Alf

The front suspension is going to be a Ford Model A I beam axle, basically just for the look. I happened to see one sitting out front of a fab shop, and should pick it up this weekend.

Thanks for the compliments guys. A torch would have been great. I just made due with what I had, it got the job done. Here's more if you're interested>>http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=116127

Here's my savior... I've only been playing for about six months so far, but I'm getting the hang of it. It's definatelly a stress reliever, nice change from working on cars all the time.

I got my 85 for free. It had caught on fire around 1991, then after getting an entire fire truck's worth of water sprayed on the engine it sat untill 2004 when it was given to me. It then sat another six months before I decided to do anything with it. Now it's sitting again, but it now has a V8 and is inside, who knows what the future holds. I bought this 84 slick-top in October as a donor car for my hot rod project. I paid $400 for the car and another $100 to have it delivered. The body was so rusty that when I cut the roof off, the back end broke and sagged to the floor. As of now this car is dead, it's in a million peices, probly the best thing that could have happened to it.

It shouldn't affect the timing, unless you have severe back-pressure that the engine pulls significantly less vacuum at idle, and then maybe your vacuum advance may not work the same as before, but I don't really see that happening. It may change your fuel mixture, so some carb adjustments may be needed.

Nice vid. Car looks good, that megasquirt looks like a pretty serious program. Good luck with the tuning, be sure to let us know how much you get out of that $100 engine.

Just go V8, SBC's and SBF's are everywhere, and performance parts are so cheap and plentifull. Just think, all the time your gonna spend looking for a VG30ET in good shape your car could look like this.

My Z is one of the few Z31's with a complete and running V8 swap and the only one I have seen with a manual transmission, with a Saginaw 3 speed at that. I gotta throw in the street sign rad-inlet, havn't seen too many of these, especialy ones formed with only a brick and a carpenter hammer.

Update #2 1/3/07 Boy does time fly, it feels like just yesterday I finished disassembly of the donor car, but in reality that was almost two months ago. The project was put on hold for the holidays as I returned home for my winter break from school. Santa was good to me this year and I got a MIG welder, which is awesome because I desperately needed one for this project. Well now I'm back at school so work on the VG30 hot rod can resume. For now enjoy the video I promised >>>>>>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdy_3H5t058 I should be back with an update shortly. Alf

Shouldn't be a problem, except for the noise. If this is the first start on a brand new engine, or an engine with a new camshaft it will need to be broken in, which means at least 20 minutes of stationary running. I've never heard about exhaust valves cracking due to running open headers, but it sounds possible. The whole back-pressure deal is non-sense, all back-pressure dose is push down on the piston while it's trying to push exhaust gasses out. Zero back-pressure is what your shooting for, less negative force on the engine, the more power reaches the wheels, that's why most racecars don't run mufflers. It's even possible to have positive pressure sucking ehaust gasses out of the engine if you place the exit of your exhasut in a low pressure area.

This is the ultimate; the Smokey Yunick designed "semi-hemi" aluminum headed 302, complete with special cross ram and magnesium valve covers. I think only seven sets were made due to poor performance gains for the efforts. Enjoy. http://www.firstgen.com/cortez.html

Your Suburban has the 5.3 liter gen 3 LS1, not the old style SBC. I don't know if that helped any, check this out maybe>> http://ls1tech.com/forums/showthread.php?goto=lastpost&t=597587

This stuff is like cigarettes. I erased mine about a year ago, but just can't stay away KS is too boring. here we go again... http://www.myspace.com/78693633

Yeah Mike, just a good bet with dad, and of course he'll be involved, I couldn't do it without him, and him likewise, haha, we make a good team. Icewtr, if you could get the name of the shop that sold the adapter that would be awesome. Or if you could even just get a picture of it, that would be great too. I have access to a full spectrum of machining equipment so I should be able to make it. Veritech-z, two side by side looks sweet, but I don't think that will fit in the bay, plus I'll need some contraption to combine the power to one shaft. cobraz240z, I'm doing this just for fun, I love to challenge myself. Plus you know how boring a 3rd gen Camaro with an SBC in it would be? I already have the car, two running jy 305's, and two diesel truck turbos to choose from, so this should be fairly cheap (in theory).

Thanks for the quick responces, I'll check into the tractor pulling. The main goal of this project is to be INEXPENSIVE, UNIQUE, and just to use up some junk I have laying around. Plus my dad and I have a healthy bet that my creation won't be able to beat his 67 Camaro with a 331 inch screamer motor. It's all in good fun, I just like to see what's possible sometimes.

Has anyone ever seen, heard of, or performed such a feet? I'm thinking about installing two 305's in-line with a coupler, crank to crank, and a giant 18 wheeler truck turbo in an 82 Camaro I have sitting out back, just for a rediculous race car. I know this will most likely require a total rebuild to the firewall, but I was wondering if you guys had any info on this because I can't seem to find any. Thanks.

I'd deffinetally pull over and talk to them.

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=108442

I have driven my SBC Z31 from KS to NJ, which is about 1350 miles, three times, I never had any problems. it wasn't the most comfortable ride due to the gearing and noise, but I can't complain, I even hit 20 mpg's with it on one tank. 85 Z31: 305 chevy, 3 speed saginaw, 3.70 r200

The rear is the stock r200. I had a custom shaft made, it's basically a chevy driveshaft with a Neapco adapter for the rear flange. It cost me about $210, nothing fancy.

I did a short write-up on this swap, it's not very good, but if you would like to see it, just search for "300zx breif instructions". if you plan to go manual you're going to need a hydraulic throwout bearing or some type of slave cylinder setup. I used the stock clutch master cylinder and I'm not sure it has enough volume, maybe a universal wilwood one would be bettersomething along the size of 7/8 or 1 inch, stock is only 5/8. The driveshaft is nothing special, just find a good shop and have the shaft built with chevy joints so they are replaceable, and the rear "yoke thingy" with the four holes in it(for lack of a better name) is available from Neapco to adapt the chevy joint to the R200 diff. The rear end of the 300ZX consists of the r200 differential, yours is most likely an open 3.70 geared version, and u-jointed half shafts on non turbo models. These rears are very strong and it should be able to put up with a good deal of punishment, mine hasn't broke yet. Using a carburetor makes the wiring really simple, just make sure to label everything when you disasemble the car. All you're gonna need are; alternator, coil power, and starter wires. For cooling I used a new replacement dual core turbo zx radiator, it was only about 129 after tax, and a 15 inch electric fan mounted directly on the radiator. I also made a radiator inlet so that more air was directed to the core. I didn't have a temp guage, but it never overheated, though it did seem to run hot, but there were problems with my engine so I'm not sure if this is sufficient. Maybe chaparrel can answer this question better??? What transmission are you planning on using?

Hey typhoone, it's nice to see interest in the Z31 swap. I have an 85 with a 307 and a three speed. There are a lot of questions to be answered; do you plan to run fuel injection or carb, auto or manual, and what you want to do with the car are just a few. I never did get a round to making mounts to sell, but I would be glad to give you the dimensions, they are rather easy to fab. As far as I know Chaparral2f and I are the only ones on the site who have performed the SBC Z31 swap succesfully. Here are some pics of mine and Chaparral's cars >>>>>> http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=108065&highlight=v8+z31 Also don't forget to check out my album, the link is at the bottom of this post. Read up and ask away with any questions you may have, I'd love to see another V8 Z31 roaming the streets.

Hey guys I'm back with an update on my new project, the vg30e hot rod. I figured I would just start a new thread as a build thread so you guys can follow along with my progress. If you would like to see how this project began go here>>>>>> http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=114405&highlight=hot%2Frat+rod Update #1 11/1/06 Well it's been a couple months since my initial update so I figured it was time. We hauled the rod out here to KS (where I go to college) from Jersey on our 14' car trailer. I disasembled the body and stuffed it inside my Escort which aslo rode on the trailer, the frame was strapped underneath the car and the rear axle was up front, it was tight but we fit everything on and the trip out was flawless. I had a storage space rented from last year and I set the car up in there to get back to the project. That didn't work out so I ended up renting a shop in town which took a month to get, but it was worth it. So far out here I have finished the floor, channelled the body and totally disasembled a 84 300ZX doner car. I need to borrow a welder so I can start welding on my rear suspension brackets and get the engine set up in the frame, thats the next step. Here's the pics, enjoy. This is my 1/12 scale mock up frame I built out of balsa wood. I then transfered the measurements to 1/1 scale and drew it out on the floor, everything worked out great with this method, i would highly recomend it, it could save you alot of trouble in the long run. Whooaaa... thats alot of scrap. Thats what I didn't use of the body, it was at least half of what I started with. This is the back of our shop at home, if you know anything about 18 wheeler trucks, you can tell that's what the shop is really used for, it's littered with truck parts, brake drums, shocks, clutches, and even a blown up L10 Cummins deisel, don't worry I already snagged the turbo and piping. (Hmmmmm maybe I'll use that on... ) Here's the rod in my old storage shed. I just had the body sitting on top of the frame rails in this picture. I wasn't very happy how it looked, but I fixed that. There's a bunch of stuff going on in this pic. The body is now channelled, I have aquired a uhhhhhh.... floor, and made a seat template. Ahhhhhhh, here she is in my new garage, look at all the room I have this is heaven. This is the third shop of the build in three months. The body looks much better lower on the frame, it's a hair under three inches off the ground. The paint on the wheels is still wet in this picture, I think they look much better black. It actually looks like a car, sweeet. Check that out, I have a floor. This thing just about wore my drill out, 100+ rivets times two for the holes, my arm hurts thinking about it. Here's the donor car. It is (was) a slicktop 84 300ZX, $400 with a running engine and good five speed tranny, brand new tires too, the body was super rusty but I didn't care, I couldn't pass it up. Here's a list of the parts Ill be using: Engine, tranny, wiring harness, clutch, brake and gas pedals, half of the driveshaft, and many other small peices. If you need some parts PM me, everything I'm not using is for sale, it's in my way. There's the heart of the beast. I just lined it up to get a look how it would fit, It looks like it's gonna fit perfect, but hey I built it for the VG so it should fit perfect right? That's it for now, be sure to check back for an interesting video of the disasembly of the donor car. Remember, if you need any 84 300ZX parts let me know, I have everything, even the roof, help fund the project, my goal is under $1000 for the whole car and I'm at about $600 now so I need to recoup some of my expenses. Till next time. Alf