RPMS

Are you feeling down? Do you lack that passion you once approached this hobby with? Do you hardly look at your car anymore, much less drive it? I have your solution! Spend more money! I'm buying a radiator from Spotfitz this evening, and I feel more charged up about the Z than I have in months. The prospect of having something to wrench on again has renewed my enthusiasm. Next I'll get the registration current and give it a romp around the block, hopefully having exorcised the overheating demon once and for all. Man, I feel like an 80 year old on Viagra. "Wow! It still works!"

Wow! What a disgusting display of perfection!!!! I am truly agog at seeing that many apparently perfect Z's.

Blech! I wonder how large the bird was to have donated that much...stuff...to the interior like that?

Man, I feel for you. I can't say that I understand exactly what you're going through because I'm in north Texas - a fairly rust-free zone. What I can tell you is, if you sell your car, I can almost guarantee you you'll kick yourself for it. I've done almost NOTHING to my car for the past six months, including not driving it. It's just sitting there taking up space in the garage, waiting for me to get it registered and pop a radiator in it, one that isn't cobbled together. But in spite of that, I know that if I sold it, I'd regret it and have to buy another one. All I can suggest is that you treat your car as a learning experience, and a practical exercise in derustification. Stay calm, listen to relaxing music, and find that zen spot that allows you to enjoy the process of owning your car. You'll get a better practical education working on the car you have right now than you can possibly imagine, and that knowledge will carry over into many other areas of your life. With every piece you repair, you are a better man than you were before. Just a thought...

Are you sure it's the transmission that's whining? The tranny of the last ZX I rode in was quiet as a fencepost. It might be time to swap out tranny lubricant. It does have a recommended change interval, which most original owners ignore. The rear end should also be silent, and the clicks could be coming from the halfshafts. They might just need to be relubricated, but that might be a better job for a competent driveline shop. You might want to re-post your questions in the Driveline forum, Gollum, especially since we're straying from the original intent of your post. Someone in that forum might be able to help you better than I can. Good luck! Scott

Man, this must be one awesome site. I checked in at 6:10am, and the disk quote was already exceeded! I'll have to try back later...

ERK, Two suggestions: 1: Change your priorities. Is there anything on your list that's for flash instead of dash? Do you really need the 5 point racing harness and custom built injectors, or can Mustang injectors and stock belts do the job just as well for your application? I don't know about you, but sometimes I find myself falling into the trap of wanting what looks impressive versus what works well. 2: Change your timing. Some things have to be done in a certain order if you're going to avoid re-doing a lot of work, other things can be done whenever. For example, you should pull the engine out before you paint the engine bay, and you should paint before you put the new engine in. Other things, like suspension and brake upgrades, can be done at any time. Maybe you can do bodywork this year, paint and hybridization next year, suspension in year three, work on the interior in year four, then finish up in year five. That way, you've spent $4k a year on the car (about as much as new car payments), and you've had a satisfying hobby all the while. This has the added benefit that it allows you to take advantage of "once in a lifetime" deals on a lot of parts that you'd otherwise have to pay full price for.

Heck no. Many of the folks on this board have engines with stock internals that have highly modified suspensions. I think it would be a VERY wise idea for you to buy a shop manual and do your own tune ups, brake jobs, and suspension work for a few years before you tackle the engine swap. Get some basic skills down, get your car's suspension in top shape, then worry about swapping motors. Actually, I think that's the way things work. Cars 25 years and older get exempted here in Texas. I guess it's 30 years and older in CA? I think a turbo 6 would be pretty easy to get smogged, since that's one of the engines that originally came with your chassis.

Yeah, can he receive food?

Dang, that list is funny. There were a few on there I'd never heard before. And trust me - unless you're from around here, you just can't appreciate how true some of it is, kinda like most of the Jeff Foxworthy stuff.

You want good advice? Here it is, in spades. 1)Don't sell your Z. When you're forty, you'll kick yourself. 2) Don't even consider a RB25DET, an SR20DET, or an EIEIO69 at this point. You admit that you know nothing, and that's not a good starting point. I don't mean to smack you down, just to inject a bit of reality. Make sure you can walk before you attempt to run, much less fly. 3) This early in your driving career, your stock Z probably has more horsepower than you can exploit. I don't know you - you could be the most responsible 19 year old on the planet, for all I know. I have found, though, that much of the joy of these cars comes from learning to use what horsepower you have. Keep in mind that with the manual transmission, these cars went from 0-60 as fast as the early 5.0 Mustangs. At the time at least, nobody thought a 5.0 liter Mustang was slow. I'm not telling you not to upgrade, I'm just.. heck, I don't know what I'm telling you here. I'm throwing things against the wall and seeing if anything sticks. 4) Engine choices? I think the answer is pretty clear. Given your generation's proclivities towards anything high-tech and your own limited mechanical knowledge (no offense meant. We all start somewhere), I have to agree with The Big Bastaad on this one, because he's right on the money. Choose the turbo six. Smooth as the day is long, plenty of power, it's a mechanical plug-in, and you can do all sorts of nifty computer tuning with the aftermarket computer systems. The (...looking up the model number...) L28ET will easily produce enough power to kill you in one of these cars, at a bargain basement price and with disgusting reliability. Oh, you might check the steering coupler for the source of your loose steering. It uses a rubberized fabric donut to isolate steering vibration. There's a good chance it's decayed over time. Welcome to the group! I hope to see more of your postings.

Yes, normal systems hover around 13.7 volts, so that's pretty good. I wouldn't trust the factory gauge, though. Spend part of that upgrade money on a good digital multitester. You'll use it a lot. I'll leave the definitive answer to other experts on the list, but my 1980 200sx had a hydraulic clutch with a height adjuster on the pedal. Yours might be the same. At that age, yours might need a new clutch. Is it sloppy, or just light? The stock shifter was reputed by the automotive press to be rather rubbery when new. Yours might need new bushings in the shift lever. As far as I recall, they're pretty cheap at Courtesy Nissan. Crutchfield makes an adapter for twenty bucks (FREE if you order a stereo through them. I've ordered two from them, and they're GREAT to deal with. Fast, friendly, and cheap, too!) http://www.crutchfield.com/S-tibeHxOH6TL/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?s=0&c=11&g=112200&I=176N86&o=p&a=1&cc=01&avf=Y *chuckle* On this site, friend, you quickly learn that ANYTHING will fit. It all depends on how much time you want to spend shoehorning it in.

Damn, Rufus, you're quick on the keys! I think your message came across 30 seconds after I posted! Although it's really tough to find anyone who will quote a building online anymore due to rising steel prices, this site does it. You can select the length, width, sidewall height, roof pitch, door type, brand and locations, insulation, colors, window locations, inside trim, etc. and it will spit out a price in seconds. VERY cool, and very detailed! Start here and enter your state. The quote engine even calculates shipping charges. http://steelbuilding.com/getbuildstate.asp

I was surfing the web looking for information on steel buildings, and ran across this: http://www.steelbuilding.com/buildings/panel_options.htm#lights He's got at least six beautiful, original looking cars in there! Anyone know who this might be? Just thought someone else might like to see them.

Terry, that looks VERY nice! What separates your work from others is how yours looks professionally finished, like it came that way from the factory. Very impressive! Scott

Welcome to the family, Gollum! Sounds pretty normal for the temp and the pressure, but change the oil ASAP and check the voltage with a meter. If you really drove 200 miles with 16 volts, your battery has probably boiled dry by now and your engine management computer is crying for mercy. Take the cluster apart and you might find something very simple wrong here. Sounds like an easy weekend project. Like the bottle says, test a small spot first for colorfastness. I've had good luck with Resolve. Full of "little old lady" smell? I wonder if it was related to the small spot? VERY good idea. Do it before your rotors warp into oblivion. Check your struts and strut mounts, as well as your differential mount. They fail pretty frequently and are pretty easy to replace. With regular maintainence, these engines will last 250k with ease. Driven gently, they'll go 300k. I'd say you've got plenty of life left in the engine if you don't abuse it. My unsolicited advice on this? Keep the engine bone stock and invest your money in brakes and suspension mods. These will transfer over into your hybrid, whereas any engine mods will be lost when you pull the motor. Use the money to replace the suspension rubber with urethane and buy a nice set of struts and springs, then get good wheels/tires for it, and maybe get a new steering wheel and speakers to spruce up the interior. This is just my opinion, and is worth precisely what you paid for it. Most of all, have fun with it!

Can't be that. I've only got six stars.

Apologies to the moderators, but I have done a search with the usual results, i.e. a bunch of crap and nothing useful. Maybe I just don't understand how to use the search engine properly, because I know this must have been explained before now. Would someone please tell me what the stars underneath our names mean? I know it has something to do with rank, but why do some folks with double my number of posts have a third the number of stars? Thanks for your patience in explaining this enigma to me. Scott

Don't be a wuss. Rev it up and dump da clutch! Black stripes are in fashion this year, I hear. All the best driveways are wearing them. You didn't want to get invited to your neighbor's Christmas party this year anyway.

Welcome! It's always good to have confirmation that God's still making other nutballs like us. As others have said, you don't have a prayer of fitting it under the hood, unless maybe you make it dry-sump and turn it upside down. Hot Rod did a story about a supercharged V8Z buildup two decades ago. They used fuel injection and a low profile supercharger and it cleared the stock hood. A scroll-type supercharger might do the trick, but they ain't cheap. Hell, what am I saying? NO supercharger is cheap! Good luck, and be sure to keep us posted!

If it's rust-free with a good interior, by all means buy it! Opportunity is knocking - do you hear it?

Whoa, you are my idol. After all the rust abatement, I'm scared spitless to even get the car wet, much less drive it in the rain. Binswanger did a miserable job putting in the windshield, and it leaks like a sieve. I'm sure the door glass isn't watertight, and I'm not even sure about the cowl! I'm getting disgusted with myself for letting this get to me, though. I think the next chance I get, I'm going to strip out the carpet, remove the door panels (for inspection purposes) and have someone hose the car down while I plug leaks.

* CRINGE! * Oh, man. I can't believe it. You must have been absolutely livid. I'm with the others on this one. Get your butt out to MSA and don't worry about it. bring along a couple of potted plants to set in front of it, or something.

Concerned about maintainence and you're looking at a Conquest TSi? ROFLOL!!!! But seriously, folks. Think about what this car has cost you while you've owned it. Sure, it's needed some work, but think about what a new car would have cost you, in both purchase price, insurance, depreciation, fuel, etc. The cheapest car to have is one that you buy well used (and hopefully well maintained) and keep it up. $70 for a Duralast starter, a new emergency brake cable, a set of rear rotors , $56 for an alternator. Other than that, everything you list seems to be standart tune-up stuff. You didn't think you were somehow going to get out of buying tune up stuff, did you? You'll do that with any car you buy, except a brand new one, which you can't (and shouldn't) afford. And you should probably plan on replacing the driveshaft u-joints soon, by the way. They usually don't last this long, even. And you mention fuel economy - what kind of mileage are you getting, anyway? $35 is about 20 gallons, and if you're getting standard mileage in a 280, that should be good for almost 500 miles on the freeway, I thought. Anyway, unless you're gonna sell your car and buy a Honda CRX-HF, it's going to be a LONG time until you make up the difference in gas savings. Here's the straight dope. The cheapest way to own a car is to buy a well used (and hopefully well maintained) one, then do the repairs correctly so they last a long time. Whenever possible, do the repairs yourself so you can grok your car. (Be sure to look that word up, by the way.) What you save in insurance, payments, and depreciation for even the cheapest car will usually more than make up for any repair costs to a nice car. Unless the rust makes the car unsafe, my advice to you would be to buy a few sheets of steel, rent a wire welder, borrow a sawzall, and spend the next weekend getting filthy. You'll learn a valuable skill, you'll save money, and your car will be much quieter with solid floorboards. But that's just me. If you hate working on your car, or if you've got lots of money stashed away and can have someone else do it, or if you're scared of learning something new, this might be too big a job for you. But I've been reading your writing for a few years now, and I know you're perfectly capable of it. If I were you, I'd keep fixing this car until it required at least one repair a month to keep it on the road. After that point, I'd buy an older, simpler car. But that's me. Good luck, and keep us updated as to what you choose to do.

Yes, without question it's worth it. The question is, is it worth it to YOU. Oh, wait - someone already said that. Damn. Anyway, what I was going to say before someone stole my thunder was, if you can barely afford $2k for this car, you can't afford it. From the way you describe it, it's going to cost about another grand to get it properly sorted out, and that's before paint and body work. If you can scrape together $3k, I'd say go for it. Otherwise, this car will just take up space until you get it roadworthy, and that time will take its toll. Oh, and don't buy it for the dashboard. I'd bet dollars to donuts that once the car's on the road again, the twisting and shaking will crack it like humpty dumpty. Not to be negative, but thirty year old vinyl is horribly delicate, especially when it hasn't been treated with lots of TLC for its entire life. Now that the practical advice has been dispensed - would *I* buy it with only $2,000 in my bank account? You bet your butt I would. But that's me. Good luck! Scott