rturbo 930

Hard to say since I can't really see the damage well. It doesn't look too bad, but you'll need to see for yourself. I'm not an engineer, so I don't know for sure that just the crush sleeves will be enough, or if you need to add some additional reinforcement to the frame rail by plating over it. The sleeves will solve your crushing problem, but the metal holding them in is still really thin.

As long as everything wrong with it is disclosed I don't see an issue with it.

Maybe your best course of action would be to attempt to resell it to recoup some funds and minimize your losses somewhat.

Yeah, it's gonna crush the frame rail, unless you have sleeves for the bolts. The frame rail is only made of some thin sheet metal, if all you do is drill some holes through it and bolt it in, that's not gonna work.

"Free shipping for US main island / NO INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING FOR THIS ITEM"

Yeah, I think you need a replacement panel. See if the rust extends upward past the body line on the dog leg. If you can cut below that it should make your life a little easier, but I see some spots on the wheel well lip that may require you to cut above that. Otherwise, start drilling spot welds.

Most of the body is 20 gauge, use that, although series ones use slightly thinner metal. But it won't really matter if you use 20. Don't use 18, it's not only incorrect, it's also harder to form. I'd leave the seam since that's how it came from the factory. Also, if you ever go to sell the car, a potential buyer that knows the cars will be expecting to see that seam there, and if it's filled, it's going to make him think there's problems hiding underneath, since usually if that seam is missing its because someone repaired the area incorrectly.

I don't think the panels are all that pricey, but they are reproductions, and are not perfect. I don't know for sure that they're the same gauge as stock, but series one cars have slightly thinner metal to start with, so I doubt they are. The first thing you need to do is get a wire wheel and take all the paint and rust off the dogleg to see what exactly you have there. FYI, it's probably worse on the inside than the outside. It doesn't look too bad, so you might be able to just go get a sheet of 20, and make do with some simple patches.

I would expect much more than 9lbs difference between a late 280 and an early 260. 529lbs isn't a bad number though. If I'd had to guess, I think I would've put it closer to 600lbs.

If you're scanning the fenders, then yes, I'd mount them on the car, and put a few bolts in.

Well, if we're gonna throw motors that come non-turbo into the ring, I'd suggest a Honda K series. And if we're talking about something capable of 400hp, I don't think an M42 is a contender.

Is there a reason you didn't relocate the sway bar to behind the diff? Or would that be a big hassle in Aus?

Looks like a nice solid car! I like that barn too. Since it sounds like you won't be doing much with regards to modifications, check out classiczcars.com, since that site is more restoration oriented.

I can tell you that the reinforcement in the doors adds 10lbs per door. I'm not sure that the bumper reinforcement stuff weights quite that much, based on a rough estimate of the square inches of metal, and the weight per square inch based on the thickness of the metal. I'd guess more like 15-20lbs per end. Could be wrong. Other areas of the chassis where early 280Zs have extra weight are the front frame rails, which, IIRC, have a reinforcement on the inside, the lower rad support, the rear strut towers, subframes under the floor, lower rear quarters, various bracketry, and likely a handful of places where you can't see that something's been added. Later 280Zs have even more reinforcement, notably in the door jamb area, and the spare tire well/gas tank area. John C has a few posts on the differences, and I believe he mentioned some additional metal in the roof structure as well, although I'm not sure if that was all 280Zs or just later ones. The series one shells do use thinner metal, I checked a few areas with a micrometer, and compared between my early '71 and '76 280z, as well as a few pieces from a '72 240z. the early '71 sheet metal came in around 0.9mm, whereas the later sheet metal came in slightly thicker at about 1mm. I believe (I'd have to look it up to be sure) that John C has also said that the early 240Zs and later 280Zs are 300lbs difference, and the late 240Zs and early 280Zs are 100lbs difference.

Mike's car was a '76, and I believe it was something in the 2700lb range, not quite 2800+. Still really heavy. I have both a '76 chassis, and an early '71 chassis. I'm hoping to be able to weigh them both as a bare chassis to get an idea of how much extra metal there is in the later chassis. But first I need to put some metal back into the '76 chassis. I'm also hoping to remove the 5mph bumper supports and see what difference that makes, I expect that's probably around 30lbs of metal there if I had to take a guess. My '76 chassis also has undercoating, so I'm debating stripping all of that off first, although I don't really want to, but for an accurate comparison it should probably be done.

You could maybe do it with a tremendous amount of time and money, basically what you want is a brand new car that looks old. You want your car to be something it's not. And you're clearly limited by budget, so the solution here is for you to find a newer car, and deal with the fact that it doesn't look like a Z. In order to achieve what you want, I think you're basically looking at cutting out the entire bottom of the chassis and swapping another car (or tube frame) in underneath it, and to be honest I find builds like that to be pointless. If you want something with suspension from X car, just buy that car and be done with it. Only makes sense if you really, really like building things - and know what you're doing.

I put in quite a bit of effort trying to figure out what color it was, and I'm fairly certain it's Aston Martin Cobalt Blue.

That's V3, not SN005. Jeffer is referring to the guy with the red Z above.

What build thread?

Looks nice! Looks like you put poly bushings on your TC rods, might want to rethink that. Do some research and you'll see that people have had the TC rod snap with poly bushings installed there.

Why not just buy a radiator that will fit?

280zforce is long gone.

I believe that spoiler is the sparrow tail spoiler that was offered by ZCCJDM.

Looks like a nice car. I'm with you on the color, I'd keep it.