fly-s30

Here is a longitudinal view of the passenger rail that was bugging my OCD. We got some 65x65x4mm RHS tube and packed it up to support the drivers rail. As luck would have it, the rail is exactly the same depth as the tube sizes available in AUS, i.e: 65mm not 60mm. I have no idea how we ended up with a mitsubishi triton bottle jack, but the thing did the job well! I have been brushing up on my CAD drawing by using the r200 short nose diff as a good basis for practice when its too late to work on the car, and im rustier than the datsun was i swear!!! Its a frustrating struggle for now anyway. Hopefully i can extend the skills i aspire to grow to draw out the structure i need to fit the engine, gearbox and diff, as i still have a heap of time to spend on body work. Thats it from me for now. Peace out Darius PS here is one to "visualise" the wheels

I built an engine cradle in the mean time as the garage needed to be cleared up so we dont trip over every tool we own. Build page here: http://www.viczcar.com/forum/index.php/topic,12221.0.html Then purchased a s15 black top and built a stand for the SR20 in that time too (notice the preset angle on the support head to allow for sag). Next step for the stand is to make a copy of the nissan oem sidemount stand KV10115300 and adapt it to work on my current flange setup to give access to the rear of the block for clutch install. This is also a bonus as it brings the engine closer to the support and stops it from bouncing when working on the timing, water pump, pulleys or whatever is in front. I believe this would be useful on the L series as i see there is a substantial re-enforced area on the manifold side around the same location as on the sr block A/C pump area. Has anyone had any experience with this?

This what the chassis rails looked like before any work was started in this round of work. Straight enough to drive but not something i was willing to accept. Considering that the motor will be dropped in on the rails, plus a visual OCD thing we are working toward getting it as straight as can be done at home... Good news, its already dog powered...

Some pics from way back over 11 years ago...

Here here! Excellent soliloquy there, it all rings true. Esp the word : Patience Good to see you having a go at this early bird

and here..

Hi all I though i would put this up here before it sees e bay. L series intake manifold #Y40 to suit skyline, cedric, 260c, 280c, zed's too. It has a redline adapter for a weber 2 barrel down draft with offset studs for install. EGR area is welded shut. Cylinder head mating surface is straight as an arrow. Offers Also for sale is a down draft Weber 40 DFAV carburetor. This is a two barrel (40/40) carb where both butterflies are synchronized to open simultaneously. It has received a quick clean, and on inspection i would recommend a thorough clean-out and a kit run through it, but otherwise movement of butterflies work well, and auto choke works just fine too. Pm me if your interested. S.E Melbourne Can post, and can bundle together. Cheers Darius

Looks smooth! Thats really good news. You have the spoiler on too, good stuff. I was actually eyeing that one off too! Cheers

Are there any users that have had experiences with the carbon flares produced by Topstage (clayton, victoria, aus) If so, what was the fit up? Anything need cutting? Can you post pics? Cheers Darius

For those in the south east, there is Norden hydraulics on Bennett st in Dandenong that also stocks Bundy tube, they are a speedflow stockist too.

Hey CROS13 Im going with it simply for the fact the engine came with the box and doesnt seem to have any issue with engagement. I have toyed with the idea of the Z32 box as it has a external gearlever mount, and its inherent strength. With the conversion /adapter to the SR, what donor clutch and flywheel do these use? Do you happen to know the length of the box from bellhousing to shifter? Cheers

Thanks for the replys! Haha the cost votes are unanimous! I believe you all when you will say that it will lean more towards 20k, but if i dont aim low, and spend the big dollars on what matters to me most than its open slather on all the bling and shiny brand new gear. Some parts have already been collected over that past year since i have introduced myself like complete long motor and accessory's , loom, computer, gearbox, diff, even a sound system bought on sale, though this was a rushed purchase i have to say. These are just my costs as the rust work has already been done, rubbers kit purchased, and small accessory's like badges and what not. So in that sense the cast has been set, and am working from not only a good physical car base, but a financial one too seeing as all this has already been done. We (my bro, my dad, and myself) will all contribute to either labour or funding in out own way, but will play it by ear. Im a boilermaker by trade, and my dad is a toolmaker, and my bro is experienced in both so we are more than capable to tackle this in the right way. I have drawn up a spread sheet so far tallying what the current costs are, what amount has returned into the project from stuff that has been sold, and what the expected total is going to be, albeit not incl car purchase and work done in the past. So far this has cost $3.3K with all the parts, and once the build is closer to running, items like the original motor, box, diff and what ever will bring the soaring prices down a notch. This fortnight i have taken to dimensioning mounting points for the diff cradle to run the shortnose, and HEAPS of background research along those lines. essentially measurements for clearance, fitup, pinion angle (got a thread to chronicle this here: http://www.viczcar.com/forum/index.php/topic,14156.0.html) The shell was towed to a panel shop to check for body alignment, and in that time i have spent a night marking up the concrete in the garage as datum points to reference the shell against for when engine install comes about. This will help with all the small incremental measurements for diff alignment, transferring of existing body measurements such as gearbox mount and diff stopper etc. Plus i can check the reference points that the panel beater gave me to keep him honest. We were told the body is within 1 mm vertically aligned which is excellent news, and diagonals are fine too, except for the panel mounts up top which need to move over 5 mm or so, its just that i noticed a deflection in the passenger rail just aft of the cross-member which has moved the area around the castor arm buckets that with a string line is about 6-8mm out. That needs sorting as it can clearly be seen. On other news i finished making a diff support for the short nose last week. It is made perfectly square to the jack stand and is level too! There is a pinion adjustment screw where there is a recess in the cast nose of the diff. It can get me about 4 DEG adjustment with about 25mm screw length, need more angle? just add a longer screw! This well help in the layout of the diff mounts and even help with final install as its a heavy bugger. Its little sloppy but thats good as one side can be wedged up or down as needed. Attached are the diff mount pic and an artsy pic of the dimension sheet used. Till next time Darius

Good move and congrats on the decision, the D610 has no "oil on the sensor" issue that the D600 had, and should be a sound unit for years to come. Do keep in mind that with nikon and maybe canon (check first) the full frame FX lenses are down compatible to the crop sensor bodies and it also has a crop factor that it will inherintly do with that lens. What that means, is that a regular FF 50mm lens will act as 75mm lens because of the 3/4 frame on the crop sensor, without doing anything! but that focal crop factor is fixed and can t be changed. Good on you Darius

Hey thanks for the reply. Is this based on a similar application or something like a v8? Obviously the engine will be on the same parallel plane under acceleration, but the 4 - 6 DEG would be from parallel? Does a short nose really move that much? 4-6 degs is 15-22mm from parallel that the nose goes up under full acceleration Just thinking out loud, but i was speculating that movement would be restricted to max 2-3 degrees since the diff is captive. Is this right to think so? Thats a good point about cheap cvs and range of gears, and will do some research in to it. Did you get yours engineered? How its the tailshaft for vibration? Its funny as actually saw this set up for the first time under a soarer and asked myself what the hell was that there haha! Cheers Darius

Howdy! Have you found the camera your after? What George has been saying is absolutely correct about good glass, as you generally take them with you from body to body, but not the other way around. If you invest in quality lenses, the quality you can extract from them is FAR superior to the kit lens that generally tend to have the most versatility for broad applications. Have you looked into the compact ranges of cameras? In terms of cost, versatility, portability and range of lenses these compact systems are leading the field, and i believe the future is written in stone for the novice to semi pro level of cameras in the not to distant future. I have 2 Sony alphas in crop sensor size that i used to use until i bought my Olympus E-M5, and the size comparative is huge, and the image quality from the smaller sensor (Olympus 16mp) is comparative to that of the older crop sensors is using equivalent lenses. You now have a very broad choice of cameras and their associated gear. Best of luck. Darius

Im basically starting this as a guide for what to do and what to avoid doing in my application. My application being a quick road going car with ease of use, large range of aftermarket support, and choice of gearing. The only constant will be the short nose S15/R33 carrier with 2 larger bushes up forward and 2 bolts aft. My intention is to build my own short nose R200 diff cradle to locate it in the 260z chassis for various reasons 1: Avoid high freight costs from the states for existing stock. 2: Different design, as the existing kits have no aesthetic value IMO. 3: Produce my own first and foremost (am a qualified boilermaker) and if others are interested to build some for them too. What NOT to do: Existing solid front diff mounts as they are designed for the v8 crowd ( am planning 4 cyl turbo) and will disintergrate bushed rear mounts (chassis) as the pinion angle is set for the amount of preload expected from "that" much torque. This preload in the V8 appliation will run true to 0 DEG under acceleration, but i believe this is not the case with lower torque application as the pinion wont have enough torque applied to get into alignment and so constantly run "whatever" NEG DEG. Im using whatever as i dont have a value on hand. http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/112539-r200-front-mount-shimsheight/?hl=%2Bpinion+%2Bangle&do=findComment&comment=1053526 Align drive shaft straight and true, this will cause its own issues. This was pulled from author "BIG-Foot" #17 link below: http://www.ffcars.com/forums/17-factory-five-roadsters/169229-does-pinion-angle-matter-irs.html Having zero degrees difference between the transmission and the pinion is a good thing BUT while you do want the centerlines to be perfectly parallel (when possible) you also want the centerlines to be offset slightly. If the centerlines of the transmission and differential pinion are perfectly aligned, the loading of the needle (roller) bearings in the Universal Joints will not be distributed but will be continually on one or two bearing rollers on each of the trunions. If the bearings are not allowed to rotate, they will not be lubricated and with all that load on just a couple of bearings, they will begin to fail quickly. This is one of the reasons that many solid axle cars have the pinion offset to one side slightly. So - it's not an easy answer. Yes a perfectly aligned pinion and transmission centerline will yield the least amount of power loss. However, the cost of recovering an insignificant amount of power is a small price to pay for a happy and long lived driveline. So this seems to be food for thought. What TO DO: IRS equipped cars have to have the correct static pinion angle / preload to avoid vibration under load, and also a small amount of parallel offset to allow for drive shaft uni lubrication. How much angle is a question im hunting for. Noticing the alignment under the z with the longnose r200, it seems nissan knew this as the mounting points for the nose of the diff is set more to starboard than central. Another great read is #24 author Tim whittaker on said link or permalink: http://www.ffcars.com/forums/17-factory-five-roadsters/169229-does-pinion-angle-matter-irs.html#post1480413 This has some follow on consequences: 1: Allows for lubrication mentioned above. 2: Brings the axles on either side in closer dimension (length) to one another which as we know at full droop and full swat the operating angles are different due to different lengths, as the pinion gear is offset in the housing relative to the stub axles /output shafts. I.E. a longer axle will have less of an included angle as compared to a shorter axle for the same amount of wheel travel up and down. Note:This post is far from finished and will continue to be revised to get the full scope of what im doing in one place for ease of access. Feel free to add your experiences about this. If there are any users who have done the conversion, i would like to hear you input.

So it begins...again Ahh yes it all happened over 10 years ago; fuel was 87 cents a litre, Carlton "empire beer" had just hit the shelves, and one could still smoke undercover, if of course one chose to smoke. My bro purchased a 260z after a thorough hunt online and in the papers. We went and picked the car and started to drive home, but about close to home the front end started wobbling, and vibrating like all hell. We pulled over and found that only 2 of the four wheel nuts remained on the front wheel, and both were loosened too. Crisis averted ( stole another nut off one of the other wheels) we got the car home It ended in our hands as a red coupe with beige interior, manual converted and with a dodgy looking sunroof. The car needed a few things for a rwc, so no biggie, change a tyre here, replace a wiper there...."oh whats this?" "Rust? Rust!" What ensued after that bombshell was almost a year of strip-down, and rust repairs, hey even the sunroof magically disappeared, dont know where that went... A rotisserie job was done on it, places like the foot wells, battery tray, lower rad support, outer door sills, rear hatch cowl, tail light supports and even the fuel filler supports were all gone over, unpicked and repaired. Fast forward to the present, and waiting around for a few years has seen some spot surface rust coming back, but with no vengence that a wire wheel cant quell. The roof area had lost some shape from the welding, although done correctly and with utmost care still managed to shrink. I started working that to bring the shape back and am now 90% there. still a bit to go, but the hard part is over and should only take a few more hours of hammer work and a shrink here or there. So whats the plan? Engine and mechanical VCT SR20 6 Speed S15 R200 short nose in helical S15 - bought, ratios im on the fence about. FMIC and v mount rad Std computer- for now WHP billet wheel axle 5 stud Custom CV's 16"? wheels, undecided due to engineering, brakes ditto Oil cooler and filter reloc Strut brace Power steering conversion Interior/ exterior Black/ charcoal retrim, in leather with brown, silver or white detailing GPS or Stock gauges (brand-not to be confused with OEM) Mx5 seats-potentially Nardi deep classic or Momo MOD 08 suede in black Alpine 5" speakers, underseat sub, if one can be found that small. Battery potentially located in storage bucket Fiberglass door cards with speaker pod F1 style mirrors BRE wing Bolt-on flares GP / F1 mirrors Front chin bar spoiler Light tint Blacked out chromework Satin or glossy solid grey H3 type headlight conversion LED hi mount stop light Budgeted 15k eventually, with doing work ourselves, what do you guys think? achievable? Thats it for now, getting late Cheers Darius

Yeah sounds good! Oh and i personally use Flickr.com for my photography needs...boasts 1 Terabyte of space...that's like huge!...no joke I have 200+ high file size images on there and its not even pushing .2% of my profile limit. Plus has editing features to select default viewing of images and selecting image for your eyes only. Mind you, from what your saying Gav240z i like the idea of G+ albums with the syncing. Handy and doesn't store any extra space on your phone once its in the cloud.

Repco fills most of my general needs with very good quality semi pro tools that can be picked up at sales. I moved over from kinchrome sets and have added bits and pieces from Repco to fill the gaps. I even picked up a 13 & 14mm short and deep sockets for 1/4 ratchets that have proved themselves time and time again to get into tight and awkward spots that a 3/8 or even a ring spanner couldn't get into. Plus: you break it...return it, they exchange it, and wave you on your way. Other specialist tools such as stud extractors, or compression test kits, multi meters, I research and find online or dig deep for total tools. Bearing shops have surprisingly well priced stuff if your casually in there...worth a peep. Darius

Great! What would be an individual purchase cost incl. freight charge to Victoria, Australia for these windows? Cheers Darius

Bumb up, is this thread still active?

Mark Im keen to hear about the headlight covers for the short nose version Also early on in this post (2012) you were mentioning rear window and 1/4 window plastic replacements. What happened with this? I would be interested in 1/4 window btw. Cheers Darius

Finally at the stage of needing a panel beater now! Rotissorie is done and yep car is a shell so access is no probs Dat2kman . Sirpent, is there still a link to your write up on dimensions? Are the dimensions different from year to year? Thanks for the reference Lurch! Im getting a good picture of what this problem will end up costing. Going by telling me what their hourly rate is im expecting a quote upwards of $1200 min, plus rail sections if it comes to that....Damn Not that surprised actually. Imackz, yep spoke to Rob, and yeah i saw the cars in there are straight as. What was required for your chassis work? Cheers Darius

What zedman240 is talking about is called a cannon plug. They come in many sizes and are waterproof, that is the only electrical connector used in naval applications, where a secure connection is needed. They come in different attachments, and in 45* and 90* with different male/female combinations. This is they way ill be going when its time.

Cheers man. Im not really confident in what vehicle they have been used in so they are a phantom set for spares if needed. They came with the L28 i now have.