51 replies to this topic

[mikey]

Discussion thread: http://www.oldschool...hp?f=18&t=27265I bought my car around 10 months ago. Since then I've done shed loads of boring but important shit to it. One really bad thing I did was install a VLSD. To get things up to speed this is how it went:Firstly, I would recommend against anyone doing what I've done. In short, I've ended out with a VLSD in my 240z for $923. Had I known it would cost this much I would've put a _real_ LSD in.Tony(?) from Steelie Gears told me as much when I'd phoned him for help, but I'd already bought the diff and it was too late to turn back.My main goal was to get my car back on the road after the spider gears in my open diff gave up. Then I saw a longnose r180 VLSD on TradeMe for $350 so figured I'd grab it as an upgrade. It should be stronger than my original 2-spider open r180, and it's LSD-ish.Anyhow, I pulled the input flange of my old diff and bolted it up to the new diff with no worries. The major hurdle was converting the output flanges to uni-joint ones. Basically I got the VLSD shafts cut off their CV cups, and welded them to the uni-flanges from my old diff.First I took them to Taylor Automotive in Newmarket who totally wasted my time. They cut the shafts off and then gave up without calling me.So in the end I got Colin at Gillespie Engineering in Penrose to do the machine work. He's was a good dude and happy to help. They did an excellent job, see pics. It only took around 3 days but it cost me way more than I'd hoped; $573. But looking at their work I can see why it cost that much.

[mikey]

Right, now we're up to speed, yesterday I got this awesomeness in the mail:



I've spent ages researching what to get and decided on the Koni 8610-1437RACE shocks and Ground Control coil-overs and camber plates. They're not cheap, but I really don't want to do this twice.

I chose the Koni's over the Tokico's after realising that nobody who races Z's uses Tokico's and reading this excellent site Autocross to Win. The gist of it being that Koni's give sweet performance, are rebuildable, handle higher spring rates and affordable. Tokicos by comparison are only affordable. Other options were Bilstiens and Penske, but they super-expensive and not super-betterer than Koni's.

The Ground Control stuff looks great and it sounds as though it's one of the best designs, but I'm no suspension expert; far from it!

So the next two days are going to be spent cutting, welding, grinding and swearing. I'll keep you posted.

[mikey]

This is today's efforts:


I'd hoped to get the front completed today but alas that didn't happen. Sectioning was pretty straight forward; the Koni's easily fitted my struts, which makes me wonder if I have the larger 280 struts in my 240, hmmm.

The tricky thing will be getting the holes cut for the camber plates. The hole saw I have is not up to the task. I tried using a dremmel but the discs keep shattering. I think I'll have to use a jig saw. That'll impress the pants off the neighbours.

I also learnt lesson about cleaning your metal before welding. The first strut I used a flap disc to clean it up before welding the lower ring, the second I just sanded by hand before welding. The difference in the weld quality was night and day, I'll definitely be more careful in the future.

Something tells me I'm not gonna get this finished this weekend.....

[mikey]

Best idea of the day: Get 4 inch cutoff wheel and cut into junior cut off wheels for the Dremmel. I owe dave a new set of Dremmel bits BTW.


Cutting and filing the camber plate holes took around 2 hours per side and it wasn't much fun. I'm pretty sure the neighbours hated it even more than I did.

Connect the dots:


Grind, file, get really tired, make a racket:


Sweet:


Before:


After:


Clever readers will note that I've only managed to complete the front and haven't even started on the rear. No idea when I'll get another free weekend to do them, plus I think I'll take a break from the car for a while. I may even do it in stages; section the rears but do the camber plates some other time.

[mikey]

Small update; I started work late today and managed to section one of the rears:

[mikey]

Another fricken epic day in the shed. Today I had a helper who was actually helpful, so got heaps done.



I didn't take many photos; you've seen it all before. But Dave sectioned the final strut pretty much by himself. I got the one I did the other day buttoned up properly. And we cut more meat outta the strut towers. I also did some of the best welds I've done in my short welding career, which was nice.

This is the ride height with captive springs, but it's not gonna stay that way for long:





So there's not a lot remaining to do for the suspension. Just tidy a few things and button it up.

Then it's on the the next radness, stay tuned.

[mikey]

I wanted to keep it a surprise but I can't help myself. These are currently sitting in the port patitently waiting for me to collect them.

Watanabe R 16 8.5j -6 and 9.5j -19

Once I clean the jizz off I'll get tires for the fronts. I'll keep the existing tires on the rears to save coin.

So first question is what tires for the fronts? I was thinking Toyo TR1's and around this much stretch, whaddya think:

Those are 225 45's aparantly.

I'll get the front rims painted to match the rears one day.... Arrow Wheels want a crafukzy $170 a rim, yoinks! So that'll have to wait.

I'm also getting flares and was thinking - dare I say it - matty-b. So it'll start to look a lot like this:

Or am I just being a dull twat?

P.S I'm nervous I've got too much skinny so if that happens I'll have to put the 9.5j's on the front, 10.5j on the rears and sell the 8.5j's. Which'll suck arse 'cos it aint cheap!

[mikey]

Tiny update tonight, I finished dressing up the third strut tower. Damn I'm sick of doing those. One more to go....



Also, after chatting with you guys & thinking about it. I'm just gonna carry on with matty-b. Anything bigger than 9.5J isn't an option with 16" Watanabes so I'm just gonna forget about bigger wheels. Which just leaves front tires; 225/45s?

[mikey]

Finally!


Stoked it's done, haven't driven it yet. Maybe tomoz, just need to bleed the brakes.

[mikey]

Lots happened this week...

This lot finally arrived:


Drill, rivnut, cut, etc.


On to the rear:


Bad toe in, will have to deal with this next:


Beer time...


Tomorrow I'll do the passenger side.

[mikey]

I got all the flares done today. The fronts are easy; you just mark the holes, drill them out and put rivnuts in, then cut guard paint and you're done.

The rear's are harder as you have to cut both the inner and outer part of the guard then weld them together, seam seal, paint etc.



This is what they look like now.


I'm pretty stoked with how it came out. There's still a few tidy up jobs, like I need to find some goup I can pour down the inside of the rear guards to seal everything and stop rust. Suggestions?

The rear tires rub the guards on big bumps so I may need to take more metal out. And for some reason the front left tire rubs when turning, but the right one doesn't. I dont think everything is entirely straight up there.

Oh and I need to get the wheels painted. And get a new air dam. But I think I'll leave it all like it is for a couple of months; I'm suffering a shed overdose.

[mikey]

There's a ruddy long list of jobs to tick off if I want to make it to Taupo in a few weeks. So...

Coolant started leaking from the 40 y/o heater pipes so I replaced them, and broke the heater valve in the process. So went to pick-a-part pulled one from a Honda something. Works sweet.



I also replaced thermostat and radiator cap, but still had water coming from the overflow, turns out I also had exhaust coming out my radiator; ruh-roh!

So I pulled the head today, everything looks bloody mucky under there. No sign of blown gasket as such, but I can't see how anything would seal properly given the state of things.



So the head's off to get machined this week. Hopefully I'll get it back together next weekend. I've never replaced a head gasket before so it's all good fun. Way funnerer than the cutting/welding sagas up the page.

One thing that sucked was a head bolt that snapped, no idea how I'm gonna get that out yet, but at least there's a cm sticking out to work with.



I also replaced one of my control arms which was bent and giving me some mean as toe-in. From experience I know this can be a total arse. Getting dem spindles out can be impossible; even with a 10 ton press I couldn't get the last one out. This time I managed to do it without calling in the engineers, but I did have to beat the shit out of it and cut the spindle, still I'm happy with that. I'd bought replacement spindles from someone at the ZClub in anticipation of much banging and cutting.

Replaced all bushes with poly ones innit.

[mikey]

Stud out; woohoo!



Cleaned up. How fussy do I need to be with the cleaning?

[mikey]

Current toe-in senario after replacing the control arm. Still looks like a lot.


The next job is cutting more out of my rear guards and fixing my wiring from last time which.... well.... you can guess what happened.

D'oh


Fixed, sweet.



But wait...


Fixed for reals this time.


I cut around 2cm at a time. It's currently cut to the top of that yellow line. In total I've probably cut another 4-5cm out. It's now hitting the bump stops about 2cm before hitting the guards but I guess I need to keep going until it doesn't hit the guards at all?

[mikey]

I finished my rear guards (again), so boring.

I also cut up my old airdam so it would fit around the flares and painted it. I dont think I like it but I was planning on binning it so it was worth a shot.

[mikey]

These little nuggets of Japanese awesomeness arrived today.



Also, I just realised that I know nothing about engines and shat myself that maybe my cam timing will be out now that the head has been skimmed. So I figured I'll need to check the timing at least, which wouldn't normally be an issue since stock cam sprockets have 4 different timing marks to choose from. But I've just realised mine are adjustable, and you can't see the normal timing marks which should be visible through the spokes.

How the frig to you time these?

[mikey]

The weather up the mountain was rubbish last weekend so I got to put the reco'd head back on. Gave it a rough tune and everything seems to be good, need set the timing etc and should be gold.

Sounds like a bit of a rattle so I'll check the manifold's bolted up tightly and re-check the valve clearances.

Looks like I'll make it to Taupo next week, woohoo!

Some random snaps:

[mikey]

Not really an update, just some rad pics that Snoozin took of the wheels at Taupo.

[mikey]

Sometimes, but not often, when working on cars everything goes to plan and small changes have big effects. Last night I put an electronic distributor in and the car runs a shit-ton better, The timing is rock solid and there's no hesitation right up to the red line. Stoked!

It only cost me $35 plus new cap and rotor, but it was fucken mucky. Took me around 3 hours to clean it and about 15 minutes to install.









Everything cleaned up well, the bearings used for vacuum advance are a little rough but move freely so should be sweet.

[mikey]

Righto, it's been a while since my last update and nothing that exciting has happened but I'm bored so;

I got some new steering crap and some other pointless crap while I was at it.







I got legal. Farking stoked the day this happened.



Not so stoked the day this happened.



Then I picked the scab that was my bonnet, nek minnit. Eeeeeeek



Not to worry, I have a plan... a plan on a budget, but a plan nonetheless.