Austin240Z

Those are the AW11 seats, or... the first gen MR2 seats. I had a pair in my old 86, those were the most comfortable seats I have EVER sat in... infact, i wish i still had them, but i sold them when i sold the car(almost kept them) It's gonna take a little work to get them to fit just right I imagine. Have I mentioned how much i love those seats?

Ok, that makes sense then, sorry for my rantish question, I hadnt slept in well over 24hours and wasnt sure what i was saying or asking anymore

I agree with pretty much everybody else on the engine swap, hold off for now, get to know your car first. I've been through 3 different cars and made a lot of mistakes... I always had a daily driver, which was the one thing i did right. My first project was an '84 Toyota Corolla, or the AE86. The biggest problem I had was the body on that car. It had been hit in the front(fixed the front myself) and hit in the right rear quarter. I couldnt fix the right rear... Second problem was the engine... I got the economy engine, the 4AC, instead of a 4AG, on top of that, it had a blown head gasket i didnt know about. First time i drove it more than a mile, it overheated and just trashed the engine. I spent a lot of time and money on that car... I had planned to do a rotary swap in it... but the body was just trash, the car just wasnt worth working on anymore... Sold the AE86 for $50 to some guys who had 4 or 5. Second Project was a '88 RX-7 GTU. Decent body, little rust here and there though.. needed a paint job really bad, suspension was toast, needed to replace pretty much everything, no interior, doors didnt open... you pretty much had to go in through the window Dukes of Hazzard style. BUT the engine was perfect, and despite all the other problems it would have made a decent platform to build on. That's when i found the Z. I dropped everything, got rid of the RX7 and concentrated on building my Z. Even doing a stock resotoration/build is proving to be hard to do finacially on a college student budjet. If I can give you any advice it would be this, be patient. Take a good long look at your car, make a list of things that are broken, or oherwise messed up. Find out how much it would cost to get those things fixed. Look at the body, the frame, floor pans, and all the comon Z car rust spots. See how bad it looks, if there's a lot of damage to the frame.... I'd probably hold out for a while and see if you can find a Z in better shape. Ok, body out of the way, next step, engine. Replace gaskets as needed, do a tune-up all that good stuff. Make sure it's in good running condition before you think of doing anything preformance wise to it. Third important thing, BRAKES, cant stress that enough.... the brakes on my 240Z are trash, just towing it to my garage almost got me and my girlfriend killed. What's the point on fixing this car up, whether as a DD or an autocross car if your brakes are in bad shape and you wrap it around a tree, or another car.... Fourth would be the suspension, you obviously cant drive it very well if the front tires are trying to drive in two different directions... something brakes and a wheel comes off. Last..... Lights and interior.... you need working lights.... interior.... well.... that doesnt really matter. OK, now that that is all out of the way... and your car, if there was anything wrong, is hopefully back up to spec... NOW is the time to consider engine upgrades, or an engine swap. I personally would say, upgrade the stock engine, learn the car, and save money for an eventual swap. I will promise you, a swap will cost you atleast twice what you expect if you've never done it before. I'm trying to do this on my car. Stock resto, stock engine. Doing a 5 speed swap, and of course brake upgrades after my little scare. After my car is back to more or less factory spec, I'm gonna spend a year-two years learning the car on the 2.4 liter motor, then I'll be doing a 2.8 with a 3.1 stroker, cam, tripple weber, the whole nine yards. Ok, sorry for the rant, but I always try to share my experience, I've been through some interesting things... helped some people out of some seriously bad deals... that kinda thing. Thanks for reading, I hope you got something out of this atleast, good luck to you.

Hey Joey, I'm guessing that's you, this is DemonZ. Yeah, that was a seriously good find, we need to go back to that Pick And Pull again sometime soon

Only thing I see as a problem is.... I cant see your needles... I cant really see them in the pictures, and I cant see them in the video either. Are they a lot easier to see in car as opposed to in pictures? I have the reverse glow gauges in my Toyota daily, and i rigged them up on a seperate switch from the Headlights/needles. (they guage faces are sometimes too bright late at night if my eyes are tired) It's set up so I can either turn on just the faces and my fog lights, just the needles and headlights, or both. If i turn on just the guage face/foglight combo at night, I can kinda see where the needle is on the speedo or the tach, but i have to really stare at it to see it, I cant just glance.... That kinda looks like the same deal in your picture, the guages are lit up, but the needles arent. You said you unplugged the other lights... I guess what I'm asking is, are you running with "stealth needles" or did you leave one or two lights plugged and they're just really dark? I really like the look of those guage faces, i especially like the black face/stock look to them in the day time, but I already have too many speeding tickets and want bright needles too.

I actually saw a guy here in Austin driving a 240 with the hood bulge, I thought he had just taken a saw to his hood or something, it looked interesting in person, but i think i like my stock hood a little better

Extremely impressive, cant wait to see it finished and painted! What color are you planning on painting it?

I work for advance here in Austin, been looking at the paint shop pretty hard myself... my car reeeeeally needs paint and I'm thinking seriously about trying it out.... Well, Advance is mostly in the east coast area, and now has spread to the mid US. Western Auto was bought by Advance, but they havent spread out twoard california as of yet. To quote Deja: That's definately right, Advance's online store is actually Part's America, and they have partners and affiliates all across the US. Back to the Paint shop. From what I've seen, it's really easy, and it's something I've been really looking forward to carrying in our store. We just started stocking it (at least at the advance where i work) about 2-3 months ago. I may be trying it out here in the next few months after I get my bodywork done.

Haha, i agree with you there. I used to have an 86... everybody I knew wanted one, but mine was a serious POS. Now that I have a Z, everyone I know is actually getting one Z or another. My Z still kicks my 86's ass

Gone already

haha, maybe

Sales/Driver at Advance Auto Parts I get some killer deals on Z parts. We suppy the "Z Clinic" in Austin, so we have a bunch of Z parts in stock, including some from Japan

I have one, 17.5 Million candle power spotlight. And I upgraded the bulb to a sylvania Silverstar. I can signal planes

It is illegal to wave a gun at anyone in your car, even if you do have the gun legally. I have a friend here in Texas who was arrested for that. He used to escort the Governor and other important officials around, so he knows the laws about guns in cars. The problem was, he didnt even wave the gun. He had a person driving behind him who was messing with him, and he felt threatend. He pulled his gun out of his glove box, lifted the gun up slightly to turn the saftey off and then set it in the passenger seat. Well the ******* behind him saw a small portion of the gun and called the cops... told the cops "He's chasing me around waving a gun at me." The cops quickly picked him up and arrested him for "exhibiting aggressive behavior with a firearm" or something to that effect. He explained his side of the story, told him "I was the one in front, I was the one being threatend, I pulled the gun out for my own saftey, as per my training. He must have seen it when i turned the saftey off, but i by no means 'Waved the gun around' and he was just trying to be more of an ******* and get me arrested" Well, the cop said "Well I think your guilty" which is bullshit, and arrested him. He's currently in the process of a lawsuit. As for the Humvee, I would have been pissed too. BUT, that's why i have a military grade train horn I'm putting on my Z. I probably would have gotten behind him after all that, Blasted the horn for a few seconds and then ducked off the nearest exit and found a place to park and cool off. Sorry he was an ******* to you... but what can you do?

I've seen a few eclipses where there's a double deck wing mounted ON TOP of the factory wing....

Ok, so I just grabbed a 5 speed out of an 83(I think) 280zx 2+2, everything looks really similar to the 4 speed, the one big difference that has me mildly concerned is this. On the 4 speed there are two sensors(if you can call them that) I know that one is the back-up/neutral safety swithc and the other is the "sensor" for the back up lights. One is at the front, and one is near the rear on the extension housing. On the 5 speed there is only one "sensor" and it's at the front. Is this going to cause any problems? I searched around and couldnt find any info and transmissions(gearing and what not) is not my strongest area of expertise can anyone give me some info?

Christ those wheels are huge..... Not so sure about those flares, but the ZG flares are similar and can be found on MotorSport Auto

I had a 2 chamber flowmaster (probably a 40 series) put on my 98 4Runner, after i got the car back, every time i hit even the smallest bump i'd hear a "THUD" Got it up on a lift 3 months later, the pipe was being hit by the Axle housing every time the suspension compressed in the rear. After about a year, I was driving home and "THUD! VROOOOMMMMMMMMM" The back of the muffler tore off, big 7 inch hole in the muffler.... basically, I didnt have a muffler anymore. a month or two later, after enjoying having no muffler, I chopped off what was left of the old flowmaster and stuck a Thrush Super Turbo muffler under it myself, pushed the pipe slightly to one side, maybe an inch or so. Havent had heard a thud since

I'm with you on that, I have almost all of robotech on DVD in my living room It's totally an 80's love triangle/soap opera with Giant people and planes that turn into robots! Cant beat that! Everytime my girlfriend gets on AIM I have a sound clip from robotech that comes on: Rick:"Now I can save her with this magic bicycle!" Voice over Radio: "Attention, Corpral Rick Hunter was shot down this morning while attempting to fly a bicycle."

Well... I live in Austin, and I have 240Z... Kinda lame... Everyone thinks my name is Austin, it's not, it's actually Justin, but if you want to call me Austin, that's fine with me, I'll answer. I have about 10 other nicknames, depends on who you know me through, so I'm used to answering to all kinds of random names My usual sn is Viquipy, a word I made up in highschool Drunken Vash is another one i use, I'm an anime cosplayer, and a lot of people know me by that name I COULD have gone with something like "Demon Z" since i bought my 240 on 06/06/06 AND my '72 plate number is DWB 666... but no... I decided on something lame this time

I was looking at the 6AL at the parts store where I work, it doesnt look half bad, especially with an employee discount BUT, at the same time, I've been seriously considering a Crane system. Havent heard much about crane, but recently I've heard enough negative things about MSD that I dont know if the 6AL would really be worth the money if it's possibly going to leave me stranded at somepoint in the near future. Hearing good things about it from you and srgunz has me considering the 6AL again... but I'm still not that sure. I'm more of a mechanical guy, and ignition systems confuse me

Denso and NGK are probably the best two spark plug makers out there. I work at a part's store, and I always suggest NGK (we dont carry denso) My 98 4Runner came from the factory with a set of denso plugs, I put 140,000 miles on them before the first one fouled out. Right now on my Z I have the NGK wires and Denso plugs. I may be switching over to a new NGK set once i finish building my engine. Bosch tend to suck on imports, especially volvo's (according to a co-worker who's a volvo tech) And in a discussion with my manager about spark plugs a few days ago, he mentioned that Ford's "Motorcraft" plugs are now being made by NGK. If you go buy E3, split fire, or Bosch +2 or +4 plugs... you just threw away your money...

I talked to my manager (at an auto parts store) about this today while i was at work, he lived in Cali for a long time... He was also kinda like "WTF?" but pretty much told me that unless you can PROVE that you had a stock engine in the car at the time, IE a witness, or video, dated picture with the stock engine in place.... the cop will probably win if you take it to court.... he had something similar happen to him about 10 years ago.. his friend had a similar ticket 8 years ago, cop won both times.... The judge will probably say "You swapped the stock engine back in after the ticket date to avoid paying the ticket" and if you tell them to "search my house and find this phantom motor", IF they decide to, they will bill you for the time they took to search your house and what not. So if you havent already, go take a dated picture of your engine, and take it to court with you. Good luck to you, that's some serious BS.

I've seen this paint at shop booths at car shows down here, it looks pretty sweet, my buddy has a 400whp 3rd Gen RX7, and want's to paint his with that paint. What i mentioned to him was, your hood is gonna be much hotter than the rest of your car, so odds are, your car is gonna be one color, and theres gonna be a gaint weird colored splotch taking up most of your hood that will be the other color......... it's gonna look weird, and not good weird most likely....... cool idea if all of the car was the same temp when it heats up