gira

Yeah, I am not sure air can even reach the engine bay from the cowl area. This is for an EP car where alternate materials are allowed, although it does not specifically say "Cowl." I'll have to get a ruling on it. At best I'll save about three pounds, but it's worth it at this point. We're still running a little bit heavy. greg

Classic Z'ers, I am still trying to get weight out of my race car. Does anyone know of anyone that might make the cowl from alternate materials, such as Carbon Fiber or Fiberglass? Thanks Greg Ira

Yeah George, that engine bay looks awesome. FYI- A sandwich of aluminum will certianly do the trick and be rigid. In the essence of making things fast and easy to remove, we use a single piece of aluminum along with a foil backed foam that the race shops sell. The foam is made for that purpose and gives the insulation value plus the block against radiant heat. It's semi rigid, not like the normal mat materials you see. I got it from Trackside Tim. www.tracksidetim.com Greg Ira

To all Classic Z'ers, Sorry it took me so long to reply. I have been working since the race ended. Thank you so much for all the well wishes. It just wasn't meant to be this year and I really really thought we had the best chance we've ever had. Brakke never races well and I had me car set up awesome to go 10/10's for the duration. Well, it didn’t turn out as we had hoped and that’s racing I guess. Weather moved in. We watched the radar all day and although it had looked overcast many times throughout the week, it hadn’t ever sprinkled enough to cause concern of tire choice. We were the last race of the last day. On the way to the grid there were sprinkles on the windscreen. We took a quick survey of my major competition and they were all on slick tires. We kicked around the idea of going with rains and had them on pit road when we were under the five minute warning to start the race. We relied on the current weather radar and the past 10 days to stay on slicks and for there to be a dry line. We took the green and the rain just poured. Turn one the pole sitter goes off, turn 8 the outside front row guy goes off. It’s just survival at this point. I get passed by a couple of guys and tell Guy that I can survive this and have to come in for tires. Coming in for tires in a sprint race is sure death unless you get a double yellow to bunch the field, which I considered very likely in this condition. We changed to full Goodyear rains and made it out on the lead lap. I proceeded to set the fastest lap of the race of all the cars with the new tires. There were cars all over the track, in the walls, in the gravel traps, etc. They waived the flag about 3 laps early and never had a double yellow. WE were jipped and the deal was a total crap shoot. Three of four of the slower qualifiers(37 each) started on rains and finished on the podium. What else could they do except take that chance? It was a low probability gamble and it turned out for them. Oh Well, there’s always next year. Jesse Prather sold his EP car to his dad to run in GTL next year. Jesse is building a new EP Mazda MX5 for next year. Great. Greg Ira

Golly, that doesn't seem like a very fair fight against that list. What's wrong with that rulebook? I am certain I am missing something, like different levels of preparation... Greg

Hello F1race79, Here are my first impressions. Roadster and ZX don't really go together. The ZX unibody is a little frail in my opinion and taking the roof off would kill the chassis strength. I built an IT car that was pretty fast and we spent a lot of time patching the underbody and working on the rollcage. Get the engine to breath by taking the emissions off. Throwing triple webers at a stock engine might not gain you much. Make sure to use the torque of the engine when setting up for the course, seriously don't worry about screaming it to redline all the time and those engines fall flat at 6500. The semi trailing arm rear suspension is a bear to work with. Jump up and down on the bumper and watch it go negative camber by way too much AND toe out. A lot of negative camber might work good for autocross but the wheel also will toe out which will make you loose. Limit the movement by using stiffer than normal spring rates, somewhere in the 400 pound range. hope this helps greg ira

My last post about this I hope. This isn't tiddlywinks or farting around on a trackday. The last 12 hour enduro I did was 10/10ths the entire time. This is as hot a competition as you can get in my opinion. Again, I don't believe the overall stopping distance will decrease, so laptimes in cool brake qualifying won't change. Finite supply breeds used service limits and perhaps that's why ours have cracked. It still isn't getting better as time goes by. We run a typical green Carbotech shoe which I an certain many WestCoast guys run and yes, we push the brake pedal the same as you surfer dudes. I was unaware of the weight of the drum assembly and frankly don't care because the problem still remains. 10 minute pitstop mandatory?? We don't have those. My team can do a hot shoe change in 10 minutes, infortunately that's 8 minutes longer on pit road than I'd like or have to stay. We are also able to go to the 6 hour mark in a 12 or 24 hour enduro. OK since these drums are all over the place- WHERE CAN I BUY SOME? NOT STEEL! Greg Ira

Gees guys, I thought you were on the same team as I. You act like Mazda guys for heavens sake. Thanks Datsun Doc for understanding. The issue is we continue to have them crack under stress, can't turn them, aren't supposed to use parts from other cars, the supply is finite, and we're the only IT cars with those crap rear brakes. Why do you think they changed them for EP? I really would have thought I'd have a more favorable response from other racers that would like to go a long enduro without changing shoes. Try it hot and see how long you sit on pit road. I am not saying they don't work! They simply aren't as good as what we compete against. Lot's of us don't have a huge supply of used drums on the shelf, and we have to agree the supply is finite unless somebody ponies up and builds a batch. I ain't gonna use steel as that is a performance disadvantage. Greg Ira

Robert, This is for IT. Prod already has rear discs. For the most part, any performance change to an IT car goes right in the garbage can. We'll see what happens. It's people like you across the United States that need to stand up and raise hell about this because it's legitimately a safety issue. thanks Greg

who is reddats? Greg

Sounds Good and Thanks, FYI, the reasoning behind my question: I have the SCCA Comp boards ear every once in awhile. I wrote a letter to them regarding the rear brakes of these particular cars being a safety issue in racing conditions. If you couple this with the non availability of the drums, we have a real point. I pushed for a later Z disc swap. We'll see what they say. Greg

Does anyone know of where to purchase new drums for these cars? Thanks Greg Ira

Fellow SU users, We've spent countless hours trying to get an air fuel curve similar to an FI car out of our SU using Z cars. The fact is it's next to impossible. The function of the demand (manifold pressure), SU piston oil which can affect the location of the piston vs time, any modifications such as an L28 bottom end or headers, the needle grind and jet nozzle size. I mean that's a lot of old fashioned metering to think you can dial in perfectly. It just ain't gonna happen. If you have an upgraded ignition system that throws a decent spark, then you don't have to worry much about fouling or running rich when idling. Rich is good for start up anyway. As long as it pulls like it's supposed to and isn't fouling plugs or blowing a lot of black smoke, i'd go with it. See you, Greg Ira

Wow, I hope that engine runs as good as it looks. I think the moral of the story regarding compression is that you don't really know what you've got unless you measure it, including cc'ing the head and counting deck height clearance cc's. That thing sure is purty. Can't wait to see how well it runs on the dyno. Kudo's for running SU's. They really are great! Greg Ira

How'd y'all end up? Greg

Wow, that video cracks me up. What a save! Some people say RA is easy to learn. I don't find it that way. I drive with my eyes and my arse, that's it. I never have been able to look at marks on the ground or on the wall, therefore the blind corners all add up to trouble for me. The thing about a 4 mile track is just the same with every other track, no mistakes equal good times, unfortunately you have 2.5 minutes to make a mistake in lieu of 1.5 minutes. In an EP car, the only possbile rest you could take is on the front straight after climbing the hill and that's not that long. That's the thing, the straights are long but you can't see to the end of them! Anyway I'll get it down and combine that with larger cajones. My in car from the hero cam is sort of boring because you can't see out of the car but I'll try and get some from my brother. See you. Greg

Thanks for the kind words. Yeah, Tom Thrash was an excellent driver. The rumour is he had a physical issue that caused the accident. I was in the same qualifier as he was and saw the car on it's side at the T8 tire wall. The fans said he absolutely creamed the wall. Very, Very sad and a real eye opener to all of us and our safety stuff. On a racing note. That track is very hard to squeeze qualifying speeds out of with lack of experience. Racing was different. I ran right with Brakke which surprised even me, but once I was there, I would have won. My car usually is good on the long runs. Brakke broke, and fortunately for me, I had already passed him and was in the lead. One awesome track! I have to make up about 2 seconds to be a quick qualifier. PS. my door was not shut properly and I was scared the turn marshal would call me in and have me black flagged out of the lead, so I held it closed on the right hand turns with my left hand. Try going through the scariest corner in America with one had sawing the wheel. I sort of forgot about that until my brother showed me the video. OMG Thanks again guys, Greg

Any sign shop makes them. Look in the back of Grassroots Motorsports or SportsCar magazine for the graphic companies. Greg

Lemme know when and where you find the Volk 15x7 with 0 offset and correct bolt spacing. JDub, We're already using the 280Z stub axle. They're still too wimpy. I've broken one at the outside fusion weld and one at the spline junction. Who's coming to Elkhart Lake for the June Sprints and/or the Runoffs?? Be fun to have some darn Z guys out there. They never came to Topeka. Greg

Mark, Great pics as always and thanks for the props. The tire contact patch being so good is from two things. Our geometry is decent for that old car and the tires we use. The cantilevered SportsCar special is quite something. Almost 10 inches of tire patch and very little static negative camber used. Half a degree would be heavy. The car runs as it did the second half of the season last year. VIR did some things to the course which gave us extra grip. They diamond ground some of the corners or something like that. My car actually wasn't handling as well as I would have liked. The engine was awesome as usual. Greg

Great info Mark and John. I am still looking into this to see what the deal is. Thanks again, Greg

Marty, I don't think the Goodyears will fit. The patch is a good 10" I'd say. They are cantilevered and very wide. I did sell some super soft ones to Dan in Tucson that appeared to work for him. He had his car sprung pretty stiff so they didn't rub. The Hoosier DOT tire is similar to the ones you've been using, just a little faster. They have a very stiff sidewall and their overall weight is less than most of the other DOT tires. The Hoosier R6 is the premier IT tire at this time I believe, ALTHOUGH we are testing a new DOT tire that Goodyear has built. Depending on how new the tires are, I usually sell them for $75-$100 each. Greg

Anyone out there want our take offs for a nominal price, please let me know. We use the Goodyear Sportscar Special on a 15x7 wheel. It has a huge contact patch. AND we use the DOT spec tire from Hoosier, the R6 in a 225/45. The tires we give back to the manufacturers usually have only two to four heat cycles on them. Just let me know and we'll UPS them out. Greg Ira

Good Day everyone, I have a general question about the stroker engines out there. We built one and it recently beat the middle crank bearings up pretty bad without much time on the engine. My belief is we turned it too many RPM's and I want to know from the list if there has been a general consensus of where NOT to go with the RPM's on these engines, or where the harmonics are. This was a professionally built engine with very good parts. Thanks a million, Greg Ira Revtec Race Engineering www.revtec1.com

OK Great. Thanks for all the hints. The whole suspension is rod ends, no delrin, no poly. If all components are true, there should be no vibration, just road feel as described. We've had this set up before, just not these giant brakes. I did have the rotors turned but not on these same Z hubs. I am a little suspect on shimming the hub. First off there are only four points the hub contacts the rotor. I am worried about having a good contact between the rotor and the hub if I shim it. What if the high or low spot is half way between the bolts on the hub? We're in the midst of checking the runout. It must be in the hub/rotor area. Thanks again. Greg Ira