keith5700

Got the dash out at the mo' Just noticed the black box on the left of the driver's footwell, which after searching, appears to be the air con amp module. If I'm junking the air con can I ditch this as well or is it needed to control the remaining heating system?

Paul, I've got the brake setup on cad from when I fitted my Wilwoods, although I fitted 310mm discs. Some of the info may be useful tho' like the bell offset, and hole centres etc.

Don't know you mate, but saw this and felt gutted for you. Took a good thump there. Glad you're ok.

I'm doing this now. Started ripping the car to bits Saturday, but I have a n/a so am having to put the whole tt back end in first. I only bought the n/a as it was in such good nick. The rest of the n/a-tt differences don't really matter as you will have to uprate everything else anyway. So, ideally get a tt manual, but really you could use anything. I'm putting an older small block chevy in mine, the LS1 should fit easier as you'll have loads of bonnet clearance. The gearbox is nice too, should have a hydraulic release bearing with it, which makes life easier. Make sure all the electrics are with the engine tho. I tried to buy an LS1 with the T56 box a few months ago but couldn't find anything below £3500. They supercharge really easy to 600hp if you get carried away later, and loads more if you change the pistons,etc. They're about 80lbs lighter than the iron block chevy, although the box is quite heavy at 125lbs. As you must know mantav8 has already done what I'm doing. Go on, buy it NOW!

If he uses a washer which is the difference in the 2 thicknesses, then he ends up with exactly what he had before. The shear forces are taken on the threaded part of the bolt either way, and running a die down to make the thread longer will weaken the bolt quiet a lot cos the original threads are rolled on, not cut.

How about a washer under the bolt head?

Hi Daz, no it's got to be 3/4". I'm using a Tilton hydraulic clutch release bearing. Have set the clutch up in a press to get throws etc, and 5/8 won't quite release the plate. Probly use my old land rover cylinder, cheap and cheerful, but never had any problems with it. Car's coming off road next weekend by the way.

No not seen it, was that a standard n/a auto too??

I was looking for a tt manual in the summer, but everything I saw was a rusty pile of junk, and then a '94 n/a auto turned up at a dealer. He wanted £5000 for it, a fresh import with the usual 64,000 on the clock. I thought it was way overpriced, but went for a look anyway. I was blown away by the condition of it tho, it was absolutely amazing. The underneath was just mint and the body, interior, engine bay was like new. Really it could have passed for a 3 year old car. I bought it without a warranty for £4500. It's been perfect really apart from a few niggles which seem to have fixed themselves. If your car sounds similar to the above then I'd go for it. But not if it's looking a bit tired. Luckily I'm doing an engine transplant soon, cos the performance is woeful to be honest. A manual should be a bit better, but I think it would take a really crappy road or a lot of deliberate provocation for you to lose the back end. Just thought, mine was a bit tail happy when I got it, but swapped the jap tyres for some decent ones and now it's unstickable. There's no reason why you shouldn't use it all year round, Imean it's not a 500hp monster, it's a 200hp plodder, with mediocre performance at best. Great round corners though! Glad I've got mine, and if I lost it tomorrow I'd go and get another.

Thanks Andy, I see what you mean now. I think the only way this could happen is if either the valve was leaking or there was a leak in the pipe between it and the clutch servo. Think I'll try and get a tank.

stricker, I would like to know too if this is a valid mod. At the end of the day 20inches of vacuum is 20 inches of vacuum, wether it comes from a resevoir tank, or your brake servo. These things do not consume air, (or vacuum) once they are activated, so the only thing I can see going wrong is that the inlet manifold vacuum cannot get to both the brake and clutch servos fast enough for an immediate response, down a single feed pipe. In this case, when you brake and clutch at the same time then the pedals would appear slightly heavier than when pressed individually, then shortly after, the pedal pressures would reduce as the vacuum built up again. Hence the inclusion of the vacuum tank. I suspect this may be the funny feeling AndyP is referring to. I think I'll try and get just the big tank and pipe that in, but leave the small tank out. I can't see the need for 2 tanks which are effectively in the same pipe run. If you are comfortable with the feel of your setup then I'd leave it, I can't see how you could cause any damage to anything. The worst thing that you'll get is an initial higher pedal pressure sometimes. Would welcome anyone elses thoughts tho.

My zed is my 6th auto car, and they're all crap. Going manual soon.

Now THAT's what I call a useful pic! Cheers

I've managed to get a clutch pedal and servo thing, but no luck with the vacuum tanks and piping. Does anyone know how this lot works, and do you actually need 2 vacuum tanks? And where do the one way valves fit. It all looks a bit complicated just to work one servo. I'm thinking I could just knock something up with just one tank and one valve?

I know mantaV8 has asked this in the past but had no luck, but anyway, does anyone know the piston diameters of the various clutch master cylinders? I've worked out I need a 3/4" bore.

I would say really that it's torque which throws your head back and keeps you pinned to your seat. If your engine can keep you pinned back right to the higher rev range then you will be producing good power too. mgh297...I'm not sure about the difference in peak torque points for the 2 engines without seeing the full specs for each. My main area of interest is big v8's. They could have different cams, but it could be a combination of other things when you introduce variable valve timing and ecu's and turbos and knock sensors. The only way to get a flatter torque curve is to cram more air and fuel thro the engine, preferably without blowing it up. If my engine dropped torque fairly fast then the first thing I'd do would be to repeat the run with some octane booster, just to make sure the knock sensor wasn't pulling some timing out at high rpm's. On my last car I had an aftermarket ecu which had a 24 channel datalogging facility. So I could go out on my 'private test track', do a run, then go home and study what was going on at any point of the run. Timing, air fuel ratios, boost, all sorts of stuff. and the acceleration computer worked out the power and torque. Not been on a rolling road for years.

nzniggles-no, scale of graphs is irrelevant.

The rolling road measures torque only. The bhp is calculated from the torque and rpm. The torque is measured at the wheels and then at full rpm the throttle is lifted and the rollers measure the engine/transmission drag as the car slows down. These 2 figures are added together to give the flywheel hp. Most 'normal' cars have a higher torque figure than bhp figure. Cars with higher bhp than torque tend to be high revving, clutch slipping beasts. Of course 'higher' is just a coincedence of the units, when n/m becomes more popular for torque then everyone will have a higher bhp figure than torque. For max acceleration you need lots of torque all thro the rpm band you are using between gears. It's no good having a big torque figure if the slope of the graph is very steep before and after the peak, unless you've got 6,7 or 8 gears to play with. It's difficult to fine tune the position of the peak torque point. This is usually a characteristic of the camshaft. subsequent tuning then alters the amount of torque, but not the peak torque point. One last thing, it's easy to spot a bogus dyno readout cos due to the formula mentioned earlier, the torque and hp lines on the graph will allways cross at 5252rpm. If they don't then it's crap. I've seen lots which don't.

I've made 3 in stainless for previous cars and I'm just starting one for the zed now. I'm using aftermarket middle boxes, but making the back boxes. To be honest it's a bit of a ballache doing a full system yourself. Unless you have access to a proper mandrel bender then it's a case of cut and shut with straight bits and pre-formed bends. I'm only doing it myself cos I don't trust anyone else to make a decent job.

Well, assuming there never was a standard adj. column for the z then I'm going to rip mine out and put something like a Mondeo or Granada one in. I can just about drive mine with the seat all the way down but I'll never be able to operate the clutch properly when I convert to manual, and as edk83 says I can't see the top of the instrument pod, which will be useless when I put the digital one in as one gauge is top, middle. Will post later when I've fitted one, see what kind of nightmare job it was.

That's what I suspect, but there were 3 in auto trader yesterday with 'adjustable steering wheels'

People I've asked say the Zed was never fitted with one as standard, but I keep seeing cars advertised with adjustable steering wheel. Presume they don't mean a quick release wheel. Has anyone actually got a zed with an adjustable steering column, ie up and down and in and out?

ooops, wrong thread

I've just fitted some, not ES ones, but after fitting I noticed the nose of the diff was hard down on the bottom bracket thingy. There doesn't seem to be much clearance round there. I had to turn a bit off the top bush and shim the bottom ones to get the diff clear top and bottom, in the subframe. Still only a couple of mm clearance all round tho.

Most of the things the speedo controls won't be there in my case, as I'm dropping a V8 in it. The only thing I'm concerned with is the steering weight, although it doesn't seem to work right anyway even before the dash swap. Sometimes it's as light as a feather and others it goes dead heavy, mainly when doing slow speeds, which is when it should be light.