PZG302

I know this car quite well, having raced against it in Sydney when first built and owned by Lex Greenhalgh. It is a very quick car and the motor was pretty much a no dollars spared build when done originally. It was good for around 1:48's and maybe even a 1:46 around Eastern Creek back in '97/98when Lex had it and John has fixed alot of the problems the car had when originally built in terms of reliability. It would be a great buy for someone who wants to quick pretty cheap and not be scared as it a pretty forgiving car handling wise. And I definately have no interest in this other than to see it goes to a good home, hopefully not in Qld so I can get my car back to one of the fastest, if not the fastest, up North

Habe to agree here with MaygZ....Pass the attitude test and if you haven't been done for something stupid you generally are fine. I have, and have had some very bad cars in terms of attracting attenion form the constabulary. I have been let off for 80 in a 60 zone with a ticket for a bald tyre, no points and cheaper fine, quite a few years ago now in Sydney. Have also been let off for uninsured, but done for unregistered by being polite, friendly and generally passing the attitude test. In both cases I was in the wrong, but was given a figuarative clip over the ear and told don't do it again. Last weekend I had to drop the work ute off and my partner was following in the XR8 ute. It was wet and she is used to driving a Daiwoo wagon that wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding. Leaving a set of lights behind me and beside a police car she lit the ute up and backed off, stopped and accelerated again to light up the back wheels before the traction control cut in. The police looked across, saw a blonde female driver and basically wagged a finger before driving off laughing. It was obvious it wasn't her car and she wasn't being a hoon, just wasn't used to the torque of the 8 and how much she doesn't need to use in the wet. If anything I tend to get pulled over to ask about the car and what's been done to it and how much they miss theirs, or more recently their dad's, though I did get some strange looks passing a marked police car doing just under the limit when I towed my Z from Sydney last year, the ute didn't know it was towing over 2 tonne and just sat on the 110 set on the cruise control

Just like the tear off windscreens they use in NASCAR!!!! :o

Steve, looking awesome, makes me want to sell the MX and spend the better half's money on one to match the green car!!!! Hope she doesn't see that, or there'll be a bloodied corpse in the gutter. Now all you need to do is get rid of the ancioent carbies and update to to the new world of L28 injected goodness. In a couple of years I might be bale to give you agood price on a very good L29

The biggest problem with lexcan or perspex is keeping it clean and clear. Use detergents and it will end up cloudy, plus both are easily scratched. As my car is a circuit racer the side windows I don't really care aboutand the rear hatch window is replaced as needed every few years at about $60 buck a throw to get a flat piece cut roughly to size and I then trim to suit. Keep in mind all my windows are flat and haven't been shaped to suit, again I don't care about the appearence compared to the weight saving. My 240 weighs 960kg ready to hit the track with the only fibreglass panels being the bonnet and front bar. The steel front gueards are lighter than any fibreglass guards available. For a road car I would recommend staying with glass as the maintenance is a lot easier and it does take a lot more punishment, as well as can be polished if it is scratched.

MX5 Club track day, if the Zed is ready will be perfect to get used to driving it again and bedding in brakes. If the mechanic is still working his magic on the motor I will be taking my MX5 out for a play.

I use lexan for the rear screen and side windows in my 240. The rear screen is 1.8mm thick and obviously very light weight. I have held it place with screws around the edge and sitting on small alloy blocks so it looks right. As it is a race car there are no seals to worry about, nor do Icare about leaks with rain. The window does bow out at speed but not enough to worry about. If I am ever pinged for it I will run an aluminium strip from the top to bottom of the opening over the window to stop the bow. The quarter windows are 3mm lexcan and cut to shape and fitted into the standard frames. The door windows are 3mm thick lexcan and again cut roughly to shape and held place in the original frames with a leather strap over the window frame and push stud. Works very well, though the drivers window is usually pulled out when I am driving. The big advantage is weight for me, and cost. The last shhet I got for the rear screen was around $60 from a sign writer, just look up perspex in the yellow pages and you will find a supplier near you pretty easily. As ypu go thicker the weight does increase and the cost does go up. I still use a standard glass windscreen for safety and also because perspex and lexcan are very hard to keep clean and unmarked, not really an issue on side or rear glass.

My toys aren't suitable for a motorkhana and my money is being spent at a couple of workshops at the moment on the Charger and now the Z engine rebuild. I will playing at lakeside on the 1st March though, just not sure which car I will be in....

Why??? Because like the door handles you buy a 120Y one at a tenth the price?!?!?!?!?!?!

Greg, don't forget to paint the tow hooks red so they can found when you're stuck in the sand from going to fast....

Greg, Don't need to over complicate things. A simple piece of flat 3-5mm thick sheet cut to shape will do fine. As I said my tow hooks are bolted to the original bumper mount for the rear and bolted to the forward rail where it joins the radiator support for the front. As NZedder also put up a piece of 3" seat belt webbing will also work. Come out to Lakeside on March 1 for the MX5 club track day and have a look at what the 2B and 2F prod sports cars are running for tow hooks. At this stage I will be running the Z if I can get the bottom end rebuild done in time, so you can see how basic my tow hooks are and they have been used to pull me out of plenty of sand traps no worries. In fact the only time a tow hook has been damaged was by a tow truck driver when the car was moved from one workshop to another without my knowledge and I wasn't there to supervise to tell him where to put the straps to keep the car on the tilt tray.

Greg, have a look at what others have done re the rear tow hooks. What you propose is pretty good but I wouldn't worry about the horizontal piece, just bend the bar out to about 45 degrees. I can't really help as I don't run a rear bar, but I use a flat bar that has two holes lining up with the original bar mounts and then bent outwards to about 30-45 degrees with a 40mm hole. This has successfully pulled me out of many sand traps and other situations, including pulling the car on three wheels about 100m at Oran Park when the right rear corner was ripped off the car. As for towing the car on a trailer, my preference is to attach the car to the trailer through the wheels, ie use a ratchet strap, mine are rated at 2000 and 4000kg and fed through the wheels so the car can move about on it's suspension. Seems to put a lot less strain on the trailer and the car. Even better is if you can get a hold of the straps towies use where they just go over the wheels and tie onto the deck, less strain all round. Also remember to keep the car in neutral, and if you have a handbrake it's up to you if you put it on or not. My car is towed out of gear, no handbrake, because it doesn't have one, and tied down at each corner using the wheels.

Jason, I'll take the 4 off your hands and the rods as well. Have just finished the move but still sorting the home computer, best to give me a call on the mobile. Not sure how often I'll get on as I'll be out and about for work over the next couple of weeks.

Personally, if you can't afford two cars you can't afford to drift or pretty much any other motorsport other than social track days. If you're not prepared to have your car a smoking crumpled shell on the side of the track it shouldn't be used for competition. I take my Zed out as it is built to be a circuit car and I expect to have it damaged on the track, nature of the game. My MX5 has done two track days and won't be doing any more any time soon as I put it in the wall at Lakeside, thankfully the damage was only cosmetic and to my ego. My ute will never see the track as I can't afford to have it damaged and not covered by insurance, or if I break it mechanically can't afford to fix it when it's not covered by the factory warranty, especially repairing or replacing the six speed auto. My Chugger won't be seeing the track either because after pouring in way too much money it would be heartbreaking to see it damaged. Best bet, keep the dream alive but wait until you have the cash to not only buy a drift pig, but also maintain and run it. Buying the cars is the cheap bit. An example is a typical state race meeting will cost me near $1,000 for entry fee, fuel, tyres and consumables. If it goes bang or crunch then the dollars really add up. Even a simple hill climb will leave not a lot of change from $300 for me.

If you want a high revving six, the L series isn't really the motr to have without big dollars spent on the build. I have always used the rule of thumb of $1,000 per cylinder for a reasonable street motor, for a good race motor, triple that at least. I have been in the very fortunate position that when I was racing seriously back in NSW that my motors were built for me by the workshop that sponsored me. In my motors I have them built for the torque they produce to haul me out of corners, typical rev range I use on the track is from 3500-4000 through to 6800-7200, with a very flat torque curve from 3500 to 5200 and maximum power at around 6500 to 6800. The standard bottom ends handle this quite well, and I have yet to do anything to the crank or rods beside go through the all the 2nd rods available on the workshops shelf and find the 6 that were closest in weight. That was the extent of the balance work as the L series motors are built very well from the factory. I also use a good qulaity harmonic balancer, at the moment chasing up getting my Ross harmonic balancer that was on my L29 sent up to put on my L31 for the rebuild, or I will buy another Ross balancer to suit as I have never had a problem. The main thing limiting the revs I use has been the top end, ie the cam profile and where the power is made, and the rockers. I find that if I go over 7200 the motors tend to spit lash pads with my N42 head set up, generally the exhaust on number 5. We retrieved about 6 lash pads from the sump when the L29 was pulled down to put the head onto the L31. I know of a few of the guys revving their motors to much higher but they are spending big dollars to get those revs, and with that comes the problems with breaking cranks. Unless the guy building your bottom end knows what they doing, you will break cranks if they are modified from standard. I have seen plenty of L series cranks let go because the engine builder, though good, wasn't a L series specialist or guru. To build an l series motor is a lot different to building a 202 or 265 motor.

Also remember there are Bridgestones and then there are Brisgestones.....The Australian built tyres, whilst doing the job have a reputation for being not as good in terms of quality when compared to the Japanese built equivalent. Having said that, if the tyres were 4 to 5 years old, then it wouldn't matter what you had the rubber would be close to shot and only some goop would get them to have any grip.

I think we are all heading in the same direction when we say to stick with the L28 crank. My L29's, standard crank and 89mm bore were great motors. I run a N42 head tha has been worked to suit injection and an old Haltech F9 fuel only computer with 280ZX electronic Dizzy. I am only running a stroker at the moment because it fell into my lap for the great price of, well it fell into the engine bay as my L29 was tired..... The motor currently needs a bottom end freshen up, happening next month, and if it needs more than rings bearings and a hone then I will be looking at building an L29 with one of my spare motors and the L31 kept for a rebuild over a couple of years as spare cash comes up to spend on it. I think if you went for a ride in a good L28, or talk Scando into taking you for a ride in his turbo L28 you wouldn't be eorrying about the extra expense of the stroker build.

I must be using the wrong engine builders, or dyno operators at least...... All of my L series race motors, L28's varying from 0.020" over to .120" over and a stroker to 3.1 have only ever shown around 150-170 hp at the wheels on dynos setting up the fuel for the computer.... Admitidly they were never big dollar builds, just done right to make plenty of torque and be reliable for a couple of seasons between freshen ups. To me it seems that a lot of people are optimistic with power figures, or maybe there are a few dyno operators out there that are maybe tweaking things a little. I know choice of wheels I use and tyre pressures can give me 20hp depending on what I'm doing, ie power run for Prod Sports you want as little as possible for the P/W ratio they work on, before they seal the motor and computer. As NZeder said to get 260hp at the wheels is a big ask that costs a bundle of cash. I also look at the dollars spent and work done on other race engines I know and can understand when they are 50 or so more hp than mine, but getting that sort of power for a road motor in an L series, I'm not so sure, especially when you read as to what has been done, or not, to the motors that produce that power. In all honesty, if you want big power, you are much better off going RB with a snail off the side or V8, an L series isn't going to cut it unless you are prepared to spend a big wad of cash, ie around $10K. My 150Hp is good enough to get me around EC in 1:50's and Lakeside in around a 60sec lap.

Ben, you shouldn't need to worry about a bias adjuster. My 240 runs Wilwood 4 spots on the front, the early dynalite types, with a Volvo/Saab 2 pot caliper on the rear. With a 15/16 M/C and no booster I locked up all four wheels at once on the track. The only problem I had was that the pedal always felt low, but stopped brillaintly, took some getting used to. I now have a 1" m/c on the Z as I felt that the volume of fluid available was marginal for the set up. The brake pedal now has less travel, but it does take a bit more effort to push as I don't run a booster, and don't relly see the need for one even now. You have to play around with pads to get the best setup for you. I used to use Hawk carbon ceramic pads, but with the new rotors I use can't get them thin enough and can't get them milled to the right thickness anymore. I am still finding the best pad to replace them with, though I definately wouldn't recommend them for the road as they don't work cold, absolutely hopeless on the Mt Cotton hill climb, but on the track there weren't too many who could out brake me.

Good to see all running well Steve. Have you got the tacho hooked up yet? Once that's done and you get the idle set at around 600-800 then you can make the final adjustment to the timing to make sure it's in the sweet spot all the way through the rev range.

Lurch, the problem wasn't that you had sneakers on, the issue was the fact you had shoes on at all

I can't find a link, but there are quite a few companies that make generic wiring harnesses for vehicles. There is one particular company that make a generic harness with a range of circuits available from around 9 up to 15 or so depending on what you need for hot rods and classic cars. The harness comes with all fittings and fuses and makes the job much easier. If your lucky you may find a company that does a Z harness.

Well done on the sale, did it go to anyone we know???

The other scam I have seen is to advertise a car for a riduculously cheap amount, generally classic sports cars. I have seen examples using MX5's on carsales and carsguide. The owner, and sometimes car is overseas and you pay the money and the car will be delivered to you, if it's OS it the delivery is generally in the price. The big catch is there is no car and they grab images off the web for their ads, a few guys on an MX5 forum have had their cars for the images for these scams. It can take a few emails and phone calls to get the ads taken down as well.

Can't see anything wrong with those settings. Who have you got to do the alignments in the past? Unfortunately I've been out of sydney for way too long to know whos who with regard to set up, thogh I would recommend Wholesale suspension out at Penrith, they have a good reputation and I know a couple of race cars they have worked on and they were very good at setting them up. HAve a quick look on the Improved Production Car association web site and forum to see who those guys use and you should find someone local that will get your car set up right. Unless you've spent a fortune on a fully adjustable set up you're pretty much stuck with what adjustment is avialble, however a good operator will get you a setup to suit your car.