Chino 240Z

Willow Springs is like a hidden race oasis just a couple hours from Los Angeles. It was our first track to adventure out onto and turned into one of our favorite places to spend a weekend. But no matter how many events we do at this track it seems to always give me a major case of the butterflies. Soon after the first session is behind you, the feeling turns into the most awesome euphoric feeling which should be illegal! For most drivers Willow Springs is an easy track to learn and drive but one of the most difficult tracks to perfect and drive the perfect line lap after lap. We have found that as we have improved our driving ability over a couple years the faster modern day cars have been easier to catch and pass. It is always a treat to see a new Mustang, Corvette, or Tuner car give way to a 36 year old Z car. I don't have the HP Mark's car unleashes, but on a cold day with fresh tires a 1:36's has been my best and Mrs. Chino followed it up with some 1:38's. Most modern car drivers are happy to break 1:40's. It must be something else to get down to 32's & 33's. It is amazing how hard it can be to just gain even a fraction of a second knowing you just drove the best line and lap you ever have. For me gains are always so tiny. Here is the track layout <a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e98/Chino240Z/WillowWideTrack.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a> Early years photo from looking down from the Balcony <a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e98/Chino240Z/OTRSept9-10075.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a> <a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e98/Chino240Z/OTRSept9-10076.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a> Todays view from the top of the track <a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e98/Chino240Z/Nov9Balcony3.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a> One of the nice things about this track is you can just about view the entire track from just about anywhere from the pits and parking lots. This can also be embarrassing as your missed shift, spin or goof can be heard by everyone watching. <a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e98/Chino240Z/100_4309-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a> As fun and exciting as this place can be, it also can be one of the worst days you will ever have if you ease your attention or overdrive your talent. This place you never want to loose respect for. <a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e98/Chino240Z/100_3792.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a> This driver and instructor were fine but the car suffered the pain. Found on the tracks web site, this is John Morton's view on a hot lap around Willow Springs. http://www.willowspringsraceway.com/trackinformation/hotlap.asp With a little patience and perseverance a prepared Z car can get around cars like these, but have to do everything you can to not get passed by the higher HP cars on the straights. <a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e98/Chino240Z/ACRA-10.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a> Historic Trans Am and Nascar stock cars often see 150 to 165 MPH on the straights. We have even seen Borris Said come play with the clubs and put on a show waxing cars around the track! <a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e98/Chino240Z/borriskids1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a> If you get a weekend to visit this place when a local club is running, stop by and have a look. Visitors are always welcome, and if you bring a helmet, there's a chance you could catch a session from an instructor or advance driver. The first Z driver we ever met at this track was one of the friendliest. He and his family made us feel welcome on that icy cold morning after the storm the night before. They just happened to squeeze their RV and trailer in next to us and block the freezing wind from our rig. We still enjoy cheering for Mark Belrose and his car that you can spot a mile away. Anyways thanks for the opportunity to expound a little about Willow Springs. Cheers. This coming weekend we are off to Buttonwillow near Bakersfield Ca. with SpeedVentures for a totally different type of track.

Oh yea, kick the roller bearing idea to the curb. I think several here would like to take a bearing puller tool to all previous owners who installed them before they had to try and remove one. :tapemouth There is a thread on this subject recently.

Don't know if I would use Centerforce on the Z, but had good results with one on a full size 1/2 ton truck. As for driveablity, we did this change early this summer and have no problem with slow driving and getting off the line sorta speaking (driving in the pits, pre-staging, parking lots, car shows and trailer loading, it's not a street car) We feel it has perfect clutch feel and the response from the light weight flywheel will give you a big grin! Fidanza 2-Piece, 10 lbs. Aluminum Flywheel # 143281-383 Clutchmasters FX400 Heavy Duty 6-Puck Sprung Ceramic Clutch # 06-029-HDCB6 Not that you should use the same, but I couldn't believe how driveable it is. I'm not sure why some people can't drive a clutch setup as this, but Mrs. Chino sure likes this setup too.

Yes, Mark has written several articles that I've enjoyed. To me he paints a great race picture and you recall comments and similar moments in your head while reading his work. Perhaps we can convince him to post a couple more? :classic:

Another Wal-Fart Store find.....$12.95 Now, if I can find the Yellow Version I'd paint & decal it and... well you get the picture.

We purchase race tires on line several times a year and Tire Rack has been one of the best to work with. We also use a local America's Tire shop in Chino Hills to mount up the new tires and also have the tires swapped around on the rims then balanced to try and get the most out of the tires. Helps even the wear on them as we do this about every couple track events. Usually cost $40 to $50 for a set of 4 mounted and balanced.

That is why it is always good to keep copies of old tickets.... so you can choose an nice ociffer to sign your latest fix it tickets and don't forget their badge number too! Just don't tell your spouse you did anything like forgery... it will be worse than the ticket itself! :dead: One of the funniest tint tickets was when the cop shined his cool mag light into the window on my silver 72 Mach I, it had mirror tint to match the paint... he shined his own eyes with that one, but after getting his sight back he gave me only couple minutes to remove it on the spot. He was mad... oooooo......He and his partner had a good laugh with that one after I scrapped it, till he got out of site, then we through a party on the spot and toasted a cheer to those crime busters!

The 6 officers I personally know all have very dark windows on their daily driver cars, and if you go past the Chino PD station you will notice 75% to 80% of the officers and employee cars all have tinted windows. Been pulled over many times and for moving violations I always roll the front windows down before they approach the car and nothing has ever been said. Other times were for vehicle modifications and window tint, then I just had one of the neighbor police goons sign off the fix-it ticket and mail it off the processing fees. The Firebird is getting fresh dark tint next month. The tint is about 14 yrs. old and is just now showing problems around the edges. Hope I can find quality tint like this again!? http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e98/Chino240Z/93Formula.jpg and the red color doesn't help much either. I say tint away! but some officers just can't deal with it. :stupid:

Geez John, How did you keep yours so nice. Wish mine would have removed that nice! I'm still finding pieces on the garage floor! :nervous:

OH GAWD I'd like to shoot the previous owner who put in a roller pilot bearing before I owned the car. Once the bearing had become worn enough, it just fell apart while removing it but the outer race of the bearing was determined not to come out. Every trick we could try, fire, ice, pry, grease & pressure trick, and finally after finding a strong enough metal demel bit to cut this hardened metal ring.... I won the battle! Sumbitch I'd rather replace 5 brass bearings over wrestling one broken roller bearing any day. Sorry, I still have a bad taste from that episode! They might be a better idea in theory, until you have to remove one that has gone bad. Good luck.

Rock Auto did the job for us with no problems too. Purchased a 280ZX master brake cylinder. I would use them again.

I think if you were making above 200HP or as they say 300HP you wouldn't need a regulator. Carbs feeding that build of a motor probably would use up the supply from the 4070 at start-up and idle too.

Hmm, well I guess you proved them wrong. You may need to look at the Webers to see which one is not holding back what that Carter is putting out. I don't think Carter's statement of no regulator required will be worth much once the car burns to the ground after going up in flames from fuel all over the header... that would not be good.

The pump may not need a pressure regulator, but the carbs may need it to keep from getting too much pressure. Sorry I'm not a Weber guy, but it is this way with SU carbs.

A Carter 4070 can push good volume of fuel at approx. 4psi, and this might be too much for your fuel bowl floats and gross jets to handle, you get fuel flooding out the carbs and this could be a fire hazard near the hot exhaust manifold. If you wish to use this or another after market electric fuel pump you may need to install a fuel pressure regulator after the pump and before your fuel line "T"s to both carbs. Holley and others make pressure regulators you can install inline and adjust to bring the pressure from the pump down to around to 2.5 to 3psi. This can be done by trial and error, keep cutting the fuel back until you stop flooding your carbs, or better yet purchase a fuel pressure gauge and install it off of the "T" of the pressure regulator so you can see the fuel pressure. Modified motors with larger cams, thirsty carbs, fuel line OD and running at high rpms may fuel starve a motor acting like it's cutting out, or Rev limiter is coming on... been there with that problem. My correction was with a 7 psi Carter pump and pressure regulator at 5- 5.25 psi. So you can see I was having just the opposite problem. Good Luck.

I don't know if I would even consider plastic anything, but would be lighter than metal. Any time invested to up grade something would probably be better to be accepted with various race groups. The 12Gal Fuel Safe worked great for me, I dealt with I/O Port Racing. I liked the square shape, easy to work with and once installed I don't think of it much. ATL & Fuel Safe are what you'll find most in race or track prepped cars. Good luck.

Yes, it will work. Adding a fuel cell means you must be planning some racing or track events, so you are up for some other modifications. Our fuel cell has 2 ports, one for venting and the other is for the fuel pump to draw from. We ran new steel braided lines to the front and do not use a fuel return like to the cell. The fuel pump is mounted next to the fuel cell and a fuel pressure regulator located up at the fire wall then it "T"s to a pressure guage and feeds both ZTherapy SU carbs. Once the pump purges the air out of the lines, pressure regulator set, carbs dialed in all has worked fine for years.

aaaaa...which video were you watching 280? salt lake flats? experimental car? porn music? :nervous: Zen zen, wakarimasen...

Yeah, I'm interested. I guess Cindy needs to work a couple extra days () cause my list keeps growing... May 9th OTR at Willow. June 8-10 Nasa at Buttonwillow (got camp reservations already and Cindy loves that track, but hate the down load class after each session-blah!) June 27th OTR at Willow, Maybe change to... June 30th Speedventures at Willow plus another set of Toyos, this time....

So far after trying them at 2 different tracks I like them alot. At Cal speedway which was a bigger and smoother track, everything felt solid, flat and no strange issues. We did almost loose a shock nut after it backed off and popped up on top of the motor. The loose shock caused the car to pull to oneside. I was lucky it happened during a full coarse yellow since some Vett was on fire, could have ended up into the wall at 125mph! Cindy's good eyes found the nut resting on the motor so we didn't loose any track time. Hunting for one of these nuts would have cost me one of my own. At WSIR the track is much different and I still liked the way the car felt. It was a cold day with 30mph winds that pushed the car around and made the handling little odd at times. But I did notice improvement in even temps and tire wear on all for corners. We also had 3 different people comment how well the car looked in the turns from behind. The day was cut short after one of us flat spotted a rear tire and burned a patch down to the cords. I think that one started from Cal. Speedway and we finished it off at Willow. I had also thought I could adjust the bias some and add it more rear braking... oops too much. We did the VW Rabbit Bilstein shock converesion with the F4-P30-0032-MO shocks and had them revalved for 300/100. Picked this it up from you guys talking at HybidZ. Had a few issues with shortening the new gland nuts, and then after loosing a shock nut I milled that one down so it would catch more threads into the nylon and not back off. It stayed in place at Willow no more issues. We went from 300F/275R springs to now 325F/300R. Use to have some Tokiko shocks and after removing them discovered they were bad, so it was time for a change. We did these changes at the same time we did the Arizona/Wilwood big brake conversion too (and by the way will put your nose to the windshield easily). So we have alot of change going on, almost too much to take in and understand. We both like the feel at California, but Cindy wasn't sold on the set up at Willow. She is more sensitive to change where as I adapt quicker and don't mind... I often need to figure out what she is feeling in the car and make changes according which in the long run helps me too. Go figure, guess it's the womans touch? Next we need to put the car on some scales and corner weight it, never had it balanced yet. We are new at this and need to do some more homework to see where a good starting point is. This shock change was not without it's little bugs to over come, but once you've done it, ain't no big thing. There is just not perfect instruction written on it you can follow, but that's what made it fun and now we have some new limits of the car to discover.