260DET

Ripper tune!!!! Have fitted up and adjusted one side of the rear suspension and axle and it all looks great. Pivots smoothly, nothing gets in the way, eyeball of toe and camber look ball park, axle CV's have end space in and out, everything is adjustable including droop independently of the springs which can be adjusted separately. With the right facilities it could be made lighter again but it's certainly lighter than the original semi trailing arm setup with a lot better geometry and no rubber bushes. Descriptively it's a trailing arm with lateral links type used in some BMW's and a Bluebird race car that I know of. Wonky pics show full droop, static ride height will ideally have the long lower link parallel to the tarmac.

He's being a smart arse, most unusual

Yuk. Try using some CRC on it, this will help it let go and also be slippery for your tools. Worth a try though.

What sort of circlip is it? That dictates what tools are needed for removal although it sounds like you have encountered one that has no ears or tool access holes, something sharp like a fine flat bladed screwdriver or a dental type pick tool or scriber in that case.

Cool, if there are overlapping flanges all round then this should be stronger than your average weld in job. A bit of a write up with pics in the Body work section would be good,

Grrrr, sorry chaps.

Oooops.

It's always nice when you reach the stage of bolting prepared parts back onto the car, feels like progress is being made instead of attending to an almost endless list of jobs. So the structural part of the modified front end has been bolted in as the pic below shows, very pleased with the additional bracing which involved a lot of work but not much weight. Additional attachment points were welded to the chassis which gave a lot of design freedom. New hollow front ARB is in but the supplied arms have to be lightened so pics of the front suspension when that is done, next job is to refit the electric steering unit and sort the shaft and it's support out.

My aim with a S30/S130/Z31 is for the front to carry as much of the cornering load as possible. That involves power steering, a big front ARB and none at the back, heavier springs than the back, 8* caster and so on. The whole idea is to improve rear grip in the corners to avoid that characteristic sudden loss of the back end but it does require three way adjustable MCA type dampers for fine tuning purposes for best results, mainly to control understeer which is always lurking with this sort of setup. A video I posted illustrated this theory in action, my big heavy 280ZX compared with a couple of S30's. Unfortunately it seems that most thought this video was posted for other reasons and so the lesson was missed or ignored. So take it or leave it.

Like the free storage idea, pity it does not need body work, apparently some panel beaters offer free storage for years

You are right Matt, there is no real reason why the tank was not filled with foam, it's just something that I didn't think of doing. Funny thing is while I'm not a particularly brave driver safety is not a big priority or concern, wrecking the car is though.

With this car the cell is well forward and central so it's going to take a big crash to reach it, filling the tank with foam would have been better but it does have roll over valves on both the vent and filler. It's a hell of a lot safer setup compared with the stock tank in the 280ZX plus all the extra fuel lines required with a swirl pot, pickup pump and return fuel system. And the fuel mat acts as a filter so the only real filter it needs is one EFI filter in the engine bay.

Fuel system is done at last and it's a bit different to the usual race car setup. The cell is partly filled with foam which sits on top of a silly expensive Holley fuel mat, from there fuel runs by gravity to the EFI pump and from there to the engine bay fuel filter via a new aluminium fuel line. The pump outlet is T pieced to a pressure regulator which returns excess fuel to the tank. And that's it. In the pic, fuel cell at the extreme left, pressure regulator on the extreme right with the braided return hose running along the top back to the fuel cell. Really needs a close up pic of the EFI pump and regulator too (edit: done) So now the car can come off the rotisserie, yay, another mile stone.

A pristine sample of Appliance White In real life it's a bit whiter and brighter than the pic shows.

As a matter of interest, do you know what the engine and auto weigh? Came across a bloke a while ago who used to sprint the family auto, had a few mods like brakes and had done a fair few kays. His lap times were damn good by any standard.

Pffft, some of us get over changing gears, actually that auto Falcon auto box is a beauty for circuit racing. Get the entire power train; engine, auto, computers, loom - plug and play.

The project's main colour will be Appliance White aka Bright White aka Kelvinator White aka Cool White aka ..........

It will be quick for sure, of course the engine will need to be set back as far as possible (and a bit more) to help front/rear balance.

The Sc blokes would be interested in any dealer documentation on those Hotwires if they are wider than stock.

It's normal practice with anything like that on an older car to hit it with some penetrating oil first.

Front struts and wheel bearing hubs have been done with new seals, bearings and spacers. The spacers had to be adjusted, see previous posts, but that was no problem, the seals did add a lot of drag though so there may be something to be gained in using low drag seals. Build is moving slowly lately, a lot of little things and interruptions. Pic of one strut below, note the race spec holes and the gusset across from the strut to the axle body.

Good looking wheels too.

Like the raised lettering on a L engine valve cover but fairly small. Too small to do individually with a small brush, maybe a pad or roller of some sort?

So damn sad

As you say, prices are all over the place, the expensive ones seem to be trying to justify their price by offering something different, like great condition combined with low mileage. You know what you have so what I'd be doing is comparing like with like to arrive at a price, depends also on how long long you are prepared to wait for a sale. The S130 market is not like the S30 market, if your price is too high for the market then expect zero calls.