Inf

By that I mean it would be really easy for one guy to decide he is going to change lanes and not notice the tiny japanese sports car next to him.

This reminds me, does anyone know if the original stock sized tire is still available new (correct brand not being a factor)? The spare in my 240z is original and i'm not sure I trust it given its age.

not sure I would be comfortable driving between 2 buses in a 240z

Once you start making bends and whatnot you are going to change the way the metal deforms under load. If it is that easy to bend that you could bend it with ease, doesn't that defeat the purpose of the strut brace in the first place? That said, I have heard that these honda-intended braces are designed for that particular market (read : designed for looks, not rigidity) and are not that great anyway. If someone really knew what they were doing when designing a strut brace, sure they could make a good one on their own. But me personally, I would put my money on something that is proven and made for that specific application.

there is no free lunch

Finally, one of those 300+ worthless channels on digital cable is going to be worth watching

Hey guys, why would anyone ever want/need to buy a car? Anyone with a welder, tons of free time and experience and a fully stocked machine shop can make one in a few years. /sarcasm

Heli-coils can be found at lots of auto parts stores. I recommend you pay the extra $ and get the genuine heli-coil kit. I've tried the no-name versions before and it led to some complications because of inferior quality. It isn't that difficult to do yourself, especially if you have some sort of jig to drill a hole perpendicular to the face (i.e. along the same axis as the original hole). I went through this with the exhaust studs on a head rebuilt by some dork out west. He did a pretty poor job installing heli-coil inserts into the stripped out exhaust stud holes. I ended up needing to modify my manifolds slightly with a file so that I could fit them on over the studs. Just be careful. I learned the hard way to do it right the first time. The aforementioned retard had a helicoil skip a thread so a stud was impossible to put in properly. I couldnt get it out myself because the heli-coil material is too hard. Ended up taking it to a machine shop so they could get it out, as well as do a bunch of other things.... but they forgot to do it! They didn't charge me for that at least. At that point it was too late since I was about to move, so I just made do as best I could. A new motor is probably in order in the near future anyway.

I think i've caused some confusion in this thread about the different header types MSA sells when I said 6-2-1 I meant it goes from 6 primaries into 2 collectors and then down to 1 collector. So the one I had my trouble with was the other one msa sells. The only reason I havent flipped out and sent it back is because I plan to forget the collector someday and run a seperate pipe for the front 3 and back 3 432 style perhaps. It sits under my bench in the garage for now

I haven't seen anyplace selling washers like those. The washers in the picture are ones I made this last summer with a lathe and a mill. I basically took a bar of stainless, cut a hole down the center with the lathe, cut down the sides to get the right outer diameter, and then cut off slices (enough for the shared exhaust studs), then used the mill to cut that little section out of each one. It was pretty labor intensive for the end result, I think it would be easier to just cut some washers in half and tack weld the halves onto existing washers if you're having flange thickness issues. I ended up not using these and just using a stock exhaust manifold. The header had some other problems aside from the flange being too thin (this was an MSA 6-2-1 header). The collector pipe would not fit any way I manipulated it. I would have had to have a shop bend the 2 pipes so it would fit properly, and doing so would likely warp the flange since that was the only thing between the front 3 and rear 3 pipes. That and I wasn't exactly confident about the condition of some of the studs. The shop I bought the raw head from did a pretty damn poor job (some place called TGSI or something in california that races opel GTs primarily). These guys apparently have no clue how to install a helicoil and this ended up causing me an enormous amount of grief. So torquing down a header to prevent leaks wasn't really something I was comfortable with. Maybe in the future when I have a different motor.

Count me in for a set. How does this circuit respond to failure, like if there is some sort of short or open in one of the relays? Is there any way that both lights could be put out at once due to a failure like that? I only ask because it was the primary concern going through my mind when I was thinking about doing this on my own

hahaha, I did the exact same thing. Looks sorta funny but works great!

Here is my current wallpaper. I use a larger version in 1280x1024 but I can't upload that here

If this is the same trust system you are referring to, I would say there are quite a few differences http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showpost.php?p=76658&postcount=2 They are similar in that they both have 2 pipes sticking out the back when installed, but not much other than that. The MSA twice pipes system always seemed to be a bit of an odd setup to me. I don't think it would have been that much more difficult for them to manufacture it with the exits in an over-under configuration.

I bought a 2.5" turbo style exhaust system from MSA. I managed to fit it myself without any prior experience. I used a stock exhaust manifold. The downpipe they provided didnt come out at the right angle so I ended up having to bend it upward slightly to keep it from hanging way too low. I have to say that I don't really like the sound. People are not kidding when they say there is bad resonance from 2000-2500. It is very annoying. I feel like a ricer if i'm cruising down the road in those revs since it sounds just like a civic with a cheap fart can. Higher RPMs have slightly better sound, but it is still a little too loud for my tastes. At idle it sounds pretty rough and has a low rumble, although I think the roughness is due to leaking air around the throttle shaft which made calibration and tuning of the carbs pretty tough. All in all, I think I will end up ripping this system out within a year or so in exchange for some custom bent dual system that I want to be similar to the trust system, i.e. completely seperate pipes from front to back with proper muffling to give it a more pleasing sound. It's already starting to rust anyway and I have only driven in the rain once. (this is not the aluminized version). Before it got really humid however it looked really cool for a while as the pipes turned different shades of purple as I drove it longer.

Now I don't know about that. An FWD vehicle isn't going to differ in that regard to a RWD setup. I see no reason other than friction in the u-joints (that wouldn't even be that significant anyway when compared to similar frictions found between moving parts in a FWD drivetrain) that power would be dissipated in a RWD setup more than an FWD if each were setup properly. The main reason I have heard for the FWD trend is it is just easier to manufacture, they can drop the whole drivetrain in on one assembly line step pretty much Then of course I have heard stories of people losing a connecting rod bolt in an FWD motor pushing a lot of power and have it shoot through the block and have fragments come through the firewall, right into the passenger cabin. This wouldn't be an issue with a standard RWD setup like in the Z