Gareth

I love it! Now that you have a BMW of your own, it's time to swap the M engine into the Z...

1. Bench racing, mostly watching European Rallycross Championships (imagine a short, mixed dirt and asphalt surface track, 5 WRC cars with about 600HP each and 5 crazy drivers to back that up) and drag racing. 2. Check for dates of Rallycross events, fly over to Europe, watch the event, go back home. 3. Fairly inexpensive, as long as you don't have to cross the ocean to watch it. 4. I'm so rich that I can participate in bench racing even without sponsors. 5. As many as I'd like to... Typically, I watch 2 rounds of Rallycross and several drag racing events across my country. 6. If you want to drive you car to the event, it has to be road legal. 7. Potato chips, lots of drinks, maybe something warm to drink (like coffee). Blankets, folding chairs and other camping stuff could come in handy. Sorry for not being very serious, but I can't be serious when my car is still on the jackstands...

Justin, the car you posted isn't powered by the UZ V8 - it has a Land Cruiser-sourced 1FZ-FE inline six, which is one of the strongest-built inline sixed in the world (it's a direct competitor to Nissan's TB engines). It goes like stink, and I'd love to put one of this into the Z. This guy made 10s with a stock block, so this engine has to be tough. It blew up after a while though. But I digress... Czecho, have you got any pics yet? I'd love to see a Toyota swap in a ZX...

Hey Philip, since we're in Europe and almost no one needs stock L24s, I don't think you could get much for it. As a comparison, I paid 50€ for my L28 longblock. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone who'd need an L24. As far as I know, P30 are the earliest blocks available in the 240Z with the L24 engine. Do you know what kind of head it has? IIRC your Z is a 73, so it should have the E88 head. Does it have roundtop or flattop carbs?

I'd be glad to have it, but the M cars are much more expensive to maintain. Plus I'd need to import the car, which would almost double the cost of the whole "operation"... Thanks for the info though.

That's a pity, because importing an engine as old as the M30 turbo would be nonsense, especially when considering the shipping costs. It would be much easier to gather a pile of turbo-specific M30 parts and build the engines locally. WOW. The best part of it is that it's not an M30... In fact, it's a M20, the smaller inline six, also offered in the E30. That's true, but for most Europeans the E34 is already an "old" car, in a similar way that any late '80s-early '90s car in the USA could be. I'm searching for an M30-powered 5 series (E28) for a daily driver. I think I found the right car, but I still need to get some pictures from the seller... I'll post 'em up when I get them.

Are these the TB48DEs, with the twin cam head? They are some serious power makers, and apparently there is some aftermarket available for them... Good luck in fitting it into a Z - it's huge for a six cylinder (remember it has 4,8 liters).

In terms of all-out power potential, the M30 should be able to deliver more power than the M50, simply because of the larger displacement (the M30 block can be taken up to 4 liters without any space-technology parts). The M30 is much older, which makes it much easier and cheaper to get. As far as the reliability is concerned... I know a few people who drive their M30-powered cars to the limit, and they never missed a beat. The only trouble may be the L-Jetronic fuel injection (very similar to the 280Z FI), but with a piggyback computer it should be easy to solve all the problems connected with the ECU. Did the US market get the factory M30 turbo engine in the E23 745i? I know of a few that were swapped into E30s and even E21s, and IIRC most of them are driven daily without problems. For simplicity and more power potential, I'd go with the M30 over the M50 any time. Maybe it's just that I like old engines...

http://video.google.pl/videoplay?docid=2632929386483618413 That's why I LOVE the old Bimmers... Think about it - it's not an M, and it still has TONS of power potential, comparable with the Toyota 2JZ...

It's heavier than the R154, and it needs an adapter to fit...

Yup, the new turbo motors are great! They were designed with a flat torque curve in mind for effotless cruising, high efficiency and low fuel consumption thanks to high torque available from the lowest revs. As I'm searching for a daily driver now, I think I found the right car (a BMW of course)... While I won't tell you guys what model it is, I'll give you a hint - it has 3,5 liter engine and a long option list... I thought that this thread would gather some more interest among HybridZ-ers... Guess it'll need to take some time.

My Z doesn't have a name yet too, but I'll find one soon. I'm going to paint the name in Ed Roth style on both rear quarters.

Hey Austin, that's a nice daily driver! My friend drove me around in his '03 (I think) 350Z with an aftermarket exhaust and some other minor mods, and from a Z fan's point of view it was a nice ride. I didn't like it as much as I like the E46 coupe that we have in the family (323Ci, 170HP, 5 speed), but you won't need much more than that. I'm not sure why you heard such horror stories about the S4s. When heavily tuned they may be a pain in the a** to maintain, but otherwise I can't see why a slightly modified 2,7 Biturbo would be difficult and expensive to keep running. I may be biased because I'm in Europe, but then again, the parts for these cars aren't cheap here either. Yasin, the US market received the E36 M3 which wasn't in fact an M3, but a pepped-up 328i with some engine and suspension mods. Engine wise, the European version performs much better, considering it can have either 286 or 321HP. As you know, the E46 is even faster, but in fact there were the engine problems that you mentioned. As far as I know, the faulty series of engines ended with the '04 model year, so with the newer cars you shouldn't have to worry about potential engine failures. I've driven the Euro E46, and to me this is the limit of a daily driveable car - it has the comfort and the punch in a beautiful package, and with the E92 in the market now the prices should drop a bit in the next few months (if they hadn't already). A few days ago my dad bought a 2000 Audi A6 Avant (wagon) with a 4,2 liter V8 with 5 valves per cylinder, and boy does it go! It's VERY quick for a car of its size (and it's an automatic!), it feels VERY stable, it's also very well equipped and comes with lots of luggage space. Looks like we've got a perfect all-round daily driver... It was cheap too (dunno how much they cost in the States).

+1! I've ridden in a 3,0 diesel 5 series - boy, did this thing go... If I ever consider a diesel engine swap, it will be a BMW motor.

Ooops, that's QUITE expensive... I reckon the factory cherry-condition 240Zs will continue to grow in value. Sad thing, considering the excellent value for money they used to be in the past years. Guess I'm lucky to have bought a good condition Z in Switzerland for about 7% (SEVEN PERCENT) of this Zs price.

Austing, if you're bored with turbos, then you could try some gardening under the hood. Imagine putting one of these in place of the anti-treehugger turbos (remember the VQ35 is a ULEV engine): Now THAT would turn some heads on cars shows. Y'know, "green" cars are becoming trendy, and it seems that soon every Californian will drive a Prius... Sorry, couldn't resist.

Ktarrant, sorry to be interrupting, but you've just dug out a thread that is five years old.

Sounds like a great project, that's mostly what I'm going to do with my Z. Currently, my car is stripped of paint, welded were possible, and has a rollcage installed. It's not built like a tank though - it's a good compromise between safety and weight (it's more on the safe side anyway). I'm going to stiffen up the chassis with appropriate anti-roll bars (or sway bars), coilovers, polyurethane bushings and strut tower bars, and - hopefully - 5x114,3 conversion for both axles with a big brake kit, and a S14 diff conversion courtesy of Techno Toy Tuning. Well, that's the plan... I suppose that it should make the car a great handler. I'm keen to spend more on the suspension and brakes than on the engine, just to ensure that I'll be able to swap almost any powerplant without making any further changes to the car. I have a decent L-series, so why change it? I'd LOVE to get a FJ20 (I almost bought a 50,000km / 31,000mile FJ20E, but somebody picked it up before me), but the availability and compactness of the SR20 is really tempting... My friends are experimenting with the SR20VE VVL heads now, and it looks like it could be a nice alternative to a factory DE/DET head. A stock DE is STOMPED by a stock VE - they have the same bottom ends (except a VE has a higher volume oil pump), and the VE head bumps the CR by 0,3, but still the stock-to-stock difference is 50HP!! We'll see what happens next...

GREAT! Can't wait to see some more vids...

This may sound stupid, but I came to a conclusion that this is the only formula that is true to whatever you do in you Z... ...it's just about keeping things as simple as possible. Having restored a Z and being in the middle of modifying, I learned that actually most of the simpliest things that I did worked best. I'm still to check if these simple things survive on the racetrack, but I'm convinced that the first thing that is going to break will be something complicated and/or expensive.

Ewen, the mag I write for is great because in fact it's a group of gearheads who created something special and do the editing in their free time... Almost without profits. I'm only a little fish there, but most of the staff are truly passionate about what they're doing. As far as the photos are concerned, I would advise you to write to the Mercedes, BMW (Mini Cooper S) and Jaguar press departments and find out what they can do for you. Maybe you could source the photos from there? I'd also send an email to Kenne Bell, Whipple, Stillen or other companies which make bolt-on supercharger kits. I found this on the Web, but I don't think it's much of help... It sems like MB covers everything (supercharger included) with plastic, just like every other manufacturer. I'll ask my friends if they could send me some supercharger conversion photos. I'll also search the biggest car tuning forum in Poland, and if I find anything, I'll try to ask the owners if I could send the photos to you. Such a shame that the forum just broke down... I'll do my best to help. I'll keep my fingers crossed! Tony

DatsunRestore.com have them, I think it's 7th from top. http://www.datsunrestore.com/catalog.html Hope this helps.

Bschiltz, thanks for linking this thread. BRAAP perfectly explained what exactly is a single- and a dual plane crank in this thread: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=111714

Essentially, the Maserati 4,2 V8 is a Ferrari V8 with a dual plane crank. That would make a cool swap...

By "early Z/28s" you mean the first generation Camaro? There weren't any cross rams for the 1gen, the only option was a dual plane 2x4bbl manifold, available from the moment when SCCA changed the Trans Am rules to make multiple carburetion legal... Sorry for digressing, but I just wanted to clear this out.