jmortensen

After a very simple modification I never had trouble with an OEM style gasket at HPDE's, in fact the only manifold gasket I've ever had problems with is the paper gasket that came with my header. The paper gasket cracked after about 3000 miles and left me with a nice big exhaust leak. The modification was due to the header flange not being perfectly flat, and it consisted of putting a very thin layer of copper silicone around each exhaust port on both sides of the gasket and then letting it sit for a couple hours and bolting it on. No problems whatsoever running the OEM gasket like that even with 30 minute sessions in 105 degree heat. EDIT--I did get a gasket with a headset from the machine shop that must have been for an E30 head or something, because the holes on the intake side were way small. I opened it up with a dremel and a sanding roll no problem. This was a laminated graphite gasket.

I agree with Darrel. Struts are at least as important and often more important than springs in ride quality. Illuminas on 1 or 2 is what I ran on my street car with 200/250 in lb springs (significantly stiffer than what you're running), and that was fine for me. I think there are other choices out there too. Bilstein struts will take a little more installation but IME with other vehicles they get the damping a lot closer than most. There are also the Tokico HTS struts which I haven't tried, but sound promising. Disclaimer--I haven't tried either of these but my impression is that they're more appropriately valved. I think the blues have too much compression damping. If you were to run the Tokicos with the stock springs your ride height would go up because the spring is longer. You are already getting the effect of the gas charge in the strut, but you have shorter stiffer springs now which sag less under the weight of the vehicle. Putting in a longer, softer spring will make it sag more, but should end up being higher overall because of the spring itself. The Tokico is a "lowering spring" after all.

All 2 of them? I love the Floyd, and Gilmour and Mason are great but they still don't get along with Waters and the rest are dead. One thing that bugs me about Super Bowl shows is the medley. I guess they have to do that because they only have 30 minutes, but I think I'd rather hear a couple full songs then bits and pieces of a bunch of stuff. I'd also like to see guys who aren't collecting Social Security up there. Prince was younger but doesn't seem to fit the football crowd in the slightest. Now that I've bitched about the medley and the old guys, the band that comes to mind that fits that bill the best would be ZZ Top. They do medleys all the time in concert and they're pushing the full court geeze. I won't be surprised when they're announced for next year's Super Bowl. I really like ZZ Top, but I won't be riveted to my seat watching a half hour medley if it happens...

I might be interested. Would need to see some pics though...

That's true.

Those are some big questions. I would suggest you take some time and search and read, search and read. And when you've done that for about a week, do a little more searching and reading. Try searching hybridz.org too. Lots of good info about heads over there. $250 for a head with 160K on it is too much in my opinion.

You could probably get one out of an engine that wasn't just running for $100 or $150. The question should be how many miles are on it. If it needs a valve job because it has 80K miles, you might as well start with a cheaper one.

I would use the front 240 bar as well. The 280 bar is really big and can tear up the frame rails because it is so stiff. When it comes time for springs, I'm guessing that won't take too long, get coilovers. Gives you a lot of freedom, you can pick just about any spring rate in 25 lb increments.

Agree with this too. The LSD is a major factor, with one you can accelerate much harder out of a corner.

There is merit to the "no lift on the inside wheel so less tirespin" theory, but if you are running streetable spring rates the bar is more helpful than hurtful. If you're running really really really stiff springs, then you can ditch the rear bar. That's my opinion anyway. Get the 240 rear bar and space the bar away from the uprights about 1/2" and you should be good to go.

What you might consider doing is drilling the poly bushing. Go to www.dimequarterly.com and search "poly bushing" and you'll find an article about drilling them out. With the G Machine bushing in front the rear bushing doesn't do anything except take loads when you're backing up and hit the brakes, so the easier the TC rod can move, the better. Here's the text from that article: And here's a related thread on Hybrid Z: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=87758

Gotta love El Nino. 62 and sunny in Seattle today, they said on the radio the other day that we haven't been below freezing since December (even at night). That's crazy. I guess it makes up for last year when my area had 31" of snow. We normally get 3-4 inches at a time, and it might snow 2 or 3 times a year. Not deep enough to shovel normally.

It actually works pretty good. It's a good idea to grease it up and check for wear about once a year or so. What does inhibit movement is the bushing on the back. Some people put polyurethane back there and that is totally unnecessary. Best thing to do is use the old, worn out rubber bushing in back. The less resistance to movement you have, the better, so the stiffer the bushing is, the worse it is in terms of both ride and parts wear. If you really feel a need to change it, I'd suggest a rod end or ball jointed setup like you see in the following links: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=152585 http://www.technotoytuning.com/productdetail.php?p=668 These have no bushings at all and the metal on metal joint moves extremely freely by comparison, reducing friction and making braking more stable. The metal joint does transmit more NVH to the cockpit if that matters to you.

Possible source for circumferentially finned aluminum drums for Z cars. I figure if the Triumph guys were using Z drums, the Z should be able to use the Triumph drums. Looks relatively expensive but if legal might be an advantage in heat dissipation. http://www.racemettleltd.co.uk/drum.html

The Bill of No Rights:

Compression testers (especially cheap ones) shouldn't be used to measure the pressure in a cylinder accurately. They really should be used to compare one cylinder to another as your friend said. What you have there looks good to me, if there aren't other problems I'd drive it, and if there are I'd suggest a leakdown test.

Well there was the one guy who nearly outed himself a while back, Ben Collins. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/4285245/Who-is-The-Stig-Top-Gears-The-Stig-identified.html Then there is the other guy who wrote a book and included being the stig in there and was killed off on the show: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/4286448/Who-is-the-Stig-The-answer.html

I put in the pile carpet kit that had carpet on the trans tunnel and had problems with the throttle sticking. I went back to the installer guy and he notched the floor carpet piece so it didn't stick up in the corner, and it still happened. Took out the floor mat and took some insulation I had added off of the back of the carpet and that seemed to fix it, but soon afterward my wife stopped daily driving it and it became my race car and the carpets came out. Carpet and mats are the #1 suspect for stuck throttles in a Z IMO.

If you've already got those parts, run them. You'll see how big the hole in the gearing is from 2-3 and when you hit 3rd how much it bogs down. Then you can switch to the later ZX 5 speed and report back about how much better it is. Thanks fiveleaf. Glad people are still getting good use out of that thread. Took me a while to compile all the info.

Looks to me almost like you could swap sides on your brackets and push it closer to the windshield.

It's not really that they block the view out of the windshield. If that second picture is of one that you own, I suggest you just go out to the car and hold it in place. The 510 has a fairly flat windshield and so the mirrors work better on them than they do the Z. On the Z the windshield is really curved, so that mirror sits way further back in the cabin than the stock mirror, and I found it hard to look that direction for a rearview, for one, and two I thought it was weird to focus on something so close to get the rearview. I think ideally you'd want the rearview to be in as close to the same plane as the windshield so that you didn't have to move your eyes to aquire the mirror or re-focus to make out what was in it.

Go overkill on the bracket. Figure what you think will be strong enough, then make it twice as thick. I've seen 4 or 5 guys stranded because their bracket flexed and the crank pulley wore the end of the trigger off. There are a couple threads on hybridz about pulleys, might want to check them out.

I had a 5 panel in my car and hated it. It fits right where the sun visors bolt up and goes straight across the window opening. To me, this felt like it was very close to my head. I couldn't get over it. I do like the idea a lot so I've got another 4 panel job waiting and I'll see if installing that as far away as possible works for me. They are very popular with the racers and I'm about the only guy I've ever heard complaining about it, but that thing drove me nuts.

The difference between a 3.90 and 4.11 should be a couple hundred rpm in any given gear, and the 3.90 came stock in the ZX. I wonder if you didn't run a larger tire or something that helped to make a larger difference than the ratio alone would have done. I would think that the gear ratio change would by all means be noticeable, but not make one into a rapid fire shifting machine that had to be constantly changing gears while the other just loped along in one gear no matter what you did, if you get my meaning.