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So.......it's been 7 years since my last post. The car basically sat in that drive way for a few years then pushed it in the garage for another4 years where the mice got to it. The gas in the tank and lines went to shit. I replaced the fuel pump and got it kind of running again. Obviously having the car sit outside for so long it pretty much ruined everything in the fuel system. This is where a project goes to die .....you lose interest and end up selling for cheap because it doesn't run. Well ......not this time. Last year the house where I was storing it had to be sold so I needed to find a home for it while getting it road worth again. My best friend who lives in Rochester, NY (I'm in Massachusetts) told me to trailer it to his place and we can work on it together. I know that the carbs need to get rebuilt so I decided to send them to Kyusha House. Here is the before pictures. And after Taka's absolutely amazing work.....

For a street car I think the rails make sense. For a race car that has a cage perhaps not. For a similar amount of weight you can triangulate the cage with tubing on top of the floor that extends to the suspension pickup points.

yeah, Bad Dogs I hear are good, and that you can put them over the factory ones, but if the factory ones are rusty, then they need to be repaired/patched first or removed and replaced with these. I I think they way blok did his with thick heavy steel is probably the ultimate (the youtube link I posted earlier).

Here comes the Project thread that I should've started when I picked up the car in 2021...... Firstly, I'd like to thank the person who has been the biggest help with this car, and who has ended up being one of my best friends, Andrew Mielke (who owns Milkfab Engineering). Without him the car would not be where it is today! His hybridz profile (check out his z) also shameless plug for his business: MilkFab Engineering Z acquisition: I had always wanted an s30 after growing up hearing my dad tell stories about how much he loved the gold 240z he had when him and my mom were dating. Any time we would see them at car shows or out and about i'd be drooling over them. When I started dating my now wife, I noticed a copper colored Z sticking out of a storage building on the road they lived on. Her and her family started jokingly calling it 'my car' due to me staring at it every time we'd drive past. Fast forward 3 years from then, we were married and looking for a house. She gave me a call because as she was driving to her parents house she saw the car outside and they were working on it, asked me if she should stop by and ask about it. I said 'yeah' never expecting it was actually for sale, and when they told her it was and priced it I was super surprised. This was in early 2021 when Z prices were going up dramatically, and she knew that. I told her we shouldn't get it, that it would be unwise since we needed the money for a house down payment, we had no place to put it, etc. BUT, she made me buy it, saying 'You never know if the prices are gonna keep spiking and you never be able to get one....'. So, we bought it, my parents drove over two hours to come pick it up and take it to their house where I could work on it/store it until we had our own place. My wife is a nurse and worked weekends for a while, which meant I spent many a saturday getting up at 5am, heading to my parents, working all day, then driving back in time for dinner. Over the course of 2021 I got the car 'ready' to come home, and we bought a house for it to come home to. The short of it: Where we started (There is probably more than this I'm currently not remembering) L28ET with no E or T round top su carbs lots of electrical gremlins from previous owner cutting random stuff to try and get the car running Radiator support bent from car being wrecked nasty gas tank Where we are now: Frame straightened L28ET with the E and T many fewer electrical gremlins cleaned gas tank coilovers proper race bucket seat (passenger still gets to bounce around in a nb miata seat lol) More posts to come with some build processes, pictures, stories, and more general nonsense.

I don't know if you have ridden in modified Z cars, but 240Z's are LIGHT. 320 to the wheels it's basically a widow maker. Overkill on power is overkill on power. You reach a point where more power is useless, as you can't put it down, and the car is already dangerous as-is. It's a street car. With the power level you are talking about, additional bracing is necessary in the subframe and rails. Do you like reliability? Stock=reliability, modifying it for 40-50 horsepower could take away the reliability. stock 370Z engine is fine power wise bone stock for a 240Z. A lot of the modern cars with all the horsepwoer....that's in a car that weights OVER 4000 pounds. 2 tons. Completely different deal. Your weight is about half of those. Be sensible. Live Longer. And this setup....stock brakes are NOT good enough, nor is a stock suspension.

We finished the cage in early 2019. Hand mitered every tube. Hours and hours and hours...

Got some time on the car today, everything is prepped and ready to pull the motor/transmission. Will be a few weeks before I can get back on it though. Pulling out the shifter I discovered a lot of wiring wire there touching the drive shaft, smh. Good thing I’m re-wiring this thing from scratch. Did a mock pull, hooking up to hoist, found out I need some thinner shackles, couldn’t get chains on. Looked at the frame rails too, only a little rust on one spot, but they are banged up a bit. I think I’ll cut out the rusted section, about 8”-10” or so and get the bull dog rails. I’ll order that after I pull the motor.

I took the OEM ones off and welded the Bad Dogs on. I suppose it depends on the condition of yours, but mine were pretty bent up and there was rust inside the frame rail.

They've been the standard for a long time. Recently some other options have come onto the market, Capital Metal Works being one, but I've never heard a bad word about Bad Dog.

Haha yeah I wish I had Rocket Bunny kit money… even if I did have those funds I would probably just abuse bunch more metal fab tools and make my own metal body kit. I’m a fan of the sleeper look which is why I’m just going with some Marugen Shoukai ZG flares. I made sure to get the thick fiberglass version.

looks like you have a good start on it. My concern would be the rails. they made need to be patched, and using a V8, and modified at that, BEEFY rails would be a good idea. Some guys have even using thick steel runs of pipe that are U channel . I attached pics of my car and some of the patching done. MY car had 45K original miles and 30 years of its life sitting in an airplane hanger and I STILL had to fix the rails. I attached a close up pic I got from one of your pics, and it already looks like it needs attention. here is a link to watch :

@hazesleepgod I’m in the midst of a VQ37VHR swapped 240Z at the moment, and while I’m still in the body and rust repair stage of mine I have gotten my VQ running on a palette with wiring and ECU done by Hexa Garage. Z1 sells what they call a 400hp package which is rated at the crank and most people I’ve talked to who dropped $5k on a tune, plenum, and exhaust combo (absurd price for stuff you can do if you are competent or go to an exhaust shop) said it woke the car up noticeably, but couldn’t help feel like they got robbed a bit. And some dyno charts show that the Z1 dyno results maybe on a dyno that reads high, as most purchasers dyno closer to 320 at the wheels after some dyno tune sessions. Ive put in tons of research to getting the most out of the VQ engine using NA power and ultimately one would spend thousands on the engine to reach over 400hp/tq to the wheels. The few I’ve seen doing this are dedicated race cars that need to meet class restrictions, and to get there they are going full race mode with crazy cams, oversized titanium valves, heavy valve springs with titanium retainers, heavy head porting, completely revised/custom intake plenum and lower manifold or ITB’s, and a number of other expensive modifications that require taking the engine apart like high comp pistons and even stroker kits. This equates to a car that that would be unbearable as anything other than a track car with $15-25k spent on an engine that loses a bunch of reliability because that peak power requires spinning it out to 9k RPM (lots of power up top, but not much under the curve). Ultimately you will have more reliability, more power, and better drive-ability with any forced induction at 1/3 the cost of making 400 to the wheels NA. I think Z1 sells a I decided that the VQ will be an absolute blast completely stock in any S30 chassis, at least that’s what I want. A few bolt-ons and a good tune can free up some power and get you over 300hp/tq to wheels especially with some lightened rotating mass via flywheel and rim/tire choice. Some intake plenum and lower manifold porting, headers (though the factory ones are already basically tubular stainless), less restrictive MAF tubes and air filters, and a free flowing exhaust can be done without opening up the engine and net you about 300-320 to the wheels. If you did want to go a bit further and open the engine you probably wouldn’t hurt drive-ability too much with a set of mild exhaust cams which might get you around 340-350 with the previous modifications to engine parts and drivetrain. If you wanted to go further and still have the car keep its manners some 12:1 pistons could get you right around 360 to the wheels though you would need access to high octane fuel or ethanol blends, upgrade the fuel system, and could never throw forced induction at it with out removing those pistons. The last 40hp to get you to 400 is where the prices and effort starting getting absurd and not worth it unless you race professionally or want to excuse to never have to go on a car cruise with your friends.

With all of the blasting and stripping ahead, we needed a rotisserie. A couple of ~$50some engine stands and a bit of fabrication came to under $200 and served he purpose well.

I removed the pipe from a block with a pipe wrench. Put the wrench on close to the block so as to not crimp the tubing, Strike the handle of the pipe wrench with a hammer, then push and use a pulling motion as you push it around, it will eventually come out. When re-installing put a piece of wood over the front of the pipe and use a hammer.

Hey All, I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and provide an update to this "legacy" project (hence the screen name). As of January of this year, I am the newest steward/caretaker of this 1971 240z. I can't promise that I will be as diligent with the details and progress as 5thgenluder was. But, I will absolutely make an effort to keep everyone updated of the progress. Much like the previous owners, I do not have a climate controlled space to work on this car, so for now, it is comfortably parked waiting for warmer weather. I have plans to continue the interior work as its really the only thing left to do on this car (save for some minor maintenance and freshening up). I have been granted a unique opportunity to carry on this build and I have been fortunate to have been given a solid foundation to work with. Just know that it is in the very best care here. I created this post as a means to rekindle what 5thgenluder has started here. A note to 5thgenluder: You did an excellent job on this. I hope to continue the build in a way that you would appreciate.

Test fitted the other fenders and bumper, I’m liking how it’s coming out.

About time you made a build thread! Now, get some pictures posted up!

Virginia International, Carolina Motorsports Park are both good ones. CMP is in SC. Depending on where you are, both should not be far.

Fenders came in, I’ll get some more pics this weekend. Doing a track day at Sebring on Saturday, getting that driver mod in.

Excited to see another build thread! The forum had a bit of a lull recently, but hopefully some good threads can kick it back into gear.

240z hidden drive by wire actuator for my ITB setup. This is design number 4. This plan utilizes a Efi hardware actuator. The goal is the same length arm to the bell crank and distances from shafts and the rod. So the rod passes through the firewall evenly and doesn’t walk from left to right. This will mount to the pedal plate and the steering box mounts. So behind the firewall Prior designs walked too much in the hole and I don’t want that.

Reviving an old thread... I have a '77 318 Z. It's actually for sale right now but I'm not posting to sell it, just to show it to you folks.

I love it when a plan comes together. This is custom titanium banjos, which will come off my balance bar and hold my heat shield on!

Well I got my prototypes in for my passive cooling on my Efi hardware throttles! These will be between the heat shield and the throttle bodies. Also it will be a nice and clean way to run the return fuel.

So I've gotten sick of attempting to fix this botched wiring job by the PO. I decided to just go ahead and completely replace the ancient efi system with something modern. I was wondering if this parts list looks complete. From scrounging various boards and posts I think I've gathered just about everything I will need. I'm a little intimidated by the whole thing so sureing this up will make me feel just a bit better.