Dude it sure ain't cool today! Sure its not sunny but the humidity (thanks to an early shower) is off the chart!
Yeah was a little frightening, certaintly got the heart started, oh and caz, the weekend after nationals the drift is in adelaide
ahh well, so there are a few problems with the drifter, bound to happen when you're trying to squeeze every last bit of everything out of it, what i am looking forward to is seeing it on tv flying around a racetrack sideways, drifting doesn't do much for me, but it will certainly get a new fan when the DriftZ is happening, everything is supposedly wonderfull in a perfect world but when has there ever been a perfect world?, patience is a necessity with Z's, we all know that.
It is a shame Over the last few years we really tried to give our advice and certainly discounted heavily on parts but only to part of this frustratingnightwmre that seems to have caught DUB and Franz now. Worse than that we were blamed for this car by the owner for many of it's problems. It has been poorly built and prepared, other than the roll cage and exhaust which is very good. This car has been prone to trouble with two engines built now and NOT buy UAS. We were well aware and reported serious problems with it and tired our best to help and correct things, only to be blamed. DUB your report is 100% right. We told the owner the engine had serious problems and would probably blow up if it ever made it to the track. ACTUAL strong words as the owner refused to believe us. With high oil pressure and a tight spot in the motor, it was missing guide plates front and rear of crank sprocket which we discovered after motor was running and noticed the timing belt walking a bit and replaced with new timing belt with guide plates as belt was frayed. No timing mark as lower timing belt cover missing as well as the intercooler pipes loaded and leaking and did not have beads to prevent them blowing off especially with high boost. We also diagnosed air leaks and intercooler leaking internally between tanks, so it was pressurising, oil cooler poorly mounted and no air flow where it is located, water pipes loaded up and no ridges or beads to prevent hoses blowing off under pressure, and in fact blew off a few times on our dyno etc etc etc. As for the electric water pump mentioned it also split on our dyno, and we found fitting the new one under manufacturers warranty that it was poorly fitted and loaded up, and split due to un due forces from the dodgy brackets that mount it. It should not have been warranted and we strongly explained that it will happen again and sounds like it has again. Be careful now DUB you have touched it and may be blamed for everything after the fact as seems the go.
Come on all lets get that Zlove spirit back:zlove: :zlove: :zlove: Here we have a team that have the balls to take the zed and do something completely from right field and turn it into a drift machine. Yes most are right there has seemingly been many hands in the teams/sponsors pockets trying to milk the team for every last cent they have in an effort to get this thing right and I have no doubt if they stick with it they will indeed do just that get it right. This thing will be a weapon and have the Kumho reps scratching there heads as to why the zed shreds more rubber than any other car out there I think it is awesome that so many WA guys arrived to help out with the car but to turn around and criticise the car or members of the team for not pulling there weight has me bewildered. Fair enough you guys spent your own time and money helping get this car sorted until the very end but remember these guys have to explain to the sponsors why there hard earned dollars werent displayed prominently on the track and on TV etc so maybe a few thank you's were forgotten. I am sure they are all very appreciative of your efforts under the circumstances. Tom (PZP) DUB and others who helped out you are Legends in my book. Most of you who track there zeds will know and understand that these cars are very temperamental peices of machinery. Very rarely do things go 100% right with any car in motorsport V8 supercar teams with massive budgets have issues just the same as the lower budget DA Series entrants. The guys at Sureflow spent countless hours prepping this car in an effort to get it ready and yes it may not have been 100% but at least its out there and they are continually learning how to improve it as each passing minute of track time goes by. Make no mistake once a shop takes ownership of this thing and gets it right it will be an awesome drift car. (Tom any chance of opening a SZP store Sydney Zed Performance )
thats quite amusing how you say people left out on purpose.. in your thanks you forgot to mention i helped finish off installing the tail shaft and exhaust the first time.. and that i leant tom my one peice tail shaft as the backup incase the z1 one failed to install the second time on saturday.. unlike you im not doing it for public credit.. i just wanted to help out where i could good luck scotty.. do us proud.. i enjoyed having a chat with you about your previous year.. it was good you had the patience to talk about how you got where you were even though we had just diagnosed a 1200 diff didnt even make it to the first track day
LOL, suck any harder could you? Nah just kidding, feel free to help out next time. We all know how you like to get your hands dirty. You can have my spot LOL
nah cant.. lips are sore.. but seriously.. i wish i could be doing what he was doing.. i would have done it better and cheaper(he got screwed and whats with the skanky old stock bushes).. but either way..
What's not to love Brad, you're perfect(I know 'cause you told me, so it must be right).:zlove::zlove::zlove:
OK, one more attempt to get back to the thread .... .. there has been tremendous interest in this project .. things hiccuped along the track .. but we zedders maintained a great interest in the endeavour .. lordie, i am not into motor events all that much and i became totally engrossed ..:zlove: :zlove: :zlove: tom .. thank you for your fine write up, this definitely clarified heaps of issues that many of were wondering about.. dub, your frustrations, given your efforts and those of team W.A., are more than understandable and appreciated .. these were simply way above the call of duty or anything else ... and franz, your exploits, your abilities in your machines and your zed are legendary and cannot pass without one accepting a large degree of realism in your observations.. and finally to "our caz", we are still with you, lady of our forum .. your excitement was/is infectious, not at all misplaced, and be rest assured, i for one will follow the future of this beautiful machine with the same excitement and interest .. remember, this is but the beginning .... to me, the effort invested by team W.A. at such short notice simply confirmed that the zed world is just a world apart .. just brilliant stuff .. and finally, finally .. even 'ol unca grumpy came around a bit at the end .. just loved that ... GO ZED .. GO DRIFT ZED ...!!! .. :zlove: :zlove: :zlove: MAJOR F'ING EDIT.. should have read the latter posts ..!!SPOT ON BHP and jason .. just what i was on about .. good stuff .. shame i cannot say the same about the "OTHER" post .. the one from HE who would be GOD .. as expected .. we, of course are never wrong ..!!! eeekkkkkkkkkkk
Correct Yes there is way too much negative talk on this forum aimed at businesses and people, with little to no justification and often exaggerated and twisted. Shame there is not a reallity or bull crap detector on forums. I have no sympothy or empathy for those that people try so hard to help, and then find waste people's time and point blame for there own frustration and problems. I do applaud people having a go though in the right spirit. I encourage people to go to the track and off the street.
DriftZ - apologies and the behind the scenes story Hi Guys, For some reason I have missed all the updates on this thread and I am disappointed with some of the flaming that has gone on without knowing any of the details. Thanks to all the WA guys who helped get the Zed to the track and the nice photo of it crossed up on the track. This will be the first of many. I feel sorry for the WA guys that put so much effort into getting her on the track, and poor Scotty (the Driver), only for her to not to compete. At least we have the first picture of her smoking her tyres in anger!!!! The Zed Community has been very helpful and we appreciate all your efforts. I would also like to thank Caz who has helped us immensly and to all of the NSW guys who lent a hand along the way. I would also like to thank John at Cresta for the parts he sent us, and all of the other sponsors who helped us. I would also like to thank Adrian at Toda for all of the work he put into tuning the car into the early hours of the morning. As you know, we are an exhaust shop and we rely on so called mechanical workshops to get the engine reliable and take their advice when given. We took John's advice and lipped all the piping and bracketed it where necessary, and it did not fail. The EWP we let hang so there was no stress on it, yet when the thermostat housing was removed in WA, the new thermostat I paid for was not there. The brand new one we installed was replaced with another brand new one which must have disolved. We were wondering why we were having overheating problems and why the OE head gasket blew when we were tuning it the week before it left. That's why. The overheating probably caused the glue on the EWP to come apart and leak at the race. We removed the engine, the heads were taken off, cometic head gaskets, and arp head bolts fitted. The engine was re-fitted Thursday/Friday and the car was tuned again on Friday night/Saturday morning. The car was leaving on the truck between 9.00 and 10.00am that morning. The tune from UAS was disappointing to say the least. The car was running rich and fouling plugs. On our dyno the best it made was 215rwkw. Checking the tune, hardly any of the table was tuned. At the same boost after being tuned it was running 244rwkw and at 2 psi more (16psi) it was running 277rwkw with plenty of more to be had. Unfortunately, it started running rough and we found a tiny amount of coolant on one of the spark plugs. At 2.30am in the morning, we could not risk stripping the engine to re-torque the head bolts in case something went wrong, or the truck came early. We dropped the boost back down and I flushed the radiator and engine and put chemiweld in it (knowing the engine was coming back out as soon as it got back from WA). It was 3.30am by this stage. First thing in the morning I got Matt to drive the car up and down the street to make sure the chemiweld had circulated properly. After a few laps, Matt gave it a boot full and spun the wheels in the end of the cul-te-sac, not even a burnout, and he heard clunking. We put it up on the hoist and had a look at it and assumed it was the centre bearing as the rubber looked perished. Saturday morning and no-one local was open to get a shaft from, so we had to send it the way it was and organise one on the other end. After spending $1800 on a custom spooled diff, this was the last thing we thought would have broken, especially after just a wheel spin. We obviously thought the 17 yo tailshaft was the culprit. Remember, we are not mechanics, so if in doubt, buy a new one. When the car had overheating problems on the track, I thought the chemiweld may have blocked the thermostat or radiator, so I told them to flush it out. (Not knowing there was no thermostat fitted). If the thermostat was in place we would not have had overheating problems and the chemiweld would have stopped the leak. We had already paid our entry fee as well as the transport to WA. Scott was dying for a drive and we desperately wanted to see it on the track. We paid all of last seasons entry fees ($1400 a pop) and never got to one round. John, I still have the brand new timing belt that we put on and you replaced. It is not frayed, it is still brand new. You can say I told you so a million times, but you were paid to do a job and it wasn't done properly. It is OK to have a go at everyone else, but your effort was half arsed and gold plated for what we got. The car we got back was not ready, damaged, not tuned, and running like a pig. 300zx experts What happened to the new thermostat I paid for? Putting all of this behind us, the engine will be coming out and the problems will be sorted before the next round. There was also a Skyline with a twin turbo LS1 engine at Barbagello for its debut round and it didn't get to compete either. We tried the best we could, but we have to rely on others, and we ran out of time. We have approx 6 weeks till the next round, so hopefully it is sorted by then and Scott can get some practise in beforehand. Once again, thanks to all the Zedders out there that helped us and the disappointed supporters as well. We will do better next round Cheers Greg
Unfortunatly a few people beleive that a keyboard gives you the power to wear your undies on the outside and leap tall buildings in a single bound... In the real world, we will continue to pursue a dream of many and a possability for few. 300ZX owners are still brilliant despite a few bad eggs. Thanks for all the support in WA and from around the country thru this forum.
hang on... if 'Thunder' is the team and 'Smoking Scotty' is the driver.... then why is one apologizing and the other criticizing
Thermostat No offense to you, but why is having no thermostat going to make you overheat? Good thing you guys are not mechanics, you'd be out of business! All it will do is make your engine take a lot longer to warm up, and it will also run cooler across the board, not hotter. This is not necessarily a good thing though as clearances may not be as tight if it is not running at its optimum temperature. I'd have thought though that any sensible person that has a serious investment in a car would have installed a water temp gauge to see exactly what was happening in the engine?
