blake culp

I have both, and I'm in Houston. PM me if interested.

What RB variant did you go with? Also, I may need to buy one of those turbo mani's off you.... Just for a spare, I plan to drill and weld mine for an external waste gate. Although I hear they weld quite well for being a cast part.

99% probability it is a r200. As for telling the difference, it took me .01 seconds to do a google search.... http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=r180+vs+r200&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ei=GbfJVOfOE4GNyAT60ILABw&ved=0CBQQsAQ

Depending on the use of the car I wouldn't be afraid to use the r-200 already in the car, if your ZX had a 5spd transmission your most likely have 3.90 gearing which is slightly higher than the 3.46 that came with the GTO. If you're only using it on the street and light drag strip duty I'd bet you will never break the rear end currently in your car. If you want to keep near stock gearing, most automatic zx's and turbo cars came with 3.54 gearing. Find one and swap it out. A little searching on google will show the difference between the nissan r180 and r200 rears, also what to check for regarding the gear ratios. I would not pay to have the GTO rear modified, they break in GTO's and popular swaps are for independent Ford 9" and 8.8" setups.

Where in texas are you? There doesn't seem to be many Hybrid Z's in Texas, or at least in the Houston area where I'm located. I'm always looking for parts to swap or barter, I have a Miller Syncrowave Tig and can weld anything you need done…. I plan on going MS as well and welding/shaving the stock intake manifold, could do yours while Im at it. The car in my signature is one I build in high school & college, it's long gone now and I'm starting new, doing everything right this time. LOL.

Who makes the wheels in the first couple pictures?

Last year in San Antonio an incident made the news here in Houston, two drivers got pissed at each other. They both hit a red light, one driver gets out with a baseball bat, the other driver who has a CHL license shot him. http://www.ksat.com/news/14959073/detail.html I never brake check anyone, if someone is on my 6 I just try to let them around me, actually, I never participate in road rage period. You just never know what is going to happen.

Now I'm finally ready to start the long process of preparing the car for paint. After a failed attempt of hiring a mobile soda blaster who said my paint is too hard for him to remove, i have decided to use aircraft stripper, wire wheels and a small siphon feed sand blaster to remove the old paint. In some areas like the roof I plan on just scuffing and shooting over the old paint, the old paint seems to be holding fine so I don't see the need in stripping it. These are the only two areas of body rust i have found so far. Starting the patch on the top piece The bottom rust spot is almost finished I am going for a very clean, more modern look with my 260. The fender turn signals really show the cars age in my opinion so I'm going to fill them with welded in plugs. Ill be doing the same with the rear bumper indentations. Rear turn signal plug Tacked in Smoothed out Filling the bumper indent Front turn signal, the pictures are smaller and its hard to see, but I'm really starting to get the hang of welding these plugs in. I'm by no means an expert welder, but I do have some experience and I have a guy I work with who IS a certified welder to answer all my questions. I welded in all these plugs in one saturday, so hopefully next weekend ill finish the other side. My goal is to have it painted in a month, middle of may 09, but I still have a lot of prep to do.

Next the glass came out, and i finished stripping the shell. The only thing in the interior to even strip was the pedals and steering shaft, so that part was easy.

I wanted to start a project thread detailing the restoration of an early 260z I bought. The very early stages are missing, in my excitement of picking up the car I forgot to start taking pictures. I found the 260 in San Antonio TX, it was a rolling shell, with no interior. The glass is all good, the body is pretty straight, and the rust is very minimal. First order of business was to remove the suspension and get it up on a rotisserie The rotisserie is just a inch or to too short, so i can't make a complete revolution because the rocker panels hit. I'll probably just put the castors on concrete blocks if/when i need to make a complete revolution.

Has anyone seen a z with turn signals mounded behind the front tires. Similar to a bmw 3 series.... see attached picture. Reason im asking, is i plan on shaving my front and rear factory turn signals, but i live in Houston and with the traffic here i would like to have some kind of side marker to be more visible. The first thing that comes to my mind is to recess or "French" the signal then cover it with a piece of thin plexi glass so it is completly flush with the fender.... but that also seems like WAY too much work for a turn signal. The BMW blends their turn signal into the trim on the door, but i wont have any trim. Any thoughts?

I'm sure you're worried since this is your brand new rebuilt motor, but really, this wont be the first time water has been in the oil of a L motor.... I've popped more than my fair share of headgaskets. I agree with ckolander, take the pan off dry it out with a hairdryer. I wouldn't use wd-40, I'm hesitant to put anything in my motor but oil.

Reminds me of a e46 M3, but I may be a little biased since this is my other car.

The minimum PSI for using only water to blast paint off body pannels, who knows. Im sure if you used the rental blaster and held it in one place for long enough it will remove the paint, but it won't be cost or time effective. You realize the post you linked to had 3x the amount of pressure your rental blaster will have, and probably a lot more volume of water being used too. That being said, you might try this method. Use Aircraft stripper, in the gallon containers put it on thick with a paint brush. Wait for the paint to curl and then blast it off with your pressure washer, Then you will get to bare metal very quickly. Last night in about three hours I did both doors, an inspection panel and the cowl Using the paint stripper followed by a power wash method. After you power wash go over it with a sander to get any remaining paint, which shouldn't be much. I'll finish stripping and prime everything on my car this weekend. Speaking of priming be sure you prime all the bare metal as soon as possible, its pretty obvious why, use a good Epoxy primer. The rattle can stuff will not seal out moisture and will cause rust. WEAR GLOVES while using the aircraft stripper, and do it outside. Depending on what you have and what your goals for this car are, you may be much better off doing body work, scuffing the existing paint, priming, and then repainting. If the old paint is still sticking well just leave it. I have painted over old paint before, so long as the old paint is not flaking off you shouldn't have any problems. Water can actually cut metal, ever seen those water jets slice metal like butter? But a pressure washer will not warp metal. I can go on for a while explaining why it won't, but ill spare you the boredom.

Might be a stupid question, but what should be used to replace the front frame rails, the ones in the engine bay. I have found several posts showing pictures of the replacement and that they are using 2.5"x2.5" square tube, but nobody specifies if it is cold rolled or hot rolled. Also, basically the same question Hot or cold rolled sheet metal for patching body panels, filling in the turn signals etc.

See post #6 on the thread in the link you posted. Car was cleaned in a company that makes cleaning services for industries. In my case they used only hot water with very high pressure (3000 Bar / 43510 PSI). Different types of particles, such as sand, can be added too. It´s not cheap, but great start to project.

I can do that, ill probably just start a new thread. Look for it thursday.

I'm having my 260 blasted on Wed. by this guy. He figures under 1000 for everything. Chris Parrish Gulf Coast Soda Blast, LLC 281-880-5757 http://www.gcsodablast.com He is a mobile blasting service, not sure if he will drive all the way to Austin but it might be worth calling and asking. I will send you a pm thursday with a review of his work.

I'll do my best, but to be honest I would rather be working on the car than updating posts on the internet. I am taking a lot of pictures though, Ill try to start a thread in the projects section and update it weekly. I'm really excited to get it soda blasted, from there all the work is building instead of "destruction" if that makes any sense.

Great idea, I think that i will lay out all my wires while the car is still in primer, Use all the existing holders that i can and then remove any broken and unused holders and weld in any extras. Then remove the wires and paint.

What did you do with the origional wire holders that are welded to the sheet metal? (pictured in the first attached photo) I doubt im going to re-use them because i will be doing a lot of custom wiring. I'll be runing my 260 with megasquirt and half of the chassis wiring is junk or missing anyway. So, do you cut them off and grind the area smooth or leave em? If i grind them off i guess ill have to use wire holders that are held to the body by a screw.... which means more holes that i'm not a fan of. The second pic is just to show everyone my project, its a 74 260 with very minimal rust ive had it on my rotisserie for the last week I just finished stripping EVERY thing off it today and the car is getting a full soda blast sometime next week

When I bought my zx the driver side was the older style tail light and the passenger side tail light was the newer style, LOL. But yes the are a direct swap.

Here are a couple pics of my old 2dr yukon, i sold it about three months ago. Solid axle swap on 37's with lockers front and rear. It was a great 4x4 and i hated selling it...but i needed a tow rig so i sold it when i purchased my 05 F350

I like my ebay intercooler, it is the bar and plate design and the welds look very clean. The way i look at it, if the core size and end tank shapes are 99% the same as the high dollar name brand units and they are all made of aluminum, well, its good enough for me. Now i dont have any results comparing my cheap intercooler to a name brand intercooler, but if there is anyone in the OKC area i'll volunteer my intercooler for testing.

For a tpi motor you would definately have to change the charge pipe, but that shouldnt be too much of a problem with a mig welder or taking it into an exhaust shop. Plus, eventually you will want to put in an intercooler so the current charge pipe is pretty much useless. I say get it and put the exhaust and turbo on your tpi motor, then mount an intercooler and fab new charge pipes.