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Thanks for the replies and comments. Time is always an issue, however Im at the age now where my daughter is 26 years old and working full time. Been married 30 years so the wife is obviously understanding of my hobbies. Hopefully continuing to make progress regularily. Hoping more people come back to the forum and participate in the community. Here is a picture of me and my daughter when she was probably 2ish years old, same car Im working on now. I need to get her back in the shop for a new photo - Time flies

Love the way this is coming out. its been a challenging balance to thread between making everything neat and tidy and making sure I remember its a race car and needs to be functional. decided to polish the intake manifold and turbo, which looks great but upkeep is gonna be a challenge. exhaust is mostly done and welded. need to make a fancy tip for the back. wrapped the downpipe and mid pipe. need to pull the manifold and wrap that too. originally made a open dump wastegate but then changed it up to recirc it because we have a couple tracks with some noise restrictions. I'll order another v band and wastegate outlet so i can cap the exhaust and run it open if the track doesn't have a dB restriction. Fuel system is done. bulkheaded thru the floor. 3d printed some mounts and have it mounted along the floor. injectors are in. got most of the turbo lines made up. opted for the turbosmart oil pressure regulator for the turbo. i've never dealt with a turbo this small and man its a challenge to fit everything. drain is really tight. hits v band and clamp but think i may have the puzzle solved to make it work. fuel fill is welded up. went with stainless to mitigate the risk of corrosion with ethanol.

Was not implying that the only way to get work done on a project is to not have a wife and daughter!!! I can see how that could have come across. Mine is 14 and will be a freshman this year. Ive got 4 years..... Then who knows. As she has gotten older I've been telling the stories of her helping me in the shop when she was little. Her stepping into a drain pan full of oil in ugg boots that I promptly threw away with out telling mom, Me hearing a pppsshhhh noise and I turn around to see her with a my blow torch pointed at her face, Praise the Lord she didnt click the igniter She would have been around 2 also at those times.

Been spending alot of time getting the chassis on the NA car cleaned up and ready for paint. Its a super clean almost a no rust car, so I want to strip it completly bare, metal prep it, straighten the floor pans which are really clean just slightly dented from wrong jack points. I started out by stripping everthing off and making digitized and CAD files of all the tar flooring. You can still buy it from Nissan. I have a laser cuttter so I will use it to cut all the replacements. It is an original paint car, so it was hard going in on it. Next I put it on my rotissary I built for the Turbo car and got to work on stripping all the factory undercoating. Using a heat gun, scraper and some mineral spirits did the trick but it took a long time. All super clean original metal under the car This is what it looked like under the front fenders BEFORE cleaning, so super happy and even under the cowl all original paint

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 got the correct rotation, just by luck. I bought the water pump last year, before I got the pulley kit, didn’t really understand the difference at the time. Got the belt/pulley kit and since no other accessories, standard rotation was what I needed 😅. 100% of old wiring is gone, using sniper for EFI, got a lights/blinker kit/harness and I’m making/piecing together everything else. I discovered deutsch connectors the other week and bought a kit. These are great for wiring switches and other small wiring. This is a switch for my Wilwood electronic parking brake. I’m not ready to full on wire the car yet, just evaluating what I have and making a big picture plan so when I’m ready it should be a lot easier.

06-14-2026 ATLAS Z UPDATE: I started the day by cutting and prepping a new throttle to be welded up, keeping the angles for leverage, but removing and bends to make it straight. the one I did before did not work. It needs the bends to create leverage, and a spring mounted throttle foot pad to work correctly. the factory one is bent, so pie cuts were used to straighten it, then chopping and shortening it was required. It now heads to Wagner Fabrication to be welded up and then I will paint and install later. Then I Mounted my dual catch cans. I then mounted up my front blinkers and then went back to the catch cans....tying all the lines in, One line is black braided, and as you can see, I masked off a portion of it and painted it with silver engine block paint to help it match the others. Better than not at all! I also wiped down my forward metal dash piece and set it in then and then touched up some fittings in silver to get away from too much black. I then took my blinker surrounds that have been repaired and sitting in primer forever and sanded them up smooth with some 320 grit sandpaper, and painted them with gloss black rustoleum 2X, and then a few coats of Krylon clear. Also of note, I did cut and place a PCV valve in the breather line coming from the intake back to the catch can. So....a lot of little things today, to include tying it all up and cleand up under there. Definite steps forward today! PICS:

UPDATE: I had great luck with the distributor offered by ZCARDEPOT. Super simple to install and it worked first time, right out of the box. Fun was had by all! While it is more expensive it does not require any change to the current wiring or ballast resistor. The one I posted from ebay above required several changes that I did not care to do.

Hello everyone. I have a Jan 1971 S30, purchased by my father new. The car was a garage kept, California daily driver. Every day it made a 10mile round trip to his work, in the windy road, wine country hills of central California. I learned to drive on this car back in the 1980's. My brother had it for a spell but after moving to Germany 15 years ago it fell into disrepair. It's back under my care because the Dr. is in. Cheers

Thanks for asking. It was equipped with a full cage and harnesses but after taking all of that out, I am going back to a "comfortable sporty". I am too tall to be in a full cage equipped car safely (don't wear a helmet all the time). The seals on the rear are so bad I feel like I am slowly dying even after 10min of driving. I am replacing the rear light and deck seals. Cleaning all the switches and electrical, replacing the interior and getting the heater controls working. I would like to drive it this summer to a few Datsun meets and then tear down the carburetors and front end for rebuilds this winter.

Another productive weekend. Unlike my Turbo chassis that has a late 71 build date, this car having a mid year build date has protection plates over the seat belt pockets. But of course they were used by the PO to jack the car and dented them up. I drilled out the spot welds and removed them, allowing me to straighten the dents and blast underneath them. Before: After: All sprayed with weld thru primer and ready for plug welding back on.

Since the frame rails were dented up pretty good from wrong floor jack positioning, I decided to replace them and this would also give me the opportunity to really get the original metal floors flat, and the metal shrunk and tight. They were surprisingly clean inside. This is the floor pan after removing the spot welds and frame rails. After some wire wheel work, and metal prep acid wash with Scotch-Brite, I worked and shrunk the metal with a shrinking rod and them smoothed it with a shrinking disk. Nice and flat getting it to what original would have looked like, leaving all spot welds and original deformations in place. I then lightly blasted the overlap areas and applied Weld-Thru paint. I then fitted the new frame rails, they took a bunch of work to get the correct shape and to match the original contour of the floor pans. I then copied all the original spot weld locations and drilled 3/16 hole to plug weld. I used several Cleco clamps to hold it in place and tight up against the floor pans. Next I used my MIG and plug welded them in place Finally I will grind smooth the plug welds More after the weekend

It's been a while. I moved from NC back to OH for work. My tools and vehicles have been locked up in a storage unit while we are in the process of buying a home. I took the car back to my parents' carport to try to get some work done. However, there were a lot of little things to do. There is a fuel smell on refills, exhaust fumes leak into the cabin, the carbs need tuning, and my shitty rust repair needs some work. Because there was so much to do, it made sense to me to pull the engine. Since I was pulling the engine, it made sense to me to just swap in an RB25. So I pulled the RB from the parts car, pulled the L24, and started fixing all my previous work. My welding has gotten a lot better, but it still has a long way to go. The thicker sway bar and improved suspension was tearing the frame rails apart where the sway bar attaches. So I drilled and tapped some thicker steel and 3/4 boxed the frame rails to try to prevent the same damage in the future. I scuffed up the engine bay, threw some primer at it, and painted it the same white as the rest of the car. I also pulled the dash, stripped the paint, put on some rust preventative paint, and added sound deadening. Next steps: I need to drop out the stock rear end and get an R-200 with an LSD in it. I have a new universal harness to go in it and new gauges in a crack-free dash. I need to figure out what brakes I want to upgrade to. I also need to figure out if I'm going to reuse or replace all the brake lines, fuel lines, and gas tank. I also need to chose what ECu I want to use. Right now, I'm leaning towards a Haltech Elite 1500. Finally, I need to rebuild the RB25 with the oiling upgrades and get it and the RB25 transmission thrown back in the car. I'm spending more hours at work in my new role, but I'll try to post updates. Photos-3-001.zip

Welkom! It’s good to see you posting here as well.

Amen to that. Just donated, will try and create the time to re-engage my build thread and the forum en large. Thanks everyone for chiming in, glad to see there's still some fire left!!

I started my build thread on here for that same reason. Builds, conversation, and sharing the car culture passion. Unfortunately, it seems most of that is gone with most forums. I have a couple real niche cars so the forums are a few old heads that want to keep that alive but everybody just ends up on social media for the instant gratification or whatever. It would be nice to see a little more activity. I think its worth just a small comment when somebody makes the effort to post something. it makes a difference. A comment, a question, some feedback (keep it positive is possible) This forum has so much information imbedded into it which Im sure these social media people use when google brings them here but as soon as they get what they need, they are gone. not realizing that someday that action will lead to the information going away. The 240sx world lost Zilvia recently for this same reason and that really hurt. I'll keep posting until i can't.

I miss the old days of humble build threads, great comments and passion for building. All the FB and You Tube stuff seems like "hey look at how special I am, I can weld metal... ect" then people just talking shit how they suck and how much better they are. Just self-promotion for one’s self over passion for our cars and community. I think the Me/I generation is the problem mixed with ADD for anything longer than a sentence and complex thought. To ask for help is to say you dont know everything and today that is death. So yes I am an old guy now so look at me just like I used to look at my parents when I was young HA. Ill keep posting here, at least it is one thread that follows my project for anyone interested. I appreciate the comments, critisim, and help.

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!

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.

06-18-2026 ATLAS Z UPDATE: Well, after having people tell me about the intake and issues I will have with the MAF meter, and then researching on it, I decided to just redo the intake from the MAF sensor forward. I ordered some 4" pipe, a coupling and clamps and dug in. I did a layout and then cut the hood to start the process of making additional room for a smooth long radius 90 in 4" along with a vortex air cleaner to give the MAF Meter what it needs. In just a couple hours tonight I got a good start on it.....but I will have to do a notch in the radiator support to get the pipe to where it isn't being forced up over it. I am still waiting on the Air cleaner, but the job is well under way PICS:

I am working on a 1972 240z (build date 11/71) with my son and we have hit a small snag with the combination switch. Everything about the switch is working well except the washer motor wiring. I press the button and nothing happens. Now, I know the pump works as it is new and I have tested it with a 12v battery. I have also tested the all wires on the switch, both on the connector and an additional blue/white wire that resides outside the connector and is currently unconnected. As it turns out, this blue/white wire that is outside the connector is the one that goes to 12v when the washer button is pressed (see pics with wire circled). I have no clue where it should be connected as there is no obvious connection point. BTW, the switch is unmolested, was fully reconditioned and works well. The car came to us largely as an unassembled project and we have made excellent progress to this point. I am sure I am missing some connection point for this wire but it is not obvious where to connect it. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Thx for the comments. I have tested the switch and harness connection points and all is working as it should from what I can tell. I did install the honda wiper motor swap with relay so that might be causing part of the issue. However, the fact that the blue line goes to 12V when the button is pushed is still an enigma. I believe the wire should connect somewhere but it is not clear on my harness. I have replaced both the dash (used in great condition) and engine (new) harnesses along with the fuse panel to blade type so it could be a mismatch of parts that is creating the issue. For now, I intend to run the blue wire directly to the washer motor so I will at least have washer capability even if I have to manually activate the wipers.

Some updates. We installed a larger clutch master that was very easy to install. It solved the gear release problem with the cd009. We redid the steering shaft and motor mounts. I didn’t like the way it was installed before. Will know if it’s better in about a week or two. Installed a new Garrett intercooler to replace the eBay special I had. We reduced the intercooler pipe size down to 2.5” to see if it will help with spool. Installing a 14psi spring in the wastegate actuator to help hold boost. Will dyno again soon. We also removed the spacer from the skunk2 intake and modified the entry angle. Replaced all the intercooler pipe couplers with the vibrant hd clamps. The old pipes kept blowing off. installed dapper led seven lights. So much brighter than the halogens I had. We installed the rest of the rear t3 suspension bits. we also installed a new t3 steering rack and crossmember, along with BRE mirrors.

Do you have a forward rotation water pump? Most are reverse rotation with serpentine belt. If you try to run a reverse rotation pump forward, you won't be circulating water through the engine. Also, I would start fresh with the wiring. Don't try to reuse the original fuse block or any of the under dash wiring.

Got fluid in and bled the brake lines. Smell leak at the line lock, tightened up and everything looks good. Been playing around with the wiring, seeing what I have and how I’m going to put it all together, got some ABS sheets and going to make up some panels to organize everything. Also got the alternator and bracket on and test fitted the sniper.

I don't have experience with the EPS. I am interested. I do autocross with wide tire 275/35-15 on 15x10 wheels on all four corners. While moving, the effort to turn the steering wheel isn't terrible. I try not to turn the wheel while the car isn't moving because I feel that I might over stress the steering rack. The 280Z has a slower rack than the 240Z. For autocross, I would swap to am240Z rack. I measured the difference between the racks in a thread several years ago. Going from memory, the 280Z rack moves 1.59 inches per revolution of the steering wheel, and the 240Z rack moves 1.81 inches per revolution of the steering wheel. The faster rack would benefit more from the power steering, but is usable without as long as the vehicle is moving.

06-13-2026 ATLAS Z UPDATE. Today I finished screwing down the carbon fiber and installed the front flares. Pretty much all done. Later I will tape off both sides of each edge and lay in a coat of black pure silicone....then pull the tape off leaving straight lines and let it harden up. Then some paint correction and some clear and the body will be done! I gathered up some parts I am taking to get wrapped in dry carbon fiber (front bumper, cowl, and rear spoiler). PICS:

It took some time for an update but I am proud to say that I did it, the 280z is road legal again!! Aside from the car I have been very busy working in my backyard as the previous owners took out all the plants and then neglected the yard for 4-5 years. But back to the build log. One of the parts I still had lying around where the oil pressure sender and the coolant temperature sensor for the gauges in the dashboard. It really bothered me that both of them weren’t working and I had a feeling that it was just both of the sensors that were bad. So out with the old and in with the new. Or so I thought…. While installing the new temperature sensor into the thermostat housing the housing itself broke. As the break is a really weird one I suspect that the aluminum housing just became pours. Luckly one of the local Z club members had the correct version of the housing and send it to me. I gave that one a quick coat of paint and reinstalled all of the sensors. This time nothing broke and both the oil pressure and coolant temperature gauge finally worked! Now that that was fixed I started working on some of the smaller items on the list. I replaced the air filter, both exhaust gaskets, the horns, painted the front grill and installed the KNAC shield (translated: Royal Netherlands Automobile Club). As I had a bit of time left in the day I also replaced my pre fuel pump fuel lines and filter, installed the new speakers and fitted the fender mirrors. I expected the fender mirrors to be pretty useless but they actually gave me a way better field of view then my old door mounted mirrors! I believe these are the same metal reproduction mirrors as Zdepot sells. As I was in a bit of a time crunch for the inspection I unfortunately couldn’t finish the door cards and seats in time. Luckly the door cards weren’t mandatory for the inspection so I could just simply leave them off the car. As for the seats I reinstalled the covers for now and reinstalled them into the car. The aftermarket wheels the car came on where poking out a bit too much in the rear so to avoid any complications during the inspection I decided to install the stock wheels for now and switch them afterwards. I hindside this wasn’t necessary as they were allowed to stick out 3cm (1,2 inch) past the fenders. Then came the moment I had been working towards, inspection day! I dropped her of at the garage and they immediately started with the inspection and alignment. The only thing they found was they the washer fluid wasn’t spraying but the mechanic traced it back to a pinched line. Other then that the car was in great shape and both the mechanic as other customers were impressed with the car (S30 Z cars are pretty rare over here). Now I can finally enjoy the car and man she drives good! The only thing I noticed was that the rear shocks are gone but it isn’t a problem for now.

I also finished cutting the new Tar paper that will go on the interior floors and trans tunnel. I have a laser cutter at work. This is a Nissan part and still available as blank sheets. Unfortunately, even though it is correct, it is expensive at $100.00 USD per sheet. It took 6 sheets for the entire interior. This is the material on the laser After the metal is ready, I will epoxy coat it first then apply the sheets. Unlike OEM that had bare metal under it, this should be substantially better at keeping water from getting under it and rusting the metal

06-07-2026 ATLAS Z UPDATE: Continued progress on the engine harness wiring and installation. Starting to take shape....about 95% done. PICS:

Been a busy couple weeks but been chugging along. Got the fuel system started. mounted the ethanol content sensor, fuel filter and fuel pressure regulator. ordered line/fittings twice and still came up short on fittings and line. hopefully the last of it arrives today so I can finish it. Got the rear brake caliper bracket machined up from a high alloy steel. Due to the design i had to come up with i wanted a high alloy steel to be nice and strong. Got the clutch line made up and bled it. clutch seems to work even tho i just bled it solo. i'll get the wife out to get it perfect but it does work. I got the exhaust mocked up and tacked together. Need to come up with a nice tip to get it out just past the bumper.

When I installed my cam, I had the engine on a stand with heads off, and used a dial indicator to find top dead center as accurately as I could. Once I found TDC on the #1 cylinder, I made marks between the rear flange of the crankshaft and the back of the block. Later, when I went to install the harmonic damper, I verified that #1 was at TDC, and that the timing marks were properly aligned with the timing indicator. They aligned perfectly. I'm using a Romac Balancer on a Ford 5.0L Stroker. The factory balancers have a rubber ring between the hub and the outer ring where the timing marks are located. The rubber fails and then the outer ring slips relative to the center hub. After that the timing marks are arbitrarily located and no longer consistent. Long story short: Find and verify TDC, and make sure the balancer marks can't slip.

These parts came off of another Z I stripped for parts 10 years ago. Never got around to installing them on my car, and time to find a new home. I'd be happy to re-sandblast anything that has surface rust and throw some paint on if asked. Calipers: S12w (or whatever, the bigger 4 piston) toyota calipers, 280ZX (Maybe maxima?) rear calipers (powdercoated gold), at least (3) sets of rebuild parts for each. Caliper brackets: TTT Front spacers, OEM? steel adapters for the rear calipers Pads: Powerstop pads for the toyota pistons, whatever I could find on rock auto 10 years ago for the rear calipers Rotors: R1 concepts and stoptech rotors, and rock auto ZX rotors. At least when I bought it, the 280ZX and/or maxima stuff was HARD to find. I'm not really sure how to price this - $600 for everything? Make an offer. Located in Charlotte, NC.

Nice, what are your plans. Get her up and running, full restoration, something else?

I love me some carbon fiber 😍, can’t wait to see the final result.

05-27-2026 ATLAS Z UPDATE: Today I began the process of attaching the carbon fiber skins. Long way to go. the edges will be taped off and sealed in with a layer of black caulk, then peel the tape off so it will be a thin very smooth line. PICS:

Glad it worked. I'd recommend hanging on to the Temporary account for a little while....just long enough to ensure that DrFeelGood account continues working without issues. It's no problem from an admin perspective. Cheers!

@tube80z Thank you everyone for helping with this! I appear to be in and as a result, please feel free to delete @Temporary

Done. You may also want to post in the "Parts Wanted" section, as well.

sir, your SoCal is showing, what a clean chassis, starting with a chassis that clear sure would be nice. up here in new england we certainly dont get that. I browsed thru a couple pages. Great work. I'll have to make it thru all of them when i have a few minutes. love the design, prototype, create, mentality.

That’s a bit of what I am trying to do with my own build thread. It’s mainly just a log for myself to build a timeline of everything I’m doing to the car but I also like sharing my discoveries on the forums to hopefully help somebody out in the future. And no I’m not some old sentimental person but just a guy with a love for the S30 body style and L series engine (who will be turning 26 in a little over a month).

Forwarded it to admin page for further help.

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

05-22-2026 ATLAS Z UPDATE. Today I picked up my exhasut I took in to get the last of the welds done. All nicely TIG welded. I dropped it off at J&S polishing to make it shine like chrome. PICS:

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.

The rear control arm length issue might just be a factory issue as my stock control arms measured in at 15,5” inches just like the Apex control arms. Up to know my parts have been of great quality (passenger side frame rail excluded) with excellent and tight tolerances. That said I will be installing the front crossmember and front control arms next weekend and will probably update my thread next Tuesday. That said I do believe they might have a slight quality control issue with their suppliers, as for example my passenger side frame rail was plainly bent the wrong way by the supplier.

My pretty long weekend has come to an end and I’m pleased to say that I accomplished a lot in those four days. I started off with finishing the installation of the interieur. Because of the Apex Engineered rear strut brace I had to make some modification to the floor board, carpet and strut covers. This took a bid more time then I had hoped but I managed to finish the interieur within a day. Me and my girlfriend are still slowly working on the seats and the door card but we will probably end up installing those last. Next came (for me) one of the more exiting parts, starting work on the rear end! So it was time to put down my QuickJack’s and take the wheels off….. Never mind, the previous owner installed locking wheel nuts on all four corners and all four lugs at that! So a trip to the parts store for a lug nut removal socket and some angle grinder lathe action later (and about 3 hours) the wheels where finally off. If you told me the rear end was still factory fresh then I would have believed you. All the bolts where incredibly stuck and most of them where cross threaded (thanks previous mechanic). Not to mention all the rubber bushings where pretty worn out. Luckly with some heat, penetrating oil and a hammer all of the bolts came out. The threads there even still usable, lucky me! Before the reinstallation I did retape all the threads and cleaned up all the nuts and bolts. Before reinstalling everything I took my time to replace the differential gasket and change the differential oil for some new Motul 75W90. I also replaced the mustache bar bushings for polyurethane bushings. Removing the old bushings went pretty smoothly with a saw, some fire and a bit of patience. The only problem I had was during reinstallation of the mustache bar. The only way it would fit back in was by rotating the bar 180 degrees, may explain the difficulty removing the bar in the first place. I don’t know if this is the correct orientation but it wouldn’t fit any other way and I can find many pictures online of the bar in both orientations. I decided to leave the bar as is and finish up by finally installing the Apex rear control arms. Man it feels good to finally make some upgrades, the car feels more and more my own. The refresh of the rear end took a bit more time then I initially thought (two days) so before starting on the front, knowing I couldn’t finish it this weekend, I decided to take on some smaller jobs first. The bodywork on the car is a bit of a slopy mess with some signs of surface rust all along the lower edges of the rear of the car together with fading powder coating / paint on the fuel tank. It may be a bit unorthodox but seeing as I have a rust converter spray / paint that’s pretty close in color to the car I just took a sander to the edges and sand away the rust and knock down the body filler on the bottum edge. I also sanded smooth the fuel tank and used the last bit of remaining texture spray to hide the imperfections on the fuel tank. And even if I say so myself I’m pretty pleased with the result, at least the rear of the car is now less of an eyesore. During all the work on the underside of the car I noticed a small oil leak coming from the speedometer pinion gear. A quick search online showed it had an o ring sealing the pinon gear so I quickly popped it partially out and replaced the o ring inside. Another small job of the list! As I still had a bit of time left in the day I tried my luck at removing at least the front control arms. And I don’t know what magic was used but this was the easiest disassembly ever! A little spray of penetrating oil and a quick tuck on the wrench and out came the bolts by hand. Even the front ball joint and tie rods came right out! All in all it was a very productive weekend. I just placed an order for some small stuff like a few new rubbers, normal lug nuts and two new horns (mine have underseal in them) and will be continuing my refresh of the front suspension next weekend. That will be a bit more tricky as I need to replace the oil pan gasket and the front crossmember. Also I know you guys probably find my work space pretty interesting so enjoy!

It's been awhile, but thought I'd update with something funny I discovered. I've never really trusted the harmonic balancer and where it said 0 deg was. I tested with a piston stop and knew it was off a few degrees, but it wasn't enough for me to worry about. This thing is megasquirt tuned, so I really can just give it whatever timing it wants and be good with that. So I got lucky with someone selling an aftermarket balancer, used. It's the 90055 Pro Products PowerForce damper. I set my old balancer at 0 deg, right on the mark before I pulled it. Here is where the new balancer is showing it should be: The white mark at the top on the balancer is 0 deg. It's probably close to 15 deg off lol. This is before I torqued down the bolt, so I know I didn't move anything when installing. And now that I think of it, I've always had an issue with sync loss events if I went above 28-29 deg at light cruise. I also tried sneaking up on 30 deg at idle just to see what it would do, and it would sync loss every few seconds. But other than that, the car ran great. If anyone else has megasquirt and is having weird sync loss issues, make sure to check your balancer as it may have spun. I've attached pictures of my old balancer too. You can see the rubber is definitely cracked.

Found another RSX seat. It's not an exact match. The stitching pattern is different b/w the seats, and the plastic trim in the headrest area is a different color. Obviously I'm not going to fix the stitching, and I'll just paint those plastic trim pieces black and be done.