jmortensen

The biggest tip I have is about getting the car up there. The first time I put mine up, I jacked it up, put wood under the jackstands, put wood under the jack, jacked it further, wood under the jackstands, etc. It's nerve wracking and I think I almost dropped my car once or twice. A MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCH better way to do it is to get 2 engine hoists and two load levelers. Hook one to the front frame attachment and one to the rear. You can level the car with the load levelers and the cherry pickers can lift a shell 5 feet with no problems at all. The other thing is to offset the ends so that the car isn't top heavy. My pivots were offset 3.5" down, and that worked pretty well for a 240 shell. When I put the cage in, it got top heavy, and when the suspension went on, it was bottom heavy, but never so much that I couldn't muscle it around, and I'm not super strong by any stretch.

No specific info, but some general suggestions: Avoid puck clutches sprung or not sprung until you actually need one. Best way to test is to drive at say 40 mph in 4th gear, push in the clutch and rev to 5k rpm, and drop the clutch. If the motor slowly matches speeds with the trans, you don't have enough clutch. If the engine instantly slows to match the road speed, then you're OK. If you run a stiffer pressure plate with a mild clutch disk you can still hold down a lot of power and you won't trash the flywheel, trans, and the thrust bearings in the engine. If your puck clutch starts to chatter a lot it will eventually cut a groove in the flywheel that will make it impossible to engage smoothly and which ends up making it harder and harder to get the car moving. A friend of mine with a 200SXT had to do a full engine rebuild due to the damage caused by a puck clutch. At the same time I was running ~240ish whp (more than his car most likely) on an ACT pp with a stock disk, hooked up just fine for autox and track days, etc. If all things were equal and you're racing, I'd go with the lighter of the two flywheels, which appears to be the CC. You can feel the difference between a 12 lb flywheel and a 10 lb flywheels, and the lighter option is quicker to rev, easier to heel toe. If this is just a street car commuter type of thing, then I'd go heavier as it won't want to constantly be either accelerating or decelerating when you're cruising down the freeway. My 12 lb flywheel was easy to manage in stop and go even with Mikunis.

Man... look at how far up in the fender that rear wheel is. I understand he had 400 in/lb springs in there. Wonder if they were in there when that pic was taken.

You have that right. Mine were valved for the unsprung weight on both sides, the idea being that the wheel will stay in contact with the ground over rough surfaces because the rebound damping isn't preventing the tire from coming down and following the contours of the road. I had a mountain bike set up like this, and it tracked great on some really rough downhill single track stuff, but it was very uncomfortable to ride, especially when jumped. It was actually painful on the hands. I increased the rebound and it's more comfortable but doesn't track as well. On the car I talked to a shock guy and he suggested this setup. My car being a dedicated racer and all, I decided to give it a shot. I already have second thoughts about it because I actually started autoxing a Miata in the meantime, and one of the local autoxes where most of the SCCA events take place is VERY bumpy. I think once you hit some critical amount of bumpiness it not only gets uncomfortable, but the sprung weight starts to move so much that you lose whatever traction you would have gained otherwise. I do think this idea works on relatively smooth road courses, and I've found examples of older BMW touring cars in Germany valved the same way (it worked out to 90/90 instead of my 100/100 once you took the motion ratio into account).

Not familiar enough with the P30. Haven't run it yet, and mine are valved funky (valved approx 60% critical damping of the UNsprung weight) so I don't know that I'd be the best person to ask. Mine won't ride well, that's a guarantee. I don't like the Tokicos much though, I can tell you that. Ran Illuminas for years and have friends with Blues. I think they're overly damped on compression so that they work well with the common but too soft lowering springs. It would be interesting to see a dyno graph from an Illumina to compare to a Bilstein, but just based on my previous experience with Bilsteins in other applications, I'd guess that the Bilsteins are better.

My P30-0032 valving is linear. I've got a dyno plot somewhere around here for my revalved struts. The valving was changed, but the pistons were not. It graphs out almost straight on bump and rebound.

Figure out what flares you're wanting first. These old IMSA flares will fit a 14" wide wheel.

Not Datsun related, but Colin Chapman did design the strut that is used in the rear of the Z. Documentary on 73 Lotus F1 Championship:

There are a couple good writeups on Hybrid Z in the FAQ section by BRAAP where he outlines how to do this and time your cam, etc.

If you just install an MSD, the MSD will still be triggered by the points. For the OP's purposes, the Pertronix is the important part. I like the ZX distributor upgrade wiring is so stupid simple that even I could do it myself, and I disconnected and disabled the vacuum advance, which is almost always broken on these distributors IME.

A 2.41 would probably be really nice for guys with no OD, looks like it would give my tire diameter a top speed of about 175, but I don't think it exists...

It's just a hair bigger than .625. I want to say .631 or something like that.

I'd drive the hell out of it. The nice part is that it has a V8 too, so it's not a bunch of 150 mph aero on a car that can only hit 120.

Could be that you have one 240 and one 280 strut on the car. The 280 struts are longer and have the spring perch in a different spot. I'd measure the depth of the strut housing and then make sure the spring perches are in the same spot relative to each other.

Caliper flex is not a good thing.

Not just Miatas and Minis then. Funny thing is that the stock spring rate on my Miata is something like 120 in/lbs, and people go to spring rates north of 500 in/lbs and say that the ride quality improves dramatically. I was talking to a guy who has the same year Miata as me and he has 600 in/lb springs in the front and 400 in the rear with better valved shorter stroke shocks (like sectioning a strut). He described the stock suspension with its soft springs as a "pogo stick" and I have to agree wholeheartedly. He also said that his rides MUCH better than stock. I haven't ridden in his car but I've been in similarly modded Miatas and I would agree with that assessment of those cars as well. Those FatCat bumpstops are more linear, and that's why they are supposed to be more comfortable. You're not literally bouncing off of them as you do the stock stops. Still the best option is to stop riding on the bumpstops if possible.

I just threw away 4 factory stops off of a 280 that had the original struts. On that car they were attached to the boot. Didn't look close enough to see if it was one piece or if the boot was clamped to the bump stop. Bump stops aren't that critical on a stock height Z because it has a lot of suspension travel. When you lower the car and don't spring it stiff enough or if you have too much rebound damping, then they become pretty critical. I picked up a Miata this spring and the thing was beating the wizz out of me on the freeway around here. Looked into it and saw that Miatas are sent out from the factory with a comparatively small amount of travel before they hit the bumpstops, and riding on the stops is considered normal. I understand that Minis are the same way. Not much of a newer car guy, but this is what I've been reading. Since my Miata has the factory Bilsteins, they tend to pack down and ride on the bumpstops because they have a bit more rebound damping than they should for the spring rate. The spring rate is pretty mild, and the car is pretty comfortable until you get on the part of the freeway where it is one concrete join after another. In that area, riding on the bump stops is like driving a jackhammer. The Miata forums is where I learned about FatCat and all the rest of the bumpstop info. I needed stops quick and so I ended up buying some Koni units and they were a lot better than stock, but from what I've read the FatCat units are better. I would venture a guess that most people with Z's are running poly bumpstops out of an Energy Suspension kit. They have the advantage of being relatively short, so if you're sprung stiff enough to keep off of them that's probably a good thing. If not, then I think they are most likely a pretty bad choice. By the looks of it, Koni and FatCats are much softer and longer.

You are missing something. An adjustable proportioning valve goes in the REAR braking system (ONLY!!!) and replaces the stock unit. Since a lot of weight transfers off of the rear wheels under braking, the rears don't need to be as strong as the fronts, but they still have to be strong enough to do the job. The issue with the Toy setup is that they are so much stronger than the rears that you're often left with too little rear braking, which ends up lengthening stopping distances. Adding an adjustable proportioning valve in that situation won't help because it can't add force to the rear brakes or subtract it from the front brakes. It can only reduce the rear braking force, which ideally starts at "too strong" and gets modulated down to "just right".

The big question is if you were able to get the bias correct with the prop valve. With my Toy front 280ZX rear I couldn't get enough rear brake to lock the rear wheels even while driving through a puddle (driving school exercise).

Those are not interchangeable. $150 buys you a Wilwood caliper. $400 buys you a complete kit with the vented 4x4 brakes. Does the Wilwood work with the vented brakes? I don't know, probably not or people would be posting pictures. Buy someone who wanted two could probably put the two together or make a spacer that worked. A narrow mount Wilwood fits the strut mounts for the calipers though. And yes, IMO you'd have to do something to the rear to get it balanced. The old catalog mentions running dual masters, something that most people won't want to bother with, but it would also be possible to run larger rears to match the fronts and dial it in with an adjustable prop valve.

Typical aluminum 4 piston calipers are $150. MM has the 4 piston vented setup with cast iron calipers for about $400.

If you're going to that amount of trouble, why not just put an aftermarket aluminum caliper on a vented rotor? Wilwood Superlites are 4 lbs, a couple lbs lighter than the stock 2 piston. You can get pads from any pad supplier and the caliper is cheap.

180 in/lbs is really not that stiff. I would guess that 95% of people with coilovers go stiffer than that. With lowering springs you're still lacking travel. If it's bottoming and there are no bumpstops, that's the first thing to fix. Run the struts on 1 or 2 and it should be pretty comfortable.

I haven't had a Nissan Comp catalog in my hands in a long time, but I seem to remember a non-vented and a vented setup. Vented was "FIA" (???) I think they also had different size wheel cylinders for the back, presumably to balance it out.

My impression is that they're pretty similar. If memory serves, vintage organizations allow for the Toy 4x4 setup as it is similar enough to that caliper, and they allow the vented Toy as it is similar enough to the vented Nissan Comp setup from back in the day.