RPMS

Thanks, man! I appreciate the suggestion. I've subscribed.

Howdy, Nick! Did you ever have this Comp Cams camshaft installed? I'm thinking about putting a similar cam into my car this spring while the engine is out, and I'd love to hear your opinion of how the car drove afterwards.

Great color, Ironhead. Very eye-catching.

Whoa, that's nice! I think your rear wing is a bit small, though. I am searching for a nice hood. Let me know when you have one in carbon fiber that you're ready to sell!

Wow. That's very cool!

It looks like a great resource. Thank you!

Your massive twin turbos look like a curly moustache on the face of your Z. Gave me a giggle that I sorely needed today!

Phantom, I know this is an ancient thread, but what was the resolution to your low oil pressure issue? (my guess is a bad sending unit.)

Will you take $150 for both headlight nacelles?

Just for the sake of history, what was the gasket size? And for my own curiosity, was one of your collectors pointed about 2 degrees off? One of mine was headed straight for the oil pan.

I didn't see anyone else actually say this, so I'll chip in for future readers. There is no dash pad to remove. The padding is bonded to the frame, and it all comes out as a unit. The first time will take a couple of hours, of which most of the time will be spent finding all the electrical connectors and disconnecting the four big connectors behind the glovebox. Don't neglect to label all the connectors before you remove them, or you'll spending the final hour of the job figuring out where that last damned connector plugs into. Don't neglect this, even if you THINK you're going to remember where everything goes. In addition to the above, you also need to remove the four bolts holding the steering shaft to the underside of the dash. One person can do the job but it's MUCH easier with two, especially when you're trying to maneuver the dash out of the car.

I'm tempted to buy that myself!

Sounds like a bad starter motor. I'd take it out, give it a couple of gentle whacks with a hammer and see if it spins when voltage is applied. Rebuilt units are pretty cheap, last I checked. Double-check me on this, but I think I once accidentally replaced my 240 starter with a 280 and it spun the engine with a lot more vigor than before, despite being cheaper.

Write off the 280. It would be a good bet if you knew what you were doing, but at this point you don't. A 280 that's powered by 40 year old electronics can be difficult to keep running in the first place. Assembling one out of parts? You're asking for heartache. The 260 is much simpler to get running, even if it does have some rust on it. (and it will have MUCH more than you think!) Like the others have said, bring a battery and see if it will run before you buy it. Don't bother swapping out the crappy carburetors for better ones because you're going to swap the entire engine soon anyway, just run it for a year and learn the ins and outs of owning an S30 before you take it apart. You may decide that you don't like the headache of owning an old car! It's not nearly as easy as owning a car that's 20 years younger. No shame in that - sometimes it's much more pleasant to look at old cars than it is to own one of them. Oh, and if any Z you look at has rust (and all of them at this price level do) be prepared to get REAL familiar with a welding rig. Ask me how I know. Good luck, my friend! I hope you end up loving Z's as much as we do!

That's really nice work! And you're right, it's a lot of $$$, even if you do the work yourself. Hint** Don't add up your receipts.

I first converted to HID bulbs and ballasts in Hella housings, but I was disgusted by the poor quality of the electronics. The best of them only lasted a few months before blowing out. I took a chance on some LED bulbs, and they've lasted since February of 2015. I bought the New Brights All-in-One LED Headlight" off Amazon for around sixty bucks. I did have to cut out the back of the headlight buckets to make space for the fans. I sealed up the holes in the buckets with silicone sealant and a pair of tuna cans, then painted the whole thing black so it's inconspicuous. After thirty months they are still working well, but they do flicker from time to time. They are supposed to have a five year warranty, so I'll try that out and see if they'll honor their word. The headlight switch that used to get very warm is now completely cool and I've stopped blowing fuses, so I'm very happy with the LEDs on that front. The light throw on low beam is better than stock bulbs, is about the same as halogen, and isn't as good as HIDs. However, they work 100% of the time and they don't make my car burn down, so to me that is a win! On high beam the focus does not change like it does on HID or halogen. An additional LED illuminates at a different focal distance, supposedly shining through the "high beam" areas of the lens. It's better than just the low beams, but not as good as having a dedicated, higher-powered filament. One of those dedicated LED lenses like they make for Jeeps might work better, but I can't get over the looks of them. I'll probably try a different set of bulbs soon and see if they have a better high beam now.

Hmm... isn't it traditional to make a tube frame first, and THEN construct a body for it? Looks like you did it the other way around! Much more difficult that way - like going through the tail pipe to do a valve job. I thought I had it bad when the "repaired" frame rail beneath my battery turned out to have been fixed with chewing gum and aluminum foil. You've got a much bigger job, and although I don't envy your task, I do admire your work.

Nice! Is this a new design for Techno Toy? Didn't they used to be made of square tubing?

Thanks for the write-up, Phantom, as well as the valuable reminder! I'm going to grease my hood latch this evening, just in case.

I used to live in Dallas, and the only inspection techs I had trouble with were the less experienced ones who crapped themselves when the picture that popped up on their monitor didn't match what was in the engine bay. I finally just printed out a copy of the "25 years and older" rule and kept it in the glovebox. As a side note, the DMV workers in Atlanta make the ones in Dallas look like rocket scientists. They could not for the life of them figure out how to register a 42 year old car. They tried to value my $3,000 car at $15,000, then sent me home with the wrong set of license plates. Bah! Endless idiocy.

I seriously doubt you'll find anything, but it never hurts to ask. Weren't those manufactured by Epsilon? I once had a set of three piece OZ Racing wheels that constantly leaked. A set of gaskets and non-reusable fasteners was more money than I could afford, so I just filled them up every couple of days. It was a grand pain in the arse. Good luck!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I've had the stock switch apart a half dozen times but it still doesn't work right. Great to know there's a better way to fix it!

I dunno. Compared to my current, warped-to-hell door panels, they don't look too bad!

Keep in mind that your photoshop isn't quite proportional. The area inside the hole for a stock Z clock is around 3.125" in diameter, and the display diameter of a Gear 2 is only 1.2". I think that would be too small to be practical. Instead, you may wish to look at the 2.8" touch screens for the Raspberry Pi. They're REALLY cheap. (Link Here). Instead of putting it in the housing of a gauge, you might consider holding it in place using the stock points. This way, you get less bezel and more screen. I would also strongly recommend swapping gauge locations and putting your creation into the oil pressure/temp gauge hole instead. The less distance your eye has to travel to see the display, the less chance you'll have of crashing into something. **Correction made to size of clock hole

Man, that made one hell of a difference, didn't it? Sounds more European and less boy racer to my ears.