260DET

That's the thing about sprints Jason, you have more opportunities to try different things and push the car harder than when racing when you always have to be watching the competition, taking tight lines and so on.

Good work by David for organising the Z part, that's a hell of a lot of Z cars but perhaps the show should be held up this way where the humidity was way less than in Brisbane. Great pics Old Z fart.

Imported my two seater myself from Japan about six years ago, total cost around $8000 when the pacific peso was worth 85Y. The broker had a hell of a job finding a fairly decent one and even then it needed some rust repairs done but at least it was straight and basically a good car. Typically Japanese it had a beautiful two pack white paint job over the good and the bad bits.

If this is for the race car maybe a whale tail as an alternative? As the were used on the early 280ZX race cars I suspect they gave more downforce than the earlier bob tail type, Porsche used them too I think. Way less drag than a big wing too I'd bet.

A condition of sale was that the buyer fit it to his race car within three months

Calling Richard Jnr.

Woohoo, I think, got the car back today so the next move is to track test it. After hooking up the Accusump system and tidying a few things up plus getting a front strut/firewall brace made after I weld in some attachment points. The guru has sorted a few things out including getting the lockup clutch to hold, it wasn't due to an incorrect setting. Anyway we agree that the car needs a track test because there are quite a few things to test so after that the guru will make any further adjustments required. With features like full throttle shifts the system has to be properly tuned so that it all comes together on the track which, hopefully, will be on the 25th at MP.

Bloody hell, talk about corner speed, wow.

Go kart hillclimb races at Jason's place, yes Thanks for the tips Michael, had a seat fitting the other day and have bought a chest protector just to make sure. Kaos are going to bring my kart all assembled and aligned to Warwick later this month so looking forward to that.

S30's in a SCCA race final, race actually starts around 10 minutes in. http://www.scca.com/videos/1972570

Seeing that the lockup is cactus the transmission could well overheat if the converter is not suitable. It does need a test and tune too, particularly to see if it shifts OK at wide open throttle which has a programmed ignition cut and to see if the downshifts are smooth enough. 99% sure another converter will be required so a drive will give me some idea of what is required there too.

Luckily there is a local bloke, 'the guru', who does dyno tuning and general performance car work who has been able to work through the problems and also tweak the transmission control unit to shift faster. So that's good, he is a drag racer who has had some experience with his own auto so he has some idea what is required. There are plenty of people around who will sell you something but very few capable of sorting through problems resulting from their mistakes so I'm lucky there. Looking forward to going for a run, I'm sure that once sorted the Z is going to be hella fun to drive

Sup regs are out but I doubt that the Z will be race fit for the first round. However the car may be ready for testing by then so does anyone know if I can test on the Friday as someone registered for the series but not entered for that weekend?

It's official, the torque converter's clutch is slipping and so will be useless for track purposes. Otherwise the TC does not seem to be ideal for a circuit car but guru and I agree that once a few final tweeks have been done it would be best to test the Z around MP to see how it goes, one good thing he has found is that the transmission is running relatively cool which indicates it must be fairly efficient. I'm really annoyed though, bloody car component suppliers who take your money and do a crap job. The thing is that converters to suit are built in the US with up to four plate clutches that will take 1000 hp and wide open throttle shifts so I wasn't asking for something that could not be done. It looks like a more suitable clutchless TC will be required, if so it will be coming from the US no matter how much it costs.

Pics aren't very clear but the second one seems to show a front facing open vent, the black part. Anyway, we are agreed that the idea is to get air out there in that low pressure area, not in. Blocking off part of the S30's too large grille opening looks good in the first pic.

No, no, no, those Scuderia vents are wrong. They are in the right place but should be facing to the back to allow air out from under the bonnet. If more air in was required then opening the grill area a bit would have done the trick but for a NA L6 engine that part looks about right.

Just to make it clear, the original idea was to have the lock up clutch permanently on in 2,3 and 4th gears. This was to eliminate the slipping effect of your usual converter, more power to the ground and consequentially less heat. Now the idea is to eventually delete the lock up clutch requirement, which would save weight too, and use a super efficient converter that would operate 100% of the time. The thing is, is something like that available in this country where high performance torque converters are invariably set up for drag racing.

Yes Gavin, I have struck the occasional person who is full of, err, 'good advice' Back to the project. This is how projects that try something different can chew up time. To summarise so far, I decided to put a sequential shift auto behind the LS3 which I still think is a good idea for me. The Z is all together and is a runner but needed a dyno tune and a final check that the auto was working the way it should. Guru puts it on the dyno and around 5000 revs the engine surges which indicates that the lock up clutch is slipping. Shuts it all down and we discuss it and particularly the torque converter. To get it on the track if only temporary I agree that the lock up clutch should be disabled and dyno testing proceed to see if the converter will hold the power without excessive slipping. That's where it is now. After doing some research I've decided to look at the sort of converter used in US circle track racing but there is nothing off the shelf to suit my 4L85E transmission. The circle track converters are designed to be 'tight', not much slip, very efficient at racing revs and relatively low stall. The more efficient the less wasted power and consequential heat which is very important. I've emailed TCI in the US to see what they can do so that's where the project is now. Sigh.

Later.

As far as performance goes, one of our posters here who has been a Z car enthusiast long enough to go back when 280ZX's were near new, once told me that in stock form around Lakeside circuit the standard S130 was faster than a standard S30. It certainly has a better chassis and less aero drag than the S30. What usually happens over time to the S130 is that their cheap arse owners park them outside to rust and don't replace anything unless it's got to do with it's ability to go from A to B. Unlike most Porsche owners who invariably look after their cars. So after ten or 20 years of neglect the suspension gets tired and they get soggy to drive which then is blamed on the car model. Other than the T top thing, the other problem is that miserable Nissan did not sell the two seater version here as has been well discussed lately.

The converter's lock up clutch appears to be slipping on the dyno so that has to be sorted, very annoying because I specifically asked for a heavy duty clutch that would handle the power involved. The alternative to using the lock up clutch system would have been to use a low stall high efficiency converter similar to what the yanks use for circle track racing, these can get up to say 96% efficiency which means the slip ratio is 96:100 (or 100:96?) and results in less power wastage being converted to heat. However the lock up clutch system should be even more efficient losing power only in bearing, oil etc friction so cooler still. Once a job like mine has to be put aside the question is then when can the guru get back to it? The cause of the problem has to be identified, parts ordered and so on, that's where time is wasted

It doesn't bother me if the Z is put into Sports Sedans, probably is a good idea to get it settled once and for all. Have you got peter Herlihan's phone number Jason?

Lee is there amongst the heavy hitters, Cobras et al.

Easy enough to change it, just swap the right wires around, which might be an option. Considered flappy paddles because they would have been easier to do off the shelf but I like a central lever and the positive feel it has.

lol stick shift on the transmission tunnel Mike, forward is +, back is -