I called Redline to ask about their power steering fluid and they actually recommended the D4 ATF as it has more resistance to frothing and heat.

I did lose a bleeder cap and the old remaining ones were starting to crack. The new ones are much thicker.

I got these bleeder caps from Amazon and they are dirt cheap, especially compared to my parts dept. at work that said the only part number they had for them included the Akebono calipers.

These caps are a tighter fit, but much thicker than stock so I hope they will also be more durable. I will have to wait until spring to see how they hold up on the track.

 

Yeah, dead easy. The hardest part is getting the bumper off without scratching anything. And cutting the pipe to the right length, I went a little short and it's not ideal


I'm super close to just pulling the trigger and see what happens. Turns out I may need a 5-10mm spacer tho, which I'm not mad keen on. I'm thinking I may buy one wheel to check fitment to minimize any cost if it doesn't work out.

Perfect, I'll use up what I have and switch over then.

 

The brake bleeder rubber caps just seem to fall apart due to age, at least mine did.

I also picked up the Allstar bleeder caps: https://www.summitracing.com/int/par...0855/overview/ and yes they fit the Akebono sport brakes front/rear.

 

Well I put in a last minute entry to an autocross with the BMW club today on a track layout that I've just done recently so I got up this morning, slapped the smartstrings on the car and got to work with the front toe. I was running about 1/32" toe out and bumped that up to 3/32" and BOY what a difference!

A lot of the really bad understeer is gone and I can really get on the power much earlier and it just hooks. It turns in VERY fast and just holds so much better than before. It's amazing what a little change can make.

It also highlighted just how bad the stock diff is tho. The track has a very long 180degree corner with a fast exit down a long straight and I just lit up that inside wheel something fierce. With more diff I could have had some fun getting it sideways, as it was it was painful and slow. I didn't want to do the diff, but if I can find one at the right price I might be tempted.

No video this time, the alignment took all my battery charging time.

current alignment:
Front
- 3 degrees negative camber
- 3/32 total toe out (1.5/32 per side)
- 7 degrees of caster

Rear:
- 1.8 degrees negative camber (is a little much, I'm going to drop to 1.5)
- 2/32 total toe in (1/32 per side)

The car is brilliant!

 

Very nice! I'll keep those settings in mind when I next go get the thing aligned. I'm at 0 toe, factory alignment (whatever that might be), and it seems to work out with the wider front tires.

Also looking at a diff - thinking about the Cusco RS but it's $1,400. Lol.

 

Heads up on the Cusco RS - I have on e on my other car and it's very noisy. But it works amazingly well, just extremely clunky. On the G, I put a Wavetrac, and it's like stock, but doesn't lock up as aggressively or predictably as the Cusco. If I were to do it again, I'd go with the OS Gliken. People claim that it is not as clunky as other mechanical LSDs, while it gets nothing but great reviews.

Oh, and if you do go with the Cusco, use a tube of Trans-X LSD additive to quiet it down, and change the fluid every 5K miles.

The other thought is that this car is pretty tail-happy with the yaw sensor bypassed, which cuts the EBD. An aggressive LSD might just turn it into a drift machine. So I appreciate the long fluid change intervals and the mild lockup nature of the Wavetrac in this car.

 

The only reason I have so much toe-out up front is because of the camber. You don't that much with less aggressive camber settings.

You're not kidding about the diff prices! I spec'd one up on Z1 for a full pumpkin and the Torsen came out to $3,100 before tax and shipping!!!

I will just keep putting up with this one, cause there is no way I'm paying that kind of money for a diff. I have 3 R200 LSD's for my Datsun and I spent less than that total!


Thanks for the reminder, I had forgotten about this and haven't done it yet. Although I wasn't sideways at all, I was just making lots of smoke from one rear tire....

I ran one event with 0 rear toe, if you want to drift just try that! It was so sideways I couldn't even think about throttle at all. I got so frustrated I left early it was just that pointless.

 

That seems strange to me. I have almost zero rear toe and the car handles great- very predictable. Maybe my tires are just a lot stickier? Then again, it still handles decently on the snow tires I just switched to. I have more difficulty putting the power down in a straight line with the snows. The traction control light comes on pretty easily in the first 3 gears.

 

What is almost zero tho? I have 1/32" per side and it is transformational compared to 0. When you think about it, 1/32" is not a lot really, but it certainly makes a huge difference to the characteristics of the car.

I have been thinking that now I have the front end sorted, I might try 1/64" per side to get some more rear rotation, but we'll see.

 

0 on the right and I believe .001 or .01 on the left

 

Oh wow!

I just checked and the 0 toe craziness I reported was 0.01 per side. It was awful, so it's interesting to hear your positive experience. This was when I was running the stock 245 bridgestones tho as you mention, so maybe that's influencing things some. Your experience with the snow tires is like how it was for me on the stock bridgestones.

 

I think my car works with the 0 toe all the way around (it's completely zeroed out haha) due to the way I set up the suspension. My spring rates are 14k/8k (progressive in the rear, it gets stiffer as you compress), so with the really stiff fronts and softer rears, it kills a lot of that oversteer. I've compensated by running square tires, so the result is a fairly neutral/slightly loose setup.

 

Well there's a good point, I had forgotten that you guys were on stiffer suspension. I'm stock, so that will be VERY different setup to a decent set of springs and shocks.

So much to learn, so many variables and so many ways to adjust the same driving characteristic...

 

I am on 275 RE-71R's on the back and Tein Basis coilovers so that will definitely affect the handling compared to stock tires and suspension.

 

Well well well, what have we here....

I resisted for the longest time to buy a set of race wheels, but the Bridgestone tyres are SO NOISY now that they're worn that I didn't really have a choice. Unfortunately, 3 of the wheels arrived with significant damage, so I'm waiting to hear back from the vendor about getting them replaced.

Christmas shopping is done, I have quite the list to install over the break:
- Z1 finned diff cover
- Z1 urethane diff mounts
- Stillen Brake cooling ducts
- Mount new tyres
- Flip current tyres
- Wheel alignment to fix the crooked steering wheel

The car developed a clicking noise from the rear hubs a couple weeks ago which a quick google showed up as an Infiniti TSB, so I cheaped out and had the dealership do the oil change with new redline oil, filter and magnetic drain plug while it was being worked on. When I picked it up, the service technician and 2 of the sales associate and I had quite a good conversation about the car, they loved how it was modified. I stopped short of showing them the video, but they were excited to hear about plans for COTA and Road Atlanta next year.

I've also decided that I'm going to run standard pads 99% of the time and for autocross, just swapping in the race pads for the track. The car has gotten to a point where my wife doesn't like driving in it, and to be honest neither do I, hence some of the recent 'bolt-on' track part decisions to keep it a nice daily. I also had my first pucker moment at the last autocross event with Ice mode. It was a cold day and the car was AWFUL to drive. It felt like the brake pedal was operating in a 2-phase mode. You would go for the brakes, the pedal would go hard with almost no slowing down and a good half second later the pedal would relax and you'd actually get some brakes back. I have 2 embarrassing moments where I couldn't slow at all and straight lined in to the infield. These pads are great on track, but just not ideal for street driving, nor low temp autocross.

I look forward to giving all the new parts a solid work out in the new year, I probably should have bought these 8 months ago really when it was actually hot, but whatever, I'll be prepared for when the heat comes back at least.