degrees of neg. camber to start with. Go from there to adjust for tire wear and grip. Also, I like 0 toe to a hair of toe in. It does affect turn-in significantly. I like a little toe out better, but the steering effort goes off the charts with grippy hoosiers. you can play with that to see what you like.

What do you mean it handles like a dog? What is it doing or not doing? Be as specific as possible. What's your alignment settings like? What tires? Their age? Tire pressures? LSD? What about sway bars? Are the tokicos blown? I'm not sure Tokicos can handle 250# springs very well. Most setups use the stiffer springs in the rear as well. I never tried it so I don't know how well it works in reverse.

Maybe I should start manufacturing reproductions - Euro Tail Lights

True about autox vs track. For me, the thing about track is the way higher cost and level of preparation required for tracking a car VS autox a car. Sort of like the difference between buying clothes at your local Walmart VS shopping in Beverly Hills.