Looking for something to do in St. Louis this weekend? Here's what I've got planned.Forest Park Balloon RaceRacing at Grandprix Speedways. they'll have a close to 1/2 mile track open this weekend.Rallycross at GIR on SundayBuy my car! posted from...
I'm selling my 2003 Nissan 350Z. It's currently on Ebay. You can find it by following this link. Details, a 2003 350Z with just under 79k miles on it. I'm selling it in stock form, but have other items I'd consider selling to set it up for BS in Solo if there's interest. Contact me for more information!
posted from...
I've been putting things on ebay this evening,
Here are my 350Z Enkei RPF1s, 17" wheels, BStock legal for 17" 350Zs.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1,1&item=150032437137
Also listed a dual weber setup off the 1973 240Z.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=005&item=150032411962
posted from...
Due to the fact that I'm not going to Nationals this year (wedding/honeymoon in december and I'm out of vacation) I'm open to the idea that someone else competes my car at Nationals. My usual codriver has taken an excellent opportunity in a BSP STI, so he won't be driving the Z this year.
I believe this car to be the most well prepared 350Z in the country. Not to knock Carter Thompson's car, but I think the 2003 Enthusiast model 350Z is the car to have in BStock if you're going to be driving a 350Z. I've managed to keep up with Carter a few times this year, finished in 10th place last year, and I'll stand up and say I'm not anywhere near the driver that Carter is.
With someone who has some skill I'm sure this car could finish at the top of the class, even against the lemmings, err I mean Mazda RX-8s.
Stats about the car.
2003 Nissan 350Z Enthusiast ModelTC Kline DA KonisHotchkios FSBEnkei RPF-1sKumho 710sHoosier Wets (for the rain)6 SpeedNismo Titanium Y-Pipe with custom 3" exhaust system
This is the only 350Z that has competed at Nationals every year since the model was made eligible for BS, I'd love for someone to keep that statistic going.
Rental Price negotiable, also an option to Purchase the vehicle and all my spares is available as well. Delivery to Topeka Kansas is also an option.
Contact me for further information.
posted from...
Here's a few lessons I wish I had learned a few months ago, could have saved me two fires, and many hours tearing apart a scooter for no reason.
1. To start a scooter with the ignition button you must be holding the front brake down.
2. Some scooters won't start if they're on the kickstand.
I tore apart the switches on my scooter trying to get the damn starter working, only to learn that the reason I couldn't get the starter to run was that I wasn't holding down the brake lever.
Now that I know this tracking down the other issues on the scooter will hopefully be easier. I don't think I'm getting any spark, but at least i know the rest of the electrical system seems to be in order now.
posted from...
Here are my runs from today, except for Run 4, which of course would have been the cool one because I hit cones on the camera side, but of course I checked to make sure the camera was recording right before I ran, and apparently turned it off.
For some reason the videos aren't working here, you can view them here.
Posted from...
Well, it's been nearly a month since I last worked on the 240Z, had a few events in there, July 4th, and various other activities keeping me away from the car, but mostly it was just me being lazy.
So today I spent a couple hours out in the garage wrenching. I got just about everything left that needs to be disconnected to pull the motor disconnected. Pulled the rusty exhaust out from under the car and threw it into my junk pile outside.
Here's what I know I have left to do to pull the motor/tranny.
1. Disconnect the shaft from the transmission.
2. Put the mounts for the hooks from the 83 motor onto the 73 motor.
3. Disconnect the transmission mount
4. Disconnect the engine mounts and lift it out.
Hopefully I can get that done next weekend!
posted from...
Andy's got the Z for the weekend. He's off to a Test and Tune to try to figure out if we can work around the "flaws" that the Z has. He's having a special guest driver come in to help with the tuning of the car. He's got 4 front sway bars, new Hawk HPS pads, and 4 new 710s to play with.
Here's to hoping he can figure out our ice mode issues!
posted from...
It's been a long few weeks for me. It all started with the St. Louis region driver's school three weekends ago and culminated today with the Walnut Ridge ProSolo. The driver's school went well, the Walnut Ridge National Tour went even better.
The Walnut Ridge ProSolo though was far from good. The event itself was great, organized and run very smoothly. The 350Z's B-Stock performance however was far from desired.
It's late, and I have a lot of things to catch up on, but in short the Z's drawbacks were most apparent this past weekend. The two drawbacks being the very flakey ABS, resulting in ice mode too many times to count this weekend, and the lack of a real LSD in the Z.
What is Ice Mode? Well, it's hard to describe, but once you hit it you know exactly what it is. Basically if the Z isn't completely level when you hit the brakes the brake peddle gets rock hard and the car doesn't want to stop. It doesn't pulse like ABS, it can be quite disconcerning, luckily for me I've only hit it once or twice on the street, but it's a frequent problem on the non-brembo 350Zs, made prior to the 2006 model year.
As for the lack of LSD, the 350Z models above the base model are equiped with an LSD, limited slip differential, which is supposed to limit the amount of wheelspin in the rear tires. The problem the Z has is that on corner exit with the throttle pressed for acceleration the car spins the inside rear tire in a nice smokey haze. A limited slip should actually transfer that force properly to keep the tire from spinning. At least, that is my understanding of how a LSD should work. It would be lovely in the Z had this feature, but it's something we must drive around.
As you can see, nothing really good to say about the weekend. Andy finished 4th, myself in 6th, the three trophy positions were all filled by Mazda RX-8s. I came home from Walnut Ridge this weekend and started looking at RX-8s on the Mazda website to see how much one would lease for..... Not likely that Andy and I will be switching, but I will be looking for an RX-8 at a local event to flog around the course and see what the competition feels like.
I'll have some video of our runs up later this week. I've now gotta pack. I'm headed to Boston Monday afternoon for Opening Day at Fenway on Tuesday!
posted from...
We got into town early this afternoon. I ended up filling up with gas before I got out of St. Louis, that was a mistake, 200 miles later I still have a half a tank. So I drove the car to the hotel tonight rather than leaving it at the event site, needed to burn off as much gas as I can before tomorrow.
We got setup and Andy did the novice intro with practice starts. Before the novice guys got any starts the staff was out there replacing the Christmas Tree, apparently they were having timing issues. Andy got 4 starts in, with one redlight. I got in light, at the end of what looked like 40-50 cars and waited, for almost 2 hours before I finally got up to take some practice starts. During that two hours a lot occured. There were a very large number of issues with the lights, I'm not sure exactly what they were, but the staff appeared hard at work trying to get things fixed.
Then came the rain. It didn't rain too much, but enough to create quite a few troubles, and it looked like they were going to cancel the practice starts but the rain let up and the lights started working properly again. I think everyone who had lined up for starts got their runs. We got in a few more course walks after we ran off to registration, had a bit to eat and then headed back to the hotel.
A few trips to Wal Mart later and it's about bed time. Hopefully will post more tomorrow, including video!
-Chris
posted from...
The first Cone Clinic was held today at the first day of the Walnut Ridge national tour. A great thanks goes out to the Hollis' for instructing all of the drivers today. We each got 12 runs, had a blast and a great time getting the rust out from almost 6 months off!
We start at 9am tomorrow. As last year, the town has welcomed everyone with open arms! All of the local businesses have the posters up for the event, and it seems to be once again the hot topic of the town!
We're off to dinner, hope to have a great time tomorrow! I'll try to post tomorrow night with an update.
posted from...
In a few short hours we'll be departing St. Louis for our first autocross of the season. Well, it'll be my first autocross, Andy (my codriver) already has a few events under his belt! He's an Evolution instructor, so he's had the luxury of getting plenty of seat time already this year.
We're headding to Walnut Ridge this afternoon to be ready for the practice event tomorrow morning, I hope to use it to get all the rust out of my system prior to Saturday and Sunday's runs. The car is all ready to go, trailer is packed with the most tires I've ever taken. We've got 12 tires loaded up ready for Walnut Ridge's rough surface. One set of older tires to use during the practice. One set of Hoosier Rain tires just in case, and our competition set of tires mounted on Enkie RPF-1s.
B-Stock has a strong field in Walnut Ridge, we'll see how Andy and I fair!
More blogging this weekend with results!
posted from...
I spent this morning with Steven at www.tuxedoparkracing.com fixing my 03 Enthusiast Nissan 350Z.
Sometime early last year we, Andy and I, had a seat bolt fail, driver's side rear. We had to provide a quick fix and rigged together a drywall anchor to try to get the seat to stay in place, we were out of town with limited tools and only a home depot for parts. That rigging worked alright for a few events, but had to be redone a few months later.
The problem caused by a mount bold mount failing is that the seat mounted at only 3 points twists and causes the track to come free and the seat will move forward and back while driving, not a fun experience when competing.
Today we found the cause of the bolt mount failing. I removed the carpeting from the driver's side of the car, and underneath this carpet found that the nut that used to fill the hole had broken free of the four spot welds. We ended up welding it back into place, and as I reassembled the car I actually found that the passenger side rear bolt on the drivers seat wouldn't thread. So I had to take the car apart again and found the same thing to have occured. I'm glad it occured right there, and not during a 2006 event.
Steven welded the the nut back in place and the seat is amazing now! No more squeeks!
How did this all actually occur? I'm going to have to assume that one of the dealers who had worked on the seat in the past didn't properly tighten the bolts down, and the seat was able to move around causing extra stress on the welds. Hopefully for 2006 we've got all of our seat issues squared away!
posted from...
Since I seem to post this information on the web over and over I figured I'd solidify it here.
The following information is how Andy and I run my 2003 Nissan 350Z Enthusiast model in SCCA Solo Competition in the B Stock Class.
ShocksDA Konis available from Nissan USA Motorsports Division(SA Konis in the garage just in case Full Stiff (r))
Front Sway BarHotchkis (full stiff)
ExhaustRemoved the stock muffler, drop 35lbs, put a pipe to aim exhaust down and out from under the car.
BrakesHawk HP Plus(F) HPS (R)
WheelsEnkieSpacers up front
TiresKumho 710s, 275 45(or were they 40) 17Tire Pressure 36-37 (f) 31-32 (r)
I spent 20+ hours over the last 3 days upgrading the mapping system for SCCAForums.com. The map was getting awful cluttered once I imported all of the track data that we were provided.
You can now filter the map results based on program type (Solo, Club, Track and Other), as well as by class within each of those program types. Check out the map to see it in action! http://sccaforums.com/maps/
posted from...