jmortensen

There are plenty of guys who would fix that, just takes a whole lot of time and patience and a welder. I think your car has been in an accident and damaged the frame behind the TC rod mount. Mine had the same damage. I was able to fix most of that with Bad Dog's subframe connectors. The subframe connector part is kind of superfluous but I was wanting connectors anyway. It did come with the section behind the TC bucket, that would be the important part for you. I think they have replacment frame rails that don't connect the subframes that would help in this situation too: www.baddogparts.com You might have to have a frame shop realign the TC mount if it's bent and you want it all perfectly aligned. On my car the area behind the mount was bent, but the TC bucket was still in it's proper spot. Regardless, I just cut that off and made my own mount, but I tore into that part of the chassis specifically for the purpose of changing the geometry there. If modification is not your deal, you can buy stock replacement frame rails and all the rest and it takes more know how than cash to finish the repair yourself IMO. You can really go pretty crazy with this stuff if you want. www.hybridz.org is probably the place to look since a lot of those guys strengthen the frame to take the torque of their V8 conversions. Here's some links to my repairs and similar other repairs: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=106974 http://alteredz.com/structuralmods.htm http://www.datsunzparts.com/netscape/summary.htm http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=105755 http://www.musclecarsoforlando.100megs25.com/jeff/JeffsZ/JeffsZ.htm

I'd pull the boots off and do a test drive to verify that this is really your problem. Popping out of gear can be caused by other issues too. Synchros or weak springs on the detent balls can cause this, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it can also happen when the main shaft nut backs off, which is a very common problem in the Nissan 5 speed.

What on the caliper are you planning to lube with said grease? There are no moving parts on the 280Z calipers except the pistons. If you had a 280ZX with a floating caliper then you'd have some stuff to lube, the pins and the area where the caliper slides, but on a 280Z??? I use that same Sta-Lube grease on the back of the brake pads to prevent squealing and it works great. Just coat the back of the pad with a light coat, and put a tiny bit on the side of the pad where it rides on the caliper and that will do it. Picked up that trick when I worked for Volvo, and the Porsche shop I worked for did the same thing. Works much better than that blue sticky spray crap.

Check on hybridz.org. Members there have done Mustang racks which look like they're not such a good fit, but the Subaru WRX rack is really a close fit. Not quite bolt in but I don't think you'll find anything closer for p/s on a Z. A search should bring it up.

If that was the dogleg patch you were looking for, it is actually made by Tabco and you can order direct from them. http://www.tabcobodyparts.com/ FWIW I ordered them about a year ago. They said they were backordered for 2 months, parts showed up in 2 weeks. Free shipping too.

I haven't been using SU's for 6 or 7 years, but those don't look right. The air cleaners look like ones I've seen on the smaller 510 SU's. And the oil caps on top look strange too. You might want to measure the opening in the manifold side of the SU and see how large they are. Someone here will know for sure but I think the stock Z car SU's are 42mm.

While its true that Norm wasn't just running a stock engine with SU's to get his 12's I don't think that has much bearing on the value of the camshaft by itself. An engine functions best when the parts used match each other, this is true. Triples and stock compression with a big cam are not optimal. NOT OPTIMAL. That does NOT mean that by themselves they aren't an improvement over stock performance. I've provided a link to a video of my Z with 8.5:1 compression, the .490/280 cam, 44 Mikunis, 2.5" exhaust. This is a "bad" combo because the compression is generally considered too low for all of the rest of it. Sure the engine makes MORE power with the 11:1 compression and the improved porting it has now, but that engine was for all intensive purposes pretty comparable to your standard L28E as far as the longblock was concerned. You tell me if it doesn't seem like an improvement over stock. And I can say that the thing that made the biggest improvement in power was the triples. Going from the SU's to triples was amazing. Then I tuned them!!! This video was shot about a week after I put the carbs on, and they weren't tuned for crap FWIW. http://videos.streetfire.net/search/autox/0/3B512F0F-8AD1-4DAB-BD8E-0AE1768FB642.htm I see so many people buying cams that are too small that it drives me crazy. I have yet to see the post saying "I bought a cam that is too large for my SU'd or triple carbed Z" on a Z car website, yet I've seen literally hundreds of posts over the years warning not to get too large a cam. I can speculate that this attitude comes from 2 places: when the FI cars came about there must have been a bunch of people putting in cams that are too large for the crappy stock FI to handle (which isn't very big at all), and I think this is a carryover from the V8 world as well.

I ran SU's with a .490/280 cam pretty close to the Stage IV and it did fine on the street, it was a lot better than the previous smaller cam that I had, which was better than the puny stocker. Of course I also did it with no vacuum advance on my ZX distributor.... ;-)

I think the straight one is from a later car. Wonder if yours got hit on that side at some point and that part was replaced???

You can get 1" OD round 5/8" threaded tube ends from Coleman Racing for about $4 a piece. Cut the end of the control arm off, weld in the tube end, and that's it. I haven't done it in this particular application, but my front control arms are very similarly modified. It shouldn't be too hard (famous last words). Not nearly as hard as getting some Teflon or Brass and turning it to the size of the bushings. Then again, I have a welder and I don't have a lathe. Maybe if you have it the other way around... Also on the inner end the G Machine bushings are a lot better than poly, so that's another way to keep the machining to a minimum.

This might help: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=111523

This is the main problem with poly bushings IMHO. Even if you lube the crap out of them, they still have a lot of stiction. My plan was to use poly on the rear control arms when I was plannin the rebuild of my rear suspension. After feeling how much stiction is there, I started down another path: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=106457 I'm now thinking of welding in threaded tube ends for the outside end and using rod ends, still working on the bushing holder for the inside. The monoballs will need constant attention so this is probably not the best idea for a street car. One trick that tube80z shared with me is to drill a hole in the control arm and install Zerks to lube the poly bushings. Works for the outers really nicely, but doesn't work on the inners because they aren't sealed all the way around so the grease just squirts out the side. Probably better to be able to put more grease in there later on anyway, even if it doesn't force itself into the bushing. Costs about $10 to buy an assortment of Zerk fittings from Harbor Freight BTW. If yours is a street car you probably won't notice the stiction if you install the Zerks, and on the plus side the poly will last damn near forever. For my autoxer I just felt that it was too much resistance.

I have it on a delayed start for tomorrow at 11:00 AM. I can see it when I click the link, but apparently nobody else can. Just keep me in mind tomorrow around lunch time...

Sorry if this is considered spam, I just think it might be useful to someone and I haven't had the best luck trying on the classifieds of the internet boards. I get a gift card every month, and I'm pretty much done buying tools for myself for a while. I'm going to start putting them up on ebay, hopefully this will help finance my project. Usually I'll have one for $200 or $250, this time it was small for only $60. Anyway, if you're buying tools you can bid on this card and save some coin. If anyone is planning on making a large purchase in about a month I should have another one, hopefully more like $200. If you're going to order out of the catalog this thing doesn't even have to be shipped. I can just email the numbers on the back of the card and you give them to the operator on the phone. If you're going into the store I'll mail it to you and you just swipe it at the register. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=4468183364

I ordered my rear bar about a year ago and it was silver. Lime green looks great on Kawasakis, but not under a Z... I thought there was a fuel filter or pump or something mounted to the uprights on the 280s that had to be dealt with to use the rear mounted bar. Also, aren't the 280's mounts for the rear bar lower and further away from the frame? I thought that was the case, and that this makes them less prone to binding like the front mounted MSA bar for the 240, which binds really really badly or at least it did on my car.

If you roll the fenders that will give you something like 1/2" more clearance. The flare is still going to stick off the body 2-3 inches right? So you'll be able to fit a tire under there that will only be 2 or 3 inches inside the lip of the flare. Again, the real purpose of the flares is to fit the widest tire possible. In order to do that you have to cut the fender lips off and remove all the obstruction, then weld the wheel wells shut again. Otherwise the flares are just there for (crappy) looks.

For a 280 they're going to be basically all the same as far as design. Thicknesses will vary and the thicker the swaybar the less body roll you'll have. This does make a difference in the way it rides. Also, the really thick ones over 1" thick tend to tear up the front frame rails when you push the car really hard, so you might want to factor that into your decision. Generally speaking, bigger front and rear = less body roll, better camber control. Larger front bar = More understeer Larger rear bar = More oversteer MSA makes bars, Suspension Techniques make bars, Addco, and I think that's about it these days. I had a tough time finding any adjustable bars so I ended up making mine adjustable which was a big project, but that's more of a racing thing than a street car thing. I'm sure if you have stock bars with worn out bushings you'd feel a nice improvement just from replacing the bushings. Then you could step up to the larger bars if you still wanted more.

My impression is that nobody wants the turbines anyway.

Sounds like you're looking to make a cross buff: http://www.fastpts.com/hazel-doc/sahome2.html#cross Another thing to consider is how much time do you want to put into those wheels? Don't you have some 6 spoke ZX wheels and some slotted mags? Why bother with the turbines?

When I built up my last head I used the Schneider springs and my machinst and I were talking about acceptable seat pressures and the Schneiders were actually pretty reasonable. There is another cam manufacturer that uses some SERIOUSLY heavy springs. I think it's ISKY, but not positive, might have been Crane, but anyway we were looking at different specs and the Schneiders were the much better choice for seat pressures. I'm not a big fan of their cams, but the Schneider springs seemed like a pretty good option at the time. I think something else happened though. I've never seen anyone with bent valves blame the springs. I think because you'd have to keep accelerating through the valve float to get them to start crashing into pistons, which is fairly impossible. I'd suggest you have your machinist figure out what happened and don't let us tell you what it was via the internet. If I had to take a swag for fun, I'd guess that the dowel in the cam sheared or came out, but that is a guess only.

OHC = Over Head Cam, which is different than your typical 1970 car which had pushrods instead, just clarifying.

I don't think you need to pull the fender off. Just mark it and cut the part of the fender off that is going to be covered by the flare. In the back this requires welding the fenders back together again because the wheel wells are a major structural component. You can just stick them on over the stock fenders, but that's more for form than function. I'm not so sure about the form either though, because if you run tires that don't rub on the stock fenders then it looks like the tire is 3" inside the edge of the fender. Not good form IMHO. To attach I'd use nutserts (a nut you can pop-rivet into a piece of sheet metal) and stainless cap screws.

OK, here's some pretty CONCRETE proof that the Illuminas do have some spring action to them. My car is on a rotisserie right now, and I've been working on the front swaybar. Here are some pics of the car as it happens to sit right this second: The view from the garage door. You can see that the car is upside down, and the front suspension is on, but there are no front springs. Another shot of the strut, you can see that it is partially extended, despite the fact that the weight of the strut, the hub, the rotor, control arm, sway bar, TC rod, and endlinks are all on top of the strut: It's actually only about 1/2 way through the travel with all that weight on it, again, this means that the strut is LIFTING that weight. If you put a Koni or other non gas charged strut on there it would slowly settle to the bottomed position. The gas charge is what is working like a spring and holding this stuff up: This is just a shot of my front swaybar setup I just got done with. I'm kinda proud of this one, so I figured I'd show it off. All rod ends. The swaybar is mounted to the frame on a rod end, and the endlinks are rod ends. Had to do it about 4 different ways to get the end links to stop binding. Now it's bind free and WAY less stiction than poly bushings...

The Illuminas do have the same effect. I haven't measured the amount of pressure they have, but the pressure is there for the same reason as the non-adjustable Tokico so it's a fairly safe bet to assume that they are in the same ballpark. ANY strut that is gas charged will raise the car when compared to a strut that isn't gas charged.

Here's some that help me stay motivated. Trying to get my car (last video, Mat M is my copilot at the end there) into the same league the first two has taken me a couple years so far, and it looks to be another year or so before I get to drive it again at this point. http://sth2.com/Z-car/video.htm http://www.siastuning.com/Video's.htm http://videos.streetfire.net/search/autox/0/3B512F0F-8AD1-4DAB-BD8E-0AE1768FB642.htm