Leaderboard

I just wanted to share something pretty exciting in my world. 5 weeks ago I overheard a friend talking about how hard it was to get any machine work done. And it hit me..... I know how to rebuild heads I just need equipment. Did some research and found that 4 of the main shops in the area have sold out or retired. Told the idea to my father in law. And was just spit balling with him. I dont have the cash to start anything and it was just an idea.. well he gave me and my wife a rather large gift and I have now bought a storm vulcan 85b blockmaster and a winona van norman Ph-2000L valve ane seat machine. Still need a valve grinder and obviously tons of tooling. But im excited to see where God takes this. Been 25 years since ive done and work but am excited to get back into it. Plan to get the surfacer going and try to drum up some buisness to make some income to buy more tooling. I onoe they are not the best machines bit they are functional. Just wanted to share

Hi,guys, after one year off with other work, i put back the engine with reground camshafts, and ready for new start !😅 Wait and see ,and Happy new year

12-27-2025. Started the day by going over the dried filler with a DA and 40 grit and smoothed it up and shaped it. Next will be to start block sanding the main panels. Then I went ahead and installed the new powdercoated headlight buckets, the MSA Air Dam and the MSA fiberglass front bumper. Then went to the back and started the install of the Hot Rod Chop Suey rear roll pan. Still a bit more to do on that. As I mentioned before it is custom, had them fill the exhaust cutout. Lastly my intercooler came in and took a few pics. it's 18X12 and already polished. Pics follow. Cheers!

Larry Chen interviews the owner of the Aluminum 240Z at the 2025 Sema Show. More details of the car and its construction are given out.

Have you rebuilt your L28E with forged pistons and H-beam rods? Lowered compression? In my opinion that's too much turbo for the unmodified S30 chassis and "supports 500 HP" sounds good - but is it? In an unstiffened early unibody Z - probably not. We saw a 300HP RB25 swapped Z here in Phoenix tear the spot welds apart. It was a 240Z chassis and the 280 is a bit beefier but still. This is a town with no rust. The kit looks legit however (I'd still go for a different turbo, but that's me). I'm not a fan of the charge pipe config that an opposite-side intercooler requires but it's a little more difficult to get same-side charge piping through the radiator core support. Don't get me wrong, I'm in the TURBO EVERYTHING camp - but do your research, and do it the right way, and you'll have a Z that's FUN to drive and will stay together while you're doing it.

I got a little bit of garage time today. Removed the old fuel cell and got the new one in. I still need to build a frame for it, but it can sit here for a while. Rear subframe bushings came in yesterday, I’ll try and get the rear end mounted next weekend.

I have struggled to find a cap for my 1972 240z and I refuse to spend $200+ for a new one. I did find this one on Amazon and it appears to fit well -- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GZP12SW?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title. My fuel door closes fine and the bayonet mount appears secure. For about $12.00 for two caps it seems like a good value. Now, I am restoring the car and I have yet to run the car with the new cap so standby for an update.

Last week my order from Apex Engineered came in so now I can start stripping down the car and prepping her for the body shop. Money is a bit tight right now so I’ll install all my suspension parts first and probably send the car of to the shop in February. In the meantime I decided to strip out the interior and see what’s hidden underneath. It doesn’t look that bad but for a car that has been quote on quote “restored” only 10 years ago they sure did a shitty job. Lots of surface corrosion sports throughout the interior, lots of missing bolts, fasteners and rubber plugs and unpainted parts from shotty repair work. I cleaned up the surface rust and sprayed a generous amount of rust converter on everything. I will order some more rust converter, primer and color matched paint soon to clean up and protect the inside parts. I’ll also look at some spray wax to protect the hidden parts and crevasses of the chassis. A guy on YouTube I follow (M539 Restorations) uses one from Liqui Molly I believe which seems pretty good so I will give that one a try. It's not all bad news though. It looks like that in all these years the wiring harness stayed unmolested by all the previous owners. I also found out that the car has 4 pretty big and new looking JBL speakers! They didn’t all work when I tested the radio but I believe that might be the head unit itself. I will probably replace it with a Bluetooth capable retro looking one in the future. I also found a full and intact box of original Nissan glass 10amp fuses in the trunk!

2.0 is coming along.

I have been working on something like this for my lsz. It is an arduino controller that will have 4 wheel hall sensors. It will then have a knob to adjust how much traction is "desired" i.e. no traction to warm tires up in the box or 95% for launching. The arduino would then be able to cut both spark and fuel from a cylinder. I have about a 75% salution for the programming, I just have to get time to finish it. I'm sure something similar could be adapted for a carb engine that cuts spark at the dizzy if you are any good at programming.