Zeddophile

Not in your area, I'm in Melbourne. The end result really will depend on the glass you start with though...

Very VERY nice job. Having had a small part in one or two restorations of this scale through work in the last couple of years, I can understand just how much time and money you have invested in it, and my hat is well and truly off.... I don't have the patience to go quite to that extent myself, not to mention the balls to drive/park it anywhere when finished! As far as the glass goes, what we did on one of those cars (Alfas) I mentioned before was get the least scratched windows we could find in our wrecking yard, and have them polished. Didn't know such a profession existed, but there are guys around who will actually polish glass and can get a lot of light scratches out. Just recently had a windscreen done for a roadworthy where the plastic backing of the wiper blade had scuffed a patch about 10cm square on the screen, and when the guy was done you'd never know it had been there. So failing the availability of NOS items, I think that could be quite a viable option.... Just a quick note to others on this too, the platers around my area will generally charge the same whether you have one or two items, or a whole bucketfull. So if you want to get one or two things plated, grab anything you can find around the car that needs to be the same colour, and even handfuls of spare bolts/nuts/washers and chuck them in too. Having spare bolts etc in also means you can pick the best ones to use if some don't come up so good. Definitely put the hours in yourself to prep them though, as the plating really will not take to any remnants of 40 year old scale and grime, so many hours of wire wheeling is the key here (and will save you some money).

It is a bit different.... If someone said to me they were going to paint a zed green with a white vinyl roof, I would probably barf.... But seeing it in the photos, I actually quite like it, although I would have liked the green to be one or two shades darker. Looks tidy though, and very distinctive...

That green thing has been on Ebay about 10 times in the last few months, and I'm not exaggerating... Okay, maybe I am a little, maybe it's only 7 times..... But seriously, I don't think it has ever run the full length of the auction before it gets pulled.

Last two club sprints I've done, its been 3 (or is it 4? Can't remember now) years past the expiry date is okay.... So for example a harness expiring in 2008 (like mine!) is now valid for CLUB LEVEL ONLY till 2011. So obviously CAMS have finally passed that change through that they were talking about for the last year or two. Not sure if they are planning to make further changes or not though.

Not sure why the cam needs changing either, but to my mind, if you are going to put individual throttles on later anyhow, why put the triples on at all? Grab an aftermarket ecu, use the standard intake for the moment but turf the air flow meter and pollution crap, and get the aftermarket ECU on there and running. You'll need it for the individual throttles anyway, and likely you'll keep everything you put on there now when you get round to the throttle bodies.... (unless you set it up for a dizzy for the moment, and go to coil packs later...) Properly tuned it should give you a decent whack more power than the L-jetronic ecu (turfing the AFM helps a LOT), not to mention much better fuel economy than the triples Chuck the mechanical fan for some thermos run off the ECU as well, and you'll be laughing. Won't sound as good as triple carbs, but then again in all honesty individual throttles don't sound quite as good as carbs either (close though!).....

Maybe he's been watching too many Bond films....

+1 for earth connections. On old alfas, its always at the rear light itself - 105s the wire corrodes off the bulb holder, on alfettas they have a stupid circuit board thing which the bulb holder stops making proper contact to.

That is a pretty bad example.... One of the A pillars looks likely to be pretty stuffed, among many other areas. I think you personally would be much better off spending the money it would cost to fix on picking up a car someone has restored already, and fix the little things.... However, like Lurch, I'm a bit interested.... I need a LONG term project Could you let me know how you go Lurch, what you find out and what you decide? Would also be interested to see what the 260 looks like, especially if you decide not to go ahead with that one either?

Sounds like me backing the car trailer at night in the rangie. Purple 80's tint is a bit past its prime, much easier to see out with the upper tailgate open in low/no light!

Depends on the screen fitters... The one we use at work will immediately come and tell you if there is any rust under the screen rubbers when he's pulled it out, and say what do you want me to do? Happened on my old mans Discovery, had a tiny (5c piece) patch or rust coming through right at the top (from where someone had cut the urethane out the last time). He left the screen out for me, I bare metalled that patch and rust killed it, he came back the next day and glued the new screen in (they don't use seals on a lot of new cars, the screen is just urethaned in place). But then again, he's not a franchised screen fitter, and I couldn't even tell you his business name. He fits screens to lamborghinis, ferraris astons and so on, and is one of those guys you have to be in the motor trade to even know he exists. O'Briens/Jims etc would likely all follow the "fit and run" strategy as described in this thread, but then again what do you really expect from any big franchise operation? Its a bit like taking your car to Kmart Tyre and Auto for a service, and expecting that the apprentice there (who in some cases I know of has already been fired from a number of reputable workshops) will do any more than change the service sticker. He might, but then again he probably won't...

His terminology may be incorrect, but he's right.... You can remove the points from a dizzy, and retrofit an optical or magnetic sensor in their place, which is then capable of driving the ignition module (which would usually be supplied in such a kit). Scorcher and crane are two companies off the top of my head that used to supply this type of kit, whether they still do is another matter. But no, you don't need a 280zx dizzy, this type of kit allows you to convert your points dizzy to better electronic ignition than the 280zx had (not that there is anything wrong with the 280zx one), as it uses newer, more efficient sensors. I'm not sure whether this is what the original poster is talking about, but its almost definitely what rb30x meant...

I get a radius of 317.55mm and 274.55, not sure what you've done there.... Banging those tyre sizes into the calculator on that site I posted says that when the speedo shows 100km/h, you're actually doing 86.5km/h. If you use that, it also gives you the radius/circumference and a bunch of other numbers, so you can check to see if you're on the right track.... Incidentally, how low is the lowest point underneath your car? The new tyres are 43mm smaller in radius, and that is going to translate directly into ride height - in other words, you will have 43mm less ground clearance. Not to mention they will be 86mm smaller in diameter, and will look really tiny in the wheelarches.... I presume the idea is to gain better acceleration on the track, which you definitely will, but I wonder whether you might be going a bit too far with the downsizing. Only you know how much clearance you actually have under the car, and whether its going to be an issue or not.... *edit*Also - I may or may not have taught you something today, but you just taught me something too - I didn't realise you could work the speedo error out just from the radius of the wheel + tyre assembly, I assumed you had to work out circumference first. Seems not! Thanks, that's a piece of knowledge that's getting filed away in my head for later!

Another calculator with metric speed option.... Needs Java to work though. http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html And for what its worth, your calculations are a long way out, unless you have 100mm wide tyres? I'm not sure what is marked on your tyre currently, I'll guess it is something like this: 195/65 R14 In this case, the first number (195) is the tyres' width across the tread face in millimetres. The second number (65) is the height of the tyres' sidewall, BUT it is expressed as a percentage of the tread width. The R means a radial construction tyre, and the 14 is the diameter of the wheel in inches. SO. You have already worked out the radius of the wheel, that being 177.8mm. Now to get your sidewall height to add to that, you need to take 65% of the 195mm width. 195 x 0.65 = 126.75. So the actual radius of the original wheel and tyre assembly is 304.55mm. From there obviously you need to work out the circumference of the tyre, using that radius you've worked out, and then the circumference of the new tyre (working out a new radius for it!), and then compare the two and find out the percentage difference. Or you could just jump into an online calculator, and play around till you find the tyre size you want. I use the one I posted when I want to know what size tyres I could use, stick the original size in on one side, then try different ones on the other until I find the closest one. Incidentally, assuming your current tyre is 195/65 R14, to keep the same overall diameter at its closest with a 45 aspect ratio on a 14 inch rim, you'd need a 275/45/14 Time for some flares?

Out of curiousity, how did you get to that figure? Without knowing the gearing used by the car that put the dyno figures down, you'd have to assume worst case scenario, which would likely be 1:1 gearing (4th gear) with a 3.5 final drive, and then assume that the car now is in a very short first gear (say perhaps around 3.8 or 3.9) with a 4.3 or 4.5 final drive. Obviously the bracket shouldn't ever see the full extent of this loading anyway, unless it was solid mounted to the body - which from memory they aren't, they have a large rubber mount at either end which should absorb a portion of the torque transmitted.... So many variables when you start to actually work this stuff out on paper!

There is one thing you may be overlooking here. Most torque figures picked off a dyno are done in 3rd or 4th gear. If you use 1st gear, surely the amount of torque produced is far greater, due to the gearing change? Likewise the diff ratio would probably have a similar effect?

Looking impressive! Out of idle curiousity, is that a thumb control on your tig torch?

Yep, or R34 GTR.... Never liked the shape of the R33, it has the same problem to me as the S14 - lost the clean lines of the previous model, got fat and lazy, then the following model had plastic surgery to get back to near the previous models shape and looked damned fine again! Hmmm, sounds like Hollywood....

Well, if you are going to sit and wait for them anyway, may as well keep a video camera on you, and keep the staffies by your side. Once they've been locked in, RELEASE THE HOUNDS! That should discourage them from getting out!

As Scando has said, depends how you drive the car. If you mostly just cruise around with the occasional squirt, you could probably happily run with a huge torque motor for years without noticing any body cracking (torque being the thing that twists the body rather than power). If you are planning to go out to Calder every friday night, or thrash around the racetrack regularly, then the torque (in conjunction with body flex from hard cornering) becomes a more worrying factor, and you need to keep an eye on the weak points in the body.

The problem with the fork style ones is that its very easy to stuff the boot on the balljoint with one. Mxtopsecret, are you aware that where the balljoint goes though the steering arm has a taper fit (assuming this is the same for Zeds as most other cars)? One thing you can try without buying any more tools, is to screw the nut back on the top a couple of threads, hold pressure down on the tie rod (as if you are trying to pull the tie rod out) and give the steering arm a few sharp whacks with a hammer on the side. Normally the impact is enough to break the lock of the taper, but that said taper fit parts can be an absolute bastard at times.... The cam gears on my Alfa V6 are taper fit, and despite having been off 6 months earlier, refused to let go with pullers of any kind, I ended up having to heat the centre of the gears with a oxy torch and give them a whack with a dead blow hammer. Never had a steering/suspension balljoint give that amount of trouble though, so you should be right....

You are correct in what you say, but the flipside of this is (speaking with strombergs here, but principles should be similar) if there is no oil at all, there is no damping effect on the movement inside the carby, and when you give it a rev from a high vacuum condition (idle), the rapid change in manifold pressure can bounce the piston further than it needs to go, causing to much fuel to go into the motor. For example, on carby rover v8s with the strombergs, if one carby loses its oil, it presents as a distinct flutter/miss on acceleration. I remember a mate of mine bought a carby range rover, and called me up saying its got a miss, and his boss wanted to change the ignition system and/or pull the heads. "DON'T touch anything!" Turned up down there, had a listen, then told him to get me some ATF. "What?" Poured it into the carby dashpot, revved up smooth and clean. He couldn't believe it.

Have to say I'm not a fan of Myth Busters methods, they tend to 'bust' some where in reality it CAN happen. If you do a bit of searching on youtube I'm sure there would be at least one video of a drag car launching itself from a failed tailshaft.

I think you'll probably find that looks much better once the colour coat has gone on the car - primer kind of makes it stand out a lot.

www.transdirect.com.au They brought my welder down on a pallet from sydney, and it got here okay...