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Three weeks until I'm home and properly working on the car before a long road trip. I've been creating a detailed list on some Google notes of everything I hope to accomplish. I'll update once I truly get to it, but for now just wanted to share my excitement for my new brakes. Was in Utah about two weeks ago for a handful of days for a music conference and my brother was kind enough to let me borrow his truck to drive up to Logan just for one evening to have a quick dinner with the siblings up there and I took a quick trip to my folks' place late in the evening and opened up some of the parts to keep my motivation haha. Also had a big box of new seals from Resurrected Classics. They were kind enough to give me a steep discount on their weatherstripping kit when I asked if I could get it without the door seals since I had already purchased the S30 world seals before they released their kit. Looks like they were kind enough to give me the discount and kept the door seals anyway! I'll be making a thorough comparison of it against the Precision kit I have, mostly to see if it's truly far better for some of the worst fitting parts.

I have two heads in stock as I type this so the head can actually be purchased. I can't help that you can't afford it. That's a feature not a bug. For the very beginning my goal was to provide the components so that talented engine builders could make the decisions on the types of components they wanted to use. Based on what I've seen and taking the pricing of the relatively simple L6 head as the baseline I highly doubt it. I'm not really sure what I did to put a burr under your saddle but you remind me of the guy that starts a fight in the line to get into the club because he can't afford the cover charge. Just get out of line and go somewhere else.

More pis of it finished up The bottom plate was beat up a bit and bent from floor jacks. So I took off the old one by drilling out the spot welds. I then drew up the shape and had a new one laser cut. The center plate that is welded to this plate, I re-made it as well, but out of 304 stainless steel. This way I can leave it a brushed stainless finish after powder coating and it is a good place to use a floor jack. I then spot welded on the larger plate in the original locations I then tigged the seam between the spot welds Then tigged on the center stainless plate Then blasted the entire cross member and powder coated it in a super black semi gloss powder coat. Powder coated the motor mounts as well I always first do a primer powder coat that is sandable I sand most off this off to fill the small blemeshes Then final coat Finally the brushed stainless plate for the floor jack Next up is getting a new transmission, then finishing the exhaust

Went out for some Auto-x this weekend, and had a proper blast. Highly recommended for anyone here who still hasn't gone to try it. Enjoy a slow lap, some V8 noises and straight cut gearbox whine. I have a handful of things to think about and address moving forward, but overall I'm very happy with where this sits. Next up is OnGrid at the Ridge in late July for more testing, and maybe, just maaaaybe a little redemption.

Good progress over the long weekend. Paint, bondo and fiberglass is mostly a waiting game which is pretty annoying. Got the duct glued together and painted so it looks like something. Trimmed it up a little and we are in great shape! The holes in the hood are a little bit large, but that's ok, and will likely get solved with a new hood (fiberglass) or something on top. Also got the transition piece painted which is exciting! This will help blend the splitter into the air dam, and will get taped onto the splitter once I put some trim on top of it. Need to get to work on the new intake pipe as well, going to put the filter over near the wheel for now. In the future, I'll flip the manifold and pull air from the cowl/wiper box area, but that's a bigger lift in terms of fabrication. Can't tell you how excited I am to have a metal fabrication project after 10 months of composites.

Meh, he's a paid supporter of the site. I figured I'll give him his moneys worth

I started typing a number of snarky responses and have settled on Wow what a shitty thing to say.

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!

Picked this up from local hot rod shop for my 240z SBC 350 project about 13 years ago. Circuits: Electric fan relay Fuel pump Radio and amplifier Power windows Summit Racing/parts store etc probably have this fuse box.

Got the sensor figured out. It is idling around 130-140 F. Should be OK. I have to post a video. Sorry but I think this thing sounds bad ass. I have an insert in the exhaust so I dont need earplugs.

Update: after speaking to Cortex and getting some spindle dimensions from them for CAD mockup, looks like I’ll be using their Radial X spindles. Very exciting stuff, I am a bit weary about using aluminum spindles but the car is a track car and last weighed at ~600# over each front wheel so I think I’ll be alright. Thanks! Excited to share my progress with you guys. I’d eventually like to make my work/design open source and see what more talented suspension engineers can do with it. If I didn’t just buy one of these yesterday I’d offer to trade you a complete kit for one of them KN20 heads XD. A bummer indeed, just another bump in the road! Funny you mention Stock Car blade-swaybars. It’s basically all I’ve been looking at for switching over to that design. Plus the parts are pretty cheap & standardized. Thanks everyone.

This is awesome. We haven't had a good engineering project on here in a while, so this is a good to see.

The hairlines weren't that bad, it was the handful that were going through the edge of the rotor that I was worried about. Friday marked my first return to the track in almost 2 years. Knocked off a bunch of rust, the car worked the whole time, and I made a couple changes that were impactful and improved the car. I went pretty slow, so y'all could enjoy some v8 sounds for longer than normal

It was a good idea not to wait on rebuilding the 3.54 diff. The new LSD arrived weeks after I expected it and there's no shot I would have been able to swap it into the spare R200 before my trip. I'm excited to get this together in the winter though!

Some of their stuff is good and some is hot garbage. Max the owner doesn't stand behind his product and has a tendency to try and blame "modifications" to your car as the reason. I have a lengthly (4 page) post on classic z car about my problems with his door assemblies. Resurrected Classics door problems I have their door weather strips and their fuel filler neck and the are excellent. My advice is no matter what you buy test fit as soon as it arrives and go from there. The doors were so bad that I ended up not using them. Max refuses to refund my money so I make sure to take the time to tell people about my experience. Do not trust what he says as he says whatever he needs to to get out of doing the right thing. Caveat Emptor with this guy for sure.

You should really just post on FB because they love trolls and useless posting there

I track my Ford powered 260Z. My personal experience is that transmission gearing is extremely important to getting the most fun on the track. In Florida, you will most likely be doing track days at Daytona and Sebring. Both tracks have very fast sections. Before doing track days, I autocrossed the car. In autocross, you only really need second gear if you have the right differential / tire height. I used Hoosier 275/35-15 tires and have a 3.36 rear end. With a 1.94 second gear in a T-5 and 6,500 rpm, 2nd gear was good for 73 mph. When I started doing track days, I needed all the gears. I had replaced the stock 1st through 4th with G-Force gears and shafts, but fifth gear was still stock. With that set-up, these were my gear ratios. 1st 2.95:1 2nd 1.94:1 3rd 1.33:1 4th 1:1 5th 0.59:1 Worked great until I needed 5th gear. that big a drop absolutely killed the fun (no acceleration in 5th). After my first time a Daytona, I changed 5th gear to 0.81:1. The .81 gear absolutely transformed the car. Now 5th gear is warp drive. The transmission that you show probably doesn't have a good selection of gear ratios, and probably won't hold much power. If it were me, I would get the new TKX with the close ratio rears. That transmission will handle the power and maximize you fun on track. If I didn't already have so much invested in my T5, I would get a TKX. This is the TKX I would get: https://www.speedwaymotors.com/TREMEC-TCET18084-TKX-Close-Ratio-5-Speed-Ford-Manual-Transmission,452007.html?srsltid=AfmBOoq-x1paVSDoNvgI38myLy79UBWXzZFW-QeQ4bK1_vWnSHM7bEEJ Gear Ratios 1st - 2.87, 2nd - 1.89, 3rd - 1.28, 4th - 1.00, 5th - 0.81

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.

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.....

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.

New to the forum but I wanted to make a summary of my build status/plans for my 1982 280zx. I got the car with 150k miles 7 years ago in a straight up trade for a Kawasaki Ninja 250 (crazy, I know). I was in high school/college for most of that time so my major upgrades had to wait until I got my own garage 2 years ago. Overall goal is an aggressive (~350hp) restomod that I can take to the track occasionally. I've been recording my build progress but only recently went back to edit/upload all of the videos. If you're interested in following along, subscribe to my YouTube! I'll be posting videos every 2 weeks until I'm all caught up on footage. https://www.youtube.com/@engiandesign 2018 (One year after I got the car) January 2023 Engine Bay April 2024 Engine Bay Stripped, and Painted May 2024 Engine Rebuilt July 2024 Engine Bay Mostly Complete Current Mods: Fully rebuilt L28ET Rings, bearings, studs Stock internals Valve job with new valves and seals Cometic MLS head gasket Cam sprocket and timing chain Port and polished head High volume oil pump Schneider stage 2 cam regrind with matching springs, retainers, lash pads and resurfaced rockers Ported exhaust manifold with custom external wastegate piping Tial MVS 38mm wastegate Borg warner S257 SX-e T4 7670 CXRacing Intercooler Kit Mishimoto 25 row oil cooler Mishimoto catch can Champion 3 core radiator FF Dynamics dual electric cooling fans 3.5" cold air intake 240sx 50mm throttle body Aeromotive fuel pressure regulator Upgraded 100 Amp alternator Pallnet fuel rail 1000cc Bosch EV6 injectors Megasquirt MS3x kit from Godzilla Raceworks TSP high flow fuel pump All new glowshift gauges (9 total) CXRacing 3" stainless exhaust modified with X-Force Varex valved muffler Front/rear sway bars 280z style aftermarket air dam Louvers New carpet 4 Infinity 6x9 midrange speakers with 10" Pioneer sub Future Mods Multi-spark ignition CD009 transmission swap Wilwood big brake kit Custom front grill Side skirts Rear diffuser Duck bill spoiler Fender flares Coilovers Rims/tires Seats I'm sure I'm forgetting something on this list but that's pretty much everything. I got it running in July and after a few months of dialing everything in, its finally running great! I'm currently running 9lb of boost on a very conservative tune but it still rips. Luckily my work has a chassis dyno and some very experienced tuners which should help unlock a lot more power. This winter I plan to focus on body work/aesthetics along with rims/tires/suspension. This is my first project car so I welcome any feedback or suggestions, especially related to future mods. Make sure to subscribe to my YouTube for more updates!

Before removing the diff, I would check the u-joints on your driveshaft as well.

Bumping zboi's thread so he can continue his contributions to the community. Let's see an update.

My opinion: Flares because your tires are fat and need room = cool. Skinny tires that should fit stock but spaced way out anyway = not cool. It's in the same vein as camber to me. Negative camber for better handling? Awesome. Crazy negative camber because you want people to know how much camber you have? Stupid.

A few notes before I get into it 1.I am rewiring my car from scratch. So I have no clue what color wires correspond to what pins, or what year switches I am using 70-78 2. I'm not using the stock taillights, I only have an off, high and low signal, all red(Think Semi trailer lights). So the way I wired stuff might be different for you 3.I feel that if you understand the concept of what I am showing below you can adapt what you have to create something similar. I am an idiot when it comes to wiring, but I got this to work for me so feel free to copy it at your own risk haha. This definitely isn't stock Hazard switch (Ignore the PinX stuff for now, That is how I am keeping track of what wire is going to what pin on the connectors I have) I see the hazard switch as the first step in how the power is routed. The switch has two different states (Noted by the vertical dashed line in the image above), on and off, each with it's own outcome. Hazards on: (Right side of above image) 5 Pins should be connected on the switch when the hazard switch is on/closed, use a multimeter to test continuity between all the pins, and note which ones are connected. One of the pins should receive 12v + from a flasher unit (I am using a PDM (Bussman31s002) to get fused 12v power, then putting that into a 3 wire flasher unit that is adjustable to set the timing of the flashes). So when I have my hazard switch on, power flows through the pdm, then into the flasher, into one of the 5 connected pins on the Haz SW, then a wire out to each of the 4 turn signal lights. This also kills all connections to the "Off" side of the switch. In my case, this disables the turn signals, and brake lights. Hazards off: (left side of above image) there are going to be two sets of two pins that are connected when the hazards are off/closed. Use a multimeter, check continuity, write it down. Feed one of the pairs with fused 12v+. The pin that is connected to the 12v+ gets a wire that is spliced into 2 different locations. Location 1 is the brake switch. Location 2 is a second Flasher unit. These two wires then come back together to feed the Turn signal switch, one flashing, one constant. When the switch is in this position, everything on the right side of the above image is no longer connected. Turn Signal Switch The Turn Signal Switch works off of two inputs 12v constant (Connected to 2 pins that should correspond with your Brake lights, and will disconnect from one of the pins if the turn signals are on in that direction) and 12v flashing (Connected to either the front left and rear left, front right and rear right pins, or no pins at all depending on the location of the stalk. So, for me, If my brakes are on, I get a signal to the "high" side of my tail light. WoodworkerB's website is invaluable. I recreated all of his diagrams with the corresponding wire color of my switch to use for my own project. https://woodworkerb.com/home/datsun-240z-rebuild/blinker-detail/ https://woodworkerb.com/home/datsun-240z-rebuild/datsun-240z-multifunction-switches/ Below I have a schematic of what the whole thing looks like, minus the detail of what the internals of the switches are actually doing, as well as the pinouts. (right most column is where the wire terminates, to its left is where it starts) Looks like the images are tough to read. DM me if you want a full size copy. Let me know if you have questions, or tell me that I'm wrong haha, The harness still in the basement so I would rather fix stuff now than when it is in the car. But as is the lighting system is functional, I pulled out a bunch of stuff to test it all.

Day 1 of installation. almost 12 hour day and got a lot knocked out. Pics below:

Hi HybridZ, its been a while. Took a long sabbatical from working on my S30 to finish college and get a job. For the last 6 or so months its been full steam ahead, the project is currently being rust repaired at a local body shop and I've been collecting parts as budget allows. The first piece major piece of hardware to arrived is the Viking Performance Shocks from the Apex Engineered Track Attack Front/Rear Suspension kit. I noticed that Apex’s website lacks details on shock and spring selection, so I’m documenting my findings here for others and to start a discussion on their choices. What's Included: Box as it arrives from Viking Performance Serial Numbers of each of the shocks (PN: C203) Viking Performance Shocks Link Part Numbers of Springs (600# & 700#) Initial Impressions: The car will be caged and used primarily/almost exclusively on track, so a stiffer setup is expected. However the spring rate selection still raises some concerns: The S30 chassis doesn’t benefit significantly from extremely high spring rates, even with a roll cage. The rear suspension uses inboard cantilevered shocks, which traditionally increase effective spring rate via the lever arm. This spring selection guide from Viking Performance indicates that the spring rate for a car with IRS and axle weights of ~1200-1400# is a lot lower than the supplied springs. I'm hypothesizing that the high rates were chosen to prevent the shocks, which are short to fit the Z’s narrow frame and tight packaging within the front wheel wells, from bottoming out. I’ve reached out to Apex Engineered to clarify the wheel rates for this setup and will update this thread when I hear back. Let me know if any of you have run this kit or high wheel rates.

Good evening gents I got my first inspection cleared with some minor things to fix so now i have five years to finish the build (he wanted to see me at the end of August ) . With that done i was able to pain all the weld, start interior work and mount the Datsun back up again, sooooo, it's done just waiting for my half shafts. The half shafts is actually the only thing that keeps me from a test run. Brakes, clutch are bled, emergency brake mounted, it's pretty much only interior work that has to be done Cheers Christian

Good post. I was frustrated for a long time with companies not sharing spring rates on these parts. FWIW, Viking is legit, lots of fast SCCA guys run those things with good results. IF those spring rates were chosen to prevent bottoming out of the shocks, that's pretty poor design. My guess is that the motion ratio of the bellcrank will be the limiting/bottoming out feature here, and that the conversion to pushrods has resulted in some high force multipliers. My guess would be Viking starting point is mounting in a "muscle car" front end, where the motion ratio is fairly low. I'll be interested to hear what the APEX guys say!

I have finally switched my focus to getting this car running again. This weekend I painted the engine block of the new replacement engine. I was hoping to get it in the car, but various things slowed down my progress. I thought I had a pilot bushing on hand, but couldn't find it. So, a trip to the store for that... Couldn't find the torque spec for the ARP flywheel bolts and wasted time looking for that. Little things like that eat time. Anyway, a few pics: With the back plate, flywheel, disc, and pressure plate now on, I am about ready to put the engine in. I think I will strip and repaint the motor mounts first. Then, I'll put the engine in and start the work to mount the oil tank for the dry sump. I will likely need to cut some of the inner fender well on the right side. I don't like going that route on my "early" Z, but I dislike blown motors more.

This is the most activity this thread has seen in years, ANOTHER WEEKEND UPDATE! Got the intake welded up, some gasketing on the radiator extractor, and got the car back on the ground. Also got a nut and bolt done on the car. I still need to bleed the brakes, and do a quick fluid check and I'll be in good shape for a few events!

Once, you installed the Differential and Cage with the Support Bracket into the Two Vertical Mounting Bolts, the Two Forward Differential Mounts can be installed into the Transmission Tunnel. Left Mount Right Mount Note-Earlier 240z has mounting bolt holes close together so drilling an another hole maybe necessary(call Vlamir for assistance), Important Fact------My New Ford Motorsport Super Duty 8.8 Differential came with the Large Aluminum Pinion Flange so I had to fabricate a New Crossmember for clearance problem. I decided to modify the Original Nissan Differential Crossmember. Pic shows Sonan Adaptor on the Pinion Flange. Pic of 8.8 Differential with the Old Style U-Joint. Note the Close Clearance between Flange and Incredible Extreme Crossmember already. Original Nissan Transmission Crossmember taped and marked for metal cutout on top area. Cardboard Template of Aluminum Flange marking Side Cutout. Using 4 1/2" Cutoff Wheel to cut out Top Section of crossmember. Top Section of Crossmember removed. Both Side Sections were cut out to form the Lower Round Shape. Finished Crossmember Side View View of bottom of Modified Crossmember. Finished and Mounted Crossmember. Next-Modified Driveshaft and Driveline Alignment.

Well, winter was quiet! Spent most of the winter skiing, rather than being cold in the shop, but spring has sprung and we have some exciting progress on the car. Since the car is in good mechanical shape, the big to-do's have been cosmetic. Mainly the air dam! It's such a cobbled together thing that I knew I had to make some improvements. To that end, I bought a 3d printer, whipped out my iphone and got to designing some new end areas. I'm keeping the same spirit of the airdam as before, but symmetrical sides (just flipped this piece and printed again) meant that I can be confident in the tolerances that I'm working with on both sides of the car! Pretty impressed how well this lined up fresh off the printer, and from a medium quality iphone photogrammetry scan of the front end. I opted to use the PLA as a core for the fiberglass layup, we'll see how that does long term. People have issues with PLA as a finished surface as the "glass transition" temperature is pretty low, and normal temps for sunny car parts will result in significant softening. I think inside 5 layers of fiberglass it should be just fine. (Glassed, sanded down and filler primer. It's easily the nicest part of the airdam at this point!) There is a pretty good gap between the bottom of the air dam and the splitter, so I printed up another whole piece that I will use to pull a direct positive part from. I don't want this to be super heavy duty, so I'm not going to encase the PLA core. (printed and glued) This piece had some scaling issues, even though I modeled it from the same references as the airdam pieces. Oh well! Final bit was that I really needed to make the car all one color again, and install some of the fun stuff I had made up before the winter. I had aspirations of painting the car, but when that plan met with the reality of budget, I opted to go back and vinyl wrap the front end again. The hood might get a re-do, but otherwise I'm rather happy with how it all turned out! Hoping to have the car mostly back together this weekend, and then aiming for an auto-x event at the end of June to shake out the cobwebs from car and driver!

Looking again at the pics.....if you don't want to dip it, no sense in really even trying to restore it. It needs it so desperately, you should do it, or just find another Z car IMHO.

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 think the VQ37VHR is a great swap. Trying to make over 380whp is going to be a nice challenge. I would say possible, but the juice may not be worth the squeeze. 350-380whp is going to be bananas on an s30 chassis that is dialed in right. I would still jump into doing the swap even if 350whp was only decently achievable.

01-04-2025 UPDATE: I got it wired in and installed.

Hey dude right there with you! I've been working on my z since June 2015. Kids, houses and responsibilities have all pushed it farther and farther back. But I feel like this is the year and I'm hoping you get back in the game too! also, are the Howe Racing TA2 front control arms made for the 240z or do you have a different cross-member up front? They sound enticing for sure!

Good update! This right here ^ is why I committed to keeping mine fully a street car and I'm glad I did, but part of me also wishes I could go race occasionally without being scared I'll ruin it haha

Howdy HybridZ! Seems like the trend, y'all get an update at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year! Might need to reframe my temporal perspective and do every 6 months. This was a slow year for the car and myself. First year since I've owned the car that it hasn't gone to any events! Wish I could say it was because I was doing a bunch of sweet mods and we're hitting the track hard next year, but that's not how it went. Overall, since 2020, the "smiles per $" has been way down, and I think I probably burnt myself out doing the V8 swap as quickly as I did it. Combined with the wreck, I felt like I really needed to step back, re-evaluate and take the year off to figure out how I want race cars to fit into my life! A big thing I've found is that since this just isn't a street car, and has no ability to be a street car, it's tough to get that "just gonna go drive the dang thing" and get excited about the project. Starting to find motivation again, which is nice, and I'm aiming for an event or two next year. That's not to say I didn't get ANY mods done this year! I got the Haltech 2500 into the car, and got it tuned. That was a fun small project, with a bigger price tag, but I'm hoping that it solves a lot of problems moving forward. It did reveal that some of the problems with this current engine are just that. The current motor is a L33 aluminum 5.3, but it's just not making great power. Compression and all that looks fine, but it's only putting down 330hp, when we'd expect closer to 400. Putting that out of my mind for now, and going to run it like this. A new engine is just not in the budget right now. I also did quite a bit of work on the front suspension. I've been running the Apex Engineered arms up front, and have been happy with them. Full disclosure, Ohm is a supporter of the build, you may have seen the car on his page! After running a handful of events, I felt like I had 2 problems to resolve. 1) I needed more track width. I have a 1" spacer in the front, and it's just another thing to check on the car, also while making scrub radius work. 2) I needed a beefier ball joint. The Apex arms use a factory sized ball joint, that is a better material, but after running a few track events, getting up on curbs and getting pretty spicy, they were just not up to the task. Bigger is better, so I went and upgraded to a Howe Racing TA2 front control arm, with their thread in ball joint. The arm is 2" longer than factory, and allows the use of an improved ball joint, the design of which is derived from a 3/4 ton truck. I feel pretty good about this mod! I got some work done on managing airflow on the front of the car. With the freshly chopped fenders, I needed a way to get air out of the wheel well, and made up some Kevlar pieces to help with that. I also made a plug for a radiator extractor vent that will help direct air out the hood, rather than spilling around inside the engine bay. I'll need to snag one more fitting for the dry sump, but otherwise, things are looking in good shape. I'm excited to let the car be "done" for a little bit this year.

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.

On the plus side this is the most action this thread has had in ages.

That's just about the stupidest thing that has been written on this entire website.

TLDR; Vendor sold a "bolt-on" part that didn't fit. They ghosted me after I asked about it. I filed a credit card dispute and won. Be careful this holiday season. --- Just a heads up for anyone considering buying from "Flex Engineered" during their Black Friday sales. No, that is not their real name, but you can figure it out easily (fabricators of suspension parts and other things). I don't wish to even give them the SEO. I recently had a pretty frustrating experience with them that I feel the need to share. I was going to keep this to myself, but as they are advertising Black Friday savings - I hope to save at least one person from their hassle. I bought a set of “bolt-on” hood hinges from them, advertised as compatible with the Datsun 240Z. However, when I tried to install them, it was clear they hadn’t properly tested these for the 240Z. The hinges wouldn’t fit because they interfered with the grill mount, which is placed differently on the 240Z than on the 280Z. After some research, it became obvious that "Flex" didn’t take this difference into account. Basically, they used me as a test mule for a product that wasn’t fully developed or properly tested. The worst part was how they handled it. After I contacted them with photos showing the issue, they initially responded but then went silent for weeks. They even quietly started changing the product page and removing photos to cover up the problem instead of addressing it directly. It wasn’t until I filed a dispute with my credit card company that they sent a return label - no explanation, no apology, just a blank email with the label. If you’re thinking about purchasing from them, especially during their sale, I’d recommend being cautious. Your purchase might go off without a hitch. But my experience showed they might release products before they’re properly tested, and they don’t handle customer issues very professionally. There are other vendors who prioritize quality and honesty with the Datsun community - "Flex Engineered" just doesn’t seem to be one of them. --- Edit: Apex Engineered

Looks like I missed some updates! In September I showed my car in a local event, TougeCon. They had a nighttime parking garage meet that I installed underglow for, and a daytime "car show" at the town square. Was the first time really getting the car out, and it garnered a lot of attention! I still haven't dug into diagnose whether I still have the noise issues (probably, I still see some spikes on CLT and AFR), but as mentioned in this thread I did finally resolve my jumpy tach. Turns out using a 12V zener was allowing noise through, and using the proper 18V zener cleaned up up. It's nice to finally have a solid tach. I picked up a cheap Chinese touchscreen head unit that runs android, so I could load ShadowDash and connect Bluetooth to Megasquirt for logging and some extra gauges. It's pretty slick! I have it auto-uploading logs to Google Drive when I hit Wi-Fi, and can download and burn tunes. In the last couple weeks I noticed a distinct whine after the engine got up to temp. It sounded like it was coming from the block area on the passenger side. Eventually I realized that back when I did the L28ET swap in 2009, I blocked off the inlet/outlet on the factory oil cooler since I didn't have a filter stud handy. It must have been bypassing oil the entire time I've run this engine. 🤦‍♂️ For now I got a stud from Nissan, and have an oil cooler coming from GRW. After the tail light swap, I realized the late-style license plate light wouldn't fit the early panels. I took inspiration from Skillard, and fabbed up a simple blanking plate using LEDs. I also pulled the trigger on a fuel system refurb. I'll be retrofitting an Aeromotive Stealth 340 into my factory tank, using a Radium stainless 10 micron filter, and upgrading to PTFE lines to eventually run E85. No more fuel slosh and starvation! In the meantime, now that the engine is broken in I've been working on dialing in my tune under boost. I set up some knock ears using a knock sensor, portable audio amplifier, and some headphones, and it seems to work pretty well! Once I hit around 10psi in any gear, I can clearly hear some ping. I'm holding steady at < 12:1 afr, and have backed my timing out to 19*, but still haven't gotten it to go away completely. I'm going to drastically pull timing and richen things up to work from the other direction, but that's already less timing than I'd expect necessary.

Had the Z tuned again on 94 Octane. Still had 14psi. The wastegate spring was too soft so boost started to drop in the rev range. TLDR: 446 WHP and 389 ft/lbs

I've sold 22 heads.

I just bought one and it should be here in about a week. I'll let you guys know how it ends up working for me.

@jhm Yeah it seems like it would be really useful for making quick alignment changes without having to bring it to a shop and having them do it for you. Save a lot of money too ofc. Looking at their website, they have a lot of testing data which looks pretty promising. Like you said though, I would prefer to see some reviews and data from users, not just the manufacturer. Like Sam said, you buy a 99 cent token for each alignment you want to do. I might just buy one since its only $40 and then take it to a shop to get an alignment check and see how accurate it is. @Sam Henao This looks really cool, but I do have some concerns about the pricing structure in the future. Are there any plans to get rid of or increase the price of the tokens? I would hate to buy it and then have the pricing model be switched to a subscription system or something. What exactly do you mean by most advanced algorithm? Thanks for responding, this looks like an awesome tool.