All Activity

Happy Thanksgiving! I started the layout on my new hood before going in for the holiday. 13 1/4" from the front hood corners. this should allow for the radiator support to see seen, AND because some of the center bulge remains, those bends in the steel will help with keep the sheet metal rigid. I wanted to keep some the center bulge anyway, as it helps set the tone for how the bodies lines go back visually. the side will be cut to cover the tops of the struts, yet, show the tops of the frame rails and how there are no exposed brake lines. With the hood being black but the engine compartment blue, it will also set off the edges around the polished engine sticking up. At least in my mind.

I got mine on eBay.

I did a 14 gallon radium cell in mine because i plan on possibly running e85 and we have some 30-35 minute sessions with some clubs. I have it raised like an inch and a half out of the floor to make the bottom height where I was visually happy. My cell is advertised at 11.7" tall so if the ATL 10 or 12 is shorter then flush with the floor should be perfect.

Thanks. That’s the fuel cell that came with the car, it’s too big (20 gal) and I don’t like it mounted on top of hatch floor. Going to explore Black Friday deals, thinking of going with an ATL because of the bladder and other safety features and I’ll recess it down as far as I can, hopefully it’ll sit flush. Trying to decide if I should go with 10 gal or 12 gal, 12 gal is a little cheaper for whatever reason. I should burn approx 5 gal a session at Sebring, the track I’ll frequent most.

I just found this site as i started building my Z, and will be following along as you finish up this project. We are on somewhat similar paths so this will be fun to watch it come together.

Wow, great progress! I love the cantilever design on the rear suspension. A few guys here have previously designed their own custom cantilevers; but AE is the only vendor that I'm aware of that has ever "mass produced" a system like this. Really interested to hear your feedback on how the whole TA package works once installed. Is that the final resting place for the fuel cell? If so, are you going to have a way to isolate it from the rest of the driver's compartment?

Lower than 100kpa at WOT could be elevation too, if this log happen to be somewhere higher than your used to logging take that into consideration aswell. Id think where you have the filter should be a good spot for air. unless the aero is really creating a negative pressure spot for some reason. If thats not the case id think your on the right track with looking at valve train stuff. But don't rule out the sensor itself or the hose feeding it.

Waiting on a few parts, but worked on the rear suspension. I cut out a rear strut bar that was welded in and started prepping to install the rear shocks. Also test fitted the rear differential, almost ready to bolt up.

11-26-2025. I got the rear tires mounted on the wheels and balanced, and I was able to attach one headlight bucket and then started painting several coats of filler primer for deep scratches. The bucket has deep scratches in the metal in the bottom of the scoop portion, so this will get a start on filling them, and then I will put some glaze on there and sand it smooth and sealer prime it before color and clear. The other headlight bucket, after sandblasting revealed a crease in it, and I don't have the moxie to want to fight and fix a crease and make it look good, so I ordered up a reproduction bucket. I then got a call from J&S Polishing, and ran down there and picked up my intake and valve cover. Pics heavy.

Not super sure. At 100% throttle, the MAP sensor is really slow to respond and only climbs to 91.8kPa (atmospheric should be ~100). Here's a log at a good period of full throttle in 4th gear. Just pulling super lazily. This motor has always behaved like it's getting enough airflow. With 3rd gear sorted, I should be able to get it back out and do some testing. One theory is that with all the front end ducting, the motor is pulling a vacuum in the engine bay. Another is that the cam timing is off and needs to be tweaked. I think I might pull the front cover off and see what's up, and if there is anything obvious there before I get back out for next season. I've done cylinder temps, compression checks and leakdown and everything seems happy enough mechanically. Just something silly happening somewhere in the system.

Oh, man....what a bummer! I guess the one good thing is that it happened at the end of the season. Any idea why the engine wasn't pulling hard? Is there a big elevation difference between there and home?

Well, once again we are at the end of track season. Long story short, the car is broken, but I'm excited for what next year brings! Longer version; After a successful outing at the Ridge, I decided to join my Canadian amigos for a weekend at Area27 up in Oliver BC, for a members track weekend, some wine tasting, and a general good time. The tow up was smooth, it took about 8 hours to get there. I've brought the car into Canada before, and it's reasonably painless, but I got searched pretty thoroughly (thanks Random Searches!) on the Canadian side. I dropped the car off at the track on Thursday night, and got squared away for a fun Saturday ripping around the track. We got there early on Saturday, I put the car together, fueled up and suited up to go out for the first session. First problem was the car felt like it wasn't pulling at all on the straights. Area27 is a properly long track, with some serious straights, so I should have been making some inroads there, but the car refused to pull hard at the top end. Second problem came as I started my second tour of the track. I shifted down to 2nd gear for a hairpin, then went for third, with nothing there. No box of rocks, no grinding, just no third gear. Alarming to say the least, but more frustrating as there wasn't an obvious cause of failure. I pulled off, looked under the car, saw all the linkages were in the right place, and had to call it a weekend. Any issue was clearly internal, and not fixable track side. Ended up with about 20 hours of towing for 10 minutes of sorta driving around the track. Womp-womp. Cut to getting home, getting the car unloaded, getting the transmission out of the car and opened up. It became pretty clear pretty quick what the problem was: Immediately upon pulling off the cover plate, the 3rd gear dog ring was nowhere to be seen. Well, that's not true, there was a piece of it over here! Well that's not supposed to be there! You can also see a big gouge in the main drive gear on the right side of that photo. Great, more parts to replace. That was it though. A dog ring shattered, ping'd off the MDS pinion and that was that. I suspect some of the gnarly downshifts I had at The Ridge the month prior were the cause of this, and when I towed up to Area27, this was most of the way destroyed. Shifting out of 3rd, into 2nd, and then finding 3rd to be MIA sounds like it was holding on by a thread, and just abandoned ship all at once. Parts are here, I'll probably take some time today or tomorrow to stuff the transmission back in. There are a few little things I'm working through, but nothing serious or major. Mostly cleaning and refreshing safety gear.

I was reminded earlier today about this thread and figured I'd post a quick update. Shell restoration has been moving along and I've been pinging the restoration shop for monthly updates. I just about finished reinforcement/welding on various suspension components so I'd like to get those powdercoated in a chassis/satin black. Fuel system has been completed and placed in storage. Waiting for some parts back from the machine shop for the oil system before I fabricate and weld on that. Busy with other projects too but several irons in the fire to restore my Z.

These Aluminum Body Panels were introduced to the Public at the 2025 SEMA SHOW in Las Vegas. They were manufactured by Yahagi Industry Company located in Japan. The 240Z vehicle was in the Toyo Tire Booth at the Show. Front Head Light Bucket Front Hood Bottom Side of the Hood Right Front Fender Front Cowl Panel Front Aluminum Grille Right Front Fender Roof Right Rear Quarter Panel and Fuel Door Rea Hatch Pic Rear Panel left Rear Quarter Panel Flyer that describes Weigh Savings between Steel Panels and Aluminum Panels They would not give the price at the show but say it would be give out at the end of the year. I believe they are waiting till the Tokyo Auto Salon Show happening in Tokyo in January 2026. They were planning a production run of 100 of these Aluminum Panels. The well known Japanese Performance Company-Star Road is handling the sale of these 240Z panels. The panels have an excellent fit and well constructed. I would definitely recommend them.

11-25-2025. My new fender and hood came in from Resurrected Classics today. I quickly hung the fenders on and took some pics to show how well they fit. Very impressive. High quality parts. The box does say "Made in China", but they are VERY nice pieces. I also went ahead and got the front tires mounted on to the front wheels. The wheels are 16X8 with 0 offset, the tires are 205/55R16.

You might want to reserve judgement until after you (try to) install the parts. They've had problems in the not so distant past. July.

Earlier I received my new hatch from Resurrected classics, and it was so well packed to prevent damage I was impressed......today a pallet arrived for me which had a new hood and front fenders. I am very impressed at the lengths these guys have gone to, to ensure no damage occurs. The box for the fenders had a puncture hole, but I was very happy to find that it didn't damage it. So, in addition to the high level of craftsmanship used in making these parts, these guys do a very good job of packaging them. Buy from them with confidence.

Today the mobile welder stopped by and welded the collars for my coilovers in the rear. progress made.

I found this video on the Net about the Factory producing the Complete Assembled 240z Body. The video show the process that their bodies undergo after being welded together. They do dip the bodies into some kind of primer in a large tank. As to why there was no primer in those storage compartments that 240Z at the SEMA was not addressed. https://youtube.com/shorts/L0b5RyO81M4?si=00sXZiq0aXRAkZPJ

Wow, impressive to see how quickly you are jumping into this project. It's such a shame that the car had so many "hidden" issues; but hopefully the chassis is still straight in order to minimize the cost of the repairs. Sounds like a big order of shiny parts you have coming from Apex....enjoy!!

Time to update the build threat again. Things are moving slow at the moment but none the less progress is being made. I have contact with two local body shops in the area for the frame rail repair and to measure the body to see if it’s twisted in any way. One of the body shops is specialized is classic car repair and restauration but will probably be quite expensive but none the less a representative will come by to look at the car this week. The other body shop is a more generic one that also does a lot of classic BMW’s and has done some paint work for me in the past. There hourly rate is a lot cheaper, I know they deliver great work and I know they sometimes are willing to do cash work. To save money on the body shop hours I decided to bite the bullet and order a bunch of parts from Apex Engineered which should arrive somewhere next week. Deciding what to buy was quite difficult as the shipping rate varied a lot but in the End I got the shipping down to $284. I all I bought the frame rails, front fender braces, front and rear control arms, steering knuckles, front crossmember and the rear strut brace. As importing stuff from the US is pretty expensive I decided to place a bigger order then what I strictly needed to maximize the value for my money. As the car needed to get welded anyway I ordered the front fender braces as well to reinforce the front of the car as they weren’t that expensive and seemed to me as a worth wile upgrade. As for the control arms my main reasons for buying those was to delay any major body repairs. If my body turns out to be twisted repairing it would turn into a full on restauration project. I do plan on restoring and repainting the car some day but not now, so as a temporary solution the adjustable control arms allow me to tune the effects of a twisted body out a bit. At some point I would like to get the full Apex Engineered Retro Mod suspension so this will give me a great starting point to work from anyway. To save some more money at the body shop I will strip down the interior and remove the fuel lines myself before sending the car of for welding. But before doing that I still have a chance to fix some small stuff surrounding the engine. My backorder from Zservices in France finally came in together with a used Bosch AAR from a Porsche 944 as my original AAR turned out to be broken. So last week I took the valve cover off to adjust the valves and replace the gasket as it was leaking a lot of oil. Good thing I did as the valves where very out of spec. The adjusters where a pain to get loose but after that adjusting them was very easy. I put everything back together with some new NGK spark plug wires and started her back up. Even with near freezing conditions the car started right up and idled better then ever before. The engine still runs very rich at idle and I suspect it might be an injector issue but other then that the engine runs great and the emissions are within the limits so I will place that issue on hold for now. My plans for the coming weeks are to strip down the interior, remove the fuel lines, front fenders and doors. This will also give me the opportunity to clean and inspect those parts of the car for more hidden surprises. I will also repaint the fuel lines as they are full of undercoating and try to restore the dashboard as with any Z mine is cracked. As for the doors I want to rebuild the door hinges and maybe try and reupholster the door cards as mine are actually of a 2+2 and have a giant hole instead of a second door latch. I’m hoping to get the car back on the road after this so I can finally start to enjoy my 280z this spring. Video van WhatsApp op 2025-11-24 om 10.58.36_fab92d46.mp4

Hey, the new Speedo looks great! I just installed a set of cheapo Amazon gauges in my dash and it was also a bunch of little, fiddly, time-consuming work. The supports on the back were the hardest parts. Great work!

Ya il be running fender flares but not with these wheels. because i went 5 lug, these were all i had to roll the car around, although they do look good hhaha ya the T3 stuff is amazing, it all fit without any issues so I was surprised with that. I had a L26 with a big cam, carbs and and exhaust and I loved it in my old 260z but this car came with nothing so it was an easy choice to go RB!

I just got a new job and will be moving, so I haven't made a ton of progress. But before I pack up all the tools for the move, I worked on getting the new gauges in a better looking dash that will be installed with the new EZ wiring harness. I started with a dash pulled from the parts car. The gauges weren't fully working and the previous owner wired in a sound system and some other "upgrades" in a way I didn't like. So I gutted the dash of all the stock and aftermarket wiring from the previous owner. This car won't have a sound system and I have a new harness so I didn't need any of the old stuff. Next, I busted the new Amazon cheapo gauges and started mocking them up to see if they would fit in the stock dash. They were quite a bit different, so I had to rip the old gauges apart and combine their guts with the new gauges to get them mounted in the dash. I tore apart the old gauges. I removed the old gauge mechanism, but kept the small and larger housings. I'm not sure what they are actually called. I cut out small circles from some sheet metal that had with an i.d. for the new gauges to screw and tightened onto, but also an o.d. that would matches the inner housing on the old gauges. Then I screwed the inner housing into the larger one. I did this for both the Tach and Speedo. Next, I mounted the gauges into the dash. The old gauges were much larger and held in by screws and bolts. I mounted both as best I could with zip ties. I'll think about a better permanent mounting solution in the future. They are obviously smaller than the stock ones, but for less than $200, I'm happy with how they turned out. The smaller gauges were both easier and harder. I tore the old ones apart and threw away the gauge guts just like the big ones. However, there was an inner metal ring that was perfect to screw the new gauges onto after I trimmed them a tiny bit into a circular shape. It saved a lot of time, but the original gauges had like plastic rivet, type things holding it together. They were easy to drill out, but I had no way to easily reassemble with the new gauges. So, I glued them, clamped them, and let them sit for a couple days while I packed my house up. After I got everything glued up, I installed the gauges and they are obviously smaller than the stock ones. But I don't think they look that bad. For $160 and a couple evenings of modifications, I think they turned out really nice. I had to modify the old mounting system on two of the smaller gauges to keep them in place and had to use some bolts for the third because it's old gauge was set up differently. I got all five gauges in the dash and they turned out better than I expected. I have a set of the Speed Hunters adapters for their gauges, but the adapter set costs just as much as I paid for all these gauges. This kit also came with the sensors needed and a voltage meter that I won't be using because I have a voltage meter/ phone charger in the car right now that I really like. It was another cheapo Amazon purchase. I installed it on the hole for the old cigarette lighter in my current dash, and that's what I'll do again. There won't be any progress for a while, because I'm moving back to Ohio and starting house shopping so I won't have to move again any time soon. But the next thing on my list is making a plate to go on the hole where the climate controls and radio used to be and mounting a phone holder there. I have that in the car now and it's really useful. Then I'll be installing the new dash and EZ wiring harness. Assing I can do that, the gauges all work, the alternator puts out more than 13 volts, and the car still runs and drives that'll be the last major thing done to this car for a while. After that, I think I'm gonna get started on the "parts car project." Please let me know if you've seen any silly mistakes I've made or anything that would make my install easier or better. Thanks!

Update from Ken at Chop Suey on my rollpan: https://photos.app.goo.gl/SrTor4XxT6yc5HSD9