sopwith21

That depends. Wait til I finish my car. :laugh:

Thanks for the input. Please forgive my ignorance... is "ZG" the exact name of the company, so I can just do a web search? Same with "BRE" (who is "spook?") and "G-nose?" I'm willing to do my own homework, I just need to know the actual names of the manufacturing firms so I know where to start. And by all means, I'll go to the gallery! Thanks again.

Hi all; Help. I have a limited budget and a big dream. Later this spring I'd like to turn my poor, ugly, old '74 260z racecar into the automotive equivalent of Salma Hayek. The body panels are straight and need no replacement (see my avatar). The nose is beat up and the tail looks naked and BORING! Street cars look best when understated, but racecars are seen from a distance and should look exotic, mean and aggressive as the Lord intended. I've seen a couple of body kits with skirts, flares, a nose and rear wing for 600-900 bucks but I still need more ideas. FYI - this car competes on full size 2-mile road courses at well over 120 mph. A big, nasty rear wing would not only look great, but give us more adjustability in the corners as well. Please submit your favorite body pieces, manufacturers, web sites and tips. They are greatly appreciated... especially if they're cheap.

Speaking of shocks... there were a lot of naysayers when I mounted Tokico 5-way adjustables on my 260z a couple of months ago. The jury is still out since I've only put about 100 miles on them at speed, but so far I LOVE THEM. I've never had a strut or shock on any type of race car that was so easily adjustable (five seconds with a screwdriver) and so sensitive to change. Each of the struts have positions 1-5 available, and I started with all of them on 4 and began adjusting from that point. Even changing one strut by just one click made a noticable difference, and the adjustability that the struts build into my suspension is fantastic. I have tremendous confidence in them and its great to be able to manipulate the car's handling with such a fine tune adjustment. With 5 way adjustable struts you can REALLY fine tune the suspension. Another great thing is the ability to set the car up for left or right hand turns. When we run a track clockwise, I can get a touch more bite out of all the right hand corners by dropping the left rear strut just one notch, without sacrificing anything on right hand turns at all. So on a 15-turn track with ten rights and five lefts, you can gain a bit of time out of ten corners and break even on the other five. Same thing works in reverse for counter clockwise courses. So I am surprised and happy to say that so far, it was money well spent. The adjustability that these struts bring to our team is extremely valuable and helpful.

Oh... I get it. The signatures don't start working until your next post.

I'm trying to get a way cool signature at the bottom of the page like you guys do but I can't figure it out. Duh. Help?

Well, I made a massively dumb call to stay on slicks in the first place. I had a set of DOT rains ready to go but we thought sure it would clear up. I was hoping that The Enemy would go to a wet setup and then it would dry out, making me quick and him slow. He must have figured the same thing and we both went out on slicks... then came the monsoon. So we were both handicapped badly, which was in my favor. In a dry, car versus car scenario, I was in big trouble. I needed the rain to take the horsepower out of the equation. He needed to finish THREE spots ahead of me so I let him go early in the race. At one point, about midway through, he was in second and I was in fifth - 22 seconds behind him - and I was sure we had lost the title. Then it started raining even harder, and the 3rd and 4th place cars started pressuring him. His BMW was very lightweight but he kept trying to maintain his lap times as the rainfall increased... big mistake. He went off in the grass with three laps to go and I got back within about ten car lengths of him. Half a lap later I made the pass, then just backed out of it and relaxed. The pressure was on him now with only two laps to go. He went off again trying to catch me and that was that. For an old oval driver, I learned a lot about rain driving that day. Keeping your car on the track in a downpour is half of the battle. The other half is remembering to keep pressure on the other guy but don't go over the edge, then let him make The Mistake. Rain isn't about winning... its about not losing. Go into survival mode and make the other guy lose. I spent the first twelve years of my driving career on ovals, but now I love the rain! Never thought I'd say that!

Thanks, guys. Yeah, I do a lot of TV stuff. See http://www.sopwithmotorsports.com for details. And yes, the Beemers and Porches gave me fits all year long. They were both faster in the dry and there was nothing in the world I could do about it. My '74 260z simply won't run with newer 911's and M series cars. Don't get me wrong... we were fast. In 30-40 car fields we ran in the top eight nearly every time out. But nothing replaces raw horsepower. So we had to beat them with reliability and consistency. We had only one DNF in 16 events and I had already arranged for a backup car just in case, so we didn't lose too many points. Then at the championship race, the skies opened and it poured... YAHOOOOO!!!! We had been praying all day for rain and we went out and flat beat them for the title. It was really neat to win it on the track head to head instead of just hoping to stay close enough to hold on to our points lead. Whatta season. Thanks to everyone here who helped!

Well, the news is good. A lot of you chipped in with various chassis set-up thoughts in Sept and Oct, and many thanks for your advice. Ironically, in the last race all the chassis work was worthless because it poured down rain all day and everyone may as well have raced on ice skates. My competitor for the series title was definately faster in the dry, but rain is The Great Equalizer and we were able to beat him in the rain, finishing fourth... one position ahead of him, making the pass with only three laps remaining. So our team won not only the rookie of the year, but also the series GT-2 title. Woo hoo! Full story is here: http://www.usarfans.com/article.php?story=20041102163705334 Now, if I could only do something about my poor ugly car... I need paint and some affordable, attractive body work. Any ideas?

Okay, this is a long shot, but I really need help and everybody here seems pretty nice... so here goes - I'm racing for my first championship in 17 years this Sunday, Oct 31, near Tulsa, OK. I need access to a set of rain tires but we're out of budget to go buy a set... besides, it probably won't rain anyway. But if it does, a decent set of street or racing rain tires would probably win us the title, because our competition doesn't have any. SOOOOOO.... does anyone live ANYWHERE near Tulsa and have a set of rains that we could take with us, to be used only if it happens to rain? Does anyone have a set - even used - that they'd be willing to sell dirt cheap and ship REALLY quickly? Does anyone have any ideas at all? In a hard rain, even DOT's are better than the 10 inch slicks on the car now! Any tire that would help in the rain is beneficial.... anything. Our tire size is 23x9x15, and we currently run Goodyear R430 slicks. I'm only going to have at my puter for another 24 hrs, so please call 317 590 3495 if you have any ideas that can help at all. Thanks everybody!

Right. And toe out can turn you out of a corner or switch directions quickly. Since turn-in is not a problem on my car, I can afford to go with a slight toe out and see if it helps. Trouble is, the previous car owner had LOTS of toe out. Doesn't look right to me at all. I'm thinking of squaring up the car completely.

Hi everybody. We're still working like maniacs here trying to win a championship later this month. We've not yet checked the toe-out on the car (from the previous owner) but it looks like it has a LOT. Probably over a quarter of an inch... maybe more. We run on an 11-turn, 2-mile road course with top speeds around 120, low speeds around 40 and average around 72 mph. I have a '74 260z with 23x9x15 Goodyear R430's, with recently installed coilover kits, Tokicko adjustable struts and a welded rear end. It handles pretty well, but we're still dialing the chassis in. What do you guys suggest for toe out? Thanks!

Fairly strong and fairly fast. Doing about 120 tops, but average 72-74 over two miles. We've not measured it yet, but it looks to be considerably more than 1/16th. Its still drivable, but I wonder how much speed we lose to it.

How much toe-out do I want? 1/16th? More? Looks like it has a lot in it right now.

No, I won't need new struts when we lower the car. I bought the shorter ones on purpose and we had spacers put in at the bottom. When we cut the strut tubes they'll fit just fine. Didn't do it now though because a) we didn't have time and we didn't have the money to buy the camber plates. The reason we were bottoming out is because the coilovers were dialed down too low on ride height and there wasn't enough travel to let the suspension work properly. We sacrificed a bit of ride height, but fixed it easily by raising the car about an inch. Went much faster then. Now we just need some more laps to dial it in. I think there's another full second available even on old tires. Then we strap on fresh rubber (already on the way), pick up another 1.5 seconds, then go win us a championship. If we get some serious testing time, I do want to try swapping the springs front to rear and unhooking the sway bar. We might pick up a lot more bite that way. The more pressure I can put on The Bad Guys, the better. Our new tires are pretty soft, too. This is a one shot deal and we're going for it big time.

No, we were desperate! :laugh: I didn't own it... I borrowed the car from some VERY kind people who wanted to help me win my first title.

Thanks to all who gave advice on how to best set up my 260Z car using our new struts, springs and coilovers. I re-wrote and printed out much of what you guys said and listed it for use at the track. Here's how things went and what we found: First off, David and John B were right... a spring combination of 350fr/250rear can work. Perhaps its true that softer on the front would be better, but the car will drive with this spring setup and drive well. In the first session, we had the coilovers set too low on the front and the suspension bumped to a stop with only an inch or so of travel. Obviously, that gave us a huge push. We came in and raised the front coilovers by four rounds, went back out in the next session and picked up almost three full seconds (on a 2 mile track). We had a slight push on entry under braking, which I think will go away when we raise the coilovers one more round, and a loose condition from the center off that was drivable and controllable although sometimes it twitched a bit and you had to catch it. That's from the locked rear end, no doubt. On the last lap of the session, we broke a RR half shaft and had to park the car for the day. We got no fine tuning done whatsoever, but we know that the car works with this setup and can be fast. There's easily another second available - maybe much more - when we can tweak it and get more practice time. I switched to our backup car for the day's race (a GT3 car running in our GT2 class) and finished poorly, but we still hold a 55 point lead for the series title going into the last race. To make matters worse, our competition made one of the most unsportsmanlike moves I've seen in a long time once they found we were in a weak backup car. They entered another car and grabbed another driver to shove into the field, literally minutes before the race started, to try and prevent us from scoring points. That doesn't score any more points for them, of course, but it was an effort to take points away from us. In the qualifying race it worked and they shorted us ten points... in the main it backfired on them and their second car broke. A desperate move, I suppose, but shameful nevertheless. We've never tried to take points away from them. So that's the scoop! Thanks again for all the thoughts and ideas. We may still switch the springs, unload or unhook the rear sway bar, etc., but for now at least we know we're in the ball park. We're very happy with what the car's doing.

Thanks, David. I'm really at a disadvantage because I live 700 miles from the race track and make special trips there to drive each event. But, we're in the points chase big time and every little bit helps. Important note: I have no camber plates installed. Maybe later, but for now, we have no camber adjustment (there's no camber adjustment in the stock suspension is there?) and the car has not been lowered. Important questions: So... with the 350fr/250rear spring setup, you understeered badly... right? Until you learned to keep your foot in the gas in the corners, and that helped it go nearly neutral? You mentioned 5 3/4 rocker panel height... will I have any trouble achieving this height using the coilover adjustment, and is that where you would recommend starting? Remember, I have no camber plates (yet) and have not lowered the car, so that's a factor. Is there any preload adjustment in the front sway bar if the bar is still stock? Taking out some preload might help the push. Thanks again. Big race this Sunday... next to last show of the year and we're only leading by 95 points. Eek.

Never argue with the wife! :laugh: Yup, I know I'm stuck with some balance problems until we can upgrade the rear end (what do I want... a stock limited slip setup?). Here's how we got where we are now: though race prepared with a cage and good motor, the car had basically a stock suspension when I bought it. It ran reasonably well and, believe it or not, we won three races with it this season until the front springs collapsed. Then, of course, it began pushing like crazy in the corners for all the obvious reasons. Rather than replace the springs with stock parts, we wanted to upgrade the suspension and try to go faster. So we consulted with ProShocks and some racing people that I know (hadn't discovered this site yet) and came up with a set of parts that we thought affordable and reasonably close to what was needed. So here we are. I guess we'll know in ten days. If we can just get close enough to be able to adjust and make some corrections, we'll be alright. Its a quick car and we don't need a miracle overnight... we just need to get close on the basics.

Please tell me more about how your car ran with this specific setup... its critically important to what we're doing. What kind of track did you run, what speeds, and how did the car handle? Anything and everything you can tell me will help because this is almost exactly what I've got to work with. Also, I don't get all the lingo yet... like D/A and Quaife? Many thanks.

Exactly. Its an old circle track trick called "wedge." That deliberate stacking of crossweight helps turn the car in (for instance) left hand corners. Of course, it hurts you in right handers, but if the car is pushing and you're getting creamed anyway, you might as well try to get better in 8 of the 11 corners on our road course. Me too. But if the car is awful and I have no other options, we can do it temporarily to try and pick up some time. I'm just trying to plan for a worst case scenario. Good idea. I've tried using air pressure adjustments to stop understeer, but I've not used it yet to adjust stagger or crossweight. Great thought. I wonder how much these tires will respond to staggering by air pressure?

BTW, air pressure adjustments on a tire this hard seem to have only a the most minor effect, so I left that possibility out. When you're tuning a car from absolute zero, your first adjustments have to be major to get your car in the general ball park. What fr/rear weight ratio is best when we scale the car? Now that we have coilovers we should be able to make some adjustment there.

Okay, guys. Many thanks for the thoughts offered so far. I wish I had talked to you all earlier, but I didn't and that's life. Here's the parts I have now... they're paid for and its not negotiable, so the trick now is to do the best I have with what I've got. My next race is at the end of the month and I'm in the points battle. Springs: 350 fr/250 rear ProShock coilover kits (4) Tokicko 5 way adjustable struts (4) Sway bars fr and rear, don't know sizes yet. Stock with no pre-load adjustments. Hoosier R55 slicks 8 of the 11 corners at the next track are left handers... so... if I end up with a push (the parts are going on this week), here are my rather limited options: - increase rebound on LR strut to wedge car out of corners and increase fr grip - take off two rounds of coilover on LR and RF tires to wedge car and increase fr grip - put a bigger tire on the RF for same effect - swap springs fr to back and hope for the best (but I don't know if we'll have time and ability to do this at the track, so I can't count on that) In the unlikely event that we end up with an oversteer, we can: - unhook the rear sway bar for more bite in the rear - do the opposite from above on tire stagger and/or coilover adjustments to tighten car YES! I realize that some of this is a band-aid, but as I mentioned, this is what I have to work with. Our money and time are nearly gone and the challenge now is to do the best we can with what we have. The suggestions you guys post are helping more than you know and its appreciated. We may not have the perfect parts, but we've got to work with what we have and get close... and I think we should be able to at least do that much. Thanks again to all.

PS - any suggestions on exactly where to buy good poly bushings for the best price?

It runs in a GT class so we can do whatever we like to the car. I didn't build the car and can't answer all your questions, but here's my best shot: Yes, it has a tied in roll cage. Hoosier R45 slicks on 23x9x15 wheels, bought this year with approx. 80 laps on them, 20 lbs all around. Stocks brakes... insufficient, but will have to do until the chassis is turning. Sway bars fr and rear, don't have bar sizes yet. Stock four speed tranny, welded and locked rear end. Previous owner had been running stock suspension set up. Believe it or not, the car actually handled halfway decent until the fr springs collapsed, necessitating the current revamp. The car understeers horribly all the way through the corner now. Unhooking the rear sway bar made it push going in and through the center and come out loose. A disaster either way. For financial reasons, I must fix one thing at a time... that means the rear end, brakes, etc., must wait for another conversation. Right now I have to make it turn. The bushings are a good suggestion and I'm open to more. Thanks for all yr thoughts.