Jeff G 78

Awesome! Are they doing live scoring on the web this year?

That would be great Tom. I'm from Akron, so it would be easy to go down for a weekend. We have tried and failed several times to get a Z club going in the Detroit area. We have a decent all Nissan club, but there are only a few Z cars.

I had a great time on Tuesday, but unfortunately I had to work the rest of the week and missed the rest of the fun. I guess that is one downside of being within a few hours of the convention site. If I had been 12 hours away, I would have made myself stay the whole week rather than making it a day trip. Maybe I will make the long drive next year. I really enjoyed meeting everyone including Jim, Carl, Will, Patrick, Tom, Chris and others.

I'm anxiously awaiting some pictures, commentary and results of the Wednesday - Friday events. Tomohawk, are there going to be any photos posted of the rest of the week?

Well??? What happened? I hope there was no carnage.

If you look closely, you will see a custom hold down that fits around the bottom of the Optima. It was very slick. There was another Z with the Optima on it's side suspended from the firewall.

Hmmm, it looks just like mine. What about your end link lengths? Something isn't mounted right. Can you post a picture of the ends from a bit farther away (bar mounted)?

Could it be mounted upside down?

I just got back from Cleveland. It was great to finally meet some of you and see more Z cars in one place than I have even seen in this part of the country. The weather was off and on rain, but the majority of the show was indoors, so it didn't cause too much grief. The drive home was wetter than I would have liked, but it was worth getting the Z wet. I'm sure there will be tons of pictures posted by others, so I hold off posting mine for now and fill in the blanks as needed. Thanks to the ZCCA and Cleveland Z club for hosting an event in the sparcely Z populated midwest (or North Coast as it's known to Ohioans).

Sounds good Ron. I will see you around 7:30ish. Hopefully the rain doesn't last all day.

Sounds good Ron, I will leave at 6:10 and we will see how good our estimates are What will you be driving? I will be in my Z, of course. You should still have my cell, but if not, PM me and I'll give it to you.

I will be heading down early Tuesday morning. I planned on going earlier to attend Monday night's activities, but work is too busy to take Monday off. I am REALLY glad I put my car up on a hoist yesterday. I was driving home from work the other day and hit a really big frost heave which sent a painful shock through my car. Right as I hit it, I heard something come off the bottom of my car and bounce back up into the floorpan. After hearing it, I saw something small in my mirror, but couldn't tell what it was. The car felt fine for the rest of the drive home, but I didn't drive it again until I had a chance to check everything over. Well, yesterday, I drove it to my friend's house a few blocks away and put it up on his hoist. I found the problem right away. The nut came off my LH tension/compression rod. The nut, washer, rear bushing, and sleeve were all gone:stupid: Luckily, at some point I had purchased a second set of poly TC bushings by mistake after forgetting that I already had a new set. I also had a spare washer and prevailing torque nut. It scares me that it came apart in the first place. It had the proper prevailing torque nut and everything was torqued to spec. I guess the nut had been on and off a few times and the locking feature no longer held. I used thread lock this time around, so hopefully I never have that happen again. If I wouldn't have found the problem, it might have been ugly on my roadtrip to Cleveland! Ron, do you want to meet at the first Service Plaza after getting on the Turnpike? It takes me around 1 hour 15 minutes to get there from my house. What time did you say you guys planned on leaving Windsor?

I still don't have my plans finalized. I will be there Tuesday for sure, but I don't know yet about Monday night. I have a lot to do at work Monday and I'll be driving down from Detroit by myself since my wife can't go (not that she'd want to hang around you guys LOLLOLLOL). I know a few people that are attending Tuesday, but I don't personally know anyone going Monday night and I don't want to look like a dork sitting alone.:embarrass: So, who is going for sure to the opening banquet?

24"??? I'm skinny and my a$$ is wider than that!

Awesome! Thanks for the quick reply Stephen.

Hey gang, I know this is not an L6 question, but I know many of you have newer Nissans too. I need to know where cylinder #1 is located in a VG30 engine. My aunt's Infiniti I30 has a bad O2. Autozone's scan revealed O2 #2 in bank #1 is the culprit, but she lives 200 miles away, so I can't open the hood to see what the engine layout is. :stupid: Each sensor is different, so I need to tell her which one to buy. The stealer wants $500 to replace one sensor, so she might buy the part and find a local mechanic to install it.

My DD is an '89 Toyota 4x4 pickup and next to it is my wife's '97 Toyota 4Runner. Then of course, there is my Z.

The car looks fine, but why would you want to use a Ford Modular engine? It is HUGE and heavy. There are plenty of better choices for motor swaps than that one. A simple SBC would be far easier and come out better. To answer your question, YES the L24 is an interference engine.

Hee, hee. Yes, otherwise it would be a short journey.

Yep, it only runs in the start position in a '78.

I did the POR 15 treatment on my Z's tank almost three years ago and it is holding up fine so far. It was a lot of work to do it, but the results are worth it. My Z was stored for years with very little fuel in the tank and it had surface rust on the entire inside of the tank. What was below the fuel level was all varnish and nasty flaky crud. I used muriatic acid first with several lengths of chain in the tank to get the majority of the rust and gunk out. I then did the POR 15 kit EXACTLY per the directions. It was a long, backbreaking process, but I would make the same decision again. Highly recommended.

Are you asking me srbigbutt? If so, they are Panasports. I really wanted +6mm offset like MSA sold, but they kept raising the prices and then discontinued the gunmetal color. I found a set of zero offset wheels from a Panasport distributor that was closing up shop. This was the last set he had. I still paid a lot, but much less than MSA was getting. The springs are Tokicos and the shocks are Tokico Illuminas. I haven't measured my ride height lately, but shortly after the spring/damper swap, each corner was exactly 1" lower than it was with the stock springs. I now have about 4000 miles on it since the swap and it looks just a hair lower. As far as the ride, it would be fine in any state other than Michigan. Our roads really suck here and so the ride is really poor at times. It really hates frost heaves. We have monster sized heaves here and they really jolt the car. Even the best riding cars have a tough time here, but my Z is the worst thing I've driven on Michigan "roads". As soon as the road smooths out to something that does not resemble the moon, the ride is very tollerable. I think the poly bushings do more to hurt the impact harshness than the springs or shocks. I am considering going back to rubber on the TC rods to help it absorb the rough stuff.

Your Z looks a lot better when lowered! I run 225/50R16 Hankooks on 16x7 zero offset wheels and they rub even with the lips rolled. I need to trim the lip back and roll what's left even further. It doesn't rub during normal daily driving, but hard cornering and large dips will make it rub. I can't take it on a track until I completely eliminate the rub. Here are some pics that I took today. The rear isn't really as low as it looks. The car was sitting on uneven gravel so the left rear is compressed more than the right.

I got a confirmation that we do not have to register if we are attending ONLY the car show. Of course you should buy lots of souveniers to help them pay for the event.

BTW, the tool bin cutouts are still in the floor with the wood false floor, they just don't have the doors bolted on to them.