jmortensen

One thing you really don't want to do is bolt an aluminum radiator to the core support, especially if you drive hard or autox or anything like that. I've already torn up 2 brass radiators with chassis flex. Next is going to be an aluminum radiator, but I'm going to have it soft mounted and hopefully it will hold up to the abuse a little better. Plus I'm stitch welding the chassis and the rad support, so maybe that will keep the flexing down. I can say that with a brass 3 core, then a ZX 3 core I had no overheating problems running on the track in 110+ degree heat, aluminum will be my choice for weight savings, not because the brass wasn't up to the task...

That was the second football game I watched this season and I'm a recent transplant to Seattle who wants nothing more than to move away from this poophole, so I'm not heavily invested. But, you take away that questionable Steelers touchdown and give the Seahawks the TD where they were called on offensive pass interference, and the Seahawks won. There's gonna be some pissed off Seahawks fans tomorrow... And OJ was guilty, and so was MJ, and the cops who beat up Rodney King, so hey, guess its time to move on... the world isn't always just.

The steering hard in one direction and easy in the other was likely a caster problem. Caster is a non-wearing alignment angle. It will cause a pull, or will cause the car to steer differently in one direction or the other, but it won't wear your tires out. Over a very long period of time steering the car straight might wear the tires, but that would take a while. The tires were probably worn out by a bad toe setting, but were also probably worse than you realized before you left the house for the alignment shop. I once got a "bad zero" on the alignment rack and ended up with over a degree of toe in on the back of my Z which is a HUGE amount of toe in (adjusted with G Machine bushings). I was running tires that had a 160 treadwear and I wore them out from brand spankin new to totally bald in about 1000 miles. Toe out will wear the tires faster than toe in, but you'd still have to have them severely toed out to wear them out in 30 miles. Toe in the front is pretty easy to set. Most of the tires I buy have a center tread lug. I just hook a tape measure on the center tread lug front and rear and measure as high on the tire as I can without hitting the frame or the suspension with the tape. Do that front and back. Good street toe setting is 1/8" total toe in. Move each tie rod evenly and have someone hold the wheel straight so that it remains straight after you adjust it. That's pretty much it. As to the caster, there is a way to measure and adjust it with a bubble camber gauge, but I tried to do it myself once, showed 7 degrees on the bubble gauge but then when I put the car on the rack it was at 4 degrees. I think if you have a pair of slip plates you can do it fairly accurately with a bubble gauge, but you have to turn the wheels a certain amount and remeasure the camber, and without a slip plate it's hard to know how far you've turned them. When I did it I drew the angle on my garage floor with a protractor, but apparently that wasn't exact enough. For Mat though I think the solution is in the new bushings. If one bushing has collapsed farther than the other over time that will make the caster less on the side that is more deteriorated. New bushings should fix that situation, and hopefully will get rid of his pull altogether. One more thing Mat, use the poly bushing on the front of the TC rod, and use the old rubber bushing on the back end. That will allow the TC rod to still pivot fairly freely, and its the front bushing that takes all the load under braking, so you'll still have all the advantages of the stiffer poly bushings without overly stressing the TC rod.

No it doesn't. Small discrepancies will affect whether or not the steering wheel is straight, but there is nothing you can do to the toe in front that will affect how the car tracks. In the front if you set the toe off to one side and drive down the road, the car goes straight and the steering wheel turns sideways. Toe changes in the REAR affect how the car tracks because there is no steering wheel to allow the wheels to drive straight. The wheels have the whole weight of the car trying to drive them as straight as they can go, if they can move to a straight forward position, they will. If you set the toe wrong in the back it stays wrong. If you set the toe and your steering wheel is off to the left the fix is easy, what you need to do is steer the tie rods to the left. So basically you make the left tie rod longer and the right tie rod shorter until the wheel is straight. Usually this is not a problem though if you have a helper or maybe one and a half helpers in the car holding the wheel straight while you adjust the toe. When I was doing alignments we had a steering wheel holder that sat on the seat and basically jacked up against the bottom of the steering wheel. Set that sucker straight, set the toe to spec and it was good I'd say 95% of the time. Every once in a while I'd have to adjust the tie rods, and when that was necessary I'd just adjust both sides evenly. Takes VERY LITTLE tie rod change to affect the wheel position, BTW. I'd usually try like 1/8" movement on the tie rods and see what affect that had on the wheel. As long as you move the tie rods evenly the front toe setting won't change, but the wheel position will.

Actually now that I think of it that's not entirely true. You could shim some caster in. But you don't need a 4 wheel alignment to do that, there are no adjustments in the rear, and all of your bushings are totally shot. You should replace them first, then see about an alignment.

The only adjustment you've got is front toe Mat. Until you get some more adjustments, you should do it yourself.

I agree with John. In fact I'd just pull the cover and check the b/l. On the R200 its supposed to between .005 adn .007. If yours was outside that spec, then it could be adjusted if necessary. Here's more info on diagnosing diff noises in general, what bearings sound like, noises under load, noises while coasting, etc. (1st 2 links on this page): http://www.ringpinion.com/content/technicalhelp/default.asp?pid=45

There are reverse rotation ring and pinions and they are put into the front of 4wds. The reason is that driving the ring and pinion on the "drive" side of the gear is stronger. Dana 44 is available in a high pinion reverse rotation, as are some Toyota front diffs and many others. In the Datsun truck the ring and pinion the gears are not reverse cut, and when it is in the front of a truck it drives on the "coast" side of the gear. So the gears are turning the correct direction when you install it in the rear. I have heard that the backlash setting was set a little different due to them being driven backward, but I haven't run one so I never checked.

Shows you how long it's been... Mat you could just plug another one into the harness and twist it with a screwdriver. Tanya B started her car that way for years.

Yup. Kind of a bitch to get to, I can't remember if you have to take the stalks off the column or not. I think you can do it with everything still on the column. If not the bolts that attach the stalks to the column are breakaway bolts. Hit a certain torque and the head busts off. So if you need to remove them you can use a hammer and chisel or a dremel to cut a slot in the head of the bolt then remove with a flat screwdriver. Don't think you'll need to do that though.

A locksmith should be able to re-key a lock. The iginition switch is separate from the lock cylinder though. The switch unscrews off of the back of the cylinder. If you look at the back of the lock, the key goes all the way through and sticks out the back of the lock cylinder, and it's that last 1/4" of the key that twists the plastic switch.

I've had starters fail in that same way that Mat describes and have fixed them by cleaning the armiture. I don't think we have enough info to say what the problem is yet. He does have 50 starters though, and it's 2 bolts and a plug or two to swap them out. I've also seen the switch go bad on a number of Z's, so that is a good possibility too. I just wouldn't rule out the starter yet.

27mm or 1 1/8" IIRC.

Mat why don't you try swapping in one of the other 40 or 50 starters you have and see if that helps the starting issue. You can usually clean the armiture inside and the contact points, but you've got so damn many why bother... Search and I think you'll quickly find a guy who was selling a little wiring connector that plugs into the stock harness and then directly to the back of the ZX alternator which is internally regulated IIRC. You don't have a big stereo or any of that yet, so for right now what you've got (40 amp) should be fine.

I don't know if you recall the WCZR thread about that Ron, but it was suggested that double pinning isn't necessary. Dennis was recommending safety wire through the roll pin instead. That's what I was planning on doing with mine. But I don't speed shift.

Interesting. In the little bit of exploring I did into the roadster trans, I thought I had one of each of the ones that came with steel synchros (were those in the 2000???). There was one with the slip yoke that had a 3.3:1 first and .8 OD, then the other one.

Is that the one with the 2.9 or 2.8:1 1st gear and the .8 OD? Because that's what I had.

Here's a way too drawn out discussion of short throw shifters in which I learned that the 4 speed and truck shifters are basically the same. The one mod I would do is to raise the pivot hole on the shifter if you can (depends on the ears for the particular case that you have). That prevents the shifter from hitting the edge of the shifter hole as discussed at the end of the thread. Even after all that extended discussion I still wouldn't bother with the aftermarket short shifter, but it is to some degree a matter of taste. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=96707

That's odd. I had 2 "roadster" transmissions at one point and gave them to a friend. Actually what I had was the guts, I had no cases. One had a slip yoke type driveshaft and the other had a 2 piece with an output flange that was attached to the end of the main shaft. They both had steel synchros. He put the close ratio gears (they did match the roadster gear ratios for the close ratio box) on the slip yoke style main shaft and put that into a 280Z 5 speed case and then used a regular 510 driveshaft to put it in his 510. I know that's all a little confusing, but the point is that I had been under the assumption that the roadster trans had the same internals as the "B" trans, and that this meant that they were the same. Maybe the internals are the same on the "A" and "B", but the shift linkage of the A and B is what is different. Doesn't seem right, but that's the only conclusion I could get out of this. I am running a truck shifter (which apparently is the same as a 4 speed shifter) in my 5 speed and it shortens up the throw nicely. I also have shortened the shifter to about 7.5" from the pivot to the top of the shifter. This gives about a 4" throw from 1st to 2nd. Not sure I'd want it much shorter than that. MSA makes a short throw shifter that is WAY more drastic than the truck shifter. Raises the pivot about an inch, where the 4 speed shifter raises the pivot about 1/4". Seems like too much to me, but I haven't actually tried it.

I forgot to put the exclamation point on my last story. I ended up getting a license plate frame to wizz of the Supra morons. It says TRD What does that spell?

Matman and I were coming home from a track day at Buttonwillow, and we were getting on the freeway and there was this MORON in a riced out Civic getting on with us. His gigantic body kit had all the useless vents with the chicken wire, you know the type. Anyway I could see him swerving around and passing people and generally being a jackass in the rearview mirror. When he pulled up along side, I looked at him, dropped to 3rd and just left him. It was so bad I thought he didn't go or missed a shift or something. So I slowed up, waited for him again and did it again. By this time Mat is laughing his arse off. I waited again. This time Mat shows him 4 fingers, and I walk the guy in 4th gear. I slow again. 5th gear, same thing. His engine is SCREAMING and my Z is at maybe 3500 rpm in 5th still accelerating away from him. My Z had SU's and 3.70 gears at the time and I was walking this guy in 5th gear at maybe 70 mph. That's pathetic. We were pretty much laughing in his face at this point. He kept trying these insane passes on the right and I wouldn't let him by, so finally the moron passed a SEMI IN THE EMERGENCY LANE ON A BRIDGE. Retard. I let him go at that point more out of a concern for the rest of the people on the road than anything else. Where I lived in CA we had a bunch of riced out 85ish Supras and Celicas. We even had one that lived right across the street. A friend and I went over and talked to the guys about going to one of our monthly autoxes. None of them would go, they all made excuses about needing their CAI or their body kit or whatever before they could actually race the car. Funny, cause they had no problem driving 50 mph down our residential street where the kids play all the time, and they sure would rev on me when we were in STOP AND GO traffic. Stupid stupid stupid...

I did the same. I bought 2.5" mandrel bends from JC Whitney and a section of straight pipe from the local exhaust place, along with some generic strap type hangers that we attached to the stock Z brackets that hang down from the frame rails. Super Turbo muffler was JC Whitney as well, I think it was ~$26. The crappy MSA 6-1 header was the worst part, if I had to do it again I'd shell out for the Nissan Comp header for sure. Took me and a buddy about 4 hours messing around with it in the front yard with his mig and it was all done. I have the tightest tucked exhaust I have yet to see on a 240Z. Only problem was it was a little sprung. We made the pipe in between the 2 90's a little too short. The muffler needs replacing 8 years later so I'll fix that issue when I install the new muffler. I think my total cost including the header and shipping was under $400. Not as light and perfect as John's stainless exhaust I'm sure.

A hotter burn means increased NOx. So compression goes down, and the chamber gets "open". This results in less power as well. So to compensate, you make a larger engine displacement. At the same the safety requirements are increasing, so the car is getting heavier, so the gain in power due to the increased displacement is effectively sapped out by the smog requirements and the heavier car, which is why the 260 and 280 were slower. Put that same L28 engine in a 240 and remove the smog crap, and now you've got a fun car to drive. Bump the compression and now you're really talking...

You don't need to pull the spindle pins to install springs/struts. Bushings, yes, springs/struts no. This is about as aggressive as I've seen on stock spring perches. Go to coilovers and you can get pretty much any rate you want.

Sure it's possible, but why? A stroker will give you a bump in power proportional to the increase in size. So a 3.1 stroker will have 10% more power than a 2.8L built the same way. The difference on a turbo is the fact that you can turn up the boost and get way more than a 10% increase in power. Building a stroker is expensive. Building a 2.8L isn't as bad. People are getting (and this is the technical term, BTW) buttloads o' power out of the 2.8L. I'd stick with the 2.8L until you've exhausted all the turbo, intercooler, and aftermarket FI upgrades. Then when you still think that you can't make enough power, THEN do the stroker. There are enough guys over at hybridz.org making 350-400 whp with a 2.8L turbo to convince me that the stroker is unnecessary. Then again who knows, maybe you're shooting for 700whp.