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Thought I'd post this here in case there are some racers like myself who are looking to build tubular control arms, using US/domestic parts to retrofit, and I was unable to find this info elsewhere. Anyway, the OEM tapers of both the ball joints and tie rods are 7 degrees. The K772 and K6024 varieties WILL fit the 280z steering knuckles. I have personally confirmed this with the K6024's at least - the K772 p/n is used interchangeably in some cases, and shares the same stud dimensions with a .59" small end & .75" big end. The K727's will NOT work. Same taper, but the small end is already too large. I mention these as they seem to work with some of the later Nissans, and are also used extensively in other strut suspension cars. As for tie rods, the "pinto" variety seems to be the most popular amongst the circle track community. I've confirmed these studs will also fit the 280Z knuckles, but are a bit on the tight side and a light amount of taper reaming will be in order.

Did some re-reading and answered my own question... "I also installed my firewall insulator I got from Black Dragon. Its good quality material but the fit isnt the greatest. It required some trimming." So much good info in this thread! Sent from my iPizzle ringy dingy device....

The metal tube that goes into the block has a 45 degree bend that is about 4" long. The straight tube that originally came in the block was "lost". So he sent me this one. If I angle it forward the tube will be too close to the fan. I might address this issue later on, but right now I just wanna get this thing running

i agree that measurements would be a very interesting exercise - but the trick is measuring movement relative to what? in other words, are the tops of the rear strut towers are moving in relation to each other, or in relation to the base where they attach to the subfloor pan, or in relation to the side walls of the car. all these movements are possible and would depend on the relative stiffness of the components and how they work together. i also agree that the body feels like it's twisting when, for example, you approach a driveway apron or when going over a speed bump slowly on just one side and this does seem to make the most interior panel noise. if the rear strut tower, when receiving load through the strut, leans in to the center of the car by flexing the subfloor it's attached to, then a diagonally braced connection between the two towers would make sense. reading john coffey's post brings up a different perspective though - for serious performance on a track, the stiffness of the whole chassis as a unit would be more important than trying to eliminate squeaks and rattles... i can see how connecting all 4 strut towers would do the most, although it's not a very practical approach for a street car. i've thought about the frame rails - they are definitely a little flimsy. mine are completely rust-free, and wen i put one end of the car up on stands they flex enough to change the door gaps. but that's an order of magnitude of work beyond a simple bolt-in brace. the fact that datsun chose to diagonally brace the towers in a lateral fashion and shape the towers with their weak axis in the fore-aft direction suggests that these forces were considered less important. not that they got it right though... a really simple test might be to simply stretch a thin wire between the tops of the rear strut towers and watch how much it sags under basic maneuvers like the driveway approach or one-sided speed bump. this might at least tell us if the car is twisting diagonally (across all 4 strut towers) or if the rear towers are acting independently.

Thanks for all the replies, some good ideas bouncing around. I built the black single bar rear brace in the foreground a couple of years back, It seemed to me to really tighten up the rear end, but then read somewhere that the triangulated rear bar was even better so I put together the grey one behind it last fall. I haven't had a chance to wring the car out since I put it on BUT I noticed right away that most of all the squeaks from the interior panels had disappeared. I hadn't really noticed how loud they were until they were gone. This is the new version of the triangulated front shock tower brace, I just smoothed it out from the first one I built. Well that answers my question, also another good thing about having the diagonal bar attach to the lower passenger side shock tower is it's a great place to secure a fire extinguisher that is easily reached from the drivers seat. Chris

Lucky bastard... We finally dipped under $4/gal recently.