jmortensen

You should be able to just drill the hole out. If the spacers are that bad, you might replace them with bumpsteer spacers out of a circle track catalog or rod end spacers like this: http://www.pitstopusa.com/detail.aspx?ID=6647 and this: http://www.ballisticfabrication.com/Standard-Spacers_c_85.html I'm guessing it was my video you saw. Thanks! The car should be MUUUUUUCH faster next time around, but who knows when I'll actually get to drive it again.

Pull the cover, measure the backlash the right way, with a magnetic base dial indicator measuring on the ring gear. Then you don't have to wonder about it.

The only time you have downforce on the pinion is during decel, and it's nowhere near as much as you have upforce during acceleration. 100% of acceleration torque goes through the pinion. If you're downshifting and using the brakes, what would you figure, maybe 15% of your decel torque comes through the pinion. Not to mention the poly Energy Suspension mount everyone uses is an interlocking style so it can't come apart. The mount on bottom is dead weight IMO.

What are you referring to as "bump steer"? Bump steer is toe change as the suspension goes through its travel. Bump steer spacers don't really get rid of it. If you want some options for bump steer you can read this: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=103886 As far as the camber goes it sounds like maybe something is bent up front. I would suggest loosening up the front crossmember and seeing if you can shift it to the right at all. I don't think you'll get enough movement to even up the front end, but you might get it a little bit closer. You can change camber with the AZC control arms, but you need to be CAREFUL with the tie rods. When you make the control arm longer you need to make the tie rod on that side longer to keep the tires pointing straight. There is a limit to how far out you can screw the tie rod and still be safe. The general rule of thumb is 1.5x the thread diameter needs to be inside the tie rod. In this case the thread diameter is 14mm, so you want 21mm of threads inside the tie rod. If you're not sure how much is in there, take the tie rod off, measure how much there is to the nut, and then you can use the nut as a reference point when you adjust the control arm so that you don't screw the tie rod out too far. A camber plate offers more adjustment (safely) than either the control arm or the eccentric bushing.

Have you checked your floor mats? I ended up taking the floor mats out and then the carpet out after mine got jammed open enough times and in enough difficult situations. Problem solved (for me).

Not familiar with the Crane setup, but the MSD has a module built into it. So you run the two wires from the hall sensor in the distributor straight to the MSD wires (listed as "Ford pickup wires" if I recall), and that's it. If Crane doesn't have a module built in, then you should be able to wire it up using the E12-80 module on your ZX distributor. I don't think there is too much of a difference in which module is used, but since the modules do fail it's better to have one in the system than two.

Is it just me or did it seem like there was a ridiculously long delay between the race and the broadcast last year on Speed? Maybe I caught the re-runs and not the actual race...

If you're referring to the POS gasket that comes with their 6-1 header, yes I had problems with it. I actually bought the header from Arizona Z Car, but it's the same header, and yeah, I drove the car once and it cracked. Never had any trouble with a graphite gasket.

My main suggestion is do not use a "header" gasket. The paper ones suck. Use a Nissan or other foil and graphite manifold gasket. For the other guy, use a long extension with a U-joint and socket. You'll have to get in some fairly uncomfortable positions and there will likely be a little pain along with stuffing your hands in tight spaces. It's not that big a deal though.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/09/02/clunker_legislation_98131.html

Don't know but don't lose your reaction disk while you're messing with it.

It is also possible to have leaks in between the cylinders where you pump the brakes and the fluid gets transferred from one reservoir to another, or also the rear seal could fail and pump the fluid into the booster.

If you hear air coming from the booster when you step on the brakes then it's likely that you have a hole in the diaphragm of the booster. That sounds like it is IN ADDITION to the bad master cylinder by your descriptions so far. Do the master cylinder test, ignore the booster for the moment. If the cylinder is bad replace it.

Do the master cylinder test. See if you can pump the brakes and get a pedal and then keep pushing hard and hold the pressure. If that works then try pumping again to get a pedal and then putting a very light pressure on the brake pedal. If it slowly sinks to the ground, then your master is bad. If you stomp on the pedal and it goes down faster than it does with light pressure, then it's probably a leak in the system somewhere.

81-83 trans has taller gearing and is less well suited to the 3.54 rear gears. The earlier 5 speeds were basically the same as the 4 speeds but had a shorter overdrive, and they were better suited to the 3.54, although they still had a big gap between 2nd and 3rd gear. The 280ZX 5 speed N/A came with a 3.90, and there was a reason for it. I would go with 3.90 or 4.11 gears for a modded street car. You can get a 4.11 R180 pretty easily out of a 240SX. They require an easy modification described here: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=114798

The 77 trans has a big 2-3 gap, so you may find that you have a bit of a bog when you hit 3rd if you can't stay in the best part of the power band. Your stroker may make up for that too. The rest of it sounds good. Changing bearings and seals shouldn't affect any clearances in the diff. Bearings are usually made to such a high degree of precision that there isn't any problem. That said, finding a shop for R diffs is difficult. I know John Coffey has recommended Unitrax in SoCal, might be worth shipping it off to have it done right. 3.90 R180 is a rare diff. You could probably trade a ITS or vintage racer for a 4.11 and a couple hundred bucks if you wanted...

Bad module? If you have MSD, why would you want to use the E12-80 anyway?

Yes. Download the Factory Service Manual (FSM) from www.carfiche.com. It walks you through the whole process. The one thing you'll need is a way to torque the main shaft nut. I thought my ex-boss had a pretty good solution there. He cut his socket in half and welded in a section of tube so that he had a 2' long socket. Then you just put it on a regular torque wrench...

There are some O-rings in there that seal the speedo drive. I'm sure that it is covered in the FSM which you should be able to download from www.carfiche.com. The speedo drive would be the same all the way through the 280ZX (excluding the turbo).

Oh, I thought your original description was your description of how it ran. Here's another issue to ponder. Do you have a 4 speed with 3.36 rear gears? If so, a higher strung motor with a narrower powerband is going to be tougher to drive. If you have a ZX 5 speed with 3.90s or 4.11s it will be much easier to keep the engine in the rpm range where it is happy. And another: What kind of induction? If you're running SUs the design really keeps the velocity up in the intake manifold and makes a bigger cam easier to deal with than with triples. Were it my choice to make regardless of the carbs I'd buy someone else's cam that was a bit larger than the Stage IV. Your mileage may vary.

You DROVE it. What do YOU think? As for my opinion, I daily drove and autoxed a very similar cam for years with a light flywheel and triple carbs, something a lot of people seem to think is impossible. The L6 has enough rotating mass in the crank that they aren't that hard to get off the line, even with a light flywheel. Stalling my car was a once a year if that sort of thing. You'd have to brainfart big time to screw up that bad. I think people tend to undercam their Z motors as a general rule. I have seen several people buy the Stage III and then get rid of it because it wasn't big enough for their purpose (autox or track days). On the other hand I have seen one person, and only one, get extremely good results with the Stage III. I don't know if this is attributable to the headwork that he did, his super lightweight clutch setup, or his intake setup or what, but the guy does fantastic work and somehow got the Stage III cam to work well past the rpm range Schneider says it's good for: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=145256 Excluding that extraordinary result, my experience watching others run the smaller Schneider cams has led me to believe that they're not big enough. I'd run the cam you have. If I had kept my L series I would have gone bigger, I was looking for something in the .520/300 range or so for autox/track days but no longer driving on the street.

No. If it were leaking through a fitting it would leak faster when you step on the brake pedal faster. What happens is the primary seals in the master don't seal against the bore anymore when they are relaxed or there is little pedal pressure. When you stomp on the pedal the fluid pressure pushes the seal against the bore and you get a hard pedal.

If you pump it up and then put a light pressure on the pedal does it hold pressure or slowly sink to the floor? If it sinks, then the master is bad. I've seen "brand new" rebuilt masters that were bad, so don't rule that out because it is new to you.

Agreed. Green is pretty hardcore, but red you can take back off without heat.

I always use red loctite. You could also safety wire them. I haven't done that but have seen it done.