seattlejester

If compression is good, you won't be gaining much with the balancing etc. The engine might rev a little better and spin a little more freely, but once again, unless something was really bad before (blown head gasket, leaking valve, scored bearings), you won't be much closer to your goal. The main parts for an installed system with megasquirt would be about 1000 depending on the board you run and how disassembled you buy it, the local installer here charges 1000 for the unit, installed, with a custom wiring harness. I am 100% on the same page as pharoah on this, my recommendation for megasquirt was if you can't wait to do the swap and HAVE to spend some money on your current setup, megasquirt would be a mod that would carry over, actually to quite a few engine choices in the future. The NA versions 81-83 of the 280zx I believe came with flat top pistons, so it wouldn't be as desirable for your purposes. I am not sure on if it came with all the holes for the oil lines, but with plugs or if that was drilled afterwards. Once again, it is a budget question, you can turbo anything pretty much, but buying a turbo engine ensures it comes with everything to run, and you can upgrade little tidbits as you go. You would still need a turbo manifold, the turbo oil pan, turbo oil pump, etc, so might be a good idea to look around for a complete setup. From your budget you have enough for one good rebuild, might as well spend it on the turbo block. Keep in mind it is a 30 year old engine, so finding someone to warranty one is difficult, a reputable machine shop should leave no worries and would probably warranty the motor for a couple of months, if you really wanted a warranty I think datsun parts LLC sells engines, but from heresay sometimes it is not up to people's expectation. Read lots, a lot of people had the same questions, as did I, answers are definitely out there, and being able to find them will help immensely in the future. For future reference, brakes, not breaks . And a bit of a warning, the forum appreciates proper capitalization and punctuation. Makes everything easier to read, and actually it is a rule, one that I've tripped over a few times, hence my warning .

If the compression is good that means the motor is pretty healthy, it is your money, if opening it up, balancing it, and inspecting it makes you more comfortable with the car by all means, no harm other than a light pocket. With boost, you don't need too much headwork, the P90 head which comes on the turbo block flows pretty well, better than an N42 which comes on the NA block. If you are cramming air in, smooth runners and such won't be as big a benefit as it would be for NA, once again, the whole NA vs turbo thing. Not saying it won't help, but a bigger turbo or an intercooler would net you more power and put you closer to your goal than spending it on headwork. Here's a neat site, some of the stuff is a bit out dated (I haven't read it in a while), but I think most of it applies. http://www.xenons130.com/l28et.html Main point I want to make is that the engines usually don't cause failures on these cars unless they don't hold compression, it's usually a rusty gas tank, cracked vacuum hoses, old/worn electrical components, etc. There are plenty of other things you can replace and check before getting to the engine, no point in having a ported, polished, balanced engine, if your fuel lines are clogged, or the distributor doesn't get any spark. If your mechanic says everything checks out, compression is good, there's no material in the motor oil, replace more likely failure points and save the money for a full born swap. Like pharaoh said, if you have the L28et motor you can swap it in a weekend, and you can leisurely build the motor until you are ready for the swap.

^Agreed, if your plan is 100% a turbo L28, then just buy an L28et, better yet find a donor 280zx and take everything you can, having the stock ecu and harness will ensure the car is running before you decide to upgrade. The swap is pretty well documented, on here and elsewhere do a search and read some of the great builds. I think stock N42 dished blocks have 8.x:1 the online calculator has the exact number. I think the turbo motor runs something ridiculous like 6.x or 7.x:1 by todays standard, but the low compression allows it to handle more boost. The key to doing something cheaply is to not waste the budget. Buy things that will be helpful down the road, if you are once again 100% sure on the turbo route, don't buy a header for example, it won't be very useful when you have to replace it with the turbo manifold. Buying and having your car run on megasquirt can be a great way to get some extra power and make the swap very easy and put you closer to your power goal. Just make sure to think of what you will need down the line and your money will go quite a ways. You can boost your motor you have now, but search for the list, it is pretty extensive and you will need access to a welder to weld in an oil return, find a place to get pressured oil, add an electronically triggered system of some sort to tell the ecu, a rising rate fuel pressure regulator, higher cc fuel injectors, etc etc, the list goes on. Having the boosted motor is really the way to go on this. Edit: Sorry I wrote this before your response, I would really push you away from taking the block apart unless you have reason to do so. Unless the compression is bad, it is a lot of money to spend, and unless you plan on replacing everything you won't get much reliability back (oil pump, water pump, all the gaskets, all bearings, uping the bore, gapping rings, belts, valves, seats, guides, etc), they are built very stoutly and if you start replacing things there really isn't a stopping point. Things that would be better spent on reliability is relay upgrades, battery, alternator upgrade, cleaning out the gas tank, flushing the radiator, checking the bushings, checking gas and brake lines, fuse box etc.

Welcome, and congrats on your purchase! I know that engine building may seem daunting, but I would really recommend sitting down and reading a bit , as your desires and plans are a bit contradicting. If your long term plan is turbo, you actually want a bit of lower compression, at higher compression you are more likely to ping with these motors. Flat top pistons are usually recommended for people chasing the NA dragon. The f54 block will be desirable in that it has the oil drains and oil source to feed the turbo, as well as dished turbo pistons, and the engine comes with a trigger wheel of sorts and of course the turbo manifold. I would highly advise going one over doing both, trying to do a full NA build and turbo it later on will require a compromise of some sorts. Just throwing in L24 rods will push your pistons out of the block, your pistons will actually hit the head, the L24 rods in L28 blocks are used by running a shallower piston, such as the KA24de pistons and a thicker head gasket, I suggest staying away from that pandora's box of upping the bore until you are set on a plan. There is no real merit to be had by revving the engine to 8k, especially with boost on a big displacement motor. You have a transmission, use it . Here's a link to an online calculator, keep in mind for the cheapest build, it will be best to find a running block, or better yet a rebuilt one and not tear it open for machine work, until you are ready for a proper build. Spending all the money on machine work to realize that you are heading in a different direction really sucks, ask me how I know. You know the cliche, fast, cheap, easy, pick two, don't pick cheap. http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/calcs/engine%20builder/index.html

The statement was anecdotal, but if you want to pick holes in it... First, I never said NASA, I said America, Fisher is an american company, I know the fallacy behind it and I took care to avoid it, I bloody well have the pen in front of me. And prior to the wide spread adoption, Russians did indeed use pencils, or more accurately grease pencils/pens, as is mentioned in your third source, in fact they did so since their first manned space mission until their purchase of the Fisher space pens in 1967. If we are picking holes in each others statement, where are you getting the theoretical weight savings from? If you use the floor and underpinnings you still keep most of the weight. The lightest of the early Z cars still weighed 2100, with the 350z weighing at 3200 (roughly), if you are keeping the whole underside of the car, you can't just subtract the weight difference, it hangs on. Sure you drop weight by having a smaller body, but you won't drop 1/2 a ton. I really don't want to do this anymore, it seems you are intent on proving me wrong. I'm glad that you are considering looking for a sorted car, but I genuinely hope you do a body drop/chassis combination and prove me wrong, it wouldn't be the first time, and if proving me wrong is the motivation you need to complete your project, more power to you. Good luck.

Correct it now, it will help much in the future! You can run a little more positive offset if you run a coilover setup since the spring perch is drastically reduced in size (more of the wheel can fit inboard), but running wide positives without spacers is going to be a bit difficult. The more positive the offset the thinner the rim will eventually have to be, I think you can fit a +20 if it is 6 inches wide I believe, or you can run a 20mm spacer on a 17x8 +20 and bring it back down to 0. So you are correct, to run a wider rim you will have to accordingly have a more negative offset. I agree with you spacers are a bit scary, but some people do run them and run their cars hard, just keep the amount of thread engagement in mind or use a quality bolt on spacer. A good point on stock suspension is 8 inch wide with 0 offset. The wider you move the wheel the more negative you should go. Rota will be one of the few cheaper carriers of negative offset 17's. You will either have to look for smaller size rims, or consider a spacer/conversion to run a more modern offset, granted those massive spacers scare me a good deal. Suspension will depend on what you want out of your car. The chassis won't be able to handle really stiff springs without flexing unless it is a really fresh chassis or has a bit of structural bracing. I have tokico hp struts with linear 280z tokico spring from beta motorsports, it rides really comfortably and dampens pretty quickly, the car has a bit of travel when I floor it but no where near stock levels. One step up is tokico illuminas with adjustable dampening, but with both of these setups you are going to run out of travel on the front strut if you lower your car more than an inch or two. Given your serious power plant you might be inclined to shop around for coilover options via sectioning your own struts via instructions found here and floating around on the internet, or buying a weld on kit, or buying a bespoke strut housing/hub with a sleeve and strut already installed. Look around and see what other people do with their cars, if that is what you would like to do, see what they run.

I had a really thorough and clearly organized answer typed out, but I just hit the back button and lost all of it. So I'll address the main points, my apologies if this sounds curt as I am pretty upset with myself at the moment. First I appreciate you taking this in the best light, written speech always seems to convey the worst in me at times and in general I think written speech in general can be taken the wrong way most of the time. I always play the devil's advocate, someone has to do it, and I don't mind the hate that comes with it if it helps someone out in the long run. You can understand my concern with your experience from your preference to have the work outsourced, that can destroy a budget very quickly with not much work done. If you have time, space, the skill, and access to steel, what you suggest actually wouldn't be out of the question given your budget, but if you outsourced the task you would have to pick diminishing build quality in order to complete such a build. After looking at the mentioned threads, I realize you weren't talking about transferring over subframes and suspension pickup points from a donor vehicle as has been done a few times (a few of them cataloged on here), you were referring to welding the Z body onto the unibody of another car. You are correct that that would exclude many of the structural concerns of mating modern suspension to an older chassis, my bad on that. That is also where my driveshaft remark came from, using separate subframes and using the Z unibody would mean wheel base would no longer be a concern, but if you plan on using the donor unibody then fitting a body on top would indeed become a chore if the unibodies was not at least somewhere in the ball park. Unfortunately given the drastic nature of the change (not running any stock major components), this will undoubtedly legally be considered a custom vehicle, which has to pass smog via a BAR referee according to California DMV, if you are planning a build with the intention of fooling the government body that may be a bad place to start. From what I have read of the California emissions regulations when I was trying to help a friend with some importing, they take that stuff pretty seriously down there. If bumpsteer and and lift is the downpoints to a Z car then those are easily addressed. Stiffer springs and better dampening struts will drastically reduce the suspension travel and will in turn easily minimize bumpsteer, and a reinforced airdam will drastically reduce the lift, which really only starts to play a role at speeds above 120 with the stock nose and weight configuration (so I am told, truth be told I haven't had my Z at those speeds, but with my airdam I've never felt the wheel go light). And if you drop the Z body onto another chassis, the lift is still there (aerodynamics don't change). That above is the reason I asked the questions, if your reasons are easily addressed it is very easy to be swayed as time passes. America spends millions to develop a pen that can write in space, the Russians use a pencil. If you can say, the turning radius is drastically limited by the tension rod for tight corners using shorter knuckles and power steering as I will be using this car for autocross, or limited readily available after market choices for adjustable pieces as you plan on drifting a lot and need to replace suspension components on a regular basis, or as in someone else's case they were much more familiar with another manufacturer's suspension layout, or had a fully built setup from another car, those responses would be very convincing. Heck I've built entire projects just because I had a neat piece laying around that I wanted a home for. Now "I just want to" or "I think it is unique" can be just a good reason as any, but that reason has to stand up to yourself over time (scope creep). I once saw a 2005 toyota celica chassis (FWD) with a 500hp subaru AWD drivetrain being swapped in, the reason, she wanted something that would "pop," never did see it finished. To address the idea of dropping the datsun body onto a miata, the miata's run a structural aluminum backbone which connects the whole driveline to the front and rear cross members, thus dropping a body on that will require a way to attach that back bone to the body, once again not difficult if you have the skill and the time, in fact there is a company that builds an Ariel Atom like shell to throw on top of it. Keep in mind, the reason I am trying to sway you away is because you asked for it, you asked if you could do such a thing. If you had said that this is what you were going to do and the best way to go about it, that would merit a different response. My main concern is you have a very decent sized budget, you want a smog free Datsun with upgraded suspension and an engine swap, why don't you look for just that? I see turbo swapped datsuns with sorted suspension go in the 5k-10k range quite often. Regardless of my nays, good luck on your endeavor it sounds interesting, I would also suggest a look at project car magazine, they had an issue on a 240sx chassis into a pickup truck body swap in one of the issues.

You are going to have to do a little more reading I think. There are two boundaries that a wheel has to fit in most cars (unless it is an open fender car or running push rod etc); those boundaries are the fender/body and the suspension. If a wheel has too much negative offset it gets pushed out board, push too much outboard and your wheel hangs outside the body. This is bad if you hit a bump your car will shred the tires by contacting the tire unless you run really stiff suspension. On our cars people cure this problem by running flares, which allow you more negative offset by removing the interfering fender and replacing it with a wider flare. If a wheel has positive offset it pushes the wheel inboard, this means it will contact the suspension,in our case the spring perch. Either the perch or the wheel has to give way, not that you could drive very far due to the grinding noises/wheel imbalance. So by my comment that a 16x9 + 0 inch will most likely require spacers to not rub the suspension means that the spacer will be pushing the wheel further outboard in other words negatively. So to answer your question, no any positive offset 16x9 will be even closer to the strut, you want a 16x9 with some negative offset to run stock spring/strut. Keep in mind the more negative offset you run the closer you are pushing toward the fender. On my car with a 225/50/15 tire on a 15x7+0 with 1.5-2 degrees of camber out back, I rub on the stock fender on hard dips. When people say that the F:17x9-13 and the F:17x9.5-19 fit our cars, that refers to a flared 240-280z. Keep in mind tire and camber choices will affect what you can fit under the car as well, also keep in mind there is no logical point in running a wider rim than tire or running silly amounts of camber.

Word of caution, you are dangerously getting close to being tossed in the shed, given how often questions related to wheel fitment are asked. XXR is a knockoff of rota, therefore your reservations don't make a lot of sense. In fact the statement that a cheap wheel that is prone to breaking, costing too much doesn't make a lot of sense. According to that statement you should be willing to shell out more. If 900 is too much for you, racing lab has them for 860, and I think there was a group buy on here for a little less than that. Offset is very important, it determines where the wheel sits in relation to the mounting face/hub, it is one of the 3 measurements that are required in identifying a wheel for fitment. 16x9 wheel with 0 offset is awfully close to not fitting, an 8.25 +0 rim gives maybe a finger worth of clearance between the stock spring and strut, so you may have to run a thin spacer for that 16x9 to fit. Good luck.

You still haven't mentioned your capabilities, experience, or how much of the work you can and will do your self. If the limit of your research is googling results, you have quite a ways to go, understanding how the suspension will be moving/mounted to a chassis is very important. Do you understand the benefits of a double wishbone suspension over a simple macpherson strut? Do you understand the reinforcements needed to run the newer suspension with higher spring rates? Why do you need the subframe from the mentioned cars? What do you hate so much about the standard layout that merits the change? If you can't answer these then it may be too early for you to be considering such a task. Looking at wheel base is a little strange as well. Most cars don't come with a chassis anymore, so swapping front and rear subframes is a matter of width and mounting points, the length is easily controlled with custom driveshaft length. Keep in mind trying to narrow track is substantially more difficult, you will have to narrow cross members, frames, axles, etc and the axles will have to be custom made, or shortened and rebalanced, are you familiar with those processes? If you use the running gear and any integral structure from the donor car, then it actually becomes a Z body kit on the donor car chassis, that's the reason almost all the cheap kit cars are registered as beetles or fiero's, just a Lamborghini or ferrari kit on a stretched chassis. Not trying to burst your bubble, but would hate to see you dump all this money into something and end up with something that is misaligned and twitchy, or worse handles much worse than a prepped z chassis. you could have some very bespoke suspension for a few thousand and work on an engine swap if you really were gunning for something special. Have you driven a Z? Have you driven one with a nicely setup ground control system, or otherwise? You would be surprised how well they handle with a few tidbits here and there. I know a guy who is on year 3 of re-bodying a car himself, and that's just on making the body panels, he hasn't even gotten to the power plant. If that was at a shop, you can imagine he would be in the 6 figure territory and that is being conservative. And please note this is coming from a place of experience, you can imagine how fast most of my exotic plans hit the toilet, when a quote for a sandblasting, epoxy primering, and patching came out to 3500, and that's just for the shell!

To get a gloss look they actually recommend a clear coat, once the clear is on there I imagine it adds a bit of durability, but I can see it being a bit more difficult to pull off if you chose later on. As long as you spray it on pretty thick and make sure you don't leave edges it stays on pretty well. I have a few hand tools that I have dipped the handles of and they handle some pretty regular abuse.

Turning up the wire speed and moving a little faster will actually help prevent blow through, but you won't get decent penetration. From my experience with the HF welder I had an arse of a time trying to weld a bead on anything thinner than 16 gauge other than short tacks. For something like floors which will be supporting not only your weight, but the weight of seats, rails, and maybe even a seat belt mounting point I really would be skeptical about being able to do much with that welder. My unsolicited advice would be to cut all the correct panels tack them in place how you would like them ensuring good fitment and minimal panel gap with your welder and call someone over and have them finish it up with their welder. Make sure they use a mig at the minimum, that you can supply the power supply, and that they have experience with sheet metal. You can watch with your welding mask and pick up on how to weld with a proper mig and learn about moving around, cooling the panel, and all that fun stuff . If you want to go do it yourself, you can borrow welders from welding supply stores for the weekend and call someone who knows what they are doing to watch as you lay down a few beads.

Started to clean up the engine a little bit. Engine before any work done above. Some light scraping with wire brushes. Some vigorous attack with brushes on drills. And finally some etch primer followed by high heat paint. A pic of the other side to show the color, topped it off with some engine clear coat to keep the oil, grease, and gasoline from working it's way down the layers. Total time spent, 12 hours.

If you checked timing, fuel, and spark, air or compression would be my next guess. How is the valve clearance? Are you getting any compression? It would also help if you can confirm how you know you are getting fuel and spark, have you pulled the injectors? Are they firing? Have you physically seen a spark on the plugs? (Obviously don't do these at the same time...)

It is not advisable to run a rubber line front to back. Some strict race events will turn you away if you have more than a foot of rubber line in your system, and in general it is not very safe or smart. Buy some steel or aluminum hardline and run it most of the way and use rubber lines for connections. The bends in the trans tunnel is not very hard, the area above the axles can give you some trouble, but as long as you test fit and bend you should be fine. Most pumps are pushers, mounting it as close to the tank is ideal. Some will come with warnings stating not to have the pump push more than 9 inches in elevation or somewhat: Fuel tank - Fuel Pump -------------------------------------- Carb - Fuel Pressure Regulator ------------------------------------------ Fuel tank. The longer sections should be hardline if possible. I did not have to run an FPR on my carbs, but it will be one of the first things people ask about if you have problems, (what is your fuel pressure set at).

To be honest I find even my 15/16th MC is a bit squishy in the beginning of brake travel with my maxima rear calipers. I think you can also get away with jacking up the rear a bit to get the bleeder screws lined up and tapping it with a rubber mallet to dislodge any trapped bubbles. Making sure your brake booster hose is not collapsing and the one way valve is not sticking might help a bit. I know mine was visibly flexing and I wouldn't get any brake travel until the bottom with that setup. Adjusting the rod is definitely suggested, the first inch or so of my travel is uninspiring, but I moved the engagement point up from the bottom quarter of travel up to the upper half or so which makes the brakes feel a lot better.

Thanks, and your car looks great! Any info on wiring in the VEMS would be great as well, ordering mine in a few weeks.

Hah, will do, we still have a bit of wrenching ahead of us. Current plan: Clean up the outside of the block and run some evapo rust through the water jacket and flush it all out. Pop the mounts off, make a jig, copy the mounts and reinforce. Decide on a plan for the tranny mount and brush up on wiring harness literature. Clean off all the accessories, put the block back together with my upgrades, get the car wired and running. Currently I think we have about 5 hours so far on engine removal, tranny and engine seperation, and pulling off the head and such. Upcoming plans: I bought a spare set of suspension, so I have decide on a coilover route and make a jig for some home made control arms similar to the ones you can find on our forum. I got a call back from a local shop for some body work, so when funds are available that will be next on the list as well.

Glad you got her started! I think the manual has a section on addressing loss of power with things to check. I have the same setup as you L28e with SU carbs. When my car was stumbling the problems I found were a bad throttle linkage which was binding when I stepped on the throttle, insufficient fuel (my electric pump had a roll over safety that would cut in cutting fuel), timing I believe you are supposed to set it to the spec of the distributor you are using. Speaking of, which distributor are you using? Are you using the E12-80 ignition module?

Question, if it is not for competition, why do you need one? I can't imagine a cage working correctly that is bolt in and easily removable. I can see a roll bar work, but not more than 4 places, or a full cage that has bolt in feet with spreader plates. The tighter you want the cage to fit the more difficult it will be to remove let alone install. Example a tight fitting main hoop is going to run right in front of the quarter glass mounting points, the quarter glass has to be removable so you can lean the hoop back and get it over the door sill. Once you add legs to that portion, it will be even more difficult to remove, add a dash/knee bar to that and it is near impossible. If you make the cage into several pieces to keep it removable you introduce weak points in the cage. If you plan on non-competitive track time a roll bar is a nice idea, you can still remove it, attach harnesses to it, and no one will have a real problem with it, plus in the case of an accident it should protect your noggin although your helmet should be doing that as well.

If you have a 280z, the fuel lines run adjacent to one of the frame rails so yes the lines will have to be moved and disconnected. If you are putting the Baddog frame rails in front to back you will need to at the minimum disconnect the axles and remove all the interior, under coating, and any paint in the welded area. You can't weld to paint if that is what you are asking. Welding horizontal is substantially easier then welding from the bottom. If that is the shop you have picked and that's what they want to do you are kind of at their mercy. Removing the drive train will make the car easier to manipulate and less weight will make the chassis a little less likely to warp when you remove the floor and frame rails. It depends on their price break. Personally I would charge more to work around pieces than to just remove it all together and bolt it in later. And if it is a professional shop, they may want to throw the car on a jig of some sort which will necessitate using the stock transmission mounting location as a reference point.

Similar problem with mine, lots of pine needles and such some pitting, no holes though. I cleaned it out as best as I can, shot rust inhibitor inside and coated it thick with paint. Realistically it is very difficult to do repairs in that area short of cutting access portals to get to the trouble spots. If it is a concern with heavy pitting I would attack the weak portions with a hammer to give yourself a reference point, cut it out from the inside of the cabin and patch from the inside as well.

Could I bother you for how you mounted the transmission?

Brake master cylinder would be pretty useful, wheels, drive shaft, axles would also be useful to have.

Why go smaller when you can go bigger . 7mgte, 3.0L DOHC 4 valves per cylinder turbo, good to ~300 with stock turbo, should be lots of fun! Badjuju will be helping me immensely on the swap so stay tuned.