blake culp

I have both, and I'm in Houston. PM me if interested.

What RB variant did you go with? Also, I may need to buy one of those turbo mani's off you.... Just for a spare, I plan to drill and weld mine for an external waste gate. Although I hear they weld quite well for being a cast part.

99% probability it is a r200. As for telling the difference, it took me .01 seconds to do a google search.... http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=r180+vs+r200&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ei=GbfJVOfOE4GNyAT60ILABw&ved=0CBQQsAQ

Depending on the use of the car I wouldn't be afraid to use the r-200 already in the car, if your ZX had a 5spd transmission your most likely have 3.90 gearing which is slightly higher than the 3.46 that came with the GTO. If you're only using it on the street and light drag strip duty I'd bet you will never break the rear end currently in your car. If you want to keep near stock gearing, most automatic zx's and turbo cars came with 3.54 gearing. Find one and swap it out. A little searching on google will show the difference between the nissan r180 and r200 rears, also what to check for regarding the gear ratios. I would not pay to have the GTO rear modified, they break in GTO's and popular swaps are for independent Ford 9" and 8.8" setups.

Where in texas are you? There doesn't seem to be many Hybrid Z's in Texas, or at least in the Houston area where I'm located. I'm always looking for parts to swap or barter, I have a Miller Syncrowave Tig and can weld anything you need done…. I plan on going MS as well and welding/shaving the stock intake manifold, could do yours while Im at it. The car in my signature is one I build in high school & college, it's long gone now and I'm starting new, doing everything right this time. LOL.

Who makes the wheels in the first couple pictures?

Last year in San Antonio an incident made the news here in Houston, two drivers got pissed at each other. They both hit a red light, one driver gets out with a baseball bat, the other driver who has a CHL license shot him. http://www.ksat.com/news/14959073/detail.html I never brake check anyone, if someone is on my 6 I just try to let them around me, actually, I never participate in road rage period. You just never know what is going to happen.

Now I'm finally ready to start the long process of preparing the car for paint. After a failed attempt of hiring a mobile soda blaster who said my paint is too hard for him to remove, i have decided to use aircraft stripper, wire wheels and a small siphon feed sand blaster to remove the old paint. In some areas like the roof I plan on just scuffing and shooting over the old paint, the old paint seems to be holding fine so I don't see the need in stripping it. These are the only two areas of body rust i have found so far. Starting the patch on the top piece The bottom rust spot is almost finished I am going for a very clean, more modern look with my 260. The fender turn signals really show the cars age in my opinion so I'm going to fill them with welded in plugs. Ill be doing the same with the rear bumper indentations. Rear turn signal plug Tacked in Smoothed out Filling the bumper indent Front turn signal, the pictures are smaller and its hard to see, but I'm really starting to get the hang of welding these plugs in. I'm by no means an expert welder, but I do have some experience and I have a guy I work with who IS a certified welder to answer all my questions. I welded in all these plugs in one saturday, so hopefully next weekend ill finish the other side. My goal is to have it painted in a month, middle of may 09, but I still have a lot of prep to do.

Next the glass came out, and i finished stripping the shell. The only thing in the interior to even strip was the pedals and steering shaft, so that part was easy.

I wanted to start a project thread detailing the restoration of an early 260z I bought. The very early stages are missing, in my excitement of picking up the car I forgot to start taking pictures. I found the 260 in San Antonio TX, it was a rolling shell, with no interior. The glass is all good, the body is pretty straight, and the rust is very minimal. First order of business was to remove the suspension and get it up on a rotisserie The rotisserie is just a inch or to too short, so i can't make a complete revolution because the rocker panels hit. I'll probably just put the castors on concrete blocks if/when i need to make a complete revolution.

Has anyone seen a z with turn signals mounded behind the front tires. Similar to a bmw 3 series.... see attached picture. Reason im asking, is i plan on shaving my front and rear factory turn signals, but i live in Houston and with the traffic here i would like to have some kind of side marker to be more visible. The first thing that comes to my mind is to recess or "French" the signal then cover it with a piece of thin plexi glass so it is completly flush with the fender.... but that also seems like WAY too much work for a turn signal. The BMW blends their turn signal into the trim on the door, but i wont have any trim. Any thoughts?

I'm sure you're worried since this is your brand new rebuilt motor, but really, this wont be the first time water has been in the oil of a L motor.... I've popped more than my fair share of headgaskets. I agree with ckolander, take the pan off dry it out with a hairdryer. I wouldn't use wd-40, I'm hesitant to put anything in my motor but oil.

Reminds me of a e46 M3, but I may be a little biased since this is my other car.

The minimum PSI for using only water to blast paint off body pannels, who knows. Im sure if you used the rental blaster and held it in one place for long enough it will remove the paint, but it won't be cost or time effective. You realize the post you linked to had 3x the amount of pressure your rental blaster will have, and probably a lot more volume of water being used too. That being said, you might try this method. Use Aircraft stripper, in the gallon containers put it on thick with a paint brush. Wait for the paint to curl and then blast it off with your pressure washer, Then you will get to bare metal very quickly. Last night in about three hours I did both doors, an inspection panel and the cowl Using the paint stripper followed by a power wash method. After you power wash go over it with a sander to get any remaining paint, which shouldn't be much. I'll finish stripping and prime everything on my car this weekend. Speaking of priming be sure you prime all the bare metal as soon as possible, its pretty obvious why, use a good Epoxy primer. The rattle can stuff will not seal out moisture and will cause rust. WEAR GLOVES while using the aircraft stripper, and do it outside. Depending on what you have and what your goals for this car are, you may be much better off doing body work, scuffing the existing paint, priming, and then repainting. If the old paint is still sticking well just leave it. I have painted over old paint before, so long as the old paint is not flaking off you shouldn't have any problems. Water can actually cut metal, ever seen those water jets slice metal like butter? But a pressure washer will not warp metal. I can go on for a while explaining why it won't, but ill spare you the boredom.

Might be a stupid question, but what should be used to replace the front frame rails, the ones in the engine bay. I have found several posts showing pictures of the replacement and that they are using 2.5"x2.5" square tube, but nobody specifies if it is cold rolled or hot rolled. Also, basically the same question Hot or cold rolled sheet metal for patching body panels, filling in the turn signals etc.