seattlejester

Not sure what the MAP hose being hot would do for addressing your problem. Seems like you romped on it before parking? Give it some time to cool down before you shut it off, the water only circulates with the engine running unless you have an electric water pump and no thermostat.

Engine is great, just need to work on the rattles and such to make it more enjoyable to drive.

BC coilovers have arrived. Hope to get them welded onto my spindles and hub this weekend and maybe get a coat of pain on those. Figured I would test out my new go pro with a quick spin around the block. Road was damp from an early drizzle and the BFG rivals and the welded diff made it pretty slick. Speaking of the welded diff, my shim came in as well so I can reassemble that and plop it back into the housing. Still need to figure out my axle situation. First control arm is also welded up. Going to try and finish all my parts and just have a big install. That should give me a chance to also locktite all my bolts and get rid of a lot of the rear end rattles.

I hear ya, they were cheap and my preference was for a digital readout, easier to grasp then trying to read a sweep gauge when you have to look over for me. I think I just cut one of the looped wires and that was that. Just putting it out there that you can get different ranges affordably as a small correction. I think someone on the forum is also an autometer dealer if you are learning towards those.

My wideband only came in the 2 inch variety that easily adapted to fit. My fuel and oil gauges came in 2 1/4 I think and those were much much more difficult. I think the 2-5/8th would probably sit there very comfortably. I think my intellitronix gauge was 50$ came with the option to cut and splice some wires to get different ohm ranges, granted I went with a fuel cell so my fuel gauge range was pretty bog standard.

Welded as hot as my welder would go, penetration seems good. One of the arms is not quite inline with the original arm, slightly off in the plane. Might have to remake that arm at another point in time. Seems the rod end tube is still perpendicular to the mounting arm so I don't think the function will be affected. Coilovers arrived, I think I'm going to get those welded to the struts before moving onto the next arm. Still need to make the toe link arm turn buckle. LH threaded portion is done, just need to add the RH tube adapter after cutting to length.

The center gauges are a bit larger then 5 inch, they will sit there fine if you secure it with a bracket, but to make a friction fit I had to wrap my 5 inch gauge a few times with electrical tape. A 2 inch gauge will fit into a PVC pipe adapter and almost be a perfect fit in the center pods. Some fuel gauges have adjustable ranges.

Actually just found some end links that were on my daily from hotchkis that I could also probably repurpose using and angle adapter as you posted. BC coils arrived, so plan is to prep the front and rear struts and finish up both the control arms this weekend.

Timing belt is going to depend on the condition of the motor you get. That is up to basic maintenance. If the motor has documentation and a good quality timing belt, then no, but if it has sat for an unknown amount of time and cannot be verified, yes. Word of advice, leave your pride at the door. You came into this clean admitting you have no knowledge. No knowledge does not mean you are an idiot, it just means you don't have any experience with it...yet. You are an empty bucket, ready for filling, if you close that bucket with a lid of pride, you can't fill the bucket. Happened to me before and all said and done, I finally put my pride down and learned a lot about something I thought I knew about, but didn't. There is some genuine concern some members are raising. You can't really take shortcuts here. Dropping the motor, or loosing a wheel is indeed a way to not only kill yourself, but others. If you don't know something, then read and search until you know the facts by heart, then find someone who can show you the application, as knowing and doing are also quite different. Relax and stay with the facts. Facts are hard to contradict. You want a 280z 2+2 with an RB20DET swap. You have saved up 5,000 and your parents may match 7,000 towards your goal. You have a budget of 5,000, tentative 12,000 You want to do this yourself. Unfortunately with cars and swaps, it is not a case of Lego's, you can have an instruction manual, but you need to know the basics to understand how to put things together. There are no easy tips and tricks here, just careful planning and attention to detail. So take some advice and read and plan. There are basic components to most cars as well as basic maintenance. Asking questions about timing belt replacement makes people worry about you taking on such a big project. That doesn't mean never ask a basic question, that means exhaust your resources first. That also means don't preface all your statements with "I searched" if you did search, it would show quite evidently. Now we need to get down to some hard details. Why do you want a 280z 2+2? You are limiting yourself to one body style of one model. Why the RB20det? Why not RB25DET, why not 2jz, why not 1jz, why not L28ET, why not LS1, etc? Why the specific engine choice? What is your time frame? Summer project? College project? Life long project? What is your space? 4 car garage? Car port? Street parking? What are your resources? Tools? Skills? What are your financial resource? You said you have 5,000 saved up. Is this all going to be for the car? You said your parents will give you 7,000. Is this something they mentioned? Or is this for a running car? Can you use this for parts? Is that the total budget you will have? Do you have additional income? There are things to consider here. Once again, quite brave of you to want to do it yourself, but there is a fine line between brave and unreasonable. Also note, we have rules on the forum regarding capitalization and punctuation. It helps others read your comments and makes it more pleasant to read. So take heed. Also just a very good habit for later in life.

Ah I get what you mean. So shave the bushing down a bit so that it is just locating the bar, allowing it to rotate. Space out the bar so that it has more of an angle to act on. Well a lot of it will be coming out so now would be the time to address it.

Excellent I asked another friend and he also suggested keeping it on the bottom as the sway bar would pull up on the control arm. Interesting, I just installed it as suggested. So I should make a spacer and push the clamp and bushing away from the mounting plate if I am understanding that correctly? I wonder if I have enough room with the fuel cell. I'll have to crawl around down there.

That's good, and thanks for posting, I know that can be embarrassing. I would make it a habit to have an active MSQ saved on your desktop. If something is not running right or you are having trouble it will be much easier for some to just take a look through all those settings.

OH the wheel well, not the spare tire well. Goodness, ignore prior quip please. Possible explanation, someone trimmed it or ripped it? I know some people have used replacement vinyl and just cut it to shape, maybe they cut it to match the panel instead of the steel?

I will defer to rturbo, typing that I was a bit skeptical, but I was sure someone would correct me. I believe he is spot on, with only the later '83 cars having hydraulic I think, it has been a while since I've had to recall the exact mechanicals. If you want, I think I have all three books sitting on my shelf. They are good reference to have, but as I no longer have the L series engine, and my car is missing quite a lot of stock components a lot does not apply to me. If you find yourself near seattle I don't mind loaning them out, the how to rebuild your engine one is quite dirty though . It used to be a highly recommended stage one, Tokico was having some problems with supply, or maybe that was a myth you would have to search for the truth on that so they may be available now, but there was a shortage for a while. And it is just a bit of an upgrade over stock, I've heard the phrase (ride like it's on rails, but I think that expression is highly overused) I think they ride quite nice, over bumps, just one nice solid cycle. On aggressive driving on big dips I rubbed a little bit with about 500lbs of people onboard, but with just me never had a problem. It actually rides nicer then my brand new strut and spring combo I just ordered from Acura OEM for my daily. I actually am planning on selling my setup as I am moving onto a stage up with adjustables, but a 280z is heavier and would probably sit differently. Once again if you find yourself near seattle you are free to hit me up for a ride. I can't speak of the Vogtland spring combo, came out after I had done my suspension so I just know of there existence, there is a thread where someone is having trouble with getting a correct ride height, so I would look into that and see if that was resolved. It was brought to attention by johnc, which is who brought my attention and sold me the KYB/tokico setup, so I'm sure with the correct parts they would ride nicely.

Yea, that really blew my mind. I could buy an engine for 750, or I could get a whole car for 500. I even priced it out. If you sell the front struts to the Datsun 510 guys, rear calipers to a z guy, and part out part of the car, sell the rest off to pick and pull and keep just the driveline, you could end up with a 100-200$ engine depending on how much you paid for the car. The latter portion is in regards to piecing together a turbo setup for the motor you have in the car right now. The L28ET is just an L28 with much lower compression, oil feed, oil drain, and hydraulic lifters. You don't need the hydraulic lifters (actually some people even convert them to solid) and you can find a source for oil and make a bung in your pan pretty easily. The only problem is that you would be a bit limited in how much boost you can run with the relatively higher compression on the NA motor. Other then that you need a turbo manifold, a turbo, the exhaust (which will probably need customization anyway), bigger injectors, a better fuel pressure regulator, intercooler (which the stock L28et doesn't even have), and a way to control ignition (megasquirt with coil control, ZX distributor and ECM, or a locked distributor). Having the actual motor is nice in that you can build it up and just swap it in when you are ready.

You want to know the trick for L28et's? Find the whole car. Keep your eye out for a zx turbo, they pop up from time to time. I think there was one available a week ago at 650$ for the whole car. A couple years ago I found one for 400$, and another for 550$. If that fails, the only real piece that is nice to have is the turbo manifold. You can go megasquirt and run EDIS or coil packs with a crank wheel or distributor, and you can put a bung in the oil pan pretty easily. The NA manifolds are actually somewhat preferred for the turbo swap, the AFM is not as good as a decent TPS, and the ECM can be a hit or miss.

Ah, I see, thanks for finding them, that was really helpful. I was thinking some monoball action was going to have to happen, but that makes sense. I think I will have to unfortunately forgo such a surgery. I kind of am out of money and 4 new rod ends although small won't be cheap. I also have a nice ST sway bar, and would prefer not to chop it up. I suppose I could do as you say and use one female rod end and thread one part of the end link into it and retain the poly bushing on the other end. Some thinking to do...My coilovers are coming with 280lb springs so maybe I won't need the rear sway bar as well. Well for the moment, would it be advisable to raise my sway bar mount so it is sitting more in the center of the assembly? Or would it be fine where it is. I looked up myron's design, and given that my tubes are thicker and my plate is much bigger I don't think strength will likely be an issue. Thanks for the input!

Very very cool!

I did order rod end spacers for the rear toe link and planned on having it deflect back a bit, I didn't really think of using any for the front, shoot. I can kind of imagine what you are referring to regarding the angle iron in the arm. Two 90* pieces that would capture a rod end that would connect to the sway bar. Question is how would the sway bar articulate on the sway bar end? Arg, wished I had planned this a bit more out. I was so set on copying the design.

The build threads would be a good place to start. Find someone who has done a similar build and make lists of all the parts that were needed. I think mckinley motor sports has a swap kit that you can purchase, although I'm not sure if the RB20 and 25 were similar enough, that will take some researching. Your best bet is to find a mentor that is close by, family or friend who has experience with cars and has a car of a certain build quality you aspire to. Most people don't mind questions as long as they are polite and reasonable. Read up on general mechanical knowledge. It was and is very brave of you to want to do this, but depending on your learning curve this can be more then you can chew. It might be best to lay out your resources, how much budget do you have to do this, how much time, what kind of tools you have access to, etc. If you are leaving for college in a year or live in an apartment complex with no room to work on the car, this may be very difficult to pull off, but if you have access to a full mechanics shop with air tools and a hoist, this would be relatively easy. If you really want to do it yourself, research and make a list of the steps from start to finish. If you want a step by step guide, best bet is a really well written build thread. Basic steps. 1. Acquire Z car 2. Go over Z car 3. Remove driveline 4. Repair/replace worn parts fix rust 5. Acquire half cut or drive line 6. Install new drive line 7. Plumb motor 8. Wire up electronics 9. Check over all work 10. Start up There can easily be 10 sub steps or more for each of those, it is up to you to outline all of those. Just keep in mind this can be quite pricey so be careful.

Bummer that this took a while. Took me a while to find some space where I could really make some noise and grind some pieces. A couple friends very kindly offered so I think I cut out all the pieces I needed. Tube280z, that is kind of what I ended up doing. My notcher maxed out at 60* and seems like it was close, but very cumbersome. Ended up notching with two cuts using a die grinder and grinding a bit of the outside for fitment. Tacked everything together yesterday. Had a few questions for you folks. The question is regarding the sway bar mount. Currently it sits below the tube as pictured, I figured this would make it easier to clear any custom type of axle by lowering the sway bar away. At the same time I am a little concerned it won't be quite as strong as it would be more of a cap rather then a brace type situation. Additionally I had some thoughts of running another piece of pipe from the bottom of the sway bar mount perpendicular to the bottom bar using the sway bar mounting plate to meet up, I haven't seen anyone else do that though, probably overkill?

None of my later options include using the Z31 parts, they seem to be difficult to find and when found seem to be quite expensive. I can stretch out my control arms a bit to compensate, but given some kind of custom axle will be on order, I will probably just get them a little smaller to compensate.

Full size vs space saver if memory serves.

The mspro seems to be quite an advanced system, seems like you can generate bias curves for sensor inputs as well as scalars. Even with the older models you can set certain thresholds for additional sensors like knock sensors, but that is pretty archaic compared to modern ECU's. L30ET would require boring the cylinders out, I think forged pistons if you are going the KA24de piston route, a custom turbo manifold or at least a bit of modification to fit in an appropriate sized turbo, bigger injectors, new ECU harness, more advanced ECU, tuning. RB25DET would require a turbo manifold, bigger injectors, either an ECU flash or aftermarket ECU/maybe a piggy back, tuning, custom engine mounts, driveshaft, transmission mounts. If you want that kind of power level at a reliable point, I would be tempted to look for motors that come factory with those kind of levels. LS2 I think came with 375hp in certain cars.

As long as you are not compromising too much, and appreciate the cost, then the RB25 is going to be a fine swap. Keep in mind the reliability is only going to be as good as you set it up to be. Making sure that everything is well lubricated, easily accessed, well cooled, plumbed sturdily, and wired cleanly and strongly, short of a catastrophic occurrence you should be fine unless the motor in question is prone to catastrophic occurrences. It might even be better in that you will have to plan some of your regular maintenance ahead of time to allow enough time to get in parts, like water pumps etc, so it could even be better. On the other hand, you could pretty easily hit those numbers with minimal cost with the L28et as others have mentioned. It would require at the bare minimum a turbo manifold, a turbo, and a way to add extra fuel. A step above would be a way to control ignition timing which would either be a distributor from the turbo motor and ECM, or coil packs/EDIS with megasquirt or other spark controller. Once you start pumping up the power you are probably going to need at the minimum a stronger clutch/pressure plate combo, and maybe start looking at the trans options. The L series is pretty reliable, someone I once talked to said he was never surprised when he took a head off of an old L-series and found cross hatching still in place. Doesn't mean they are indestructable, it is still mostly iron and iron rusts and corrodes, so if it wasn't flushed and maintained once in a while it might not be very smooth and pretty inside.