jmortensen

No option for "I'm just paying for it"? By the way you can't hit up the trade-ins for parts. They run sand through the engines to seize them and then crush them. What a stupid waste.

You need a bigger sig pic. That one is TINY!

How about eliminating just enough to make it profitable to run your factory in the US. The dumbass politicians are spending more money than they take in through taxation, and they erroneously assume that raising taxes will increase revenues. Especially in today's global environment, if the taxes get prohibitive it's easy to move somewhere where the taxes are more reasonable. If the corporate tax rates were lowered there would be more factories in the US. We're still the main consumer, and it does cost $$$ to ship all of this crap to the US so that we can buy it. There IS an incentive to have factories in the US, the disincentive is the cost to do business here. Sounds noble to me! Take a look at ANY public mass transit system in the country and you will find that it is not self-sustaining. Instead the costs are borne on the backs of the "evil car owner" through gasoline and registration taxes. The best possible outcome for any public transit system would be to scrap it and use the scrap materials money to help pay down some of the debt that that transit system is responsible for. If it were a good business model, I expect that you'd see private mass transit all over the place, but you don't. Turns out you can't buy land, build bridges, lay track, buy railcars, run them and pay for the maintenance for $2 per fare. So you're saying that a company SHOULDN'T lay off employees? Ever? Or just when YOU decide that it would be better if they didn't? Just trying to understand here, because I would say that a corporation has the right to layoff whomever they please whenever they please, and that a "good" corporation would do that whenever it is necessary to keep the business going. That is what business is all about after all. Not keeping employees working, but surviving and hopefully making money. Sounds to me like you've fallen victim to Michael Moore and his film Roger & Me. The more you look into Moore, the more you'll realize he is full of $^!#. Mixed emotions here. On the one hand, GM was held by the short and curlies by the UAW. On the other, they AGREED to cut their own legs out from under them. Kinda like the federal government is doing to all of us right now. Short term gain at long term expense. I've seen the assholes in the Machinist Union at Boeing do the same thing. Economy is in the crapper so these ****heads go on strike (and the terms of their contract were pretty damn generous already). Boeing later has to lay off employees and they bitch and moan about the financial hardship which they helped cause. Carl, if you don't think that unions are at all to blame, I would suggest that you just consider the time and effort needed to negotiate the agreements and then to implement them and fulfill the obligations. They are just as much of a bureaucratic nightmare as dealing with the govt taxes is; it's not just PAYING the taxes, it's trying to figure them out. Check out the original 1941 Ford/UAW agreement next to the 2007 version: http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/01/uaw-ford-master-contracts-2007-vs-1941.html Sure it did. They didn't start with 4 companies making the same product with a different badge on it. They started as separate entities that made separate products. As time went on they merged the products and platforms to cut costs. I would agree that they should have dropped the names, but I think for a long time the idea was that you had people, especially old people, who had developed brand loyalty and wanted a PONTIAC, not an Olds or a Buick that was the same damn car, but a PONTIAC. As time went on that strategy made less and less sense. Unprecedented and I personally believe illegal to screw the corporate bondholders in favor of the government and the UAW. Agreed in full here. This is a big load of crap that won't have but a temporary effect on business. The thing that I can't stand is that people think that it's a great idea to "save" money with govt programs like this, completely ignoring that they will have to pay for it later.

Nissan Comp used to be the place to get them. If you try asking for "lash pads" you may have better luck than "cam shims", assuming that's what you are after. If you're after cam tower shims then I'd try one of the aftermarket cam manufacturers like ISKY.

I haven't been in the tire business for close to 15 years but I did bust tires for a couple years and I have a different opinion than Arne. There is no way that you can put weights on the inside or center of the rim only and get a dynamic balance. A static balance is simply inferior and will never be as good as a dynamic balance where weights are used on the inside and outside of the rim. I've had several vehicles that were very sensitive to tire balance, including my Z which has very few rubber or poly bushings in it anymore, mostly heims joints. I also worked at a Porsche shop and those cars were very sensitive to balance issues as well. My boss there was kind of a hardass, but he would absolutely refuse to balance tires statically, and I didn't blame him a bit for it. I didn't want comebacks because some weenie didn't want weights on the outside of his wheels. In fact I really dislike rims that don't have an outer lip to put weights on. Yeah, you can stick them on, but the hammer on kind mount more securely, and I'm a function over form guy. The best system is the roller/cutter setups where they put xxx lbs of weight on the tire, spin it on a roller while weighted and then shave the tire so that it is true and THEN balance the tire. Those machines are hard to find because they're expensive, but that's the best tire balance method I've come across. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire_balance http://www.fourwheeler.com/techarticles/wheels/129_0210_4x4_truck_tire_truing_balancing_shaving/index.html

Do the 240 hub parts fit a 280 strut though? The caliper mount (integral to the strut housing) has to be inline too, which is why it is easier/safer to stick with 280 parts or 240 parts, and not mix and match.

I know the hubs have different offsets. Not sure if the caliper brackets have different offsets. I would think the easy thing to do is get some 280 hubs and use 280 brake parts.

Not sure what you're talking about, but there is no need for 1/2" thick steel on any part of the Z chassis.

I don't think they made a profit on cars in the last several decades. I think they made a profit on trucks, and cars were included at a loss to meet CAFE standards. The idea that a car company should HAVE TO make high mpg cars just doesn't make any sense at all. Why does a company that sells Corvettes, Camaros and trucks give a $^!# about mpg? And isn't it painfully clear that they never really did? Chevy Citation? Cavalier? Cadillac Cimarron? Aveo? These are crappy vehicles. Government Motors will be forced to make more crap and cut back on the vehicles that actually appeal to the public, and it will be their downfall. That's my prediction.

No...

Awesome! Thanks for that!

I think I was confused... http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=122484&highlight=brass+shifter+bushing

Sounds like that must have been fun to figure out. If anyone else has Bilsteins, just tell GC and they machine out the inside of the spring hat to allow room for the larger Bilstein strut for you and provide you with spacers to fit the strut shaft and the 5/8" monoball.

I'm trying to help a friend out with her Z, and I just can't seem to locate the thread I'm looking for. I seem to remember probably 5 or 6 years ago a thread on one of the forums about using a bushing found in the Help! parts that you find at any auto parts store to rebuild the door hinge pivots. Maybe I"m remembering incorrectly... does anyone else recall this or have any info that might help? Starting to think that a Chrysler door hinge bushing fits the Z shifter and that's what I'm remembering... :stupid: I did find this thread but it doesn't directly address my question. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24503&highlight=door+hinge+pin

Got it now. Thanks. Curious about these spacers. Were these the ones GC provided you with, or did you do something on your own. Mine fit with the parts that GC supplied (I told them I was installing Bilsteins). Yep. If he could clarify that would make the issue easier to resolve. If he had to add a spacer in to fix the condition that seems like a pretty clear indicator he was topping out the struts, which makes me think he sectioned the struts too far.

I think the original point was that the rear in particular could top out and cause a loose condition, and that happens when you section the rear to fit the strut insert. If you used a spacer in back, you wouldn't be likely to have that problem. For the record, 2" spacer in back on a 240 housing, 3" on a 280 housing in order to keep the housing lengths the same and still take your section out. I think you mean "changed by the same amount front and rear".

Did you section the rears to fit the Bilsteins, or did you section them in the front to fit the struts and use a spacer in the rear? I don't see why it would be appropriate NOT to use a spacer. Without a spacer the suspension will be in really different strut positions front and back. Maybe if you're only using a narrow range of the available travel that doesn't matter so much, but I still think you would want to use a spacer in the rear, because there comes a point with the right setup you could literally hit the body on the ground before you hit the bump stop. I haven't actually measured it and it would depend on tire height too, but a Bilstein in the rear with the strut sectioned to fit would be really close I think...

In Canada they have a treatment called Krown where they drill holes in the frame and body members and spray oil. It works pretty well by all accounts. I wouldn't suggest PACKING the rails with grease (if nothing else you'd add a couple hundred lbs to the car and it would run out of every seam/hole on a hot day), but I would spray oil. I fixed a lot of rust in my car and doing so showed me that you can't get in between panels, and that is where the water wicks into and starts the rust in the first place. I haven't decided yet whether I'll use Kroil or HHS2000. I like HHS 2000 because it turns greasy after a few minutes and wouldn't run everywhere, but Kroil is "the oil that creeps"... Here is Krown's website: http://www.krown.com/#default

The lowest grade gas that you can run with the optimum amount of timing for your particular motor will make the best power. Dan Baldwin proved this maybe 4 or 5 years ago with back to back dyno tests with 93 octane and race gas on his stroker with OER carbs. If you want to do some digging you might be able to find the dyno sheets.

Aren't their 3 piece C8 wheels forged?

The point of running a 5 or 5.25 inch backspace is so that you can fit a wider wheel under the car. I wouldn't do that with a 15x7 because as Carl said the wheel will be pretty far underneath the car. I'd do it with a 15x8 or 15x9. Lots of info at Hybrid Z on wheel fitment, how far you can go, etc. There was a guy by the name of Clifton running a 275mm tire on a 17 inch rim under stock fenders, and it rubbed the inside fender well, not the lip. Rolling the fenders as Carl suggests will give you more clearance. I've done it with a baseball bat, just be careful. There are now tools to do this too, Harbor Freight carries one that bolts to the axle and has a polyurethane roller. Panasports are heavy wheels. Unless you're in it for the classic look I'd suggest something lighter.

I don't do offset, but you can probably go 5.25" backspace with the coilovers you're installing. Measure to be sure, as it depends on the diameter of the wheel, but 0 offset is what you use when you have the bigger stock coils on there, and gaining room for wider tires is one of the benefits of the coilovers.

Cary has specifically addressed using it on the rear of a Z, and there are pictures related to that in the post I linked to below. I do recall him saying that you have to run more droop in the rear, but I think the idea is that if you have 4 inches of droop on a car with 500 in/lb springs where the sag is only an inch, you've got more than you need, and extra droop just allows extra roll. http://forums.hybridz.org/showpost.php?p=883058&postcount=57

Wayne Burnstein is quoted in John Coffey's strut sectioning post that I linked to earlier saying basically the same thing. If you section too much the strut tops out on rebound and can create some loose conditions at very inappropriate times. Since the rear struts are 2" longer in the 240, it makes sense that you should not section the strut to fit the insert, especially if you're using an aftermarket insert where the same one is used front and rear. This really limits the droop and also leads to the front and rear struts riding in much different parts of the travel (the rear will have to sit much higher on the strut and will therefore be more likely to top out). Oddly people have been using droop limiters with good success in the front and rear. I think part of it has to do with spring and shock valving rates, more spring and/or rebound valving means the strut is less likely to top out HARD and unload the rear tires. There is some info and some vid clips buried in this tech filled thread: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=130005 Agreed 100%.

I wouldn't mount the camber plate on top unless you put a reinforcing plate underneath. How to make a plate? Well, I suppose I'd get some 1/8" plate, cut the shape of the strut tower out 4 times, cut the pattern for the camber plate 4 times, drill holes to mount, paint and just put it on the bottom and the camber plate on top. As you can see in the thread I linked to, when asked GC said put it on bottom. GC used to send a big huge flat washer for the spring perch (by perch I mean the part that the sleeve sits on). When I did my last set I just found a tube with a close ID and cut it into 1/2" lengths and welded it to the tube. I think that looks nicer than the flat washer. Here's a thread on sectioning struts: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=103860 Camber plates and coilovers are well worth the money if you are racing, and the GC plates are the best you can buy.