Snailed

Thanks. Got the other side done and made the lower radiator support. Anyone know what the lbs of pressure rating is on the gas springs people use for hood struts on S30s?

That's the truth. It's pretty shocking how off they are sometimes. Nearly all cars are off a little anyway. They can't build you a car to sell at a reasonable price and have it be dimensionally perfect. It should be pretty easy to find where your camber difference came from. Jack it up, take the wheels off and start measuring.

Great build!

Starting to tie in the rails...

^ That's good advice. It's pretty amazing what another $1000 can buy you in terms of saved restoration time (especially on low-dollar cars like Zs). If you are paying to have it repaired this is an extremely important ratio to understand before even getting the project car. If you are doing the work yourself and don't like wasting your time this is also a big factor. Another thing, that even "car guys" never really seem to embrace, but constantly smacks them later, is that the rust ALWAYS worse then what you can see when you are talking about an older car.

That is an awesome auto-x location! We only have a couple of event locations that I could get into 3rd gear and that was with a 4.40 FD in my old honda ~75mph max. I don't think the shorter gears would really help you too much but if you do plan on taller tires it might be streetable depending on what annoys you and the type of driving you do. Better tires would be high on my list but I understand you are trying to repair what you have.

You could build up some material with a TIG machine and then shape it to match the gasket. How many mm does the gasket intrude into the port right now?

Tokico?

It's nice to see a car that doesn't have one of the normal options for wide fenders. What's your plan for the downpipe & exhaust?

He probably used some strut inserts that fit a Porsche, or his friend told him Porsches have the same suspension design so he now has a porsche front end. I love craigslist

You could also wrap some parts of the trim in UV stable vinyl. It can stretch and conform to almost any shape with some heat and will last a long time, plus it's removable if you want to go back to bare stainless some day. I remember an '86 volvo I had, had the exterior of the B pillars were wrapped in satin black vinyl and they were still in excellent shape after a few hundred thousand miles. Just an idea...

Scored this for $77 on ebay. These are forged and reasonably light with usable geometry for this project. The Z31 front hubs are for sale now and I'm looking for aluminum hubs. MBM makes a very inexpensive hub that looks ok...

Hahah

1200 euros, just over $1550

Smaller EPS motors, from kei cars, forced to do auto-x duty have been known to lose some assist toward the end of a run. The one from EZ EPS looks more like what full sized cars use so I assume it would be better suited. That's a guess though.

Should I get a Camry or an M3? Here is the rear TE37 size on an S30 with flares.

I wish we had more people here that wanted (to pay for) that kind of quality restoration work. I hear New Zealand is like that too.

I have noticed that the ratio of unsprung weight to sprung weight can change how harsh a suspension feels too. If you have extremely heavy wheels/brakes/tires on a very light car it won't ride nearly as nice as a car with lighter unsprung parts. I have installed lots of lightweight wheels and tires on various cars and the ride nearly always improves, even when the sidewall height decreases and the wheel diameter increases over stock.

The engine swap arrived. 2nd version 1JZ-GTE with an R154 5 speed. Looks pretty clean overall. The driveshaft it came with is junk so I cut off the yoke to keep the trans output shaft clean. I cut out the left sub rail, frame rail, whatever it's called, and set one of my new ones in place. Should work pretty well. I'm planning to add a tube connecting them over the bell housing and some boxes connecting the front of the rockers to the angled part of the new rails.

Rails are all done. These are set up to be the same height as the rockers and the bottom of the front rails are 1.25" higher than stock.

Needs more cable ties

I have a complete front suspension/crossmenber from a 71 240z with 71k miles. I'm located in Maine, if you ever drive up this way I would sell the two housings for $50.

Exactly. People have no idea what it costs to do if you have to pay someone to do it. The shop I work for charges $60/hr and we turn out tons of $100k cars that would sell for around $50k at auction. Generally, people that spend the big money to have it done correctly, realize that quality work just takes time and their desire to have a nice car that will last will cost them far more than fair market value. It's not a rare situation by any means, it's just a little different to see it start to happen to these types of cars. It just mean rich people like cool cars too I think.

Very true. Is there any precedent for a pretty much stock, restored S30 going for $30k?