Jeff G 78

Yeah, those are cool. Are those a retail item or did somebody take a splash mold off of clear covers? I was considering using my clear covers to make fiberglass covers.

The stock setup works great, but I understand the desire for rear disks. I have great brake feel and excellent performance from the OE brakes with just a pad change, braided hose upgrade and quality fluid. For the street, I'd keep the front rotors and calipers and for the rears, I'd go with the MM setup (they are back in business with a new owner) or stick with the stock drums.

I would be most interested in non-clear covers since I will paint them anyways. Ideally, they wouldn't need gaskets either if the fit is decent. The ones I currently have on my 260Z race car need the gaskets as the fit isn't great.

It depends on the specific tire you choose. A summer-only tire will likely have square shoulders and will most likely rub in the rear. Mine rubbed severely until I trimmed about 10mm of the weld flange off the fender lips. I tried rolling them first, but that wasn't enough. Getting wheels with a +6mm offset will help on both the front and rear. MSA's Panasports are +6mm, I believe. My Panasports are zero offset as are the Konigs.

Good to know. I'm pretty sure that my Hankook RS2 225/50R16 tires are on the wide side as well. They rub more than other tires of the same size. I work in the auto industry with performance cars and sizes are only a general indication of actual size. A stack of four tires can easily vary by several inches in height from brand to brand. Some tires are much more trapezoidal than others as well. The listed tire size is the sidewall width, not the tread width, so a tire that is very square will have a much wider tread than a trapezoidal tire. There is a good article written by a pro racer friend of mine that helps explain tires. http://www.motoiq.com/MagazineArticles/ID/3974/How-to-PROPERLY-select-and-size-TIRES-for-PERFORMANCE.aspx

Mitchell, that's why I went with 16" wheels, but like Chickenman, I think the OD is too big. When I got my 16" wheels, there were very few good 15" summer tires, but since then, there are actually more on the market. On my race car, I will use 225/45R15 and I might try to switch my street car to 225/45R16 rather than the 225/50R16 tires I currently run. The 205's are just a bit too narrow for my needs.

If you go with a 16x8 or wider, you will likely want to run 225/50R16 tires and they will likely rub both the front and rear fenders. The fronts will rub the front edge of the fender while turning and backing and the rears will rub the fender lips. I'd go with a 15x7 ET0 and run 225/45R50 tires. BFG Rival and Hankook RS3 are both very good and come in that size. If performance isn't as critical, 205/50R15 will fit well too. If you really want 16" wheels, I'd stick with 16x7 and go with 205/50R16 tires. The wider tires will require modifications to combat the rubbing.

I've had good luck with both ATF and 10 wt. motor oil. In my last race, I used ATF and the car accelerated cleanly with very good AFR readings from mid-corner until the end of the straightaways.

I used M5 rivnuts too with custom L brackets that I made.

I'm struggling with this too. I rebuilt my race engine a few years ago and used a ITM gasket set. The pan leaked like crazy even with properly torqued bolts and a flat flange. I pulled the engine to fix a leaky header and redo the oil pan gasket. This time I used a FelPro gasket and again made sure everything was flat and properly sequenced and torqued. Better, but it still leaks a bit. I probably need to pull the engine again since it has some issues from the last race. I'm curious to hear what everybody does for gaskets that stops the leaks once and for good.

Will do. I didn't get a chance yesterday to work in the garage. When I got home I had to take care of a few other things and it was well over 90° in the garage, so I wasn't super motivated after I finished my other things. I should get to it sometime after work this week.

Like others have said, I too would have walked away from it, but I'm sure glad you didn't. The end result is very nice an you will have a beautiful Z for years to come. Congrats on "finishing" it.

Richard, the spark was good and very visible during the day while we were working on it. I only made the night comment because I was surprised how far the spark was jumping. In bright sun I could see it, but I didn't try to jump it as far as I did in the dark. I'm out of town today, but I will at least test a few things tomorrow.

I have had a set since 1986 when I removed them from a '76. Just a few weeks ago I decided to install them on my BRE tribute race car and paint them red and white, but I screwed up and didn't leave the bolts loose enough. Within a few hours, they cracked in several places as the temperature changed. It shouldn't affect them as long as I can find some sort of tape or glue that I can put on the inside to keep the hairline cracks from spreading. When I installed my Lexan hatch and quarter glass, I did it right and they are holding up fine. The heads of the bolts cannot put any clamp load on the plastic. They have to be loose enough to let the plastic expand and contract. If they are available at a reasonable price, I will buy a set and leave them clear for night and rainy races.

I cut the rod and pipe today and roughed out the thrust washer. I need to bore and tap the rod, machine the washer, and weld the washer to the pipe. The puller is very heady duty as is the bearing. I will likely machine a handle that fits the nut since the nut is a 1-5/8" hex and my large adjustable wrench isn't big enough. I might CNC plasma cut several 1/4" plates to fit the nut hex, weld them together and machine/grind them into a comfortable handle. I'll add pics later.

Interesting Richard. Hopefully the crank snout is OK, but at least I have several spare engines to rob parts from if the crank is bad. My biggest worries are the head and pistons since those are P79 and F54 and I don't have any spares of those. I have lots of N47 parts. I did swap the cap and rotor both with and without the new distributor. The spark was pretty sharp and once pitch black outside, I could see it jump over an inch. I will check the crank for runout as you suggest and I will always use red Loctite in the future.

Absolutely correct guys! I have had one of those cars where the pins simply would not come out no matter what. I had to cut mine and even then, the 40 ton press at work was maxed out to get them to budge and eventually press out of the knuckle. Surprisingly, the car in question is completely rust-free. I believe the pins and/or control arms were slightly bent from a rear end hit. Mitchell, I'm curious if the tool failed or the spindle pin threads failed. The tool I am making should never fail and with proper machining of the tool's interface to the spindle pin, I don't think the pin threads will fail either as long as the pin has any chance of removal. Of course, I have not yet proved this theory. I hope to do that soon. I know that no tool will pull every pin, but the tools I have seen and used were not optimized at best and pure junk at worst. I am just trying to build a tool that gives the best chance of pin removal. If I make just one for myself and if works on all pins that can be removed, I will be a happy camper. If I can then supply others with a quality tool, all the better, but my main goal is to make one for myself. I agree the pin design and material is the problem. I also think that it takes a decade or so before they corrode into the knuckle, so as long as the pins are replaced and maintained every few years, I think the Nissan pins will work without redesign. With a good puller, maintenance would be a breeze. The other thing I have never understood was the need for the wedge pin. I see no need for the pin to be kept stationary once the nuts at each end are tightened. I'm convinced that the wedge distorts the steel of the spindle pin and is a large part of the removal woes. Besides that, the wedge hole is likely where some of the moisture gets into the joint. What if the wedge hole is turned into a zerk fitting somehow? I haven't studied it, but maybe there is a way to do it.

It has been a LONG time since I promised that I would build a better mousetrap, but I'm finally getting close to actually building the prototype. I bought the acme rod, nuts and the pipe and I will use a S30 front strut bearing on the first puller. I just need to cut to length and machine the acme rod to accept the spindle pin and weld a large washer onto the pipe for the bearing reaction plate. With any luck, I should have a working tool very soon. If it works as well as I hope, I will make a batch of them and offer them for sale. The cost will need to be fairly high since the materials I'm using are very pricey. I expect the retail cost to be around $75 - $100 depending on the final design. It's not cheap, but if the tool can save the pins, it will pay for itself in pin cost and machine shop labor if the Z owner has to have the pins professionally removed and replaced. Is there anybody who needs to pull their pins soon? I bought enough material to build three prototypes, so once I am happy with the first puller I am willing to sell the next two at the cost of materials only which should be around $50 each in order to get feedback so I can get all the details right..

No and yes Steve. We took the bolt all the way out to inspect it, but we did not remove the damper or try to turn it without the bolt.

Charles, I checked the valve clearances during the prep for the race. The engine had about 16 track hours on it since I last adjusted them and 9 of the 12 were right on and the other 3 were only 0.001" loose. I adjusted them back to spec. The AFR is brand new and worked perfectly throughout the race. The plug readings also looked perfectly light tan, so I'd guess the AFR is accurate.

Hey Steve, I was awaiting your reply. I brought the borescope home from work, so I will at least be able to look down the front cover and in the plug holes. I'll also do a leakdown. With those two tests I should know if it will be a big repair bill or not.

Yeah. Even worse is that we didn't know it was the bolt that was loose. I had a teammate crawl under the car with the 27mm socket and a breaker bar to turn the engine over while I watched the valvetrain. He started turning the bolt and nothing was moving up top. I was sure that the crank had snapped or that something was very broken. I asked him to remove the socket and try turning the bolt by hand. Sure enough, it was backed way out, but once tightened, all looked fine. I have built about a dozen L series engines over the past 35 years and I've never had a crank bolt loosen.

Nice looking muffler!

Great points Zed. As an easy way of telling if the damper is good or bad, I painted a white line across each surface at the timing notch before installing it. If the rubber bond fails, I can easily see if the 2nd row pulley has rotated compared to the first row pulley and center hub. It did not fail as all paint marks are still aligned and they match the timing scale when the keyway is at 12:00. Also agreed on the compression check. I did use the same gauge as always, so the actual readings could be slightly off but they did drop compared to the last time I checked it. I believe my gear set does have the notch, but I am running a very different setup, so I'm not positive if it still applies. I modified the cam gear using eccentric bushings like the "How to Modify..." book describes. My head is shaved 0.050", so to get the timing right, I drilled the cam gear hole and installed offset bushings. I used a degree wheel and dialed in the timing exactly to my cam specs by choosing the correct offset bushing. I did check the bushing and it is still intact and properly positioned. The slack side chain guide as slightly modified to take up the additional slack due to the shorter crank to cam distance. Until I remove the front cover, I won't know for sure, but all looks good at the top of the slack side guide. It is possible the bottom guide bolt loosened allowing the guide to slide in the slot and the chain to go slack. Again, very possible that the spark isn't strong enough since the timing light wouldn't fire through the inductive pickup. I will check the wiring and power to the coil and distributor.

Mark, the initial high RPM misfire was about 5 hours into the race just before a fuel stop. The car progressively got worse (missing at lower and lower RPM) until it finally quit running just after the 6 hour mark. The last 15 minutes were far worse. Prior to that, it still did OK, just had a misfire according to the driver. I was in the car earlier and it ran fine, so I have no direct knowledge of the symptoms. The driver kept reporting that water temp, oil pressure, amps and AFR were normal throughout. We thought it might be vapor lock, so that is why we left him out. In the past, when that happened the symptoms were similar, but there wasn't a quick fix. This time, it was clearly something else since we let it completely cool and it still wouldn't run. The compression check was only done after we checked the easy stuff like fuel, spark, and valvetrain. The puffing was subtle. It almost could have been confused as attempted firing, but it just sounded like the intake charge was being partially expelled. Very tough to call since we were right next to an active race track with lots of background noise.