Pennyman

The black on on the car are Diamond Racing wheels. I thought about getting a set, but they are soft and kinda heavy. As for the ones in the picture, I don't really think they would go well on a Z. I like the bumperless look, looks light. Anything oldschool looks good on a Z.

I'm a mechanical engineering student. I think after this lesson in sinusoidal motion, you might want to talk about damped oscillation, because that has to do with car suspension. The spring wants to continually oscillate, but the shock is used to create "critically damped" motion. Just a thought.

I've seen pics of a fairlady Z with a full skyline GTR drivetrain and engine swap, 4wd and everything. That was impressive. It also made 1000hp...

First of all, the search function is a great tool to get most of your questions answered. The site is so extensive, you name it, someone's dealt with it on this site. Now, for tips: I try to shift at or before 4000rpm on the street, just to take it easy on the engine. Z's have a tendancy to understeer at the limit, especially off-power, so make sure all your high-speed braking is in a straight line. Look for an Autocross event in your area (sanctioned by S.C.C.A. or N.A.S.A.) to really get a feel for your car, and see what it's like at the limit. Try to keep it cool on the streets, cops love to pick on the fresh meat with sports cars! (Trust me I was there, I learned my lesson!)

Looking good. I have a '76 as well. Great year for the Z IMO.

I'm not familiar with the political workings of the UK and how they can influence television in that country, but considering the fact that Top Gear is shown in pretty much every country except America with nearly a billion fans, I doubt the BBC would just roll over and drop it over an accident. It's not like anyone got killed... How powereful are web petitions anyway? I saw one a while back to get Nascar pulled from the Speed channel...lot of good that did...

On the contrary, the hideous yellow 240z is still there. They crushed the brown one with all the nice parts on it. Animals. I wanted the bumpers off the this nicer brown 240z, but it was crushed when I got there. Guess I'll check ebay again! BTW what are you gonna do with an entire 280zx engine and drivetrain? PS, there was a 280zx turbo at SJ south with the engine still intact..don't know about now though. I also niticed about 3 of the nicer 87-89 300zx (no turbo though, so no LSD) in SJ as well.

I'm acutally really interested in a set of 240z bumpers to swap onto my 280z. I got super frustrated when I found the one in Moss Landing had been crushed. I guess I'll have to wait for that amazing "280z.4" look to happen, hehe. Thanks for the look out. Really, a thread like this should be updated like once a week for those on parts runs...

Sadly, no. But those usually aren't coveted items compared to Iron cross ZX wheels or 6 spoke ZX wheels (Pretty sure there's a set at SJ North as well!) BTW, last I checked there was a full set of 280zx "iron cross" wheels and a 'black gold" ed. 280zx at Moss Landing.

Yeah, last week I went to Moss Landing, SJ North and SJ South Pick-n-Pulls. SJ North had a 77 or 78 280z, and Moss landing had the ugliest 240 I've ever seen. So don't bother with that. I just missed out too, I went there looking for a rear bumper off of an additional 240z they had I had checked 2 weeks ago, but it was crushed by the time I got back out there with my tools. No respect. It had a pretty intact carmel brown interior too...

I have a set on my car that are 14x7 without screw holes in them, the hub caps press in from the back. I don't know how much rarer the 7 inch wide mags are compared to 6 inch, if at all.

That is, unless you're running a smaller profile tire, which would lower your frame rails, but retain the same distance to the wheel arch.

I agree. The selflessness and eagerness to help is unrivaled. Usually on HybridZ, they tell you to search right off. This usually leads you to spending another 2 hours on the computer figuring out what combonation of words will lead you to the correct thread, when you could be troubleshooting your car. I know the value of the search button, but the value of the "help" thread is way up there as well.

But as stated, 2 pipes may sound better, in theory. Not too sure about that, though. I'm not an acoustical engineer.

More tubing = more weight = slower autoX times. That's my reasoning.

Finding a good shop in town to take care of the things I'm not experienced enough to fix. Exhaust shops in town suck particularly badly. For example: I got my set of headers, put them on myself, purchased a muffler, and decided to bring my car to a shop to get the tubing bent and the muffler hung. Turns out the new system hung way too low, and the muffler was so low it almost scraped the ground when I went up my driveway. I wasn't satisfied, but I drove around with it for a week like that untill the muffler started rubbing on something. I couldn't take it any longer, and I knew if I brought it to the same shop, the one guy who worked there would'nt do any better the second time. So I took the tube to midas to have them put a couple small bends in it after hours to try and raise the system up closer to the undercarage, but ended up messing up the entire tube, so I had to start from scratch. So I brought it to another shop. Told me to leave (why?) and come back at 1pm so I could help him hang the muffler where I wanted it. I went out, had some lunch, hung out with my sweet girlfriend, and came back about 10 minutes shy of 1pm. Turns out he had already welded everything together, hung the muffler (totally crooked too, I mean 45 degrees to the right) with the ugliest, nastiest hangers I have ever seen: Then the guy gives me all sort of trouble when I ask him why he did it without me there. I couldn't take it anymore. I went home, dropped the system, ground down all the nasty a$$ welds and started anew. I got some strap metal, bent it, and designed my own hangers for the muffler, had them welded on my my friend. Test fitted it, perfect. Brought the car to yet another shop, who said it was cool if I let them know exactly what I want, while they're working on the car. So I let them know where the trouble spots are for running the tube, and hung the muffler so all they really had to do was run a pipe from point A: the header to point B: the muffler. They went through 3 lengths of tubing trying to get it to fit!!! Messed up multiple times. At one point the guy got so frustrated he actually threw one of the messed up tubes across the shop, and it clanged loundly on the ground. Finally he managed to get it to work, had to splice some tubes together to make it fit right, but it was better than the previous shops, so I paid and left, and lived with it since. I wrote more about it in this thread too: http://classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20202 Moral of the story: Don't get exhaust done in Santa Cruz. Your blind grandmother with one arm could to a better job when she's drunk.

Either it will be repealed or reduced in severity in the future, or mechanics are gonna get tired of fixing faulty smog equipment and be more willing to help us pass visual tests, and if not, there will surely be more 76-78 z cars in the junkyard.

Well, that sucks... I don't want to put on my stock stuff to pass...It took me 2 days just to do the swap with the tools I had... Maybe I'll have to find someone whos into older cars...I'll ask around...The shop my girlfriend went to passed her 240sx and she has a softball-sized hole in her resonator. I might check that out. Might also have to go to that place in Sand City. Zbane, do you know the name of the shop?

Right. I got that part. What deems a header approved or not? Are MSA's headers "CA approved"? Mine is a 6-2-1 type like that sold by MSA, but I found it in a junkyard, haha!!

Yes, I am well aware I live 40 min away from Laguna Seca! I like to go there and watch SCCA regional events. Mostly because they're free to watch, and because there are usually 2 or 3 Z's running. I'll have to get out there with my car one of these days. Track fees are a little pricy for Laguna though, But I will soon! About the smog stuff. Thanks for the advice. I'll try and have it checked but not reported. As far as I know, the AFM is properly tuned and the emmisions stuff works. Just sucks I was so close to never having to smog it again...No performance cam for me, thank you Sac-town, CA!

I have a 1976 280z, and CA recently repealed the rolling smog exemption legislation. Since then, I've had a set of headers put on the car. It does have the smog fitting, which has a tube running from the header to the EGR valve. I'm not too worried about the visual inspection, it looks pretty darn clean with that heat sheild hiding most of the header anyway. I'm running a test pipe right now, and I have a brand new cat sitting in my room to swap in on smog day. You think this puts me in good shape? There might be a small leak in the bottom of the header, could this affect my pass/fail status you think? BTW, I'm so pissed my car missed the exemption by no more than 5 months. So stupid. There should be some sort of exemption waiver for people with historically significant cars!

You might want to mention which year 280z this is from. 75-76 bumpers are the smooth-faced ones (not bad looking IMHO) compared to the "I-beam" 77-78 bumpers. This may influence some interest.

Hey everyone, it seems as though the rear end of Z cars just love to talk to us in many ways, and mine has started with a new noise. It sounds like a faint muffled pop coming from behind the drivers seat, but it isn't very loud. It occurs seemingly randomly while driving on semi bumpy roads, which makes me think it's a drivetrain problem as well. The only way I can recreate the noise is if I lift up on the rear bumper, raising the car slightly, and then pushing down, the pop noise occurs as soon as the motion begins downward. HOWEVER, if I bounce the car up and down, there is no sound. I'm not sure if it's a gland nut, I made sure it was tight. Could it be a U-joint or a control arm bushing? BTW, it has been getting a little louder and more frequent recently. Thanks a million guys! Joey