Jeff G 78

LOL. I've had it almost 32 years and it's still not done. I did mount an OE side mirror today that I bought from fixitman. Hey Cliff @siteunseen, the OE mirror barely added any width to the car, so it still fits through the tiny garage door. 🙂 I took it for a quick drive today after installing the mirror and now I have a little leak under the car. Might be the speedo cable O-ring at the trans.

That's how mine came 5 or so years ago. Sadly, it's still in the same box and is sitting next to the car. I did drive it a few miles today. 🙂

Mine said "My Z will be finished...someday" I'm not sure if I even want that back as I probably won't live long enough to actually finish it.

Real info? I spewed a few sentences of nonsense that probably wasn't worth typing and certainly wasn't worth reading. 🤣

Mine technically runs. I drove it earlier this year and backed it into my garage. Summer here in AZ was way too hot to drive it with no A/C and I just haven't had the time to take care of a few things it needs before I drive it now that the weather is perfect. For those who remember, it's in my golf cart garage which has right around 1" of clearance on either side between the garage opening and the body of the Z. The car hauler that transported it here from MI broke the driver's side mirror off, so it has no side mirrors. I just bought an OE LH mirror from Fixitman, so when that shows up I will figure out if my car will still go through the garage door with one side mirror. I see no hope of mounting two door mirrors. If even one mirror doesn't fit, I might have to modify my garage door opening. Next up is mounting my MSA exhaust that has been new in the box for at least five years. I need to make a connector pipe with a braided flex joint to tie the MSA exhaust into my old AZ Z Car 6-1 header.

The last one I made it to was Cleveland well over a decade ago. I don't think there were many group pics taken though.

There is no way the new Z is that slow. The 370Z does 0 - 60 in about 5.0 seconds with much less power. The new Z should be closer to 4.5 - 4.7

There is a name I haven't heard in a long time!

Your car looks great! Congrats on the progress. I just hear normal injector tick, not exhaust leakage or valvetrain noise.

I only have 9 badges. 🤣

Those do look very nice.

I appologise for not fully comprehending your post, but I will give you my take on what you can do. I had my P79 shaved 0.050" and I did not shim the towers or change the valves. I slotted the chain guide holes to get the chain path correct and then I drilled the stock cam gear and used eccentric spacers per the "How To Modify..." book. With a degree wheel, I was able to dial the timing in to the cam card specs. The engine ran great and was endurance raced. The spacers were less than $10 from Summit Racing and the other mods were free. I started with a new quality Cloyes timing chain kit. EDIT: One thing I added was a plug spacer that fit between the cam dowel/eccentric washer and the cam retention washer. The eccentric washers are about half as thick as the cam gear hole, so the washer could walk off the end of the cam dowel. The plug keeps the eccentric washer in place. You can just see it in the last picture.

That might actually work Cliff! I still haven't come up with anything that will look good and fit in the golf cart garage. I guess fitting in the garage is more important at this point. 🙂

Any Amazon wifi or bluetooth endoscope will work. They are about $35 and most have a mirror attachment that allows you to see the top of the chamber. I have the Depstech one and it works fine, though battery life on mine isn't great. I just use an external battery so I don't have to worry if it's charged when I want to use it a few times per year.

From the picture you posted, it looks like the valve is up. Since they are loose, remove the springs and then see it you can grab the valve stem with your fingers and move it up and down as well as rotate it. If you can get a good grip on it and can't move it, then you have a bent valve and piston damage at a minimum. If you can freely move the valve up and down all the way and rotate it without the stem movingside to side, you might have gotten lucky. Even if you did bend a valve, it's not always a total loss. I've bent valves and simply polished the piston divots and replaced the valves. If the head has gouges, it can be welded and reshaped. It is also important to learn why the damage occured. How much has the engine been run since it was rebuilt? I know you said that you paid about $3k, but that doesn't mean the shop had any clue what they were doing. I have built engines for half that and raced them.

Unfortunately, right before I moved from Michigan to Phoenix this spring, I gave away a perfectly good L26 along with a few other engines. It sounds like you (with help from other AZ people) need to first figure out if there is a mechanical failure with the engine. Hopefully not, but these engines are really cheap to rebuild. My Porsche on the other hand is at least 10 times more expensive to rebuild and much more likely to blow up.

I too have good personal memories of Bob. I first met him when I took his 4 day school in 1997 and then a few times in the early 2000's during testing both at his location and then in Dearborn. In Dearborn, he drove one of our SVT F150 Lightnings on our handling course and as I rode with him, I couldn't help but to turn the tables and ask him if I could give him some pointers. He didn't hesitate and welcomed my expertise of both the vehicle and the track. He was a very good student and immediately improved greatly. He thanked me for setting him straight and was a super nice guy.

I've had leaks on several various headers and I've always retorqued cold. I've had the best luck replacing the studs and nuts to get a perfect inside to outside tightening pattern just like head bolts.

I like the Skillard splitter for stiffening the airdam at speed and the aero benefit of the splitter itself, but it will certainly negate the flex advantages of buying the Xenon in the first place.

I have a Xenon airdam, but I have not yet installed it, so this might or might not be 100% feasible. I might change course, but here is what I plan to do. Knowing that the Xenon airdam is known to flex down at speed and also knowing that the whole point of the flexible airdam is to not get destroyed all the time, I plan to make a sacrificial brace. I hope to bend some small tube steel to fit into the back side of the lower front lip and weld two tabs onto it where two pencil braces will go back to the stock center valence mount. The pencil braces will be thin with a V-shaped cross section. If the airdam strikes a curb, it will flex and cause the sacrificial pencil brace(s) to buckle. A simple removal and straightening or replacement of the damaged brace will be easy. The braces will be just strong enough to keep the airdam in place at all vehicle speeds. It won't take much strength. Alternately, the pencil braces could be stiff with a spring in the center which will allow buckling with an automatic spring-back feature. The spring design might take some trial and error to get right. Here is a sketch (not to scale or proper shape) of what I plam to make.

Thanks Cliff.

The 260Z will be off to a new home. A well-known Z guy bought it and plans to vintage race it. I'm down to one Z for the first time in decades.

I bought it from your area! No title is the biggest issue for making it street legal. The story I got was that it was from Texas and the owner moved to Indiana and took the car with him. By that time, it was pretty worn out, so it was parked in a barn and he never bothered to get an Indiana title. After a decade or so, he sold it and it again went into a barn for a decade. I bought it from that guy in '09. Could it be titled? Sure, but it's probably a hassle. One of my racing teammates threw the dash away along with the still-attached VIN plate when we were building the car, so that might make it harder too. It does have the stamped-in VIN on the firewall. As for the rest of the car, there are no horns, turn signals, bright lights, or side marker lights. They could all be added back I guess.

LOL. That's the problem. It's 2000 miles away.

Sadly, I just placed a classified add for my 260Z endurance racer. The car is still in Michigan and I moved to Arizona in March. I don't have the space or time for the car here and the car needs to be moved in the next few weeks. The car is at a friend's house and he is getting ready to epoxy the garage floor, so the car must go. I have no other place to store it, so if you know anybody looking for a track or race car, send them my way.