EricB

duh! kudos to who can guess driver/car & what the relation is... easy trivia for a sunday AM... but seriously about my lexan question? -e

hi all, what do you gather is the right thickness of lexan to use for quarter and rear window glass. The local place that stocks it apparently on has .093" which seems a bit on the thin side of things... suggestions? thank you. -e

While there's plenty of 510 stuff out there down to doors/fenders/trunk lids/hoods, etc there's not much out there for Zs, unless of course I am not looking in the right place.... anyone care to point me in the right direction? I've found Z hoods for sale, I think that it was SPUDZ that had the fiberglass or carbon fibre dashes available, and I've found one used set of fenders for sale but not much else.... A quick look at any 'oldtimer' hop-up Japanese magazine clearly reveals that they have rear hatches, doors, fenders, hoods and sometime in either fiberglass or carbon fibre.... what gives? -e

If anyone's interested in having a look at the current state of the Japanese aftermarket, look here, the show ended last Sunday. http://www.boomplustoys.net/tokyoautosalon2003/index.html

When I went to Japan last, I asked and people looked at me like "you want this? why...." anyways long story short i paid Japanese retail for them which came out to like $300~400 roughly for the set.... the point is that in japan they certainly are not NLA Just an FYI. -e

the one i pulled out of the 10/81 280ZX has flat top pistons - the 4 others still have their heads attached and have between 175K and 225K miles according to their odometers... I don't know how to tell from the exterior if they have flat or dished pistons.... they charge US$60 for a shortblock + $25 core charge, it came out to roughly $95.- They are located in North Hollywood, right off of the I5 freeway... Let me know if you need specific directions or something? -e

oooooh.... i see.... when i had read the article about the cyl's being siamesed i had had a totally different mental picture of something probably ten years too modern... i guess i was thinking i'd see a distinct water jacket around each pair of cylinder sleeves - I guess something akin to what you find on the Honda DOHC VTEC blocks.... never mind then.... BTW that same junkyard has 4 more F54 with roughly 175K to 225K miles on them... let me know if somebody wants one... with only hand tools to use it takes me about 3~4hours to pull one out... -e

I am not saying that they will bolt right up... I know that a lot of people do retrofit these calipers to their cars (am thinking of the Toyota AE86 crowd, the Nissan 240SXs, etc, etc) If someone wants to try to fit them to a Z I can of course go out and measure the center to center dimension of the caliper ear bolt holes and so on.... -e

I am just about done pulling a very nice condition L28 (F54 casting) out of a 10/81 280ZX - but a question's come up... I thought that the reason why the F54 L28's were the "strongest" ones (for the purpose of building 3.0L engines) was because the cylinder walls were siamesed.... I thought I had read that on at least two different "how-to build a 3L" websites... Is this not the case? Needless to say the L28 I am about to pull out does not have this... what gives? did i misunderstand something? thanks, -e

I just picked up some very good looking FC3S RX-7 Turbo front 4piston calipers (these are the Al bodied ones made by Sumitomo) which I've decided I want to re-sell... Before I put them on ebay I wanted to see if anyone here was interested... email with offers please, -e

After having run an R160 4.11 on my stock L24 for some time, and looking ahead to when I do the swap to an L28 I already know I want to be running a slightly smaller gear - thus the 3.9... I've had a R180 4.375 r&p I've had on the shelf for some time but I don't think I am going to want to use it so: I've decided I want to trade my R180 4.375 ring and pinion for a R180 3.9 r&p. Is this something that would interest anyone? Currently the ring is loose on my work bench while the pinion is still in its diff casing - so maybe for simplicity's sake and if you are in the SoCal neighborhood you could trade me for a loose 3.9 ring and a matching pinion still in its diff case? definitely not mandatory but that is a possibility. -e

i just got off the phone with randy from their parts dept over at courtesy nissan and he had no idea what i was talking about... i asked him to look both in the nismo catalog and in the nissan parts book and he found nothing.... maybe he wasn't looking in the right place? yeah a P/N would be great!! Also and separately has anyone tried ordering the lower panel which closes off the bottom of the engine bay from unwanted turbulence - it's in the same section as the radiator shroud of the nismo catalog... nismoparts.com says NLA courtesy hasn't gotten back to me about that yet... -e

I've got two noticeable rust holes under the pass seat - both about 2-3" long - and the only thing keeping the elements out is the tar paper on the inside, under the carpet. I don't SEE anything as bad under the driver's seat but that doesn't mean it isn't there.... so i was thinking of putting new floors in, should i do frame rails at the same time? i know MSA has floors, but i am not so hot on their CS and wouldn't mind taking my business elsewhere... does anyone recommend a good source for floorboards that remain close to the original factory ones? now as far as actually putting them in, i've got a friend who does great welding (he's done all 3 iterations of my exhaust so far) and i would have him do it... is there anything to watch out for, to be careful about, etc that would require special chassis skills other than cutting out the bad piece (with a torch, with a sawzall, etc) and welding in the new one??? thank you, -e