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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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!

I have the ATL 12 gallon cell in mine. I also use the ATL Black Box sump with pump. The fuel return dumps into the top of the Black Box. I can use pretty much every drop of fuel in the cell without fear of starvation. My cell is below the rear deck and offset to the right for weight distribution reasons. You can just see the bottom of the cell in this picture:

Got my proofs back from speedhut with the Z in there.

I did a 14 gallon radium cell in mine because i plan on possibly running e85 and we have some 30-35 minute sessions with some clubs. I have it raised like an inch and a half out of the floor to make the bottom height where I was visually happy. My cell is advertised at 11.7" tall so if the ATL 10 or 12 is shorter then flush with the floor should be perfect.

11-26-2025. I got the rear tires mounted on the wheels and balanced, and I was able to attach one headlight bucket and then started painting several coats of filler primer for deep scratches. The bucket has deep scratches in the metal in the bottom of the scoop portion, so this will get a start on filling them, and then I will put some glaze on there and sand it smooth and sealer prime it before color and clear. The other headlight bucket, after sandblasting revealed a crease in it, and I don't have the moxie to want to fight and fix a crease and make it look good, so I ordered up a reproduction bucket. I then got a call from J&S Polishing, and ran down there and picked up my intake and valve cover. Pics heavy.

Time to update the build threat again. Things are moving slow at the moment but none the less progress is being made. I have contact with two local body shops in the area for the frame rail repair and to measure the body to see if it’s twisted in any way. One of the body shops is specialized is classic car repair and restauration but will probably be quite expensive but none the less a representative will come by to look at the car this week. The other body shop is a more generic one that also does a lot of classic BMW’s and has done some paint work for me in the past. There hourly rate is a lot cheaper, I know they deliver great work and I know they sometimes are willing to do cash work. To save money on the body shop hours I decided to bite the bullet and order a bunch of parts from Apex Engineered which should arrive somewhere next week. Deciding what to buy was quite difficult as the shipping rate varied a lot but in the End I got the shipping down to $284. I all I bought the frame rails, front fender braces, front and rear control arms, steering knuckles, front crossmember and the rear strut brace. As importing stuff from the US is pretty expensive I decided to place a bigger order then what I strictly needed to maximize the value for my money. As the car needed to get welded anyway I ordered the front fender braces as well to reinforce the front of the car as they weren’t that expensive and seemed to me as a worth wile upgrade. As for the control arms my main reasons for buying those was to delay any major body repairs. If my body turns out to be twisted repairing it would turn into a full on restauration project. I do plan on restoring and repainting the car some day but not now, so as a temporary solution the adjustable control arms allow me to tune the effects of a twisted body out a bit. At some point I would like to get the full Apex Engineered Retro Mod suspension so this will give me a great starting point to work from anyway. To save some more money at the body shop I will strip down the interior and remove the fuel lines myself before sending the car of for welding. But before doing that I still have a chance to fix some small stuff surrounding the engine. My backorder from Zservices in France finally came in together with a used Bosch AAR from a Porsche 944 as my original AAR turned out to be broken. So last week I took the valve cover off to adjust the valves and replace the gasket as it was leaking a lot of oil. Good thing I did as the valves where very out of spec. The adjusters where a pain to get loose but after that adjusting them was very easy. I put everything back together with some new NGK spark plug wires and started her back up. Even with near freezing conditions the car started right up and idled better then ever before. The engine still runs very rich at idle and I suspect it might be an injector issue but other then that the engine runs great and the emissions are within the limits so I will place that issue on hold for now. My plans for the coming weeks are to strip down the interior, remove the fuel lines, front fenders and doors. This will also give me the opportunity to clean and inspect those parts of the car for more hidden surprises. I will also repaint the fuel lines as they are full of undercoating and try to restore the dashboard as with any Z mine is cracked. As for the doors I want to rebuild the door hinges and maybe try and reupholster the door cards as mine are actually of a 2+2 and have a giant hole instead of a second door latch. I’m hoping to get the car back on the road after this so I can finally start to enjoy my 280z this spring. Video van WhatsApp op 2025-11-24 om 10.58.36_fab92d46.mp4

My photo album for the build is located here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/FEXaWgYEMedA2FJv9 My first project car is a 1973 Datsun 240Z. Like many cars, it was mostly stock with a lot of rust when I bought it around 5 years ago. I taught myself to weld and did all the rust repair. I replaced floorboards, frame rails, and many small patches in the fender wells. Then, I rebuilt the braking system and replaced numerous broken or rusted-out parts. Next, I re-gasketed the engine, drained the fuel tank, and cleaned the fuel system. I took the car down to bare metal and tried a DIY paint job. After that, I drove the car for about 3,000 miles around town and on a couple of road trips. I had my fair share of trouble. I had to replace a fuel pump, the alternator only puts out about 12.5 volts, and the wiring harness is starting to show its age, and the previous owners that created a rat's nest. Recently, I purchased another project car that came with a lot of parts and swapped them on. I added TTT coilovers all the way around, Arizona Z Car lower control arms front and rear, Arizona Z Car tie rods, upgraded front sway bar, new front valance, fender flares, and trimmed fenders for clearance, Watanabe wheels, and Toyo R888s (215 front and 235 rear.) I also cleaned up the interior a lot with new door cards and interior trim pieces. Recently, I replaced the billet diff mount with a new polyurethane one, fixed a lot of my early welding, did a full engine service, got the door handles working promptly, and modified the exhaust because it hung about four inches too low. After this, I put about another 2,000 miles on the car. All this work has the car in pretty good condition, but there are still a few things left to have a true daily driver quality car: 1.) Fix the exhaust. I got it tucked up nicely, but between my poor welding and previous owners, there are several leaks, and it sounds terrible. 2.) Rewire the car. I have the brake, reverse, and running lights working. However, I have never been able to get the turn signals to work, and the gauges work very seldomly. I have purchased a 21-circuit harness from EZ Wiring and will rewire the whole car in the next month or two. https://www.ezwiring.com/product-page/ez-wiring-21-standard-wiring-harness 3.) New gauges. EZ Wiring sells new gauage kits. I'm not sure if the 50-year-old gauges are broken or if the wiring harness is bad. So, I think I'm just going to replace the gauges with a set I know will work with the new harness. https://www.ezwiring.com/product-page/shark-mechanical-gauges 4.) Re-attach the skid plate. I had cut the plate off because the bolts were rusted and stuck in the car. I fixed the plate by welding some washers on the bolt holes, but I need to drill out all the old bolts and tap for new ones. I don't have the car lowered that much, so I'm not too concerned about it, but it would be a nice piece of mind. 5.) Alternator. Ever since I have owned the car, the alternator has not worked properly. Recently, I had the alternator rebuilt with quality parts and bench tested. I know it works, but the car is only putting out 12.5 volts when running. I have played with the wiring and got the alternator to put out 14 volts, but then you can smell the wires burning from too much juice. Like I said, there is a rat's nest from the previous owners. I am at least the fourth owner, but I don't have a full history of the car. I have an FSM, but the wiring guide no longer matches because of all the other owner's work. This is why I plan to replace the whole harness. I'm hoping the new harness with better relays with fix my charging issue. 6.) Alignment. After I put the new suspension on, I did a garage alignment, and it is pretty good, but I would like a professional to take a look. I have that scheduled for next week. 7.) New Dashboard. My current dashboard is pretty rough. It has several cracks and looks pretty bad. I have a newer, crackless dashboard. When I rewire the car, I'm hoping to swap the new one in and put some sound deadening behind the dash while I'm at it. I'll post my progress if anyone is interested, and I'm sure I will have a couple of questions. I know the last finishing touches take the most amount of time. I'll also answer any questions anyone has, but I'll warn you that I'm a hobbyist. My full-time job is as a lawyer, and I'm by no means the best mechanic in the world. My welding has also gotten a lot better, but it surely isn't that good. Thanks!

Just looking at the picture that you posted of your steering shaft, it looks like the u-joints aren't phased correctly. It may be an optical illusion from the angle of the picture.

When are you hoping to get this car on track? I'm hoping to do an SCCA track day at Sebring in February. It would be nice to see you guys there.

The dyno chart for that was from my old 331 stroker: Stock Roller Block (4.030" bore) Eagle 3.25" stroker crank and rods Mahle 4.030 Pistons Custom Hydraulic roller cam (.571" lift) AFR 185 heads 1.75 Long Tube headers 30# injectors I scattered that engine at Daytona My new engine is a 347. Dart SHP Block (4.125 bore) Scat 3.25" stroke forged crank and H-Beam rods Custom Hydraulic roller cam (.625" lift) AFR 185 heads Long Tube headers 42# injectors I use Megasquirt MSPNP 2 to tune both engines.

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.

Those hairline rotor cracks are common when running giant rotors. Even though you are getting very little rotor wear due to the size of the brakes, the heat cycling eventually forms the cracks. I've ran them on track probably about twice as bad as your pictures.

Heat wave going on here +27 in the shade, had to test how hot this can go on normal driving. that small 10" fan goes on 87celsius and it can keep it cool in the city, second large CFM fan goes 92celsius. oil coolant pump goes on 85celsius and highest i saw was 92celsius, 96celsius goes coolant fan

it can seem like the page is dying off.....but we actually get new members every day, and if you scroll to the bottom and look at the numbers, we get a lot of visits daily.

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!

A lot of work for sure, getting me pumped for my own build!

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!

Thanks, calZ. I switched my throttle cable at the TB from the very top position to the bottom one. I also tried the middle one (not much success there). The car feels normal again.

Work on this has continued: I went over the whole engine, looks great now: All metal work was finished Most bodywork was finished # Interior Painted Engine Bay Painted Underbody Painted Back on its wheels Full body will soon be in paint.

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.

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.

2.0 is coming along.

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

Take a really close look at those side seals as well. I did a rear main once on an L then got to do the job all over again along with the pan when I got the car back together realized the side seals were also leaking, masked by all the oil and years of grime on the rear of the block.

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.

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