BRAAP

The front cross member is NOT even remotely close to the same. The early Z has the rack and pinion on the front of the cross member, ZX, has the rack behind the cross member and not all ZX's had rack and pinion, some had recirc ball. Also, the T/C rods on the early Z run rearward, the ZX run forward. That is to clear the tie rod ends. Yes the conversion can be done. How much custom fab work are willing to take on is the real question? And for what gain? Not wanting to loose a few dollars recently spent on ZX parts? It will cost thousands more in trying to get those parts on the 260-Z than it would be to upgrade the early Z front brakes and suspension to stuff that is known to fit and work, bolt in style. If you were hoping for a direct bolt in swap of components, uh.. well, it's not going to happen. In short, in wanting to use your ZX front suspension parts in a 260 Z would require approx the same amount of work, time and money as installing those same components in a '79 Toyota Corolla. The 260-Z and 280-ZX cars share the "Datsun" and "Z" badges, similar engines, tranny and diff, but that is about it. Everything else about these two cars is so drastically, they may as well be from a different manufacturer. Oh I forgot, they share a couple more things. Wheel bolt pattern is the same as well as wheel offset.

My guess is the Z-33 is still such a new car, used ones still have quite a bit of their original value, as such, the owners most likely aren't as willing to just yank out the VQ and stuff an RB, LSx etc under the hood. I think the SR20DE is a popular swap in Japan?... 10 years ago a Hybrid-Z-32 was unheard of, still really not a whole lot of them compared to the Hybrid S-30's, but we are seeing more and more, (can't wait to do one myself...) I suspect in the next 5-7 years we'll start to see the Z-33 with other engines under the hood. LSx-T-56 would be SAH-WEEEET!!!!

Too late, I'm already banned! So there!

Power steering is finished and customer is tickled. We figure this is probably the only bone stock L-28 powered Black Pearl ’78 280-Z in existence with power steering. Test drove it around the lake and BOY OH BOY, power steering in an S-30 is oh so nice… Ron Tyler test drove it and all he said when he got back was that he hated me and now he has to convert his 260-Z to power steering. She picked the car up last night, brought it back today and I double checked that everything was tight, no leaks etc. then installed a BRAAP security device so her car wont up and drive away without her consent. Here she pulling away tonight with one of her good friends, aka "Jessica"…

Uh... guilty....

Ken, Chain the engine down so it doesn't flip over on launch, of course... Actually, being as we did this PS conversion with the engine in the car, I built a wooden engine holder out of a 4x4 that spanned and sat on top of the strut towers to support the weight of the engine while we swapped out the cross member.

Dave, Good to hear from you. You and your family coming to the camp-in? I'm not overly fond of this particular MAC or OSx. A "float test" is in its near future!

Subaru Power steering rack in a stock L-28 powered S-30… Update; First, I’d like to thank Wheelman for all his help and efforts in making this a reality and also thank you to RonTyler for the ZX pump components. ~ZchicaDee~ also thanks you both… Car; ’78 Black Pearl edition 280-Z coupe, factory A/C, 5 speed. Car is stock throughout with poly T’C rod bushings and poly steering coupler otherwise the car is totally bone stock. Owner, HybridZ member ~ZchicaDee~, close family friend, essentially family, unofficial adopted daughter This is her first Z! The rack is out of a ’92 Suby Loyale, 3.75 turns lock to lock, (ratio is bit slow for some, but perfect for this particular application). P/S pump and pump bracket, belt tensioner, crank damper, and clutch fan are out of an ’83 280-ZX. The hoses and fluid lines are the Suby Loyale hoses. Low pressure hose fit the Datsun pump reservoir perfectly, (10mm). For the high pressure fitment to the pump I had “Oil Filter Service” in Portland weld the Datsun H/P fitting for the ZX pump onto the Suby hard line. Looks OE. http://www.oilfilterserviceco.com/ Cross member was notched to clear the PS lines and steering input. We then fabbed up patches that were welded in the notches to regain any strength that may have been lost in the notching process. brand new Toyota Celica inner tie rods, brand new Suby Forrester outer tie rod ends. Utilized the Suby steering shaft U-joint, welded it to the Datsun steering shaft. (Suby U-joint component was hollow so I machined a steel bushing that fits inside the suby part and slips over the Datsun shaft which was then all welded together, thoroughly!) All that is left to do is to tighten up the front LCA hardware, reinstall the charcoal canister in a new location and test drive. Here are a couple pics from tonight. I have one of the pump and belt assy, but struggling with this %$*&’en family iMac and getting it to SAVE the picture in portrait position vs landscape!!!

Looking forward to reading updates. Your conversion will no doubt be a fun project. Good choice for a power plant.

Bo, At what depth are your injectors inserted in the manifold? They are the O-ring style top and bottom correct? I bored the injector openings and massaged the injector bosses extensively which sunk the injectors deeper into the manifold. These pics are of another N-42 intake I built for friend using Ford Mod O-ring injectors. Note how much lower the fuel rail sits vs the OE injectors and tubeular fuel rail…

When I first saw this thread, I didn't believe it. I was sure Mike just had Birthday in the past 6-8 months.. Happy B-day Mike.

I had the same issue with my L-28, N-42 intake, O-ring injectors, (’85 Vette injectors), Mega Squirt EFI. I had the later 3 hole style thermostat housing. I ended up making mine a semi-return less fuel rail and just installed a plug in that end of the fuel rail. I didn’t have any issues heat related or otherwise. Stock fuel routing… My semi-returnless fuel routing… Hope this helps, Paul

Ok Raff, here is the list, part duex; 1) Money 2) ... 3) Knowing your sense of humor and the fact you roasted me pretty good recently, (had me laughing pretty hard), I couldn't resist

Ok, here’s your list; 1) An RB26DE, (assuming it comes with coils for sparking plugs, injectors for spraying fuel, and a manifold for corralling the air into the cylinders). 2) A starter to turn the engine over. 3) An RB26 EFI harness to plug the V-500 into, (dont forget the lap top to tune the V-500 with ). 4) A tranny to transmit the torque to the rear wheels for creating visual obscurations around your neighborhood. Hope that helps, Paul

Me likey... Nice work. Any inclination of a production run?

There is a restrictor port at the head-to-block interface. You could remove the head completely, (if the engine would run that way), and your oil pressure gauge would still read within 5% of what it does now. If you are only wanting to do this cam oiling swap based on a fear of inadequate oil pressure as indicated by the stock oil pressure gauge, (that is how I interpret your last post), just relax and forget about your cam oiling. Lets get you on track here. The OE gauges are merely a reference that oil pressure exists and is NOT to be used as an indication of how much pressure exists. The OE Oil pressure gauges are actually worthless for the following reasons. 1) The do not indicate actual pressure. 2) The needles reacts and moves so slowly that if oil pressure did drop to zero at the bearings, the engine would have seized up completely before the gauge actually finally indicated 0 PSI. By the time you saw it on the gauge, the engine is spent. 3) Oil pressure is one of those items that if it is wrong, the driver should have immediate notification, such as an idiot light or loud buzzer. Can’t monitor a gauge 100% of the time AND drive, especially a very slow reacting/moving gauge. 4) Only after an oil pressure idiot light is installed, would a quality pressure gauge be of benefit so as to keep an occasional eye on actual pressure readings and let the idiot light warn you of immediate oil pressure failure. In short, do not rely on the original Nissan oil pressure gauge for actual pressure readings. It is merely an indication that oil pressure is present, nothing more.

Here’s a new one I’ve seen quite a bit lately that is starting to eat at me. Calling the Air Flow Meter, (AFM), of an L-jetronic EFI system a MAF!!! The AFM does not measure the MASS of the air and is a completely different animal electronically, physically and what it actually measures compared to a MAF! One measures air volume, the other measure air mass. Not interchangeable physically, NOR in terminology! 5 years ago, you rarely ever heard anyone mix those two up in discussions or in their advertisements. My guess is that the newbs are hearing EFI terms tossed around, to them seems willy nilly, and they just assume all air sensors are MAF’s!

That was one of Ron Tylers projects. Here is another pic…

Digger, My problem was my C.A.S., (Crank Angle Sensor, an all in one enclosed optical sensor and trigger wheel), which I replaced with another CAS and all is good now. This NISSAN optical C.A.S. is driven off the camshaft/dizzy drive and has two rows of slots. The inner row has 6 holes around the circumference, and surrounding that is another row of slots, 360 of them, 1 per degree. Your issue is totally different than ours as you are using totally different crank trigger arrangement, (European VR sensor with a 60-2 wheel driven off the crank) so our issues and fixes most likely wont be relevant to your issue. I didn’t want our issue to overshadow your issue as that was your thread to begin with.

Bo, Lets hope yours was just a rare synch error event. Fingers crossed... Well, my hunch was WRONG about my original CAS and corroded connections! Darn it, I was hoping it was something simple. I didn't get more than ½ mile out of the driveway, holding 3k RPM in 3rd, tach dropped, “Trigger Error”. Set another error on the way back to the shop. In short, my original CAS is bad. Sorry Bernardd, this is one is headed to the autopsy table as the disc will live again in another CAS modified for Sync+Ref, the rest of the CAS will be dismantled in an effort to gain a better understanding of the dual row optics. I’m not sure exactly how it works, but I am pretty sure WOLF does not think as much as OEM OBD-II ECU’s which has a dedicated "limp home" mode. You could use WOLFs second ignition and injection maps for your own DIY “limp home” mode and utilize the WOLF onboard diagnostics to switch over to that “limp home” mode if it detects a fault… My guess is that my CAS, for one reason or another, wasn’t sending the signal the WOLF ECU was “expecting” based on the configuration settings, and when WOLF didn’t see the event/trigger reference it was expecting to see, it just shuts off the ignition and injection outputs while it is still monitoring the CAS, and when it regains its composer and “finds what part of what 4 stroke event the cylinders are in again”, it then turns everything back on, i.e. it got lost for a second, and instead of just firing the coils and injectors willy nilly, as Ron put it, (that could be catastrophic for an engine under full boost!) it chooses to shut down till it finds itself. Probably the safer/better of the options. That’s my best guess any how.

Bo, I have a hunch mine was due to the electrical connector pins on my CAS connector having some corrosion. I’m going to clean those contacts and reinstall my old CAS and test it tonight just to be sure. Back to your particular situation; After this happens, prior to shutting the engine off, plug in your lap top and you should see under the NOISE and SYNC-X, a number, and that number will correspond to how many trigger errors has happened since the ECU has been powered up. Turning off the engine resets that back to zero. The WOLF data log will even allow you to view the trigger error and at what point it happened. Let us know what you find. I’m going to swap out my CAS right now..

I'm not buying that the VQ35DE, engine only, comparably dressed, is anywhere near 250-300 lbs lighter than a VG30E. My bet is the VG30E weighs within 50 lbs or is lighter than than VQ35DE. Twin cam heads are quite heavy, and the aluminum block will only save few lbs.

Update: Different CAS, zero trigger errors. WOO HOO... All better now. Just need to tune my lean spike out at throttle tip-in, per Bo's advice.

In all the data logs of the trigger errors, batt voltage is rock solid, also watched all the other WOLF data logged channels looking for any other events or devices that "change" during the trigger error event at 3000 RPM. Nothing showed, all looks well, at least in those logs. Tonight I did swap out the CAS for another. A quick 5 minute jaunt around the lake looked promising… Tomorrow’s drive into town will be the real test…