BRAAP

A Blonde walks into a bar... "Ouch", she says.

A horse walks into a bar. Bartender looks at him and asks, "Why the long face?"

Being as the door panel is pushed-in, no scratches, creases, etc, could it possibly have happened while shopping/eating/apartment parking lot somewhere? Someone may have fell into your car backwards catching themselves on your door with their back/shoulders? At a party a drunk stumbles out tripping into your car? Kids playing down the street, chasing a lost ball, lost their balance into the car glancing across the door? It just seems rash to place blame on a car wash with the expectation of them accepting responsibility over a "hunch" it was the machines when you are not sure of "when" or "where" it happened? It may have been the car wash, but again, it may not have been? Can the interior door panel be removed and the dent pushed back out? Maybe a toilet plunger on the outside to pull it out? Just be careful it doesn't crease during the push/pullout process. Hopefully it's an easy fix with no lasting damage.

That is a slick set up. Very nice Gary.

I would imagine the foam would act as a wonderful sound deadening as well, even the little bit in the frame rails should dampen a fair bit of noise.

Very cool. Nice work.

Doesn't matter what you call him, he isn't going to come!

What do you call a cow with no legs? Ground beef!

What did the male strawberry say to the female strawberry? "If you weren't so fresh, we wouldn't be in this jam!"

Thank you Spartan. You're not hijacking this thread by adding your input and experience with your mock up. If anything I encourage anyone and everyone to keep it going. I'll add and help out as I can. Looking forward to seeing your progress, with pictures of course. I still have my mock up mule and mock up LS1 so don't hesitate if you have any questions or want any specific pictures posted.

All of them and none of them. I'm being serious. It really depends on how far you plan or end up modding the car as to which common issues will get eliminated in the mods performed, if those issues have not already been dealt with by the previous owner. If you going V-8, then many of the carburetor or EFI issues are no longer and issues, etc.

COOL! Glad to hear that is fixed. If you decide you aren't quite done yet and find yourself removing more goodies showing more of that really cool intake, keep us posted with pics.

Great info, now a stickie.

Oh yeah! Billet fuel rail, hide the Air Flow regulator under the manifold, cleanup/delete some of the unnecessary hoses etc. and that would look so HOT! Love that manifold. Shagg, I get the feeling you're following me again, stalking... sort of creepy...

The new owner is Z32 savvy having owned one when they first came out in 1990, now will be retiring soon and wants another one. He had been doing his research including KBB and current street values and been looking for one for some time now, lots of them and not satisfied with any he had seen, felt this was a pretty good deal. I'm glad it is going to a good home to someone who appreciates nice Z-32's.

Done? I’m not so sure about that. The fuel hose on the fuel rail connected to the Fuel Pressure regulator looks bulged, possibly ready to pop, and the clamps are way too tight cutting or almost cutting into the hose itself. Also, that hose appears to be the low pressure fuel hose for carbs, not the EFI approved hose. Being directly above the exhaust, and bulging like that it’s a major fire risk. I'd go down and purchase 5’ of the EFI approved fuel hose and replace ALL of the rubber fuel hose with the new stuff. I know it’s expensive, but you want to be sure you wont have any issues of possible burst fuel lines, especially directly over hot exhaust and next to the dizzy and I guarantee it’s still much cheaper than an engine fire. Is that yellow-convolute-tubing the same stuff used for piping Propane/Natural gas in homes? I don't think I've seen so many power wires coming from one battery post before. No lack of solid reliable power to those items for sure. The anodized red intake manifold looks very nice. I think that is the first anodized one I’ve seen.

HELLLOOOO...... helllooo..... hellllloooo..... Any body out there paying attention?.... out there paying attention... paying attention.....

GORGEOUS! Nice car Richard. Love that color! Is that factory BMW color? I weaned out on cutting up a perfectly good car. Didn't have it in me. Ended up selling the Z-32 this last weekend, now in the market for an E-36 that will receive the LSx and T-56 sitting in my shop, and I wont have to cut the car to get it to fit.

As 79z mentioned, we have this awesome little car with tons of character. (Thanks a million Mike. We couldn’t get along without it… ) It’s an '85 GL wagon, 5 speed, 4wd with hi-lo range transfer case. It has the stock 2 bbl Carburetor, idles on 3 cylinders, runs on 4 while driving, 198,9xx miles on the clock, still gets in the high 20's MPG. NEAT little car, has just enough power to barely get out of its own way, at WOT will top out at 72 MPH on flat level ground, doesn't matter which gear, 4th or 5th, 72 MPH is the drag limited top speed! We commonly refer to it as Plan "C". When one of our main cars breaks down, we resort to Plan "B" which is the full size pickup, and if that breaks down… well you get the idea... Right now with my Z-32 selling this last weekend and my wife’s Suburban puking its fuel pump same day, I'm driving Plan "C" while my wife drives Plan "B"

We have a dedicated section just for after-market EFI systems. Engine Management systems list; http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=121768 Discussion of the various systems; http://forums.hybridz.org/forumdisplay.php?f=113 Dedicated EFI sub forums; http://forums.hybridz.org/forumdisplay.php?f=87 Hope this helps, Paul

Bingo! You got it. Keep reading, and as you learn more you'll be able to make this car perform as close to its peak, giving you the most return for your hard earned money, time and effort invested.

Have you defined your goals yet? Like how is this engine to be used, race only, some street duty, etc? Have you defined your budget to meet that goal? If not, get that nailed down first. Then start looking around for the most efficient place to spend your money and time for the most gains within that budget. Depending on your goals, the P-79 head (I‘m assuming that is what you have), just might be ideal! P-79 even has the exact same chambers and intake ports as the P-90! For a radical bump in performance, here is how I see your list thus far; Custom intake! Cylinder head ported to match your desired driving conditions and power levels! Header and free flowing exhaust! Cam to match the intake and modified cylinder head! Aftermarket Fuel Control! With the mods you proposed you will need an aftermarket EFI system that allows you full control to tune around the modifications performed. As you mentioned already, the stock EFI will not allow that or keep up. The stock EFI can only be tricked so far with just a header which is still a lot of compromises in power vs drivability. An aftermarket EFI allows you to delete the AFM all together from the air stream and to fine tune all the holes the stock EFI can not. Aftermarket EFI first or at the same time as the other mods. Whatever you do, don't perform all of those mods with the stock EFI. As for which one is right for you? Only you can know that. So many option out there from the build it yourself to exotic Formula 1 offerings. Spend some time searching through the L-6 section and you’ll find quite a few proven build ups with numbers to back them up. Depending on your intended usage for this car, one or more of those build ups should be close starting point if not ideal, giving you something to build from. Hope that helps, Paul

Sorry I don't have any '76 gauges, but this should give you an idea of the difference in Font style. The '76 volt gauge will have the '75 font style, but have the Volt markings and charge light like the '77-'78; For my '75 280-Z, being I wanted the Volt gauge and I like '77-'78 Font style better, I swapped over all my gauges to '78. The only difference between the '77-78 gauges is that the '78 had Kilometers in light blue inside the MPH, '77 did not. The connectors are different so you'll have to cut and splice the other connectors. I opted to splice in the '78 connectors into my '75 dash harness as they are less prone to the poor connection issues of the earlier style connectors. Nissan was nice in retaining the wire color codes through the years so that made the connector switch over rather easy. Something of note if you plan to V-8 is the '78 tach changed internally and will not function with the GM HEI. I tried several '78 tachs, ones that knowingly worked in '78 cars, before after trying them tie V-8 car, with resistors, etc, they do not function at all with the GM HEI. The '77 tach works with GM HEI just fine. Sorry for the long tangent, hope it helps. If this is out of place, let me know and I'll delete it. Paul

For what its worth, the '76 280 was the first year with the Volt meter and the "Font" style of the letters is the same as the early gauges. The '77 and '78 font style is little different. I'm not sure I have both, but if so, I try and get pics.

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but I just hate to see someone that is truly desiring to improve the performance of their engine get caught up in the ricers mixing bowl spending money on parts that look the part but do NOT deliver any more performance. If that person is not interested in “real” performance gains but only the appearance of, i.e. faux power or “ricer”, then so be it, at least they know they are installing bling, not performance. But if you are interested in real performance gains, in my not so humble opinion, the TB is not the place to start! If you do a TB swap, perform back to back dyno comparisons or drag strip runs with no other changes made to the car, stock TB and the big throat! In short, yes, you can spend them money and time to install the MSA Big Throat, but you will NOT be upgrading the performance of the engine. And I repeat; ...That 185 N/A HP is with a stock cam and stock EFI! Interested in knowing how much a stock Z car throttle body can flow on only 12 lbs of boost? Well over 567 raw uncorrected HP on the dyno, if the engine will breathe that much! Been there built that as well, (this endurance race engine was actually breathing through Two of those 2” Throttle bodies, one per bank and on our engine dyno that engine produced 1168 HP at 5800 RPM on only 12 lbs of boost! Pictures of that engine and the dyno sheet are in the link below…) Great discussion on larger throttle bodies in this link; http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=119899 Hope that helps, Paul