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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.

Last weekend i got the offer to run a single day of a multi day event if I wanted to shake down the car. So i scrambled all week getting a bunch of things checked off the list. a couple days getting up at 5am and working for a couple hours before work and then to 10-11pm after work but got it so i could run it. Added a front splitter. strut bar, seat belts. fuel cell bulkhead, fire extinguisher, coolant overflow, battery tie down and kill switch, tow hook, brake bias controller, some tuning changes and im sure a few more things. But i made it. My uncle and I loaded up friday evening and saturday morning drove an hour and a half to the track. Had a great time. car was an absolute trooper and didnt skip a beat. New track for me so had some getting used to the track and the car. but i did 4 sessions problem free, I didn't change a single thing all day. found one loose bolt after session 3 that i caught before it was a problem. Car performed well. Had a fairly competitive pace by the end. Anyway. huge photo dump

spent the last few days focusing on fixing some steering geometry. If you guys remember this car came with the 240sx knuckles and if you've ever done any research on that swap, its hot garbage. I spent some time adusting ackerman right off the bat and made it so it was drivable and made a small adjustment last week. My plan has always been to modify them and get all the geometry dialed to how i like it and then scan it. and make a billet version that is modular and can be tweaked in from there. Anyway. This weekends goal was to dial in the mechanical trail and some roll center correction. The 240sx knuckle on the wrong side of the car made the mechanical trail very large so the car had very very heavy steering feel. I did some measuring and made a decision. Clipped off 8º of angle off the ball joint mount. and offset the mount to where i wanted it. Designed and machined an adapter block and welded it on. came up with a quick bumpsteer kit as the knuckle needs to have the tie rod mount lowered by a good bit. didn't take good photos but the car drives SO MUCH BETTER. steering feels great. "light" (for manual steering) but centers still centers well and has good feedback. Took the wife to get ice cream last night and what a great feeling that was after a year of work.

I finally had some time this weekend to work on the Z again and finish off some of the little things that where nagging me. I finished my DIY door card project and got them installed in the car. I must say that they turned out pretty good. The only finishing piece would be to add the wood trim back in but I would have to make one myself. A few weeks ago I managed to pic up a set of Euro taillights from an original Dutch 260z that where in excellent condition. So with the remaining time I had that day I quickly switched them out. Yesterday there was a small all Nissan/Datsun meet I attended which gave me the opportunity to compare my Z with others and do up some inspiration for future modifications. Afterwards I finally had the time to take some proper pictures of the car (with the car not half apart) and cruise along the dikes. WhatsApp Video 2026-07-13 at 09.15.40.mp4

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.

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

if anyone's still tracking this build I have what might be a last update since the car is mostly done (lol is it ever done?). I finally cad-designed the front fenders and then had a local shop 3D print the parts, then took that to a bodyshop to integrate into the existing fender part and paint it. After that I overlayed the inside walls of it with carbon fiber for added stiffness and protection. I also cut the lower part of the rear fenders and put in a horizontal cf winglet to better extract air. Overall I think it looks great and the resulting new parts helps downforce a ton by extracting air from the wheel wells.

Since that broken rear differential a lot has happened.

Next order of business was electric fan and shroud, and radiator hoses. I chose the 2016-2019 Camaro single SPAL 18" fan. it will be PWM controlled and is a very popular choice according to the internet as it can flow 5000CFM. Although I cut up the factory shroud to "work" I felt like I needed something fancier. modeled up a base to start working from and had my friends at laserbros in NC laser cut and bend it up. Should have gone one or two AWG thicker so added some bracing as well as some mounts and very happy with the final product. Cut down the radiator and inlets and outlets on the engine and welded on some -16an bungs, made up a couple hoses. in the last photo of the "hose installed" you can see the end of the pipe for the intake I welded into the chassis I mentioned in the previous post. Also decided to move the alternator to the other side of the engine to get it away from the heat. When i pull the engine to paint the bay i'll design and make a bracket to permanently mount it over there.

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

My custom made 3d printed aero hood latches are mounted.

couple videos the wife had taken. looking over some datalogs this morning. Car never got over 201ºF in any log that I could see. I can't find a spot in a log where the oil temp even got over 200ºF. oil pressure never dipped on any turns or hard braking. Really impressed the car didn't skip a beat. For a shakedown i was pleasantly surprised. New track for me so i worked on me as a driver rather than swings at setup changes to bandaid a driver problem but my lap times where improving fairly significantly every session and was having so much fun doing it. 20260905_111217.mp4 20260905_173624.mp4

Have you mounted the headers to the engine while on the engine stand with the cradle in place? It will be much easier to clearance your cradle before everything is in the car.

Got the the hood and inspection covers on. Happy

Before getting the top side and interior sealed up in 2 coats of white epoxy, I first hit the underside. I chose to do it in black Epoxy to more follow the original paint where you could see the black though white overspray. I first put down a full coat of the black again using my 360 degree extension paint gun to get in all the difficult location like between the spare tire well and rear valance, then a normal 1.4mm tip gun. After allowing the top to cure for two days I sanded out the bottom side and scuffed it well with Scotchbrite. I then applied 2k epoxy seam sealer in all the original OEM locations I then taped up the topside and put down a final coat of black I then let that cure for two days before applying the Gravitex. It is made by U-Pol the same company who makes Raptorliner, Gravitex is better in my opinion for the other side as it is intended as a sound insulting stone and chip guard. Its what you see on the rocker panels of German cars. Goes on the same with an undercoating style gun. Its a 1k product so I will need a sealer coat on top of it before finally paining the underside white in body color. I really happy how it came out. The weeks of metal work straitening and shrinking the original floor pans really looks good all finished.

Alright, finally got some time to make some more progress. The engine is mostly disassembled, and I have mics and a bore gauge coming to measure clearances. I am planning on a stock engine, with the oil fixes, and a bigger turbo. I am not concerned with making a ton of power; anything will be better than the stock L24, and I just want it to not blow up immediately. I am new to engine work, and have a couple of questions: 1. Does anyone have any recommendations for what size oil restrictors to use? Enjuku sells oil gallery restrictors in 0.9, 1.1, 1.3, and 1.5 mm. 2. I have googled RB25 specs for rod and piston bearing clearances, but does anyone have a trusted source that they recommend? Thanks for all the help! I have read through the site and watched a couple of rebuild videos, but I'm still not 100%, and I don't want to make a stupid mistake.

Got an Accusump for the Z, and made a mounting bracket for it. I’m going to have another plate on the front side to weld on some angle iron for the oil cooler to mount on. Added a pressure sensor so I can read the Accusump oil pressure with the engine oil pressure so I can see when it’s charging and discharging. the bottom bolts are just to hold the clamps and it’ll sit up slightly higher when it’s tightened up.

You want to do mine next?

Its been an exhausting month of hard work getting the chassis in Epoxy to move it back home before the end of the month. Here is the process. 1.) strip all factory sound deadening/undercoating with a scraper, heat gun, wire brush. 2.) clean any residue with paint stripper and after-wash solvent. 3.) strip original paint from body with Citri-Strip paint stripper - again clean with after-wash 4.) remove interior tar paper with dry ice and liquid nitrogen. 5.) wash and clean entire body with Mastercoat metal prep - phosphoric acid rust neutralizer https://nomorerust.com/collections/metal-prep-rust-remover-products 6.) sandblast all seams and overlop joints. 7.) brush Mastercoat rust sealer primer into all seams and nooks https://nomorerust.com/products/mastercoat-ultimate-permanent-rust-sealer-silver-primer-original-sprayable-slim-quart 8.) lightly blast the floor pans with white aluminum oxide until white metal 9) brush 3 coats of Mastercoat rust sealer primer on to floors 10) blast the internal frame chambers clean and blow out any sand 11) spray the internal cavities ( rocker panels, rear fenders, rear internal quarter, and front internal cowl area with Matercoat using a 18 inch long extended tip spray gun https://paascheairbrush.com/collections/extension-spray-guns?shop_consented_scopes=email%3Averified+openid+pay%3Asession_token+profile+shop%3Aaccount_uuid&shop_sign_in=true using a 360 degree spray tip to coat all surfaces 12) sand the entire body removing any Mastercoat not reaming in pits or detents 13) sand the entire external body shell and underside with 180 grit and clean with wax and grease remover 14) lightly blast entire body inside and out until perfectly clean and lightly textured to promote adheision - holding the blast nozzle 12 to 15 inches away at 60psi with white aluminum oxide 15) hours blowing out the remaining grit 16) again using 360 degree long extension spray gun, paint all internal cavities and under sides with DPLV Epoxy Primer 17) Spray entire body inside, outside, underside with 2 coats of Epoxy Ridiculous amount of hours https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-kogRrJYJU

Got a little more work done. Started getting the front end together. headlights wired up. have new corner markers on the way and need to come up with a grill and turn signal. Bent up some brake line templates and headed to the parts store to try and get some pre bent heater hose. was a successful journey. got a u bend that worked for both hoses perfectly. Got the hoses on. pressure tested for leaks. found one small one at the turbo. fixed it. filled and bled the cooling system. Got the fan hooked up to the ECU thru PWM, and man does this fan flow some air. turned all the way up it might move the car like a fan boat. haha. I had it running while playing with the tune at 35% duty cycle and it CLT stayed at 172ºF when it was 85ºF in the shop so i was happy about that. will play with setting once i can get it on the road. I made the alternator bracket to move it to the driver side but having a little issue with belt routing. Currently did get a belt on but the tensioner doesn't have enough movement to work how I'd like so I'll reevaluate this later. Belt is tight and spins everything so I can run it this way for now and figure something else out later. I have the same alternator on my other car but on the passenger side so worst case I can probably get away with moving it back over there. just was trying to avoid the heat from the turbo. Also got the brakes bled. I'm real close to taking it for a spin around the neighborhood. Going to try and get the edged around the windows sanded and buffed this week so i can put the glass back in.

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.

They did send me another set of control arms which was nice of them but they are also a bit short. I did make some modifications to make them work. the kit is supposed to use 8 washers per side but i needed more to align the toe adjuster up, I do have T3 spindles so that may be part of the variation I was seeing. So I machined some spacers because stacking 15 washers was not my favorite design. The spacers tightly fits over the spindle and then takes up about an inch of space and allows 5 washers for "adjustment" The guy from apex did called me and we chatted for a bit about some other design concerns I have. Which was great and he took it well. Apparently they just aren't good at measuring things. They said they are going to try and make me a shorter set of front control arms aswell because the front setup at its absolute max shortest setting is still .375" wider than the stock assembly which doesn't allow me to use any of the roll center or control arm adjustments with my wheel and tire combo. I was hoping to correct geometry with everything being adjustable but that's not the case since the crossmember mounting points are wider than the factory one so I had to max everything out to its shortest point to even fit. With that said I have been plugging away at stuff, brake lines are ran, rear suspension is in, engine is assembled. adapter kit for the trans is machined, body panels are getting put on. started on the interior, everything takes so long. painting brackets and hardware and aligning everything but i am very happy with how its coming out. I was told the car came with a 240sx diff, its actually a j30 diff so it has a 3.91 gear ratio. That may be a slight advantage so not to mad. Anyway, after all this reading. enjoy some photos.

It’s been a long week where in a lot happened, including me getting engaged to my beautiful girlfriend last week! But personal stuff aside we are here for the Z. The body shop couldn’t wait any longer and with my permission they ended up modifying the passenger side frame rail to fit. All in all they did a great job and the end product looked great and above all was very strong. As an added bonus they even gave the frame rails a new coat of underbody spray and drilled two holes in each rail to coat the inside with wax and prevent condensation buildup. This meant I could finally pick the car up last Friday after being over 4 weeks stuck in the shop. By coincidence I was free from work that day so I even got to start the reassembly of the interior starting with the dashboard. And I also quickly strayed the Apex fender braces silver to match the rest of the car. I finished reassembling the dashboard during which I had a little bracket left over. I have studied every possible parts diagram and video but I can’t seen to find where this bracket came from. It was stashed together with all the dashboard parts and bolts but unfortunately I wasn’t smart enough to take pictures of the disassembly. Does anybody know where this little bracket belongs? Anyway I decided to continue the reassembly of the dashboard and reinstall the dashboard into the car. This went rather smoothly even though installing the dashboard all by yourself is a bit of a pain. I immediately tested all the electrical components to see if all the light (which I replaced with LED’s) and gauges still worked. Everything fortunately worked except the tachometer backlight which turned out to just be a reversed polarity, which isn’t an issue for halogen bulbs but is for LED’s. This was easy enough to fix by switching two pins inside the tachometer connector. I’m now at a point where the dashboard is complete and the carpet is mainly in. Because of a national holiday I will have a four day weekend starting this Thursday. This means I can finish the interior of the car and start installing the Apex front and rear control arms, steering knuckles and front crossmember. I really hope these don’t contain manufacturing faults or else they own me a really big apology.

Long week number like 200 but happy with the my progress. Made a tweak to a color based off a cadillac cts5 v blackwing. Its a bit more "copper" tone of orange than I was picturing with the modifications but I am very happy with it. As soon as I started pulling the masked off areas and was seeing the contrast with the grey I loved it. Did get some fisheye on one door so I'll have to fix and respray that at some point and a couple sags/runs in the clear to sand out, but I can make some serious progress on the build now. did get the engine stripped down as well. Bearings, rings, valve springs and a gasket kit have been ordered to freshen it up. but otherwise everything measured out good and seems like a good starting point.

Hi everybody, long time for updates. Been quite busy with kids and a very nasty divorce going on. The good news is my garage and cars are still intact and I am still making progress, although very slowly. Car is very close to track testing. I decided to have a new pair of steering arms machined to match the front geometry. I will post more when they are finished. In the interim, I took the time to catch up on some side projects I wanted to do. With the advancement of AI, some of the projects I considered impossible a couple years ago have turned out to be quite easy now and very inexpensive. Based on Arduino technology, I have integrated a motion sensor into my data acquisition system. I use a Race Technology DL1 Club box which is limited to 8 analog sensor inputs, but can decode an almost unlimited amount of CAN signals. So I built a circuit that decodes the motion sensor and outputs a CAN signal. I now have 3-axis roll, pitch, and yaw angles along with speeds and acceleration live data. It will all be packaged in a small box that mounts in the car. Next is a infrared tire temperature monitor. A 16x4 temperature array sensor once again combined with Arduino and CAN output board. I am trying to package this as small as possible so it can be mounted on brackets roughly 4" above the tire. Again real time data of inner, middle, and outer tire temps while driving. Hopefully saves a lot of time when dialing in the camber and pressures. More to come...........

Been a long week but got everything completely stripped and got some epoxy primer layed down on all the metal surfaces. have plenty of body work to do but atleast its sealed and protected now. Hopefully in the next week or two i can get the bodywork done and get some color on it. I did talk to john and his comment is "I don’t claim to be an expert on bonding. But in my experience cracking at a bond line is often due to inadequate surface prep both the underside of the fiberglass and the underlying metal), poor bonding agent, not enough bonding agent, cheap body filler, and/or excessive flexing of the unibody. On the other hand, I know a lot of guys who do the bolt-on installation. For performance applications, it can be an advantage for working inside the wheel well". With that said I think I will spend the time to make the fitment as good as possible and make a last minute decision based on how well it fits/looks.

Carbon fiber door and door cards came in, these things are super sexy 🥰

Without the oil cooler, my water temps were never an issue. Never over 200 on track. When I put the Aviaid Mangusta pan on the car it had a provision for an oil temperature sender. Even though my water temps never got too hot on track, once I installed an oil temp gauge, I discovered that my oil temps were getting near 300F. I added the Setrab 34 row cooler, and my oil temps stay below 250F.

03-25-2026 ATLAS Z UPDATE: I got some of the fittings in I need for my crankcase pressure to catch can to intake setup. Also tall of my carbon fiber panels have been cut, final polishing on roof section then ready to ship to me and bond them on! Then make the borders shiny!

That has got to be the best balance of Form and Function of a Datsun that i have EVER Seen!! Absolutely amazing!!

Unrelated update but reasons as to why there's been a lack of updates to this thread: Got a new job that demands a lot more of my time so unfortunately less time to optimize the SLA conversion. Upside however is that I'm learning NX which seems to be some next level software. I think this design is going to take one more fundamental change to really get the dynamic geometries perfect but the work I have so far has been a pretty excellent starting point. The car is also back from the rust repair shop and the cage shop, needless to say my wallet is in a lot of pain at the moment (especially with the S54 being built) but we do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard and we hate money. Anyway, enjoy some photos of the cage in the meantime.

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.

Hi All! I've owned a few s30's in the past and finally decided to build one. My car background is a lot of JDM cars including Supra's, AE86s, S13s, Skylines, a Stagea 260rs, etc. I have always loved the style of the s30 (don't we all), the aftermarket support for it and the random people who would stop me and tell me about their "Z" story. The story of this build started over a year ago when I purchased this 1978 Datsun 280z. The story behind the car (that I know of) was it is an American car that was brought to Washington and held at a speed shop awaiting restoration. Then was bought and stored in a heated warehouse for years in BC before i bought it. A little side story, I originally purchased a 1971 240z from the same person and they also had the 280z for sale but was well out of my price range. I would have loved to restore the 240z but unfortunately the amount of work it needed was well beyond my budget and experience just to get it to a useable condition. If you looked at it funny, rust would fall off the car. Mistakes we made. I was sold on what it could be but not what it will take to get there. almost a year later the 280z was still for sale, and the price was a little better. With some luck, i was able to convince the owner to trade back the 240z and cash for the 280z. Success!...Now, it seems the 280z was re-sprayed a British racing green but wasn't done the best and was flaking so i believe that's why it originally underwent the restoration in Washington. The car was just a rolling chassis, the front end had been primer epoxy'd and luckily had everything in boxes and labeled like "driver door guts", or "Rear hatch slam", which was nice to see. Now the goal of this project was to be a fun drivers, resto-mod car. It will be getting an RB26 from an r33 GTR, an RB25 transmission, DBW for the factory ITB's, Techno Toy Tuning full suspension, brakes, differential swap kit, running a Haltech S3 ECU and Wiring Specialties Harness, Poly fuel tank with an r32 skyline Radium hanger and Hellcat fuel pump. The bigger ticket items like turbo/manifold, radiator/fans, and then some smaller things are missing but most of the project is there now. I do plan of re-wiring the whole car considering I'm spending money in every other area. Now, just like anyone, I did set out with budget but considering since I last built a car, prices have gone up for parts which I stupidly didn't account for. Also a lot of, "well if i'm already doing this, then i might as well do that", and "since i have this off, i might as well get that." So the budget has been blown....but at least I'm happy! (maybe). BUT as it stands, the suspension and diff swap kit is in and the car is currently at the body shop getting the sunroof hole patched as well as some of the smaller trim holes plugged and a few small rust spots taken care of. Here are some pics throughout the build and as it stands. Any questions, advice or help for some "gotchas" will be welcome!

Great work so far! I’m sure this will be an awesome build. I suspect you will be running fender flares or a wide body kit seeing as your wheels are poking out a bit?

11-01-2025. 260Z work. I got the engine compartment sanded down after the glaze and then cleaned up the crossmember and rack with cleaning solution "g@s" and a toothbrush, and then steel wool, etc. Then I vacuumed out the cowl and primed it with rustoleum rust primerand top coated it with gloss black paint, then painted the engine bay with filler primer. Once dry I will use some spot putty I picked up on the areas that need it, hand sand it smooth and filler primer over that. Once it is good, then I will progress to color and then clear. Busy day! Pics:

Yes, still working on then, just have not posted anything. Bought some expensive components that take time to recover from. A blank PAMS head, that I then designed and has DelWest make me titanium intake valves, Inconel mnemonic stainless steel exhaust valves, also MoldStar 90 seats and guides. Had it assembled, and ports cleaned up for some nice flow numbers. Also purchased a Nismo 6 Speed Trans that was also strengthened and modified by HPI in Japan. I take some progress pics soon.

This is how I feel watching some youtube channels. popularity doesn't mean skill or quality.

Hey Leon, Thanks for the reply! Pic attached for attention - you can probably figure out which are before vs after . The interior isn't all there yet, so not sharing that mess, still troubleshooting some stuff inside. Now that the alignment is done, I'm not opposed to bringing it down your way. Still working on break-in miles (it's at 78 total), so not trying to do any LONG drives just yet, but that might be manageable. Just have to figure out timing, and tooling. I don't have an empi style vacuum tester just yet, do you? I'll also be at Cars and Coffee (Vintage Oaks) and Pre-Stage (Marin Civic Center) in September, if anyone will be there! Robert

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.

Trickflows are a great choice. I have a turbo 351 so not a direct comparison but when I switched from GT40s to 11r 190s it made a massive difference. Unrelated to the engine. I weighed my stock 280z door today. Its gutted so I can paint them. so no glass, regulator, handle, lock, hardware, window frame ext. just a empty door shell. 34lbs.

Dash cap is on! next is gauges and center section install. run the wires so once installed the wires are right there and can be easily wired. Speedo is GPS. Speedhut gauges. Made in USA, cost is like sending a kid to college

Got the rear calipers on today. A few challenges getting this to fit for the 240Z. Tight tolerances between rotor and caliper, needed some washers to align it right. Also getting the pad clips on were tough, some clearance issues with the wheel well as the pins go in from the back, but got it eventually. I love big brakes 😍.

4200 engine update. Progress pics of my intake. almost ready to go to the polisher!

Car is getting some tail tonight!

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!