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Another week has past and another weekend of work has been completed. Luckly the orders I placed where send out pretty fast so I got all the rubbers and bushings I was missing ready to head to work. I started off with finishing the work on the transmission. As the speedometer gear had been leaking, and I didn’t know how much fluid the transmission had lost (or was even serviced the last time), I decided to change the transmission fluid for some Redline MT-90 transmission oil. That was easier said then done as Redline MT-90 is pretty hard to find in Europe. But it appears I was in luck, one performance parts shop here in The Netherlands had a few cans in stock and send them out for me that same day! Even though the transmission mount and crossmember bushings where is decent shape I still decided to chang them out as a precaution. I used a OEM style rubber transmission mount for vibration reduction but polyurethane bushings in the crossmember for added stiffness. Next came the most exciting but also the scariest part. Replacing the front crossmember, engine mounts and oil pan gasket. I wanted to leave the crossmember for last and start by removing the oil pan. To do that and have easier access to the bolts I first removed the steering rack which I gave a quick clean and paint job while I was at it. I might have figured out why the oil pan was leaking in the first place, it turns out about halve the oil pan bolts where loose! Other than that the process was pretty straight forward. Removing the oil pan did give me a pretty interesting look into the engine which felt pretty weird so I quickly reinstalled the oil pan with new bolts. To remove the crossmember I had to find a way to support the engine in the meantime. For this I created my own, incredibly sketchy, engine support bar together with a jack under the crack pully. Even though it was incredibly sketchy it was surprisingly sturdy and stable. But still I hurried as fast and as careful as I could to remove the old crossmember and install the Apex Engineered crossmember. This went surprisingly smooth with the only difficult part being reinstalling the bolts into the new engine mounts. But with a bit of help of the jack and some patience I got them all in and everything safely secured again. Next came the most difficult part of fitting the Apex crossmember braces. The passenger side went without a problem but the drivers side not so much. There the crossmember brace didn’t fit as the car had aftermarket headers and signs of body damage to the left side of the car. The headers where interfering with the brace and the brace was sitting much more forward then the passenger side. This required some modification of the headers (with a hammer) and a few spare washers as spacers to fix. To modify the headers I had to take them off the car which I really hope I won’t have to do a second time as the bolts are really hard to reach. To finish off the weekend I got a call from the body shop telling me my doors and cowl where finished painting! So I immediately got in my car to pick them up and install them back on the car. The installation went pretty good but I didn’t get the doors to sit perfectly flush, the back always sticks out a bit. This may be because of the weather stripping which I assume to be cheap aftermarket. After the doors came the fenders and the rest of the bodywork. As I was missing a lot of bolts around the car I ordered a nut and bolt kit from ResurrectedClassics a while back. During the previous “restauration” (if you can even call that) they just left damaged bolts out or spot welded panels in place. As I absolutely hated that I took my time to retap all the holes or install rivet nuts wherever I could. I also replaced a lot of the bolts with nice plated bolts from the kit. All of this nearly has the car ready for one of the final inspections of it’s life (as they aren’t mandatory anymore after 50 years). I just have a small list of things left to do. - Reinstall the door cards - Reinstall the seats - Set a rough alignment (enough to get me to the shop) - Install the wheels - Install a new set of horns (existing ones have underbody coating in them) - Repaint and install the front grill - Install the new fender mirrors - Install the rear speakers (for now optional) - Replace the pre fuel pump fuel filter (for now optional) And of course clean the car!

No. in my opinion that’s the definition of passion and commitment!

Here for my weekly update. Engine and transmission are in. Whole drivetrain is in for good. (hopefully) Finished welding up the turbo manifold and added a tial 44mm wastegate. Need to header wrap it and install for good. Fuel cell is in. need to secure all the panels in, make filler neck, run lines and wire pumps/sender Started making up some oil and coolant lines for the turbo. Put in the radiator and intercooler assemblies. Welded some fitting to a modified factory coolant wrap around tube to hook up the heater core. made a little -8an line to connect to the heater core block. Throttle cable is in and mounted to the pedal. Finished 240z tail light conversion with some new "euro" style tail lights with a carbon 3 pc surround. Got the two door latches in so they stay closed on their own.

Almost got it done. Such a pain in the as* I probably should have started over, from my old ecu to this ecu wiring.

I'll echo a couple good points in this thread. I came to this board in 2013 after a good run over on Ratsun, but getting deep enough into the Z specific stuff that I was getting more interested in here. Back the, Hybrid Z was already a place of "SEARCH" and "BAD GRAMMAR MEANS YOUR POST IS INVALID". Some very loud voices kept the general discourse to a minimum, even back then. I think generally, as the cars have gotten rarer and more expensive, a lot of the old guard who liked them for the chassis "cool and cheap" moved on. Facebook rose, and HybridZ has been relegated to a reference item. Lots of other thoughts, COVID, the death of Photobucket etc, but on and on and on. I will say, the forum as a model is not dead. I recently joined a Lotus board, and wow are they busy over there! My Tundra too has quite a bit of forum activity. I've said this in other threads of a similar ilk. Be the change you want to see. If you want more content here, post the content! Make it happen. And tell the youth about the resource that is here. There's quite a bit going on out there in the big wild world still.

Just like all classic and especially classic sports cars they end up sharply increasing in price once they approach 50 years in age. I always loved the look of the S30 Z cars and I really wanted a classic sports car as a hobby/project car. For me the only affordable option was the Porsche 944 coming in at €10k to €15k for a somewhat decent example. But even those shot up in price the last few years to the point that the price difference between those and S30 Z’s (280z in particular) became pretty low. I ended up paying €22,5k for my 1977 280z at an auction (including auction costs) and put around €4,5k into the car. Mainly comprising of the Apex Engineered suspension parts, body shop (welding frame rails and repainting the doors) and some long overdue maintenance. And yes I overpaid a couple of thousand on my car but at this point I really don’t care anymore as I plan to keep this car for the rest of my life!

While I wish there was more activity there are still people posting and following/commenting. I’m building a ford 302 for my 240Z right now, hopefully dropping it in this summer and I’ve gotten some good tips from members as I work on my build, saved me some big headaches. Someone else is doing an atlas swap. Unfortunately the S30s aren’t cheap anymore and parts are expensive. That’s certainly a factor when people are looking for a project car.

I bought my 1977 280z in august of last year and afterwards started looking around at all the available forums and other information sources. This let me to here, the ClassicZcar forum and the WhatsApp group from my local Z/ZX club (Holland). Each I use for a different purpose. - HybridZ: Modified Z projects, technical information, inspiration and keeping up a build thread (mainly for myself). - ClassicZcar: General information and information about stock/original parts or details. - The local Z/ZX club: Meets / rally’s, used parts and local knowledge (we have a few S30 restauration specialists in the group) As the S30 Z is pretty rare here in the Netherlands (and Europe in general) my only option is to use the internet and figure everything out myself. Parts are also hard to come by as my only options are used parts (when they appear online), Zservices in France or importing parts from the USA. As for car culture in general I do agree that it’s slowing down a bit. The cars are becoming more modern, parts are becoming more expensive and complicated and less people have the option of owning two or more cars. In general I’m seeing the economy slowing down and people watching there wallet. That said there are still a lot of interesting S30 Z projects going around. Yes turbo builds are pretty common as they have become easier to make power with and are a relatively cheap power source. But NA or NA ITB builds are also pretty common still among them being the V8 swap. Personally I’m keeping my L28E and will probably end up going the NA ITB route once I upgrade the stock injection (yes I’m keeping the injection and no I don’t want carbs). I do like the sound of the V8 swaps but I also think that they don’t really belong in the S30 Z’s. The Z’s being Japanese cars I find them more suited for inline 6 (NA or turbo) engines. And I just really love the sound of the L series engines. But hé, that’s just my personal opinion.