Ok, so I know I’ve been allowing a few problems to hang around on my car, but now it’s just getting rediculous. My tie rods are SO bad, even I, I repeat, I, won’t drive the car anymore. I turn a corner and you can feel the car sway, that was the right side, now the left side is doing it too! I just got back from Canada and I’m parking the Z, soon as I get my bank paperwork done the car is to under go upgrades/repairs. The hood and door smashes that happened 2 months ago, flat/leaking tire, tie rod ends, flywheel (fidanza of course), struts (that are really bad, putting in tokico), springs (eibach), rear disc brakes (got from EGT), clutch (barely moves the car, replacing with centerforce), and K&N intake system, oh yeah, fixed the flat tire yesterday so that’s off the list. check. Most of this crap I already have, just haven’t had the time or the money to get the rest of it and I would rather do it all at the same time. Poor girl’s going to be sitting for a little while, and I’ve had to apologize to it for the longest time for not fixing the hood and door sooner, or the struts for that matter.
Just a quick update to you guys, I’ve got everything I need now, got all the struts and the rear hubs ripped off the car on sunday, for those of you in wisconsin you know it was the hottest day of the year, was 97 at one point I checked, i was out in the shop/sauna all day listening to the sound of an impact and a ratchet, i think i lost 30 pounds from sweating! picture that image. ew things that make you go…yuck. Struts are on backorder, might not get them this weekend but I’m sure I’ll have plenty else to keep my weekend packed. Now if I only had some money for a header and exhaust that would make my freakin’ day. Anybody got a spare header laying around?
nope… headers are a bit of a sore subject… long story if you dont know it already.
but good job on getting some of your cars problems fixed. I wish I had me a garage, I have to shade tree mine.
-Mark
I’ve got the stock manifold laying around if you want it! 
- Darron
stock manifold eh? hmm…what would you say is already on my car? lol, maybe I’ll get like 50 horses for taking off my manifold and putting yours on with a new gasket, damn that’s gotta be like 60 horse right therrrrrr. Yeah I know the header story and god I’m glad that I wasn’t involved, see I didn’t like ian, he had a hell of a way of doing business, no wonder he closed up, or whatever. speaking of that, what happened with that law suit you guys were trying to pull off?
It’s a long, sad story. Hopefully it will end happily, but I SINCERELY doubt it.
it has gone nowhere…
Lawyer never called me back, and some of the people that I would need to have involved have disappeared. So unless Ian magically appears and apologizes with either the 400$ he took from each of us, or the header it self, it looks like we were all royally screwed.
Whats done is done, I know for one I learned my lesson.
-Mark
How many people were involved with giving Ian the money?
5 people…
one header was developed and sent to the person, who ended up selling it on ebay… I am unsure if it sold.
The rest of us never saw anything other then pictures and empty pockets.
-Mark
damn…it always takes one person to ruin it for everyone else doesn’t it. I mean seriously, I wasn’t even involved and I’d like to kick his ass…
Whats done is done, I know for one I learned my lesson.
I haven’t given up gentlemen! I got a few tricks up my sleeve. OK I lied, one. LOL.
the canadian phone directory through yellowpages.com has his address listed…
yes i have thought about it…
-Mark
Ok, Update on the project guys…
Sunday I spent roughly 10 hours (including pissing and moaning, eating, swearing, throwing things) and finally got the tranny out of my car. Talk about extreme frustrations, I was more frustrated than an alter boy on a private visit with the pope. LOL, ok anyways, I got the flywheel and clutch off and bolted up my new fidanza flywheel last night, pretty sweet centerforce and Fidanza gave me stickers that look tight on my tool box. Wonder why I didn’t get a sticker for my duralast ball joints and tie rod ends. lol. Anyways, the doofus’ that sent me the centerforce clutch forgot to send my new throwout bearing i ordered and my springs got on backorder. but the rear disk brakes are almost done, btw if anyone has done the rear disk conversion i have an important question, please pm me or email me. Waiting on struts and springs and my throwout bearing. that’s it. If I have a prayer in the world it’ll finish this weekend.
Sounds like you got a shitload done in a small amount of time. Keep up the good work, and I want to see pictures, old boy.
I’m trying to convince my brother into letting me use his camera because once again I left mine in Milwaukee when I visited Fermilab in Chicago. So I’ll try to get some pictures of the clutch and flywheel on the engine before I stick the tranny back on. Still waiting on my F’n throwout bearing by the way. God…IDIOTS!
Hahaha, there will ALWAYS be something missing, something that you just don’t expect. It’s happened to me numerous times. It’s almost the first law of car modification, esp. on these little gems.
Ok, got the throw out bearing yesterday, but got caught up working on my rear hubs. Dad sandblasted them and they looked great! so I primed and painted those and I tore apart my loaded calipers so that I could paint them a sweet red, BTW I LOVE fast drying primer. Anyways, going to turn them over after work today and put another coat on for good measure and then paint my EGT sway bar and trail links and what have you. Oh yeah I took some pictures of the mess I’ve got going on but I can’t post unless I transferred them to cd and did it at work because I don’t have internet at home out in the boon docks. I will post all pictures when I’m done. Oh yeah get this, my f’n springs aren’t coming till tuesday!!! grrrrr. oh well I still have to wait for the stainless lines from Rob at Zxtuner. You know I like zxtuner a lot but I called yesterday and I got referred to the warehouse and he had no idea where the lines were and how long it was going to take to get them.
Rob has done alot for the ZX2 communtiy, and he is REALLY busy for 4-5 people, but he still is a little slow with the parts and shipping, all things considered. I just wish he’d hire more people for some better response and shipping time.
DONE!!! ok guys I’m done, put the finishing touches on the car Friday. Didn’t get my f’ing brake lines from Rob until after I had to take the car in for the alignment :x but ok. Generally the car is awesome! I never imagined the car would handle as well as it does, way way way exceeded my expectations. Ok, now for the bad things that came out of this project.
1.) My shoulder is seriously messed up, from holding myself to keep from rolling on the creeper while I was tightening bolts. (especially lifting the tranny and holding it in place with one hand and spinning a bolt with the other.
2.) stripped front two transmission crossmember bolts. I most geniusly (is that a word?) created two new ones out of the existing “special” bolts. and had to retap the radiator support where the crossmember bolted to.
3.) My brother was retapping a bolt for the radiator brackets that I broke a bolt head off and when he was drilling out the screw he drilled into my A/C condensor (radiator looking thing). Amazingly managed to miss any line and just tore up the fins pretty good.
4.) And now my car has a pretty good shake. previously thought to have been caused by the ES tranny mount inserts. this theory was dislodged when I found out that when I turn to the right it vibrates hard, feels like somethings out of balance or something. Seems to get worse. I think I’m going to have it looked at unless anyone has some suggestions.
Other than that I’m happy with what I’ve done, it took a lot of work and I had very little time, it’s always nice to see your finished product.
did you get new tires with that alignment… check tire balances.
-Mark