5-14-03 1:02am:

The Founder's Day BBQ/hang out has rolled around at last. We'll be returning to the Osen residence north of Denton for the 3rd year. Plenty of parking, a pool, a game room, etc. works out nicely! So we'll be doing it on Sunday May 18th starting a little after lunchtime. All DFW Zers are welcome (bring something to grill, beverage, etc & a swimsuit). Take I-35 north out of Denton about 5 miles to Milan road (Luv's gas station), take a right, then take the next left at the animal hospital. Greg's is the 5th house on the right, you should be able to see Zs parked off the driveway. Come on out & hang with us for the day even if you're not in TTZD (yet)!

2-16-03 9:20pm:

I'm not saying much lately, obviously. TTZD.com has been rather static lately... but if you've noticed, our server is a crapload faster as of December. Makes downloading the MPEGs easier for sure. Anyway, site update: 4 New TECH pages from NiXit.. who is vacationing in St. Louis right now. Or something. Things to look forward to this year maybe. I'm planning on running the Big Bend Open Road Race in April, Mayfast with PCA and obviously doing the ZCOT Hallett meet in September. My racing was limited to 1 half-assed day at the National Convention last year and driving a few of the cars at Tochigi in Japan in October. Not that driving at Tochigi sucked at all, but my total volume of racing has decreased over the last 3 years & that sucks. Not nearly enough track time. Then again, I only worked legitimately for 4 months last year and made more money in a single year then I've ever made before (very nice severance from the prior job). Maybe if I work for more then 9 months in a row, I'd be banking. Life's more then money I guess. It'd be nice to mix in some track time tho. As it stands, I'll be unemployed again in mid March. So if you have any Z work that needs to get done, shoot me an e-mail. I'm about to get caught up on my workload (WAY backlogged because of Nissan taking a month+ to get a wiring harness shipped in). What else? Founder's day will be in early May... hopefully I'll update something here before then.

4-17-02 9:32pm:

It's that time of year! TTZD Founder's Day BBQ is upon us. Since last year was so much more relaxed then being attacked by bees & too much wind at the lake like years before, we'll be returning to the Osen residence north of Denton. Plenty of parking, a pool, a game room, etc. works out nicely! So we'll be doing it on Saturday May 11th starting a little before lunchtime. All DFW Zers are welcome (just bring something to grill & a swimsuit). Take I-35 north out of Denton about 5 miles to Milan road (Luv's gas station), take a right, then take the next left after the animal hospital. Greg's is the 5th house on the right if I remember correctly.... you should be able to see Zs parked off the driveway. Come on out & hang with us for the day... guaranteed good time. We'll see you out there!

What else is new? I've been working out of the garage on Z cars instead of finding a real job... if you live in the DFW area and need Z maintenance/mods or need a Perl/web/automation programmer, e-mail me. I've got a couple longer term projects booked right now, but there's always time for a timing belt or whatever in-between. In the meantime, I rebuilt Jaime's engine & got him back on the road with a freshened short block and some T28 BB Garrett turbos. Things spool up pretty damn quick. Got Greg F. back on the road with his new OEM short block engine build. Bob Darcy brought his car to me for a turbo swap & some other details and I'm waiting on a show car to get out of the body shop & install some skyline turbos on it (I don't have details on this yet). Not to mention the Nat'l Z Convention coming up. Some of the locals got together impromptu at Carson's (Thanks for having us out Mark) & I need to find out the status of the Corvette Challenge (4th annual), I'll post details when I get them.

The Japanese will be invading Dallas before the convention in June and caravaning down from Dallas with the locals. So far it looks like Mr. K will be here for the duration along with Tetsu and ~15 of the Japanese club members, and 3 of the project manager types for the 350Z might be in SA for a couple days. Hopefully they will all be in attendance for the TwinTurbo.NET BBQ dinner during the convention. Been working on my Japanese, slowly. I can say 'I dunno', which will be the most used phrase for me ever. I wish the Japanese spoke Spanish, it'd be easier for me. But then I guess they wouldn't be Japanese would they?

1-28-02 9:45pm:

Back from vacation. I'm retired again like last year, so if you're in the DFW or surrounding area & need regular maintenance or upgrades done on the Z, get in contact with me. I've already got cars lined up to work on, but I never know how long this is going to last... My vacation consisted of visiting the parents & my aunt & uncle out in west Texas. My dad is big into the 4x4 world (his last rig was in Warn winch ads awhile back)... his latest project is a CJ3-a (Willys flat fender Jeep) body on a Toyota 4x4 chassis (or at least half a chassis & utilizing the drive train). Toyota synchromesh tranny is so much nicer then some clunky Borg-Warner gear grinder. You could shift gears mid climb & not lose momentum in the little truck, whereas in the CJ-7 you stay in whatever gear you're in (clutch in or shifting is not an option). We went out to the ranch (46,000 acres of west Texas wilderness) to stomp around & shoot things. He pounded the 2100lb 4-banger and it never whimpered. So much for building some monster V8 powered beast. 2.3l at high RPM coupled with some crazy gearing will outrun displacement over rocks all day long. Coil over shocked, 3 point suspension in the rear & standard 2 point linkage up front (stock Z springs are utilized). Anyway... it's cool to watch Pop build toys like that & inspires me to finish projects for 300 Degree in my off time. Also out there is a guy that's building a 300 MPH door slammer F-body (real metal) to beat Mercedes land speed record that been around since '68 or so. Built on a NASCAR chassis, it's like 580ci, with twin TV-51 turbos on it, Turbonetics external waste gates & 5" dual exhausts. The intercoolers are the size of jerry cans... he's even putting in air conditioning. The topper is he says it should do 1800hp, he says he'll be happy with 1600hp. He's serious, his shop is serious, and this car is definitely serious. Going to be a wild ride from what I've seen. I'd pretty much kill to have his shop... I was out there for 2 weeks, then came home to clean up the Z & head southward, continuing my international TX tour. The Capitol Z Club in Austin was hosting a 2 day meet. Drags on Friday night, then some pictures & touring around lake Travis on Limecreek road (nice elevation changes & twisties), then eat some BBQ & go street racing on Saturday. Most of the out of towners came in for Saturday. Since I have a little extra free time right now, I went ahead & shot down on Friday for the Drags. Well, the track is basically in San Antonio, so I got to drive all the way down there then. The River City Raceway is a newer track & is pretty fast. It was also pretty cold, something we don't get to see at Ennis, because they start test & tune much later in the year. I screwed around with my traction control the whole night with miserable results. I did better without it then with it. I just need to spend more time working with it and fix my speed shift option switch to where it works the way I want it to (that was the major problem). The run I made without it was a 13.333 @ 115.83 (my highest trap speed to date). Don't ask about my other runs, I was getting smoked by kids on minibikes. Got to meet a couple folks, although I'm not 100% sure who they are (get a name, but no screen name with it). I'm fairly certain I met Chris (Atti2de), I know I met Rich, Rodel, Kuah, Christopher, Bert, Colin, Mario... and a cast of dozens, also good to see Mike again. I didn't meet Charles (Chaz-Austin), bummer. He was the top runner, I think he did a 13.1, can't remember. Anyway, I bombed out of quick 8 in the qualifying & made it to the second round of the brackets. Drove back to Austin & ate at Bennigan's. We cut out around 2a. I crashed at Rodel's (thanks!) overnight. The Dallas crew showed up while we were away & hit 6th street to take pictures of drunks & whatnot. Next morning, Rodel & I take his car to get it teched for the season with SPOKES & grab some lunch. We meet up with the group at Dave & Busters @ 2p. There's like 30 Z32s there & a few other 280s etc. Charlie, Doan & Becky, Wes & Steph, Steve K & his wife (sorry, I forgot her name) had come down from Dallas, John Y and someone else from Houston (sigh... damn, too many people at this thing!) showed up, I also got to talk to Curtis for a while about his car (rollbar, etc) later in the day. During our 'driver's meeting', someone shouts 'NO!', like a dog is about to wizz on a tire. There's 2 kids papering cars with flyers. Charlie goes after them to shoo them away (yeah, send the anti-christ after them).. I think one kid was in tears. We roll out in a string headed for the 360 bridge (you'll know it when you see it, it popular photo op in Austin) to take pics. After that, we go up to Limecreek road and run through it. Pretty cool, would be more fun if I knew it a little better. We get to the other end & go to Rudy's for some central Tx BBQ. I say my good byes, I had to get back to Dallas for a bachelor party.. the rest of the crew went to the street races. I haven't heard any results from that. Special thanks to Rodel & Rich for putting together the meet & housing me & the GQ while I was down there. Wolf was in town while I was out hunting earlier in the month, so I missed out on that as well. Bummer. Nothing in particular on the horizon, I'm sure the 4th annual Xtreme Corvette Challenge will be around the corner, as is the Founder's Day BBQ. We'll have to do a GTG @ Gameworks, or Speedzone just to do something in the meantime. Stay tuned for details.

11-18-01 11:30pm:

Good week, good last couple weeks actually. Let's go way back for a sec. Running up at Hallett was a great weekend. Conned Nick into hauling my car up there on a trailer, so it could be full race prep out of the garage. Dropped it off on Saturday afternoon and proceeded to trick it up for the hell of it. With the yellow race wheels, it was a perfect opportunity to be silly. I think we did OK in the goofiness department. I ran yellow run group, second from the top. Used aquamist on/off throughout the day with good results, I wish I could say the same for my brakes. Russell's Wilwood combo was awesome. I rode for a half a run session in the car and, hmm... it was not unstoppable, actually it was very stoppable. I had to start braking at the imaginary '7' marker going into corner 1 because my pads were on fire, where Russell could start braking at the '2.5' marker. Sick! All of the greenies hanging out with us managed off track excursions, taking home samples of Oklahoma dirt in their interiors. In a weird way, I wish I had done it as well, so I would know where the edge in in my car on the race tires. Hard to get a handle on how much speed the tires will deal with during a tight AX. Hmmm.. something else big in the last couple weeks... Our trip over to Japan was a blast, check it all out here. 15pgs of text and 450+ pics. Met a few new Z32ers at the ZCOT meeting this week. We're starting to build a core of Z32s at the meetings to hang out with, maybe wander off afterwards and have an adult beverage or 2. Jaime hooked my up with this HUGE light fixture thing. It's a 6' x 8' sign thing, that looks really good on the ceiling of my garage. I'm running with 6 of 10 8' fluorescent lights. It's like daylight in the garage at night now. Got company for the GQ, Scott dropped off his Straman convertible for some connector replacement. Requires an over night stay in the top secret TTZD garage since I've got it running on 5 cylinders (up from 4 when I got it). Nick has launched the Aquamist group buy. I wish I could have one... Gotta spend money in over places right now. Bummer! Uhm, what else? Charlie has pulled his NA's engine about 3 times now. He and Greg F pulled the engine in Greg's car and tore it down to the block in 10 hours. #6 piston was literally in pieces. Rebuild there, and Charlie and Nick are talking with Sunbelt racing about odds and ends. Looks like Charlie will be sending his TT's engine out there for final bench tuning before dropping it in sometime next year. I guess we need to start thinking about a TTZD end of year party of some sort. The thought of bowling crosses my mind again. Main Event last year was a riot. Erik promises the new web site layout is close to being finished. Can't wait to see what kind of stuff he's got built up for our new look. The injector TECH page is done, just waiting to get the appropriate part numbers listed. It's a monster.

8-22-01 10:50pm:

Good God Almighty! Over 3 months... where have I been? Oh, yeah. Under a rock where it's cool. It's been a 'mild' summer in TX this year and I must be getting older, because every passing year whips me harder, especially this year of working out in the garage all spring while I was unemployed. Guess what? Looks like more of the same next year... I'm terminated 12-31-01 from my current gig. Oh, well. I get a nice severance bonus at the end, so the DamonZ World Domination Tour will continue. I'm probably going to go out to California, somewhere in the NE, and probably fly down to NZ for a bit. I've always wanted to head south of the equator and flush a toilet. LOL.

So, what's been up in big D you ask?? May... May.. May... so what did we do again? I think we did turbos on Greg F's car once. We just did them again last weekend. Turn the key off, tranny out in 1:05, engine out in 3 hours. Screw around for another 6 hours or so putting JWT Sport 600s on instead of the 2nd time crapped out T28s he had in there. Less then 500 miles and they were smoking again. We get the engine in and running in about 5 hours or so. Done in about 14 hours. Not too shabby for 4 guys. Also threw in a set of ES steering rack bushings while the engine was out. It's still a PITA with the engine out, although not nearly as bad as with it in. Matt (Logik) came down for a week of running around with the TTZD crew. He got to spend some time out in Deep Ellum, and we went to see Fast and the Furious. Nice cinematography... that's about all. LOL. Kinda funny to watch Wes play Ms. Pacman at the theater. So I didn't get to spend much time with the logikal one, being on-call sucks. I thought I would be in better shape with the new job. I've installed An AVC-r, AFC, Aquamist, Race Logic traction control, and done up the entire rear suspension for bushings. I smacked down 369 RWHP after tuning with the AFC. I still haven't dynoed with the Aquamist. I'm hoping to do that next week sometime once Nick and I get it tuned up properly. It's really hard to tell what it's doing in there at times. I've had several other cars come through the garage, most notably is Jamie's. Just got done doing a full RPS 6 puck clutch, 555s injectors polished plenum and some other goodies. I'm pounding out a hell of a TECH page on it right now. Even driving with no boost, you can tell how big a difference the 555s are in the car. Very responsive.

So, you want to hang with TTZD? Our next meet will probably be up in Hallett at the newly re paved track for a Driver's Ed day on September 2nd, Labor Day weekend. $80 for a full day's driving. It doesn't get ANY cheaper then this. Check out Z Club of Texas for more details. So far there's about 5 of us heading up there to roll around hard core. After Hallett, we're not sure what's next. We need to get some more drag racing in after the 'Vetted Challenge earlier this year (I had my best time so far... pre TC & AFC tuning... 13.112 @ 111.66). We should be getting some of the monster cars back together before the end of the season: Charlie, Wes, Shahram and DamonH are getting built right now. Greg F's needs some tuning, and Greg O dynoed last weekend, but I haven't heard what he put down yet.

5-9-01 11:50pm:

This weekend's events: Friday night, Corvette X-treme Challenge. TTZD vs. NDCC in the third annual drag meet. Gates open at Ennis around 6, tech starts at 7 & event will start around 9p. Long pants (jeans), sleeved shirt (T-shirt) & closed toe lace up shoes (tennis shoes) are required to race. Helmets are required from 13s on down. Bracket style racing event, with a heads up race between one member from each club. We pick our fastest member to compete in the heads up race at the end. Awards are given for 1st and 2nd place in the bracket race, for 1st place in the heads up race plus for "Closest to Dial In" and "Best Reaction Time" (I think Jarred got both of these last year). NDCC charges an additional $10.00 on top of the Texas Motorplex track fee to race in the event, which used to be $15. I dunno I haven't been down there yet this year. Shahram, you had better be there & ready to roll. The back end of my car sticks to the ground like mad now. I'm going to get a 12 sec time slip on street tires.

Saturday afternoon: TTZD's 4th Anniversary Founder's Day get together. We'll be meeting at Greg O's place in Sanger for some BBQ, some swimming, pool shooting, and general hanging out. Bring the family, have some fun. BYOB, BYOM, BYOSunscreen. Direction for getting there: Take 35 North of Denton to the Love's gas station exit. Go 1/2 mile east on Milam Road and turn left into Canyon Lake Estates. He's the 5th house on the right (6012 Canyon Road). We'll see ya there!

4-29-01 11:50am:

Sheesh. Retirement will take up all your time. I'm coming off of a 2 month temporary retirement plan right now. My world is somewhat back to normal (a real 40 a week, not on-call 25-8-366), but it's nice to know I can basically make a living working on Z cars here in Dallas. Thanks to everyone that allowed their cars to grace my garage with their presence. ;-) Got to install a Race Logic traction control on Jaime's car. I will *have* to get one of those in short order. Other then that, it's been timing belts, brakes & clutches oh my! The Carsons get together was great... we'll have to do it again at some point in time. If you haven't been to Carsons, you need to stop by at some point & check it all out. Upscale restaurant/club right off the tollway... attractive people of the opposite sex, great food, adult beverages, pool tables, a billion TVs, live bands, dance floor & just a great atmosphere. Oh, forgot to mention, it's huge & it's *packed* on the weekends. Good time to be had over at Carsons for sure. Thanks for having us over Mark! Hmm what else has happened? Have you bought your TwinTurbo.NET gear? 300 Degree is off & running with great results so far! Keep an eye out for new products to be added to the list. OK, enough with the plugola - payola. TTZD is at Hot Import Nights this weekend (5th, 3pm). Greg Fields is entered, as is Gage Mueller (from Houston). Apparently it's going to be interesting if these two get everything put together (literally). Gage is planning on getting a DJ set up, a couple models & he has a showroom floor booth for them to use. This is going to be wild! I urge anyone planning to attend to buy tickets in advance. I've heard the line to get in is 2 hours long at some of the other shows. They do it through will call, so it's still lame-ass.. but it should move faster then processing each transaction at the door like the other line. Good luck to the two of you! TwinTurbo.NET banners will be flown over the booth, hopefully we can get some magazine pub somewhere along the circuit. The next weekend may or may not be action packed. I haven't heard back from the North Dallas Corvette Club on the X-treme 'Vette Challenge we've run against them in for the last 2 years down at Ennis. We're tentatively scheduled to run on friday 5/11. I'll confirm once this is set, hopefully this week. It's bracket racing, so everyone stands a chance at winning. It's not necessarily speed that wins here... but consistency. Last year our (sorry Jarred) slowest Z got 2 or 3 trophies for his consistency through the night. What I'm saying is, if you're an NA, or not a super hopped up Z... it doesn't matter! You're still competitive in this event. OK, Saturday is TTZD Founder's day. We've done this at the lake for the last 3-4 years. This year, we're going to hang out at Greg O's place up north of Denton (sounds miles away.. well it is, but it's not that bad). He's got a swimming pool, game room, room to roam, room to park & hopefully it won't be windy like it is at the lake. So plan on BBQ & maybe some swimming or volleyball. Bring the family, we're in it for fun. Wonder if Shahram will get anymore presents this year? LOL What next? There's a one lap of Dallas charity drive coming up on 6/2 with the Porsche Club. Warren issued this entry form, which answers some Qs. I'm in on this one, as are several other TTZD guys, you should as well!!! I'll post more info as I figure it out myself. Ohohohohhohhooo... there's a a drivers education event at the Hallett Racing Circuit in Oklahoma on September 2nd. This is open to all Z club members and any other car enthusiast that might be interested, this is not a Z car only event. All entry forms and fees must be submitted to me by May 18th. Check out ZClubofTexas.org for more details! There Warren... leave me alone now.

Recap:
5/5 Hot Import Nights car show
5/11 NDCC X-treme Challenge (unconfirmed)
5/12 TTZD Founder's Day
6/2 One Lap of Dallas
9/2 Hallett DE

Be there!

Page News:
Good grief it's been forever since I've really done anything with the site. I'm planning on revamping everything here and getting some of the old EVENTS pics up etc. RIDES pages are 2 years out of date (I'm going to do some scripting and just run it all off tt.NET's Rides pages), etc. I've got a ton of TECH stuff laying around as well. Maybe I can block off a weekend and just hack away on it.

2-18-01 11:40am:

The first get together this year will be at Carsons on the northwest corner of Trinity Mills and the Tollway this Saturday, the 24th. We've got lunch set up there w/ pool tables, etc, courtesy Mark Lee, the owner & TTZD member. Thanks Mark! We're expected to arrive around 11-12a for lunch etc. Weather.com is predicting scattered showers and 65 degrees as of today. I'll take the 65 & forget the showers... We'll see you there!

Page News:
Intercooler Installation page is up!

12-12-00 3:12pm:

Holidays abound. A brief rundown of the Dallas Z scene. Everyone, pull your engines! Not quite that bad, but close enough. Charlie has pulled his engine again & is doing a full on rebuild. DamonH has his out right now & is debating on returning it to ATK on warranty or rebuilding and Wes isn't sure what he's going to do yet. He can count for 2 engine pulls at once himself. Scott & Chris (Hayato) came down from Memphis to visit last month. We took them out to eat at Cozymel's, next day they went to SpeedZone (I was wrenching on a car) and somewhere there was a seminar on clearing taillights. LOL! It was nice to meet them & check out their rides. I think we had 15 people turn out for dinner, not sure about the SpeedZone turnout. What else... A few of the guys have gone out to race/spectate with the Porsche Club at Texas World Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway over the past month. Seems like a lot of fun there. I'd like to get out & do some more racing myself. =) We don't have any events planned right now, I think the first item on the list will be a gathering at Mark Lee's Carsons restaurant, he just opened it the other week & he says it's better then the usual Fox'n'Hound hangout around the corner. So, we'll have to check it out just to make sure. :-) Stay tuned for more details!

11-5-00 10:45pm:

100% humidity must = %5 loss on the dyno... Had a fun weekend of over-Z-endulgence. Got up Saturday to a full brake job on Nick's car. Got through most of that, still need to bleed the brakes some more. It's a little spongy feeling yet. Also need to replace a broken wheel stud. haven't done that before, I guess it's an excuse to get an air hammer. :-) Wrapped that up & Michael, Becky and that Alex Lee guy from EZCA show up at my house. We had planned a small get together at North Main BBQ in Euless for dinner. Apparently I flaked last time Alex was here & drove my Jeep to meet him (the GQ likes staying at home anymore), or I came straight from work... so he finally got to witness the fact I *do* own a Z car. LOL We loaded up & headed over to the dinner gathering.. expecting a dozen or so people. Well.... I think we totaled 25 for dinner there. BYOB, so one table was solid beer & our stomachs were solid BBQ. Food coma? Defibrillators! STAT! ROFL!! Alex got a good sampling of TX cooked beef. What else? Got to check out Wes's new SSK... we'll have to do some work to get that thing straightened out. "You're going straight to hell for coveting my wing!" was repeated more than once out in the parking lot much to our amusement. The SSK also made it to the dyno meet Sunday, but he didn't run it. So Wes, is that thing BPU yet? j/k man, j/k!! Got to watch a crapload of Rx7s & Miatas run the dyno down. I think the highest HP rotary was turbo 2nd gen doing 348 RWHP. None of us ran what we expected. Since I haven't done any perf mods to my car, I decided to run as a measuring stick. 337 RWHP today. Compared to my consistent 345-350 hp the last 3 times out. We calculated a 5% loss to 100% humidity (Dynojet doesn't take humidity into account, just temp, altitude & barometric pressure). It drizzled/rained/flooded the entire afternoon. Once Greg scans the charts tonight or tomorrow, I'll get them posted up. Not what we really expected, but I guess all things considered it all evens out. Lots of plotting planning & AVC-r interrogation throughout the afternoon. Alex launched off around 6ish to catch a plane back to Delaware. Ari closed out the day by running his single turbo Rx7 to 562 RWHP w/o spraying. one of the guys there said it can produce 650 RWHP... he runs the 1/4 in 9.58 seconds at 147ish MPH, so that gives you an idea of what the car can do. Oh... it's streetable as well. I don't think daily driver, but it could get you to Taco Bell & back during half-time. :-) Thanks to the DFW Rx7 crew for having us and other interlopers invade the meet. Special thanks to Ari, Steve & the dyno crew at Rotary Performance for keeping things moving *fast*. I think they ran 45 cars in 8 hours.. even in the rain.

Have you checked out the improved MPG section? Check out the MPG link ^^^^. Enjoy!

10-27-00 9:20am:

The RX-7 Dyno Day is November 5th, 10a to 7p. We are invited (it's a fund raiser) to run our cars down as well. More details on dfw-rx7.com. Seems a little tighter then our meets, they're asking people to e-mail reservations in advance so they can have a head count for the day. All non TTZD members are invited to come out and meet us & join our club. Not sure that I'm going to run (I haven't done anything to my car really) but a lot of the other guys have spent some $ on their cars & we haven't had a dyno day in like a year. Shahram had better run! I wanna see what LRD VDR can do to the dyno. :-) I don't know if any of the regulars from outside of Dallas will be here. Mark & Kyle might come up from SGP, depends what happens on the day before. Not to mention Alex Lee will be in town. See ya there! Don't forget to read the next update below!

10-25-00 7:05pm:

Notice anything slightly different here? Probably not. ^^^ There's a slight graphic change ^^^. I figure it's time to chew up some bandwidth around here before I move the server...

Page News:
I opened up the new .mpgs section of the site.... *tons* of .mpgs of the history of the Z in television commercials!

10-23-00 12:35am:

We're going to be meeting at Rotary Performance in Garland on November 5th for a dyno day. The RX-7 guys are doing a little fund raiser thing & well... how can we resist! I'll have more details as the time nears. Alex Lee of EZCA fame will be in town that same weekend, so come on out & hook up with us for the afternoon of high HP fun! Uhm... what else is there? Oh yeah, Joe(Ft Lauderdale) was in town a week back.. drove in for some work related stuff and then headed south to the Temple of Zoom for some parts install. We took him to Razoos in a last second plan.. got about 8-10 of us there to meet with him. Kinda nice to meet someone that's helped me out a few times with TwinTurbo.NET stuff. Thanks Joe! Apparently Greg O's car is running strong now. Kyle & Mark found the problem & have everything running good. Greg's been out of town, so he hasn't gotten a chance to go get it quite yet. I'm kinda hoping they can deliver it for the dyno day! See which has higher numbers, Greg O's or Shahram's. I installed a set of steering rack bushings for Russell.. what a PITA. Something to do when the engine is out of the car for sure. Much simpler! Couple TECH pages in the works, but I think they'll end up on tt.NET instead of here. Same difference basically. Oh yeah.. I need to release the TTZD Z Commercial MPG archive soon too. Well.. that's all I've got for now. I'll post more details on the dyno day thing soon.

9-19-00 11:45pm:

Rain? Yeah, we got a little... OK back to Z car stuff. :-) storytime=on Air was cool tonight & I got some 300 Degree proto bits on my car I wanted to check out on the street. Roll out to Wendy's for a frosty. I bled the brakes with 3 pints of Motoul 600 Sunday to try and get my brakes back in line. Everything felt solid until I started the car.. then it went to hell. Back to doublepumpsville. One thing I really hate about '94+ besides that higher drag wing is the stupid brake bleeding situation. Grrr... Anyway, so I'm heading to Wendy's up the street & I'm about to pull in.. there's 3 cops in the lot, so I decide I need not temp fate & keep going. Damn, I really was craving a frosty for dinner tonight. Make a left & head south. Think about hitting a few of my favorite bars along the way midweek, nah.. that's not a good idea right now. Nearest Wendy's? Couple miles away. 300 Degree is performing as expected, smile, get to Wendy's. I've gotten *real* paranoid going to drive throughs in the Z lately. I always try to keep a 1/2 car length between myself and the car in front of me in case I need to make a hasty exit. Dunno if I think I'm going to get 'jacked or what. Lord help the mutual funder that tries that! This one has me really freaked because it's got a curb after you order, so once you're in the cue, there's no escape for the lowered Z. So I'm pulling around to window #1 & something comes flying out of my periphery & hits the top of my car. First thing I think of is someone's egging my car! WTF! Drop the car in neutral & pull the brake. Kill the car & get out ready to beat the stuffing out of some dumbass kids (OK so I was thinking that, it's illegal, but sometimes they get what they deserve). So I can imagine this scene as viewed by the vagrant guy in the van from down by the river behind me in line waiting for his double with extra mayo. Some wild eyed redheaded stepchild jumping out of a sports car like it's on fire to confront the Texas sized *grasshopper* that landed on top of his car. DOH! ROFL. Calmly get back in the car after pushing off the grasshopper clawing my T-top glass. Get my frosty & head back to the casa with dinner laughing at my paranoia the whole way. Maybe I need sedatives or something... storytime=off Installed a clutch/flywheel & some other goodies on Nick's car Saturday. I now know I can stick my head inbetween the main shaft & bellhousing on the tranny & wear it like a hat. Good party trick maybe.. looks retarded in practice. Oh, well, I got the job done. Hopefully with cooler weather around the corner, I'm investigating an 1/8th mile night up in Sanger, or possibly running with the North Dallas Corvette Club way down in Ennis. As a last resort, maybe a night at Sega Game Works kicking each other's buts in the 12 way racing simulators... Just watch out for Wes.. he's already laid out his driving tactics! :-)

Page News:
Finally finished up the Anti-Sway Bar Installation page. Thanks to Gregg Kerber for the original instructions I used to get through my first swap. Got the Shock/Spring page almost finished now too.

9-5-00 10:57pm:

We're still alive! It's been like 70 days w/ no rain and almost 50 days of 100+ degree heat. My Jeep hates it, my Z tolerates it, my AC on my house is feeling much better now, as am I. Well, TTZD Bowl 2K happened last Thursday. Hmmm... head count? I think a dozen or so on 6 lanes w/ drinks flowing. Aaron & Jim Horn were pretty much the pro bowling tour. Jim had a 200+, with Aaron not far behind with ~175. Not bad at all! Things turned goofy in a hurry when the contest was on to bowl the fastest. Shahram scored a 28.**MPH pass. Greg F and Jeff B had some good ones, but lots of red lights on the foul line for the Gregster. Even worse was bowling for speed left handed. Anyway, thanks to Nick for making arrangements & financing the lanes, with Vinny (formerly of Courtesy, then NTN) of Courtesy Nissan for financing the *ahem* beverage tab. ;-) I think everyone had a fine time. Especially checking out Aaron's wild NA to TT conversion... 2 words, 'red' & 'chrome'! We're tossing around going to Sega Gameworks at Grapevine Mills some Sunday night and going to the 8th mile up in Sanger. Practice that launch & break into the 9s or something. What else? Oh, a few of us got together at Hooters in Frisco yesterday for a late lunch in the 4 million degree heat. I think it only got to 101 degrees today. Musta been a cool front blow in or something. Did I mention it's freaking hot here?

8-29-00 9:00am:

It's 78 degrees in the house this morning, so it's not unbearable. I might have to go out and do some shopping to be in the AC. LOL If you're interested in the Staged Z Bowling Tournament thing, Main Event is at 2070 S Stemmons Fwy, Lewisville, TX 75067 (972) 459-7770 Mapquested. We'll start around 7pm Thursday night.. some more details below.

8-28-00 11:45pm:

Gotta make this quick. I'm hating life right now, my AC died in my house today, so it's 90 degrees in here. Yippee! My garage is cooler then the house, so I've finished IBIZing the front half & one side of my Z now. Anyway, Nick came up with a silly idea that we're going to play along with just for the sake of having a good time. A Staged Z Bowling tournament! We've got lanes reserved at 'The Main Event' in Lewisville off I-35E. 6:30p to 10:00p this Thursday night. We're dividing into teams of Stage V and below vs Stage VI+. That will be a little out of balance, but hey it's all a goofy prototype kinda thing right now. Like I said, it really doesn't matter, we just want to get together & give each other a hard time. Anyhow.. if anyone is interested, I'll have directions posted before the event. Should be about $20 for the evening + whatever... uh... beverages want to consume. 8-) Everyone come on out & have a good time with us. Just watch out for Josh.. he's been talking about oiling his bowling ball. Makes me a little nervous. LOL See you there for some jacked-up bowling!!!

8-14-00 12:50pm:

Fun weekend at the drags.. well kinda. I showed up around 6p to find the SGP crew leaning into the engine bay removing plugs. Hmmm.... that's a curiously large oil puddle under the car... Kyle's bummed, the rear main cap decided it'd had enough after 5 years of use. Wasn't detonation, the plugs were perfect, hopefully everything went downward on failure. Considering they found the cap bits & a wrist pin under the car & on the track, looks like the heads are going to be OK. By the looks of the metal chunks that once held the back of the crank in place, it bent, fatigued & screamed 'Everyone OUT!' about 1/2 way down the track. Kyle had run a couple 10.60s @ 140 spinning the tires at the 1000' mark the night before at Baytown. Load it up and bring it to the Motorplex for the whatever crappy import sanctioning body event. *sigh* I'm not even going to go there, besides to say I wish we had IDRC in Dallas. Houston gets a stop, but we don't? WTF?? Anyhow, being the good racer Kyle is, he immediately pulled over & stopped as to not slick the entire track with oil. So I guess Ari won the time trial the easy way. Load it up on the trailer, wait for Fred to win the Car show in Nissan class. Hmmm what to do to kill time? LOL Hang out w/ the SGP crew and go to the 'Mexicant Restauran' in Ennis. Big ol' margaritas everywhere. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. SCMM & Thomas were out of control. Fred won his class, DJ's vinyl got stolen, not cool, had to wake up early the next day, not cool either...

7-23-00 11:25pm:

Had a blast at the NTN Z32 BBQ yesterday. Check out the page! Got a small scare from Charlie at the get together, his car was smoking bad.. turned out to be the dipstick wasn't seated all the way and had blown oil all over the place, got it cleaned up and my heart rate came back down. LOL I hate redoing stuff. =) Got a few dings out of DZIII - the GQ. Couple small door dings and one of the 2 original dents. One of the previous owners had kneed the passenger door shut & wrinkled the metal around the handle (the skin on these cars is *so* thin). They had attempted paintless dent removal, but weren't too successful. Andrew from Pro Touch Dent Co. (214) 532-5775 was able to smooth it out for me, incredible! The other is from hitting a semi tire in the road after 120 miles of ownership. I cursed from Memphis to Little Rock like a sailor. =\ It's going to require paint work, so I'll probably just let it ride. Anyway, I think he worked on 13 of the Zs there for $30 a panel. It was nice to see some of the old timers, as well as meet a few new folks too. Anyway, check out the page... I need to spend some time changing up the Engine Removal and Turbo Swap TECH pages, as I found them to not be as procedurally correct as I like the TECH pages to be. But then again, I have to actually use them to see if it works out OK. =) I don't get to pull engines every day (thank goodness!).

Page News:NTN Z32 BBQ page is up.

7-19-00 11:15pm:

The TRC* was back in action this weekend. Charlie got a new set of turbos & everything else installed on his car over the weekend & into the week. A nice set of polished T-28s are hanging off the manifolds now. Along with the better part of a 60k, new 555 injectors, seals seals & more seals, including all the valve cover seals, new wiring harness, EGT gauges, revamp the AVC-r (wire splices aren't the way to go apparently), and much much more! Well we spent a long day Saturday, a long day Sunday, a very long evening Tuesday until we lit her up again at 4:30am. Purred like a very loud kitten (the exhaust wouldn't fit up on the down pipes, so we ran without). Waiting to see what he gets smoothed out before the BBQ this weekend. Should be nice, as it wasn't hurting too bad then. We installed the EGT sensors in the rears of each manifold, but left the electronics up to Charlie. Expect TECH page revisions on turbo swap & engine pull along with new entries of AVC-r and GReddy EGT install pages. I would like to thank Charlie's boss for letting us used the back half of the air conditioned warehouse during the 105 degree weather, and Erick Chung for keeping everything neat, clean and orderly while we were causing chaos. :-) Dan wrecked his Z alst week in a single car accident. He clipped a curb and managed to roll the car over. One of the worst looking Z wrecks I've seen. I thought Greg's was bad... good thing Dan didn't have a passenger, as they probably wouldn't have made it. He had to be cut out with the jaws of life while still inverted. His pelvis is broken in several places & he's having to use a walker to get around, but he's going to make a full recovery. Just glad you're alive and in one piece man! Looks like it could have ended up a whole lot worse. In other news, The BBQ starts at 10am this Saturday up at North Texas Nissan (940) 382-6755 and there's rumors of a guest appearance by Kyle & Fred coming up from Houston. Hoping to hook Fred and Mike P up, since Fred's looking for a road race car & Mike's trying to sell his. Friends helping friends, or something like that. LOL.

*Turbo Replacement Crew, not to be confused with TRD.

7-13-00 4:02pm:

Wow.. I've gotten halfway through with this update about a dozen times & then get interrupted by one thing or other. News in a nutshell: TwinTurbo.NET down, TwinTurbo.NET back up. 3 members are now married since last update, congrats to them & their new families! Uhm.... the 3rd Anniversary at Pier 121 was a lot of fun as always (windy too). Had about 15 Zs come and go. Jarred, Carlo & myself tackled the Autobahn Speed Weekend w/ Porsche Club Maverick Region at Texas Motor Speedway. 2 day event with high speed time trials on Saturday & AX on Sunday. Loads of fun for 'The Ticket' racing team (Jon Michaels scored some Ticket shirts for us to wear at the track, thanks Jon! Started lots of conversations out there). I've got pics of the anniversary & the races somewhere. The National Z Convention came & went in Vegas. Apparently a good time was had out there. Greg O is bedridden right now, has been since the convention, not sure what the deal is, but I hope he gets better very soon! I've pretty much got my new garage set up. 2 cars have already been in & out for 60k or fluid changes, so life is returning to normal. Uhm.... Shahram is now a service advisor for North Texas Nissan (940) 382-6755. Vinny is the Parts Manager there, so with those two Z32 drivers tag teaming, seems like a good thing is going on up there. To go with that, NTN is having a Z32 BBQ at their dealership on July 22nd. Royal Purple will be there w/ products etc. BBQ & probably some volleyball on the back 40. TTZD will be there in full force to check out the new digs. Kyle scored a 10.47 @ 140.31 MPH at E-Town on his tour of the northeast. Congrats to him for getting into the lower half of the 10s on his quest for 9s. I think that will do it. Oh, just got mail from Justin(OKC), he and JediZ are planning on trekking down for the BBQ. See you there! Probably a dozen other things I've missed... hmm.. anyway, something's better then nothing!

5-6-00 10:40pm:

Not a bad showing for the TTZD crew compared to last year at the TTZD vs NDCC drag challenge. 8 vs 8 (well one of the 'vette guys was driving his Z31 oddly enough.. oh well, he's a little confused) for bracket racing in the first round. 6 Zs vs 2 'vettes.. then 1 Z, Jarred vs 1 'vette, Darren (who I lost to by .002 seconds in the previous round of 'stomp the brake pedal too much'). Jarred, having only been to the track once before got a little nervous & red lighted.. giving the win to Darren. I think Jarred's dial in would have given him the win. I'll have to wait for NDCC to post results in a few days to find out for sure. In heads up we got thrashed... no 'big' guns to speak of. I think we had a total of 2 EVCs among the 6 TTs. We were all basically Stage IIIs. Anyway, the top 2 were Charlie & I. both running 13.2 and change. My personal best was 13.295 @ 113.64. I'm way more aggressive on my street tire burnout & launch.. but it's still a crappy 2.3 '60 until I get those damn drag radials. We got to race a 'vette doing 12.66 and a Calloway Super Natural 490 pulling 12.33... needless to say, we got to watch taillights after about halfway. =( Jarred brought home the goods w/ a 2nd overall and the best RT of the night with a .502 (can't get much closer to a red light), congrats to him for sure on his trophies! We had thought the weather was going to be bad all day long. In the end, Ennis had never gotten rained on and around 7:30 the sun was out. It definitely scared off all the honda kids... basically I had gotten to run 4 times in 2 visits this season. I had 4 runs under my belt as fast as I could get back in line. Charlie & I were the first two down the track... which was awesome... no burn-out dirty track. Traction was great for the first two passes & then the car was getting heat soaked and traction was getting worse. My times got progressively slower w/ the same basic trap speed. I was hoping Kyle would make it up, but he had customer cars to get finished. Shahram spent his day waiting on his drag slicks.. then once he got them, he had to get the screws for the bead lock, etc. So after almost getting it done... he gave up. Oh well, the super Volvo provided safe harbor for my milk crate full of track stuff.

TTZD 3rd Anniversary Founder's Day BBQ & BS session at Pier 121 is tomorrow in the late AM, and afternoon. All DFW Zers are welcome to come out & do the meet & greet action. Directions are below.

5-2-00 10:15pm:

Big weekend for TTZD coming up. We're running against the North Dallas Corvette Club at Ennis Friday night. Bracket/heads up challenge. gates open at 6, run a few time trials to figure dial-in times & the challenge starts at 9p. Hopefully a few of us can get closer to the final round then last year. Kyle from SGP might be up to run depending on his workload at the end of the week. Also we're meeting at Pier 121 on Lake Lewisville. We'll be there around 10am on Sunday the 7th for our 3rd Anniversary Founder's Day meet. BBQ & BS all day long. I think we might have a couple boats dropped in the water as well. Come on out & meet the crew.. good time for the whole family (or at least the better half)!! Take 121 from I-35 in Lewisville & head N/N-E till you see the signs to turn north off 121 where 121 Business & 121 join up. We're usually at the first boat landing on the left.

Page News:
Did some pretty radical updates to the Timing Belt Replacement page, adding in tactics against the dreaded auto transmission crank bolt!

4-16-00 4:10pm:

I was the only one racing Friday night. Wes came along for moral support tho. I ran a 13.456 @ 113.65 and a 13.304 @ 114.64. I definitely have enough juice for a 12 second run if I can get my 60' time lower. Still around 2.3 seconds.. :-(

Current TTZD calendar of events:
April 21st: Ennis Street Night for practice running
April 30th: Import Drags at Ennis (watch Kyle make low 10s or even 9s!)
May 5th: TTZD vs North Dallas Corvette Club bracket challenge at Ennis
May 6th: TTZD Founder's Day at Pier 121 on Lake Lewisville

Non club members are more then welcome to attend any event, but don't think you'll get away w/o becoming a member! :-) The Founder's Day meet has generally been a BBQ & BS session for a majority of the day. Good fun for everyone (better halves & quarters included!). We look forward to meeting some of the other local Z drivers in Dallas, so come on out and make yourself known!

3-26-00 11:12pm:

Well... So much for F'n'H get togethers. Weather was crappy for our usual Wednesday night deal. Also ZCOT's meeting was the week before. We're talking about getting out for the April 14th & 21st Street Nights at Ennis in preparation for our 2nd Annual bracket challenge with the North Dallas Corvette Club on May 5th. Get those dial-ins figured out guys, we've got to do better then last year (we all got killed off before the semi-finals)! :-( Shahram is also trying to rent the 1/8th mile in Denton for a Saturday to work on our launches... apparently, if you can launch there, you can launch anywhere. :-) All you non TTZD Zers are more then welcome to show up and participate in the practices & we'll get you on the list for regular TTZD stuff including the TTZD/NDCC Challenge. Come on out, guaranteed good time unless some Mustang dumps their guts on the track & doesn't pull over immediately *sigh*... It seems to be regular occurrence.

3-6-00 10:50pm:

Team DynoTech Dyno Day II has come & gone. Kinda disappointing in some ways, exciting in others. The guys expected to make some of the larger HP didn't hit the marks. There's more tuning to be done before everything is working as it should. I managed to drop 349 RWHP. I was pleasantly surprised. There were a couple other surprise runners too. Check out the page to see what's up there. I've added a TECH page for Auto Climate Control Diagnostics, actually pretty cool to see how much info can be checked and adjusted in there. I wish the ECU were the same way. :-\ We're working up a social gathering at the Fox 'n' Hound in the next few days, stay tuned for details!

Page News:
Team DynoTech Dyno Day II page is up along with the Auto Climate Control Diagnostics TECH page.

1-29-00 8:12pm:

Next meeting of TTZD will be at Team Dynotech on the 19th of February for Team Dynotech Dyno Day II. 4 runs for $40, we need a minimum of 12 cars to dyno to get that price. Team Dynotech is at the corner of Shiloh and Kingsley next door to JoTech. We should be meeting there around 10am. I'm sure we'll have a couple car-a-Z's heading into Garland from different places in DFW. Hoping to see Fred (Good2ZYa) come up and dyno, possibly Kyle. Also going to see if we can get Jim Horn to dyno his SR-71. More details as they are decided on.

1-18-00 7:38pm:

Quick update tonight. TTZD will be meeting tomorrow night (Wednesday the 19th) at our usual hangout, Fox 'n' Hound on Midway and Rosemeade. We'll be meeting there at 7:30pm to welcome 'DeJota' from TwinTurbo.NET. Sorry, it's a 21 & up deal. We like beer. ;-) Thursday is the first ZCOT meeting of the Steve Simmons/Warren reign of terror, gotta make that one too. 7:30pm as well at Juan's Cantina on the SW corner of Beltline & 75 in Richardson. All ages welcome for this one, we still like beer tho.

1-9-00 12:30pm:

Long time, no update. Not a lot going on around the Dallas area as of late, except... Our own Steve Simmons and Warren Bushy are the new President and VP for 2000 of the Z Club of Texas! Congrats to them!! The Streetwerks tour was very cool, check the page news below for more details. I've been wrenching away on different cars on the weekends. 60K is the most popular 'mod' I've been doing. lots of '93-'94s around here w/ 25K miles, but are over the age limit for the belts. 60K maintenance is a LOT cheaper then a new engine. Doesn't hurt that the owners can sit and watch me go through it, or get their hands dirty too. ;-) At least they know what's getting done and how things are progressing. Can't get service like that in many other places. 60K while you wait (for a bit). Anyhow, did an injector replacement on an NA last weekend. That is an adventure. Hadn't been through the plenum removal in over 2 years.. thank goodness. But I'm starting to stare at the 'shiney bits' kit from SGP. Polished plenum, TBs, water inlet and outlet.. maybe something else, I can't remember. All for under $600 with core exchange. Might be a nice dress up for the underhood. Steve Simmons got his TT sold and some other 'assets' and is progressing on his NA 2+2 to TT 2+2 conversion. Engine is at SGP getting built up as we speak. This thing's going to come together rather quickly. I'll be wrenching on it as well. Paying off a debt as it were. LOL. We're chatting up another huge Dyno Day right now on the member's mailing list. Hopefully sometime in early Febuary. Oh... also added some new TECH pages!

Page News:
Steetwerks tour is up, as is Engine Removal, Turbo Replacment, and EGR Replacement pages.

12-2-99 7:55pm:

Details on the Streetwerks meet on the 11th: map We'll be out there around 10am to check out the new digs for Streetwerks. Not sure on the Ennis situation yet. It's probably going to boil down to calling the track on that day to see if they are open. Considering how flakey they were at the end of the season saying they would be open, when in fact they were closed. The local Denton track might be another option.

12-1-99 8:12pm:

OK, finally got an event for all you DFW types that have been asking to join up with the club. We're planning on meeting up at Streetwerks in Denton. We've been invited by the owner to come by on December 11th about 10am, to show off his new alignment, balancing, and frame machines as well as a tour of the rest of the facility. Some of the guys have gotten custom done there in the past with excellent results. We might have a special guest appearance too. :-) So come on out to meet up with the crew. I'll have a map up in the next couple days for directions. Ennis *might* be open, I'm waiting to see about that, or the local 1/8th mile track might be open. We'll find out & I'll post all those details with the map. See ya there! I'm finishing up the Engine/turbo/EGR/EFI harness TECH pages right now. Hopefully I'll have them ready to go in the next week or so.

11-22-99 10:15am:

Remember way back when... like 2 years ago, when I replaced my turbos basically by myself? Well, that experience just royally benefited Shahram over the past 2 days. He innocently asked me if I would supervise/lead wrench on this endeavor. He's fully capable with a wrench in his hand, but why figure it out for himself & risk screwing up a custom set of T28s? He knew that I knew. 'It'll cost ya buddy.' And so it was:

The LRD VDR chronicles:

Day 1: He wanted me at Greg O's at 8am. I am rarely anywhere at 8am besides in front of my computer at home, eating cereal & reading the greatness of TwinTurbo.NET (plug!). Not to mention Greg's about an hour away from me if there's no idiots driving 45 in the 70 zone. <sigh> OK, OK, I know we've only got 1 shot at this & 48 hours or less to complete the job.. I'll be there. Load up all my tools & all the other necessities of turbo replacement. 8:20 I arrive, Greg & Shahram have already gotten the car on the lift (He dropped it off the night before, so it had cooled down), the hood removed (not necessary, but they're gung-ho). I drag in my toolbox & get organized. Steve Simmons shows up as my cohort on the wonderful 3 hour tour. Get out the comfortable folding web chairs & throw some reading materials out for the rest of the people I know will show up later in the day. We get things really rolling after 9am. By about 1:30 we had the engine out of the car on the hoist. I would guestimate we burned a good hour & a half screwing around with 2 wayward items. The 4th bolt on the A/C compressor (if you know, you know, if you don't you're better off) and figuring out the exact method to get the actual engine out. I've got it all figured out now & am gathering as many different combinations of methods to actually remove the engine to put together a TECH page. I asked Kyle of SGP (another plug!) 40 million questions on technique & he really came through on the info. :-) Thanks K! Soon after we got the engine out, we realized what Shahram's favorite substance is... brake cleaner. Wow, no one light a match! That's 3 cans down spraying the engine. We also find out he likes to jokingly add 0s to his numbers. 350ft-lbs of torque on that bolt? sure! People start showing up along the way, Shahram gets them involved in replacing his main wire harness. Best $275 you can spend on a 6 year old car going through this. Shahram & I start in on the driver's side turbo. I forgot what a puzzle those things really are, getting all the water lines & oil lines intertwined. Meanwhile the guys were trying to get the new harness through the firewall. A must do, since we just cut a lot of the wires on that harness to speed things up. A little sweating there. Finally JeffB got the thing threaded through. Whew! Greg F got busy cleaning up the top of the engine bay. While Shahram was wrapping up the driver's turbo, I started in on the EGR valve. I know it can be done with the engine in the car, but I have no clue how if can be done properly, it was difficult enough with the engine out. About halfway through that, I was beat down & starving. Dropped my wrench & asked Shahram if we could break to eat. Debate debate debate, Pizza Hut.. everyone loads up & off we go.. greasy but happy. Saw a red Prowler in the nearby parking lot. 9 of us in there listening to DamonH's tales of tickets he's received in the last year. Ouch! He's on double-double secret deferred probation I think. :-) Most of the crowd splits off to head home, etc. A few of us head back to wrench some more, in a near state of food coma. Greg F & I do the passenger side turbo, proving it's the same puzzle as the other side, but you have to use a totally different technique. Daniel (NVMYZTT) installs a new detonation sensor wire, Shahram does the driver's PCV valve for the second time in 2 months. Daniel does the passenger side PCV valve. Practice for when he does his own. Shahram uses at least 2 more cans of brake cleaner after dinner. I enjoy a couple Advil. We call it quits around 10pm, cleaned up & ready to drop the engine back in the next morning.

Day 2: Alarm goes off. Snooze. Again. Snooze. A third time... damn, time to make the donuts, er, uh, install the turbos. :-) Make the drive to Greg's. This time it's Greg, Shahram & Steve Simmons there before I got there. They're working over some coffee & cinnamon rolls (Thanks to Christine for keeping us supplied with snacks during the job). Shahram is making the final inspection on the engine before we drop it in, including a soaking with another can of brake cleaner. I get some degreaser & shoot down the steering race & other bits in the lower engine bay. Shahram cracks open yet another can of brake cleaner & starts soaking down the lower engine bay & scrubbing things in there to get rid of excess grease. We all decide the time has come. In goes the engine. We gently place the beast back in it's cave, reattaching lines as it's sinking in. Pretty smooth actually. Get it bolted in & weight off the lift, I stabbed the tranny & started the hardware on the bottom with Greg O, while Steve & Shahram work overhead on the lift doing electrical. Around 3 Shahram left to buy lunch for us. the McSnack break. We had everything done around 5pm. Started right up, no huge leaks (we're looking at one line right now to see if it's trickling), belt squeal, anything. All those crazy extra hoses for the EVC, etc. Get the block burped for air in the coolant tracting, he's ready to roll. We attempted a practical joke to make his car seem like it was running crappy once he got out on the road, unfortunately for us (opposite for him) it backfired. :-( I was ready with a video camera to capture the moment of defeat upon his return. Bummer. Anyway, we set everything right & called it quits at 7 last night. Shahram's going to run the car for about 100 miles before getting into the turbos to make sure everything is settled in & working.

All systems go! Thanks Greg O for hosting us yet again. :-) We're already working on another dyno day to see what kind of gains he got. Stay tuned for details. I just wish we could have smoked the stock turbos on the dyno & popped out a 430hp run this passed week. Oh, well... he did his 402 on the stockers. :-) I'll have TECH pages on the engine removal, wiring harness replacement, turbo replacement, EGR replacement, hmmm.. what else did we cover?? Lots of work ahead for me.

At the ZCOT meeting Thursday, got to meet Bob Rogers (Bob in OZ) who was up on business from the land down under. He's starting a Z shop down there to support the growing import TTZ crowd. Nissan Australia will have nothing to do with the TT model car. What morons, if you want to make money sell, & support the stuff that will make it... apparently there's a need for it.. I think Nissan Australia is also NOT importing the turbo Skylines, so there's more market place to fill. He'll do well. Makes you realize just how well we have it in the states for this kind of stuff. They have to import all the parts for the Z down there at astronomical expense. Anyway...very nice guy, I was happy to finally meet him as we'd been e-mailing for years now.

DamonZ

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