That's the way my Audi was, there was minimum clearance between the wheel and the brake. I had the mounting shop put the weights between the spokes, not pretty but it worked.

Start your camber at at least 3 degrees front and 2 rear so not to tear up the outside of the tires.im at 3.6 and 2.3 right now.

 

fronts are at max camber, maybe 4*, so I'm worried about inside tire wear. this is a street-driven car, not trailered. steering is also off-center since I wasn't careful when putting the rack back on. I checked clearance at both locks so maybe I'll correct this with the new steering wheel instead of adjusting the linkage. a tire shop alignment will take care of caster and toe.

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I finally decided to itemize the work I've done in the past year and a half on this car. I put it all into a spreadsheet and just pasted it at the top of this thread. I've probably done more with the car than most people who are in comp racing. just reflects my engineering perspective. I'm a min / maxer. My goal for the past year has been to get this car up to Cayman specs. I don't do lap times. I do feel of the pants and you just know when your car is cornering well. and when the engine is running well. you can feel the compression ratio in the vibration of the steering wheel and your *** in the seat. you can feel a loss of compression at the gas pedal if you know what you're doing. That's what I do. I'm not so much a driver as much as a mechanic. with comparable engine output,

I think this car is now faster than the Cayman. so I'm going to probably have to do a lap timer.

April 22/23 I'm booked for thunderhill East. I'm taking the Z out on sat, Cayman out on Sun, and testing lap times. I hate this track. so I'm doing this for science, not for fun...

 

ran the engine for about 20 minutes and noted the fans coming on occasionally. transmission and diff seem to be okay. so I'm going to focus on the steering which is messed up. I might have this car ready to go by Saturday. but I work 10 hrs/day so my energy level at the end of the day is very low. hopefully I won't be rushing on Friday.

 

FAIL... Rear calipers need to be rebuilt. I suspected when assembling... it was foolish to not use all new gaskets but suppliers are all out of centric stock. this is what happens when you try to do too much at once... going to put the OEM rears back on for now.

 

it's not that rebuild seal kits aren't available, it's that the OEM kits are $80 from Nissan and a reman caliper is basically the price of that rebuilt kit which is queer as far as a supply chain matter. The centric kits are impossible to find I don't know why the hell that is a problem it's just rubber.

​​​​​oh ****. I was going to put in the order for three different rebuilt seal kits because they're only $6 and they'll take 3 to 4 weeks to ship and I thought okay well I'll use a new set of reman calipers until these kits come in and see if I can restore my current set of rear calipers.... and I just realized.... they're worth more as a core than as a usable rear caliper.

damn this situation really sucks but I'm not complaining because these are a great value for very low cost. I'm guessing @Dr Hoon had the same issue recently. rebuild or new? there are no centric rebuild kits anywhere and the Nissan OEMs are the price of a caliper.

The irony is kind of funny really because these calipers should be two to three times the price but they are really damn cheap.
I even feel stupid now for paying $400 for the two fronts even though they were new. NOS I think. but the reman calipers are $180 for the pair. powder coated.

so it would be a waste of time to rebuild the rears that I just bought and got powder coated damn it!! when they're worth more as a core return for $88.

there comes a time in a track car project when you have to stop min/maxing and just get it done...

 

The Z left the garage for the first time in 12 mos! I drove it around the neighborhood once and it feels good but it's a little scary after doing so much to the car. lots of potential failure points. which was a good lesson for me... Don't do too much without testing each improvement separately.

I couldn't get the Seibon hood to close with the OEM latch so I had to take it off. looked beautiful for a few minutes... removing the latch and just using hood pins is not a great choice for a street/track car but this hood is never going to push the latch far enough down to lock it.

I didn't get around to the rear yet but I did look inside to try to reach under the headliner and it's very tight with the roll bar. I'm back again to taking it to a shop to get help removing the hatch.

idk if I can get this car into shape tomorrow. it's my last day off before Saturday track day. I'll have to put the OEM hood back on for now. with the hood on, I'll take it to a shop for an alignment.

The rear diff is popping a lot at slow speeds. but it feels pretty good in 2nd gear. I didn't get this from the previous owner so I'm guessing it's a 1.5 because if it was a 2.0 it would react on deceleration and there's no sign of that. acceleration feels scary fast to me... and I haven't taken it out of second gear just around the neighborhood for this first test run but damn it is a totally different car than last year...

I also missed this car a lot... it's such a great driver. it feels so good behind the wheel.

I'll share some progress tomorrow and what I decide to do Saturday, I might have to take the Cayman. and then probably this thread will be done because the car will be done. maintenance isn't really interesting to read here...

 

CF hood with just hood pins is fine. I definitely wouldn't trust the latch to hold it in place and most people remove the latch altogether and just leave the pins. As long as they are well mounted you're fine.

 

while it doesn't hurt to have hood pins, i don't see why you wouldn't trust the latch to hold it in place, as i assume like most people it's a wet carbon hood, which is just as heavy (and sometimes heavier) than the oem aluminum hood

also, pretty sure the latch is adjustable. if memory serves me correctly, on the radiator support, loosen the 3 bolts, shove it upward a bit, and tighten the 3 bolts down

 

Let me clarify, I'm sure just a latch on a CF hood is fine on the street, but not on track. I've seen too many CF hoods crack, fail and take out the windshield in the process to trust a latch to hold it in place. You want at least 2 points holding a CF hood down. There is a whole thread on this here:

https://my350z.com/forum/exterior-an...pins-safe.html

 

oh okay, so the idea is that it's a potential safety issue with the metal loop being just bonded to the fibreglass underside. yeah i can see that is easily weaker than the steel one riveted inside the oem aluminum hood

 

thanks for the advice! I had a CF hood on this car last year which was an HR style with a bulge in the middle and it required washers on the latches to fit properly. I could give that a try with this hood which is DE style but the fitment is perfect, the square catch just isn't long enough. it might be bumping into the intake since I have a spacer. it's already drilled for pins, I just need to mount them in the radiator support. The location is inconvenient though, I'm going to have to take the whole front end apart to install them.

yesterday, I got all of the mechanicals done which was very satisfying and it's in need of an alignment now. today, I ran into one problem after another and it was very frustrating. I should have left the GD steering wheel alone but since I'm a glutton for punishment, I started to install the sparco wheel I bought last year and the hub is an unbelievable POS. and this is sort of a no going back due to the wiring changes I made so I have to buy a better hub. The works bell hub looks much better.

damn, if I would have just left the steering wheel alone the car would have been trackable tomorrow. but now I'm going to have to take the Cayman. which is fun as hell but I was really looking forward to a shakedown drive in the Z.

just cruising around the streets nearby, the steering wheel was really messed up, because it the hub didn't fit but GD this car has mad acceleration! The diff popping is funny. since the car isn't quite together yet I am not pushing it but it's obviously faster with the new cats and 75 mm tb and diff. and all of the solid mounts and bushings add up to a raw ride!

so my next track weekend is April 22/23. I'll shoot for that. should have the harness and belt and steering wheel sorted out by then.

I got one P1065 code which seems to be a generic panic code for the ECU so I just cleared it. kind of normal when screwing with the battery so much. One thing that's cropped up is the heater fan isn't blowing into the cabin anymore. there's a switch in the interior fuse panel that I need to look into.

it's days like this that I feel incredibly discouraged and have thoughts like ugh... I need to just get rid of this car... but then I overcome the discouragement and realize it is more fun than it should be for the price. comparing directly with the Cayman, this is Z is just as fun it just requires a lot more work to get there.

 

sucks to hear you couldnt make the track day with the Z, I have the works bell hub and quick release and it is awesome, very good quality. I would not buy any nrg stuff for track imo. Also, definitely get hood pins for the CF hood.

 

thanks, bro. I'm trying to decide between the standard works bell hub and the shorty. I don't think I'm going to use a quick removal adapter. prob will just get the std hub since it is about 3 in long. I mean, the last few weekends have been a fun mad dash to finish the Z. The Cayman is a good substitute but it's having its own issues now... I haven't done the baffled oil pan yet so there's an oil starvation danger. and it needs new shift cables. I got stuck on a tight turn when I couldn't engage second gear a couple hours ago. I'm just breaking for lunch right now... I can get it to shift when I'm not going around a tight turn. I'm planning on getting the numeric short shifter kit and cables. but it just reinforces the point that I don't really want to maintain two track cars. Even if the Cayman is just a backup, it's not as good as the Z will be.

 

Yea thats not good, I installed my shifter backward in the Z and it was awful, I was missing gears left and right and knew something was wrong! Its dreadful on track. Swapped it around in the paddock and didnt miss another gear again... 2 track cars would be expensive to run and be alot of work, I'd run the Z on track and keep the porsche for fun on the streets if it was me. Im actively looking for a 987 Cayman S currently for that same setup.

 

I was going to build the Z3 up as a track car also and have three of them! that was the plan last year and then I would keep whichever one I liked the best etc. it turns out, the E30 rear end on the Z3 is really poor for track duty. The E36 front suspension is fine but the rear is the reason why you never see a Z3 on the track other than just for fun. The second reason is the roll bar issue. The hoops are not high enough and the hard dog roll bar sits so high that it really wrecks the roadster look.

I do think having a backup car is a great idea but I wouldn't want to have them both fully prepped for track at all times. your backup car should just be like you said street duty with some track upgrades if you want.

on the 987 S, what I've learned in the past year is that you want a second gen 987.2, from 2009 to 12 If you're going to track it at all. The gen 1 with the M97 engine has an oil starvation weakness. Porsche solved that problem with the new MA1 engine in 2009 which completely eliminated the IMS and oil starvation issues. it has four oil pickups.

I do want to get a .2 but in the meantime there are some upgrades you can do to a .1 to strengthen it. screw on oil filter and an enlarged oil pan with baffles and a few other things.

I ordered the works bell standard and it's back ordered two to four weeks. I've canceled the next track weekend and don't plan on signing up for any more until the Z is completely ready to go.

 

good point on the cayman, im definitely going to get the .2 version!

 

it was a real eye-opener and I was shocked but I'm thankful that the planet 9 forum is full of good advice like that. I'm not planning on tracking that car anymore. it's a distraction from the Z. but I'm still going to do the strengthening mods to the oiling system. I already installed the twist on oil filter. The canister style is just terrible anyway, makes a huge mess, so it's a good upgrade and apparently increases oil pressure. The baffled oil pan, there are two options, and they're both very expensive but could save the M97.

on the Z front, I have a steering wheel hub ordered but it's back ordered so I'm just going to put the stock steering wheel back on so I can get the damn car on the road. I need to get front and rear alignment done and give it a good shakedown run near home in case I run into probs. which I probably won't. these cars are built like a tank. I've actually been arguing with a guy about that at planet 9, about how I'm I don't like having to be so careful with the M97, due to Porsches incompetent engineering. The engine shouldn't be that shitty. and in contrast, the VQ is very strong and well done. The oil weakness in the M97 is not a problem on the Nissan because it has two oil pans (sumps) that deal with return oil from the heads.

 

yea i agree, its a shame porsche dropped the ball on that generation with the ims bearing issues and bore scoring but at least corrected it in the .2 The VQ is a great engine that can take some track abuse for sure. I hope you dont have any problems when you get it done.

 

@Escobar your posts about oil temps while tracking your twin turbo has me revisiting the vortec again. yesterday after work, I went to a friend's to help him with a vortec install on his '06 Mustang GT. it was nice to see the kit assembled since the 350Z kit has similar hardware. My prior experience with the platform is a twin screw, so I would have preferred the stillen twin screw but that's not available anymore. The vortec kit came with a charge cooler and HE. the piping and coolant hoses were very tight under the hood. the install looks good, though. he wasn't quite ready to start the engine yet.

this kit is $8,000 with tax. I was thinking that the 350Z is good enough for me with a few NA upgrades. maybe 270 RWHP? but imagine this platform with 400...

I also thought for that kind of money I could make a big dent in a 5.0. like a 2011. which already has 420 hp. but is it a fun driver's car? I don't think so. that extra power doesn't make up for the numb steering and poor cornering. not without massive upgrades. do I want to go that route just because the car is around the price range of a vortec kit?

that might sound like crazy logic to someone but that's how I think. min/max. I've done about as much with this Z as you can do without going the stripped/caged route. I think it will be more fun to focus on aero (which I have mostly ignored so far) and add this vortec kit instead of getting entangled in another car which, from the factory, is in desperate need of almost everything. Ford is good at engines, but their OEM suspension is stamped steel ****.

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