Tommo560

Still looking

ok all fixed. despite my dads best assurances the problem was that the bleeder nipple wasn't actually at the top of the caliper. so we took the calipers off, angled the nipple to the top and bled them and a HUGE amount of air came out, so that solved that problem. Brakes are Ford BA XR8 falcon vented 2-spot fronts and solid 280zx 1-spot rears, which is a phenomenal inprovement over drums and the hilux 4x4 brakes. We finally finished at 8.30pm on saturday and then traveled to the hillclimb where we arrived at 12.00am at the caravan park where we were staying the night. Raced up the hill the next day everything worked fine and i even managed to beat my dads time by 4 seconds (he was in the zed too) and take out the class (ahead of my dad in the z and a BMW M coupe) for my first ever win at a hillclimb with a time only 6 seconds off the pace of the wrx's and only 4 seconds slower than a mate in his supra. so it was a hecktic day/night on saturday but worth the trouble. Thanks again for all your help, we would never have got it going if we hadn't known to turn the nipple so it could bleed better than on the car. If its not too much of a problem i do now have something that has just come up. we have found that the rear right brake is dragging a bit. haven't done anything differant to the other side of the car and i can't seem to figure out what it is. i remember reading that there is some sort of valve in the master for the rear drum brakes that could cause the disks to drag after a conversion, is this it? if it is why is only one brake dragging? i will probably be swithching over to a 280zx master and proportioning valve anyway sometime soon so should i even bother with fidling with it? Tom.

Still dont work. well thats the weekends racing over, ahwell too bad. anyway beginning to think that its the master cause everything else is fine. did a bit more reading on here and hybridz and found that the stock master has trouble powering the toyota 4x4 a rear drums, so the fact that it now has big Holden 2 pots (HUGE) and rear disks and that only the fronts work (dont know how well haven't road tested but they do stop when pushed by hand) i am led to believe that the master just can't supply enough pressure to the brakes. Tom.

Bled the master already and that wasn't it. forum was down when i last checked so i just went ahead and pulled the calipers apart again and found that something with the back of the piston had frozen, so fixed that and hopefully we should be good to go. As for the master size a friend has the same setup and has the standard master and has no problems, so unless it is a big issue i probably will just leave it standard. Thanks for the advice, Tom.

just put 280Z rears on the car and bled the system but the pedal is really soft to about 5/6 of the way down and the rear brakes dont work. The fronts seem to work fine but the rears aren't working at all, but when you open the bleeder nipple and push the pedal brake fluid comes out. just rebuilt the calipers did i perhaps put them together wrong? anyone dealt with this and know what the problem might be? i am supposed to be racing the car tomorrow but cant at the moment. Thanks, Tom.

Hi Everyone, Another story of "Murphy" on my case. finaly getting around to fitting the 280z/zx (2 piston rear brakes) brakes i have sitting around but i have a problem with the hand brake. when i push the brake pedel the piston pushes out and when i release pressure the piston retracts but when i engage the handbrake the piston extrudes but doesn't retract when i let the hand brake off. then when you apply the handbrake again the piston pushes out further and then wont go back in to where it was. i cant find an exploded view of the brakes but expect it to be the auto adjustment feature playing up but i dont know how to fix it. if anyone has had this problem and has fixed it and knows what to do then if you could be so kind as to lend me a hand then that would be fantastic. Tom.

It's a shame that not many people really know what a 240/260 is. i get a large number of older people seeing the car and saying "I remember those. They were a great car!" and often "Wish i had bought one", or, "Wish i hadn't sold mine". but the newer generation (mine) still don't really know what they are, or appreciate how nice a car they are. However, i think that is going to change. with the number popping up as ricers in the US (just have a look at hybridz if you need proof) and the number of "Sweet car dude!" comments i get from people i think that their popularity with the younger generations is definately an indication of what the new generation think of the z. Whilst i can't say i really like most of the ricer z's, as the saying goes "any publicity is good publicity" and i think as more people stumble across these things that their popularity and subsequently, their value, will increase. although, having said that for the same price as a z you can get an import rx-7 or a silvia, so i suppose that sort of puts them out of the picture a little. along with that they are not new cars and if you were a young kid and you could get a 200+ hp ricer (read: street cred) jap import or a 130hp old rusty zed for the same price, i know what most would choose and unfortunately it probably wouldn't be a zed. but i still love my zed and as more people are restoring them and making good examples i am still keeping my hopes up for the future of the z. Tom.

Normal compression figures for a new or newly rebuilt l28 ( i think with p90/90a/79 and flat tops) motor should be about 170 psi, and i know this is supposed to be a high comp motor so this is where i think the numbers should be, and 130-150 for an older worn engine. I dont know how the test was conducted, only that it was done at operating temps. the shop did it so i hope they know what they are doing but it would have been about 20-25 C's outside and about 20 metres above see level. What i'm confused about is the varying numbers, the large diff between wet and dry, and why the car still makes so much power if it's only making 2/3 compression? i'm not sure of the overlap on the cam but i know it doesn't make any power (i mean very little) until about 3,000 rpm (mild/comparitively mild competition cam) and that it has a flat spot that we can't get rid of (due to bad comp?) at about 2500 - 3000 rpm that even the previous owner had problems with. Tom.

Cant find the exact numbers but the tuning shop just did a test and got numbers like 110-120 with one even as low as 84 in a dry test, and about 120-140 wet. just had the motor rebuilt 5000 miles ago, and just had the head off for cam change and valve grind 100 miles ago. It is a high performance motor l28, p90 worked head, triple 45 webers, flat top pistons, medium cam (unsure of overlap), and the car makes about 180 bhp at the wheels. i really dont know whats happening, i suspect that it's rings because i just did a valve grind and its blowing a little blue smoke at idle, but then i had problems with the tensioner coming out and read that timing and a stretched chain could mean that the compression is low (chain did look a little stretched according to the datsun repair manual and from advice from a guy who did some work for the p.o (the cam designer of the new cam) the cam/chain is on position 3) but then again this car is making as much power as it used to when the previous owner had it (before rebuild) and before the cam change (switched to milder cam for the rev range we work in, but still has same top end power as expected by the cam designer) and has the same power as another z that we race with that has all of the same mods. these results are really confusing and i just wanted to know if anyone could make any sense of them. Thanks, Tom.

How do find out if the clutches in your diff need adjusting? EASY! just dump the clutch at 5 grand and floor it. http://members.iinet.net.au/~johnwhitfield/Albany%20Round%20The%20Houses%2070th%20Anniversary%202006005.5.MOV Just been away competing in the 70th anniversary of the Albany Round the Houses event in Albany Western Australia. The link is to a short vid of a start for the hillclimb on the day prior to the round the houses that i thought was pretty cool. Just had the car off the road for 6 months putting in a cage and cutting and replacing a heap of rust. This was the start to the very first event that i have competed in since taking the car off the road and as you can see, well, i think the clutches in the diff need to be adjusted. Tom.

Or the good old wise mens lesson and one i can back up with first hand experiance: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned Tom.

Came across another good one today. A travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it. - Goerge Moore Tom.

You can get class b concessional liscenses with a cage but that means to and from workshop or events only. you know i think if you get one of those you'll be spending a lot of time driving to a "mates workshop to get some help with the setup". . my initial thoughts were also that a cage for racing is street illegal is a load of rubbish, but i guess that makes sense because its not that it isn't safe, although fire and rescue did try to tell my mate that the front arms of the cage meant that if they had to use jaws of life it'd take longer, but hey, atleast you'd still be alive behind the wheel. anyways i digress, i think that the real reason they are not legal is because they are legal for the track. personally i see it as a tactic by the police to keep race cars off the street because hey, its not that its gonna stop or corner any better, or that the guy driving it is actually going to know how to drive, but its fast and the driver might be tempted to test his RACE CAR on the street even though its the people with real track cars that know the danger of going fast on a public road and are the most responsible. So NOOOOOOOOO we cant have that on the road. anyway, my 2 cents Tom.

i've done 125 MPH in my zed (200 KPH) at the track and that was fast enough that i had to put a spoiler on to keep the front from weaving from side to side across the road. Aero on a zed is good but you'd need it super low, light, and a big donk, but not impossible. Tom.

i get an error from that link: Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in /home/gamers4/public_html/streetrats/e107_plugins/log/logs/logi_143.2006.php on line 83 and i cant even open http://streetrats.net same thing, it gives a timeout error. Tom.

I've got a petrol remote controlled car that the motor does 30,000 rpm, and if you muffle the noise enough it would probably sound similar to that. Tom.

360!!! i just had a 6-point cage with intrusion bars installed into my 260 (see pics in my photobucket album. link at bottom) and that was $2000 AU CASH installed which was the cheapest we could get anywhere. like john coffey said make sure that it complies to the racing sanctioning body.

My dad has a calender with a quote on it for every day and i think this is a good one. probably not a coincidence that it is the one for January 1. It's one thing to have a saying, its another to live by it. -GARY & SHELL Tom.

Well its been 6 months so far for what was supposed to just be a tune a roll-cage and some minor rust repairs after an incedent at the track.... Done: 6 point Welded Roll Cage with intrusion bars Rust repair in front rails (complete new rails) Fixed minor and surface rust on most of car repainted engine bay and front fenders Powder coated window surrounds, door locks and handle, everything that was silver Central locking and immobiliser Valve grind new cam (milder but faster with the revs we run (6500 as opposed to 7500 that the old cam was designed for)) new valve springs Removed tar from interior and painted all exposed surfaces under carpets body colour New trimming on strut towers, seats, all carpets and even a matching gear boot 260z close ratio 5 speed R31 solid rear discs and calipers HUGE Holden 4 spot calipers and vented front discs Going for a tune when it is running again ..... it goes on but thats the bulk Its been a long time with a lot of hours spent just generally cleaning up the car but the motor is now back in, the trim has arrived and it should be back together in about a week with any luck. (Fingers Crossed!!!!) Don't think i have any recent pics but some can be found at: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v621/Tommo560/Datsun%20260Z/Cage%20and%20Rust/ Tom.

Well my dad had 3 MGB's once upon a time, and now we own a zed. nuff said Tom.

i need to get some new indicator lenses for the z and was wondering if anyone knew where i can get some new ones. second hand is fine as long as they are as new. the ones i mean are the ones pictured on the car in this photo: Thanks, Tom.

I run green stuff pads on my z, and my dad runs them on his TT Supra. IMHO i think they are an awesome pad. they stop hard from cold and can still handle a 5 lap thrash at the track. they ofcourse are going to wear faster than standard pads, but are still a very good allround choice of pad no matter the application. Although there are people around who would never DREAM of putting them on their cars. i have no idea why because from my experiance i have found them to be very good pads. toecutter - i must agree the slotted and cross-drilled rotors do look very good behind a set of mags, and you really only have problems with them when you subject them to prolonged hard work, such as a race meet, or something longer than a few laps. as the DBA catalogue says, they are designed for the street, not the track, so they should be able to handle anything street driving can throw at them. well, to an extent anyways, because street racing can be pretty hard too, but thats probably why its illegal.

I have a dream car to, just mine is sitting in the driveway (although still have to put motor and interior back in after rust work). I love the japanese cross muscle car theme, so i have a front and rear spoilers which work semelessly with the big bonnet bulge. the car is lowered about 2 inch's for handling, and looks a treat with the big balloon 195/65/14 road tyres on polished and black accented stock 14" rims sitting up under the guards at the front. The thing is done up to go around a track as fast as a Z can without needing to be towed to the track, which means i can also drive it to Uni when i have the insatiable desire to give it a fang. Interior is stock looking (no stupid guages) but with a nondescript momo wheel and a race seat i put in for track work. i have an upgraded head unit and two 6" speakers in my own custom boxes and will soon completely re-fitted the interior with new plush black carpet to match the re-trimmed seats. As everyone has said, and i must agree, its a personall decision but it takes a special kind of person to make a Z look bad. so really no matter what path you take i personally think that in all except the extreme casses you cant make a Z look bad. Tom.

Oh Ooh. i pulled my dash out about 4 months ago and dont even know which icecream container the bolts are in, along with all the other bolts that go in every other now empty hole in the interior..... I recall that it didnt take all that long to get out (about an hour) including taking the steering wheel off and on again, and that it was only held by about 6 screws, and that if you could manage to cross the wires up even though all the wires are different lengths according to how far they have to go to reach their respective gauges, and all differant sizes so you cant mix them up, then you deserve to have to buy new guages. The hardest part was getting a screw driver into the screws directly under the windscreen without damaging the dash. I still dont think it will be too hard to put back in again (i did the dash in my sisters suzuki swift the same way, no worries) but my dad has expressly told me that re-fitting the interior will be my job, and he's done dash out's in old falcons, so i have my doubts. But no point crying over spilt milk, if you dont code and label everything (not that there was much) then just take your time putting it back in to keep murphy off your back and to make sure you dont have to do the job again. Tom.

Dba make a slotted and cross drilled for all of the Z's, although why you would want slotted and cross-drilled on stock calipers beats me, and then if you are going to race then slooted and drilled have a habit of exploding. either one by themselves is fine, but if you have both then the disc doesnt last long under hard applications. here is the DBA catalogue http://www.dba.com.au/DBASTDseries_cat.pdf and the relevant section is on pg 63 under "Nissan Z series" Tom.