deja

Nice write up guys. BTW if you need to rebuild the CS144 I found these guys. They have everything you could possibly change in one of these alternators.

Nice job. Good luck on the wiring.

I hear ya! Those things are crazy expensive. There was a write up on here about "fixing" the turn signal switch. There was also a thread recently about the socket issues with these cars, something about them swelling and loosing contact.

I spent days trying to get my stock blinkers to work. I took the switch out and cleaned it up real good and they worked for about a week. I finally gave up, bit the mega dollar bullet, and bought a new switch from Black Dragon, that has worked for 3 years. Check all your grounds, if they are good it very well could be the bulb sockets that's usually the problem in these cars. I eventually went full LEDs for all my exterior lights except the headlights even in the Corvette taillights.

More or less. This looks exactly like what I have, its a Hopkins or Hoppy 48845. Hoppy 48845

When I did the LT1 conversion I installed a complete Z28 chassis wiring harness eliminating all the Datsun wiring in the car. I then spliced in the Corvette tail light sockets. But I wanted to have only the outside lights to blink for turn signals and all the lights to come on when I applied the brakes. I picked up a trailer rear light adapter from Advance Auto that will allow you to do that. You wire your existing light wires and brake light wires to the input and wire the output to the lights you want to work in each condition. It is made by Hoppy, sorry I don't remember the part number and there isn't one on the actual unit. Cool small unit the its pretty cheap.

Nice job. It looks like it fits well. That bracing is critical so that cross body part doesn't start to move, it is a uni-body structural part. I used some channel to reinforce mine, bolted and finally welded in place.

That's pretty much my response when I am asked how hard was it to install the engine. Of all the things I have done to the car that was probably the easiest. Much, much easier than the body work!

I am also running Halogens in cheap EBay housings. Much better than the stock sealed beams but I will probably upgrade to HID soon.

Summit Racing has car shows every Monday night with a different theme although they don't restrict the show to only theme cars. This Monday it was two seat sports cars so I thought I would go since one of the stores is just south of Atlanta. There were five Z's, my 280Z, one 300zx, one 350 and two 370's. Mostly it was Corvettes........lots of Corvettes. Shockingly there were no Cobras and there a ton of them in Atlanta. They gave out 3 awards in the sports car class and what ya know I was the first name they called!!! The comment from the Summit guy was "I don't know how he stuff that LT1 into a 280Z", LOL. The other two were a really nice '57 T-bird and an Indy pace car Corvette. Sorry, no pictures from Summit but this one was taken a week ago.

I tried using a tail panel for a 85 vette (fiberglass) but it just wasn't going to work. I ended up making my own panel from a sheet of 1/8" thick fiberglass I got from McMaster Carr. I then made recessed mounts for the lights. I imbedded bolts into the fiberglass panel so they are not visible and bolted it to the car from inside. I did have to cut some of the Z tail panel away to fit all 4 lights and added a brace to make sure the structure was still strong.

Looks like you've made a good start. Keep us updated, maybe get some video of the first start up.

Make sure you still have ground at the wiper switch. When I rewired mine that's what I left off, its jumpered over from the ignition switch side of the steering column harness. Wipers would move but would not park. Basically the green and yellow wire at the switch needs to go to ground when the wipers are turned off. Ignore the fuse 14 note in the schematic, that's for my fuse block.

What I used is 3M 08116 panel adhesive. Its expensive and takes a duel cartridge gun, also expensive. But this is what the automotive industry uses on new cars. I then used Rage Gold (bondo) to smooth the transition at the fenders. I also blended the ZG flares but that was major modification to the flares since there is little area where the flares actually make contact with the fenders. I cut my skirts at the body line and then expended the fares to blend in. If you still have the full skirt running up onto the fender I would assume the flares would need some minor modification, should be easy to do.

I have used that polythane adhesive in a lot of places in my car. It is some crazy strong stuff. In fact I glued a block off plate to my firewall with it but later decided I wanted to use that hole and could even beat the patch off with a hammer. The down side of it is that it never really gets totally hard. There is always some minor flex to it. I tried using that before I decided to mold my skirts on but the paint always cracked at the seam between the skirt and the fender.

Only one on a 240Z??? I did not know that. I do know one 280Z strut will NOT hold up the 280Z hatch even without the spoiler....I found that out the hard way!

My stock 280Z srtuts work fine with my 5 1/2" BRE type spoiler. My spoiler is much heavier than the BRE one sold these days by MSA (I think it is very flimsy) since I added a lot of glass and molded it to the hatch. I don't think you will have a problem.

POR-15 is a rust preventive paint. I added it to the holes in the sheet metal where the screws were to prevent possible rusting. Summit sells it now or get it direct from http://www.por15.com/. It is expensive, buy it in pint cans, it does not store well after opened. But any simular product will work and you might be able to fine an alternative local and save the shiping. Since I had sanded my car to bare metal I used it to paint the rockers before installing the skirts since I knew I would not be about to get a paint gun in there after the skirt installation.

I stuck mine on with 3M panel adhesive and then molded them to the body with Rage Gold. I did use sheet metal screws to hold them in place while the adhesive set up. Then removed the screws, put POR-15 into the holes and then filled in the skirt holes with Rage Gold. I used bolts and nylon nuts at the fender wells as well as the panel adhesive but left those bolts in place. The sills are tough since no fiberglass part really fits all that well. Just get them as tight as possible to the Datsun sill using the adhesive and screws and then remove the screws. If you don't there is a chance the screw heads will hit the doors when they close. One thing I added was a 1/8" strip of fiberglass along the outside bottom of the door so it better matches the body contours, make it look more factory I think. Again I used adhesive and the temporary screws. I also added 2 bracket on the bottom of the skirts and bolted the other side of the bracket to the bottom of the rocker to give the skirt more support.

Just saw a really nice bright blue Z driving on Buford Drive towards Lawrenceville GA this morning. Is that anyone on HybridZ?

I have an old set (out of a 240Z I think), the treads are 2" long. That's from the start of the treads to the end of the rod, not from where your picture is measuring. Looks like you still have 1" to go on your picture.

When I did my LT1 swap I took the entire chassis harness from the '94 Z28 donor and put it in my 280Z to eliminate all the stock 280Z wiring. Not the easiest thing since you have to eliminate a lot of the GM harness you don't need and shorten and lengthen some wires. But the good thing is the GM harness is easy to follow, consistent color coded wires and all connectors are keyed or different (you can't plug anything is wrong). However your idea of using the column harness has issues. The ignition switch on GM cars is NOT on the key switch but actually at the bottom of the column and activated mechanically using a rod. Trying to get that configured was more trouble for me than I thought it was worth and ended up using a dash mounted ignition switch.I guess it would be possible to adapt the GM column to the Z but again it didn't look easy.

I am in Sugar Hill, but my car is running a LT1, so I can be of no help for your Megasquirt issues. You should come to the Datsun/Nissan BBQ on the 19th even without your car.

Pretty cool Gabe. Didn't know you were into Autocross. How the hell do you figure out where you are going? Those cones look very confusing, LOL.

I dont know squat about Megesquirt but diyautotune has posted here before and are located in Suwanee at 3690D Burnette Park Drive in Suwanee.