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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

Hi everyone, I am at a good point with my build and wanted to share its history since its one of the few running and driving VQ37 swapped Zs in the country. I am going on over a decade of ownership. I originally bought the car from New Mexico and brought it over to Colorado. Come to find out, it was once a Colorado car also. I picked it up in primer with a rebuilt engine but not really knowing too much about it since all I had were photos and the owners word. The previous owner used it for autocross. The entire interior was missing and it had a rats nest for wiring. I remember it had a switch to manually turn on the fans. It also had a full radiator support and driver side frame rail replacement from a donor Z. I got lucky that this was done really well, I have had no problems getting the car aligned over the years and it drives straight! I saved some money and got the car painted in black, the car was originally a yellow car. The painter actually welded in floor boards and frame rails and closed up the wheel wells from where they were cut for the ZG flares. The rear hatch had to get replaced since it had an inch of bondo over the key hole. Luckily, I was able to track a hatch from a 240Z in the junk yard (when is the last time you have seen that haha). I added sound deadner to the interior and then took the car to an upholstery shop to get the interior put it. I also added some nice gauges. I was able to source some cheap Watanabe 16 inch wheels from yahoo auction Japan. They were different colors but I ended up paying around 900 usd after air shipping them spent another 300 getting them powder coated. I also picked up my Recaro seats from Japan. To this day I have no idea what car they came from but they are one of my favorite parts of the car. The SUs where swapped out for a triple Mikuni 44s. I drove with those and even had them tuned but they were too finnicky at altitude. During this time I got into flipping carbs for resale. I didn't want to deal with the Mikunis and decided to swap to fuel injection. I ended going Jenvey ITBs on Haltech. This setup actually worked great for about a year and even made it to the main page of my local Cars and Coffee. Around that summer I started to develop some running problems where I was running too rich. On my way to the tuner the worst thing happened. The car caught fire. From what I could tell, the itbs backfired and caught the fuel line on fire. If anyone is running itbs on an L Series, I highly recommend an airbox. I got really lucky since a guy like 2 cars back behind me had a fire extinguisher and that the radiator hose blew and stopped the fire. I sent the car over to my tuner/builder and waited on my insurance adjuster to visit the car. I was able to get a full payout through Hagerty and that kickstarted the funds to get my Z back on the road again. I knew I was done with L series. I never really wanted to build something that close to race car since I mostly drive my Z on the streets and occasional canyons. I wanted to stick something Nissan that could remain relatively stock. Something I could start up and just drive. In the past I almost swapped VQ35HR motor and have always had that build in the back on my mind but I noticed that the engines were almost the same price as the bigger brother VQ37. So I went with a VQ37 out of an automatic AWD G37. The reason I chose that engine was to avoid 370z's had been driven hard and the auto engines were cheaper with less mileage. The only change to the block that I needed was a lower oil pan from a RWD VQ and its bolts. I sourced a transmission directly from Nissan since at that time it was actually only about 500 dollars more compared to a used transmission. I looked recently and it seems like the transmission have doubled in price since 2021 when I bought mine. Here are the photos of when I got her back. We ended up putting some flake in the engine bay since I grew up loving lowriders. I also installed a GTR intake conversion. It ended up being a bit of a hassle since the custom fuel rail didn't clear the injectors. We had to extend the fuel ports on the fuel rail to make them taller so that it could clear. I added a catch can since the car is set to vent to atmosphere. I pulled the headers and stripped them and cerakoted them also. The custom hood didn't make it out of the fire so I went carbon fiber. Next I ended up getting the intakes extended to the front of the car to make it a true cold air intake. I recently took the Z engine harness apart and reloomed it and fixed one of my turn signals. Come to find out one of the wires was cut off. With the help of Dave Irwin, I was able to track down all of my missing grounds and also why both lights would blink at the same time (bad switch). I had an extra parts turn signal switch which I harvested and was able to get everything to work out. I recently tackled getting my horn to work. I have never got it to work since my entire ownership. The guys at classiczcar forum really helped me trouble shoot it. Come to find out, my only horn didn't work and for some reason my steering rack wasn't grounded. This is pretty much where the car is now. I took her to a local car meet today and I am hoping to just get more seat time with her. If anyone has any questions about the car or the swap feel free to message me.

Got it off Amazon: https://amzn.to/4aS32Br And picked up a male pigtail off eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/134129914749 I actually replaced the wiper arms too. I used 93 miata arms which bolt up to the stock datsun wipers mechanism. Passenger arm is a little long so I may shorten it. For wiring, I followed this guide: https://www.electronixandmore.com/resources/automobiles/datsun/index.html Note this is very specific to the later wiring for 1978(maybe 1977 too) and would not be applicable to earlier years.

For you that have been following along. My 3.12L is finally in my car and home. Gosh it looks so good I’m just going to stare at it! Amazing work by Andrew Kazanis! This engine was built and done prior to a shop fire. So it’s been through a lot! I love the contrast of the stock blue block and gold zinc and black. It features. My 3.1L 10.2:1 compression ratio 88.5mm bore. N42 block. Sonic tested. LD crank by marine crankshaft. Crank �Off-set grind to 84.6 stroke�Finish rod journals @ 1.8889" Thrust Finish 1.27”�R & R plugs with threaded plugs�Dynamic Balance�Ion-Plasma nitride, straighten & micro-Micro polish all journals E31 head. Port work by Andrew Kazanis Dsi valves Diameter: 45/36.5mm Length: 118mm, titanium retainers. Isky springs. Bonk cam. Roughly stock exhaust and intake port sizes. Vapor honed inside and out. Rebello JE Eagle pistons and toyota rods 221 CFM flow at .45-.5 lift. Mine is 88.5x88.5x.25x3.14159x 84.6x6 /1000 = 3122cc It is showing off my intake design and Efi throttle bodies as well as a bunch of my small parts.

Hey Derek. Good to hear from ya. Yeah input a vfd on it. And it already has the variable speed feed. It also has the indexable cutters on the head. Which will be fine to start but im looking at switching over to a single pcd/cbn cutter. I might have to do a pulley change to get the sfm where it needs to be. But currently im waiting on a box to put the vfd and other electrical components in. Im putting it on the machine where the motor start switch ans box was.

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.

Been a while since I posted any updates. Been moving along. For the Turbo car I decided to build my own wheels. Ill CNC machine the center sections myself and have the lips and barrels spun for me. I really like the old SSR RS8 wheels but finding them in the correct bolt pattern, offset, and caliper clearance is impossible. I fould a set close, from Japan and had them shipped over. Since this car uses Z31 hubs and such, the spacing is out much more than a standard Z so I need a bit more positive offset. I dissasembled the wheels and scanned the center section into my computer and reverse engineered the shape. Next I re-assembled them and had the 245-45-16 tires Im going to use mounted. I test fitted them to the car, and close, but not good enough. This is the fist time this chassis has been rolling on its own wheels in 27 years. Its been on a cart or a lift. Felt good to see some progress now that the suspension, brakes, and cross-memeber are finally complete Scanned this complete assembly and put it in CAD. Now I have the exact shape of the tire on the rim. Cool cross section of it. Finally I scanned the side of the car, put it into CAD. Now I can adjust my wheel center offset for caliper clearance, and adjust it to work with new Lips and Barrels I will order for the proper offset and fit to the car. Having it in CAD alowed me to look at it from every angle and check all clearances, for calipers, springs wheels lip, ect. Even compressing the suspension to make sure I have fender clearance at full travel Final wheel spec is: Rear - 5 lug = 245-45-16 on 8.5" width rim- 27mm positive offset, 2.25" outer lip on the rim Front - 5 lug = 245-45-16 on 8.5" width rim - 31mm positive offset 1.75" outer lip on the rim Next I need to find some time to program the CNC and start cutting chips. But I got distracted on the NA car, so that update is next.

Hello everyone and welcome to my 1977 280z project! I will be using this thread to document my journey with this car and all the little thing that will be done to it to ultimately restore and modify it to be my dream car. I bought the car last week at auction for the decent price of €20.500,- kind of on a whim as this has been my dream car ever since I first learned of there existence (thanks Wangan Midnight and the Devil Z, I know its cliché). Yes €20k is a lot of money but a mid-condition one sells for over €32k here in Europe nowadays. (You can see which side I tied up and which side my dad tied up 😂) What drew me to this car was the paint (absolutely not perfect and needs a repaint at some point but looks good enough for now), the goodies like new wheels and tires, new wooden steering wheel, factory 5 speed gearbox, R200 diff and the claim that the engine was rebuild 10 years ago. Although when picking up the car it turned out there was no documentation what so ever. The car runs and drives and is in fairly decent condition but currently has no valid inspection (called APK in the Netherlands) as the previous owner stats it’s because of the car running rich. Of course it has a cracked dashboard, some small surface rust forming and is missing bolts all over the car but these are all thing that can be fixed over time. For now my main goal is the fix some little stuff and get her on the road so I can start to enjoy the car. So naturally I placed the car on my Quick Jack lift and ordered a bunch of parts from Z-Services EU in France. There are a few thing I like to address before taking it in for inspection. The hood doesn’t open as the cable brackets are missing, the door hinges need rebuilding as the doors won’t close properly, some general maintenance and fixing some sweating oil seals around the car.

01-11-2025. Pretty cold out today, so I stayed inside and started looking into some of my wiring questions I needed to solve. My combo switch and adapter plate from Race Wire solutions came in the other day, and I will be using that along with the 12 circuit rewiring kit I bought some time back from JEG's. I got Chat GPT to help me keep it straight in my mind and went about figuring out how to wire in my combo switch with what JEG'S sold me. it will be installed in the dash, as part of the dash center plate I got form Skillard, along with 2 gauges and a cool panel/bank of switches made by Allstar Performance I ordered from Summit. now to decide paint the4 panel or upholster.....

Looks nice, Im guessing 260hp at 6500 to 7000k Do you plan on dyno testing it? Seems like it will be a super fun street car. Realy clean but not so over the top that you cant drive it everyday and enjoy it. Looking forward to more.

There was a guy in Socal i went to visit 20 years ago that built cars like this. He did work for Toyota making them an all aluminum GT2000 and working on Shelbys 2nd gen cobras. This is pretty impressive. I hope they make a Z one day.

Well look at you! I have a SV 85B for doing my heads. It'a a were one with variable speed feed drive. The best thing I did was to put a VFD on the spindle. I over clock it at 120hz and it does just fine.

Certificate needed for security. Old one ran out...

I've been following Star Road for a long time and was really excited when they first showed their aluminum panels. Maybe in the next decade when I'm repainting I'll consider the aluminum doors and fenders since their fitment is likely much better than other aftermarket options. These would definitely be great options for your build, though likely not the fenders if you're going wide. There are a handful of carbon hood options so I think most people probably aren't as interested in the hood unless they're getting most of the rest.

Beautiful car! Thanks for posting these up. I would be interested in a pair of doors and maybe the roof if the prices is somewhat sane.

I'm keeping it simple and easy to get done. not going to a mirror finish, just a factory level finish. I build drivers, Sir. I was going to use that dry guide coat until I realized you can't paint over it.....so it is ANOTHER step to get it off then put the mud when you took it off, then smooth it out then another guide coat then block. I just used black primer, mud the deepest bottoms, and use about 4-5 coats of the THICK primer filler made by duplicolor.....specially made for deep scratches. red oxide color. Not advocating any of this it's just experimentation and finding a way that works for me. It will go quick this way. Mud only where needed. when you cover the whole panel, 90% is sanded right off. Using glaze, it sands so easy, I can block it with 220 grit within about a hour and have it ready for filler primer....will it be razor straight? No....but it will look pretty nice.

thanks a lot. I added a bit more hardener and then no problem. I will post pics later, but I put a thin coat of black primer right on the steel and then blocked it this morning. Did the same with the sail panels. It worked great. I then wiped it down with rubbing alcohol and put pieces of blue tape in all the low spots that filler primer won't fill in. I will use glaze with a hardener now. I am well versed with it and it is so easy to work. I just want a decent job, I don't need a show car body. when all is said and done, if the clear doesn't "pop" enough, I will wipe on a coat of glossy Poppy's patina. Poppy's Patina - The Original Patina Clear Coat.

There was chatter at one point about the welds on CX racing stuff being a concern (particularly the exhaust turbo header).....so you will want to check the welds carefully prior to putting everything together. Front and rear strut tower braces, a roll bar, Apex front side structure supports, and maybe stiffen up the rails .......bad dog used to make thick steel rails that fit right over the originals and then have them welded on. 500 horsepower is an incredible amount of power in a Z car. 300 horsepower in a 280Z is a windowmaker. Good luck!

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.

Thank you for confirming this. I should of course have checked when the group was created 😅 I just saw 2k members, but there was still something suspicious about the price of the parts I was looking at Regards

I can tell just by the page name that it is a big old scam, but I'll go check anyway. Went and checked: 1. The page was made in October. Scam 2. Patrick Reynolds just made his account Nov 27 and posted a bunch of pictures that same day. That's also sign of a scam. 3. Eddy Watson, the other admin, posted a bunch of brand new photos from different time periods all on the same day in the middle of October. Third sign of a scam. 4. Probably the biggest and most glaring clue other than the page age is that every single parts post that Patrick Reynolds makes has a different background. Different tables, different floors, different trees if it's outside. That's because they're all stolen pictures.

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.

12-16-2025. Drum Sander. I have been advised to use a drum sander, as it is easier on the sheet metal than a flap disc on an angle grinder. Well, yes it is! However, even at 40 grit, I finished the roof, started on a rocker and a few other spots and wore that drum half way out! Pics follow, you can see the difference comparing both methods side to side. I also took a couple pics to show how it will look ran over with a DA on 80 grit to prep it for filler. DUSTY! closer to starting the blocking.

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!

I have two Datsun 240Z cars both with stock body running 245 45's on 16" x 8" rims with no flares. I find it funny where people flare their car yet do not make use of the extra space. I also like Z cars with flares but why do it unless you get the right offset to maximize the tire size?

2.0 is coming along.

3 years later... took ages to find a good painter willing to take on the project. These days insurance jobs with small panel fixes seem to be more profitable. Luckily I found someone willing to do it in the summer months of this year while the insurance workload is reduced. Prepping... Overall quite happy with the result. Couldn't contain myself and started puzzling together the undercarriage the first chance I got. Pulled lines in the trans tunnel and assembled the suspension component. On the wheel first the first time since 2017!

So that was a lie. Better late then never I suppose...

fluidmotion, I used SEM PRODUCTS 1K sprayable seam sealer. It is a modified high performamce polmar silane seam sealer. It is OEM approved and used for Chrysler as a undercoating. .It is flexible and non sagging. Also, this sealer can be painted immediately after application. It comes in white, beige, gray and black colors. Amazon sells it for about $15 to $20. There is newer sprayable seam sealer 2K seam sealer( two part). Both sealers require a special spray gun to apply though.

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.

This might be the first Christmas break I haven't had parts waiting for me... It was a great feeling up until I took advantage of the warm weather Utah has had to take the car out for a soda and my window didn't roll back up. Something broke and things were jammed bad. Found multiple problems that probably eventually contributed to the failure. -The body guy who did assembly after paint put the front sash on the wrong doors when it was reassembled. It was even marked to out things back correctly! -One of the aftermarket roller guides broke. No big deal. The normally only came with one, so I'm gonna leave it as is for now. -The plastic guide on the front of the window that goes into the front sash broke There was a solution to all of these - I still have spare doors from the 76 body i started with. Swapped parts over... Still couldn't get the rear gap correct on the window despite adjusting everything as far as it went to correct. Gave myself a day to think about it and realized the regulator might have bent. Pulled the spare, then removed the glass for the third time and pulled the regulator on the car... Definitely bent. Adjusted and also swapped the passenger side front sash to the correct one and now the windows move better than they ever have! Not the most fun way to get a small "quality of life" fix on the car but I'm glad I got it done.