luseboy

Does coolant leak out after you tighten the bolt back up? How old is the timing cover gasket? There should be some rtv sealer around that area in the timing gasket since the water inlet runs right through there.

Never heard of one of those before, that's pretty cool looking! Looks pretty similar to a ford gt from the side.

Tranny and diff fluid wouldn't be a bad idea either. As well as spark plug wires as they may have corroded. All or most of the bushings will probably be dry rotted. Probably want to drain the fuel tank. If it was me I'd also drop the oil pan. You're definitley looking at some work, nothing too crazy, but you will probably have a couple weeks at least of work before you can really get the thing road worthy. If you're looking for a project car, sounds like a great candidate, but it will likely take a while to get it going. That is a good deal though, I bought my fairly rust free shell that had been in a minor accident and had sat outside for a long time for 475, and it didn't have an engine or tranny or anything like that.

I've been thinking about welding my diff... Are you building this thing for drift? My car is gonna be a street car... Which makes me think I really shouldn't weld my diff. But I have yet to make up my mind. Anyways car is looking sweet! I will be at the point you're at in a couple months.

Hey, So I was looking at the adjustable tie rod ends that Zccjdm sells and noticed a picture of some crazy front suspension with a giant arm going off to what I assumed to be a sway bar. Poked my hear around on the google machine and came up with the set of pictures of this car, found here: http://www.canepa.com/inventory/racecar_1/Datsun_240Z/index.html Anyways noticed some crazy stuff going on (the oil pan looks to have a ton of volume, and the plate that the rear LCA's mount to is very cool). But most staggering to me was the front sway bar, how big it is, and the fact that it runs through the frame rails like that. Was just curious to learn about it really. What size is it? It looks to be around 50mm or so, but most likely hollow? Why such a big sway bar? I know the IMSA cars were very quick and very successful. What other tricks did they use?

You're going to have to try harder than that. Got any pictures? Where is the K located?

Nissan did a modification like this, it was called the 280zx body.

Problem could simply be not enough gas in the tank. Have you checked the fuel filters/lines, air filters, spark plugs, spark plug wires, distributor, and fuel pump to ensure they are working properly? Any noticeable smoke/abnormal noises/smells when the car falls on its face? If you take it down to the basics, a car needs fuel, air, and spark to run. First check how many of those you're properly getting. The problem may lie elsewhere too, but you'll have to figure that one out. Noticed your from the bay area, what part are you from? I live in marin.

When I started kindergarten, I went to a school near my house that had 2 entrances. We took the front entrance almost every day as it was more on the way. One day there was road work and we had to take the back way. I had recently become aware of cool cars, and had gotten a small die-cast of a 68 camaro ss. I loved the die cast and thought it was the coolest car ever. We stopped at a stop sign, about to turn into the back entrance and there in a driveway was a really clean (brown though) 240z. I was instantly interested in it, and proceeded to ask my dad about 5 billion questions. He told me that they were cool looking cars, but slow and shitty, and just not good cars. I would continue to watch it for many many years and would see one occasionally on the roads, always admiring them. When I was 15 going on 16, looking for my first car, I had been looking into what car I wanted. I went through a phase of looking for an old car (wanted a 77 trans am) and came across a 73 240z with a 350. I wanted it really badly and tried to convince my mom but she just wasn't having it. So I let it go and a few months later bought a 2003 mini cooper s, which I was very excited about. After a few weeks I had already figured out how everything worked, and was pretty comfortable working on the car (first car i ever worked on). I loved the car for about a year, modding it whenever I could, really happy to have it. Eventually I started finding build threads for old cars and thought it would be so cool to have a project car. I was only making about 50 bucks a week (enough for gas and lunch one day) so I had nowhere near the budget to build a car. After a few more months, work stepped up dramatically and I realized I could probably build a car. So I began the search. I decided to go with a pre '75 car to dodge smog laws. Went through a few ideas of what I wanted; 914, celica, corolla, 510, OG mini. I had written off Z cars since I wanted something really fast and fun, and my dad had always said that they were slow. My GF's dad set me straight. He told me about his friend who had a 240 with triples and stiffer sway bars (otherwise stock) and said it was the fastest car he'd driven, and the funnest. So I started looking into it, found this site, and started saving. After a month or so I got an L28 and started rebuilding it. Then a month after that, on my 18th birthday, me and my dad rented a trailer and drove about 3 hours to pick up my '73. It's been about 7 months since then, and I've gotten quite a bit done. I'm close to halfway done with my restoration. I've since set my dad straight, gotten overly excited at every Z I see, and put all my money towards the Z. The brown Z by my old school is still parked in the same spot, and still really clean. I've never seen it driven or talked to the owner, but it is definitley kept up, and super clean. My friend lives on the same street so I drive by it fairly frequently.

Mine is 7" wide and about 3" lower than the frame rail. I won't have a huge amount of clearance, but I will be running 15" wheels with a 50 aspect ratio, and I will have quite a bit of caster over stock (using t3 T/C rods). Also I will be running pretty spaced out wheels (ZG flares). I'm pretty confident that I will have enough clearance. Here's a pic of my battery box, it's not quite done, but close. I will have a pic from the engine bay soon, I still have a little more work to do in there. Excuse the shitty welds, I still need to grind them down. I feel that there will be enough clearance, the stock fender well comes down at the same point too.

As far as I'm aware, you can use pretty much any L header on pretty much any head within the L series. Are you running efi or carbs? For efi, run a new one of the top one from your picture. For carbs, run a new one of the bottom one.

It's a pretty significant difference... But I'd say go for the 50's with 15" wheels, and 45's with 16" wheels. At least thats what I'd do.

532's are pretty sick. I say do it and then sell them and get the 505's in a good offset and cut those fenders!

I'd re-think that if you're gonna be running flares. FWIW, I'm gonna be running 15x9's with flares and will be getting -25 offset for all 4, and I will still most likely need a 15mm spacer in the back and maybe a 10 in front. If you go with 0 offset, you'll probably end up wanting new wheels when you install the flares. Might as well just install them with the coils, or plan on new wheels after. As far as I know, a 0 offset should be fine with stock fenders. You may need to go at the inner fender with a sledge or grinder... but I think with an 8" wheel you should be ok.

Lol I've been working on one for the past week. Mine gets the battery down another 10.5" into the wheel well. It will be for a medium sized battery, and I made it out of angle iron and 16 gauge sheet steel.

When your keyboard and mouse are greasey because you forget your hands are when you're taking a break from working on it. When you've spent multiple times the amount of money on parts than you did on the shell. When people don't know you have one because it's in your garage still being torn down. When all you want to do is drive it, but you're nowhere near finished with your restoration. When you can name any part from the car and tell where it goes (because you've taken everything out and most of it is sprawled out on your floor) but you've yet to drive the car. When you spend hours on the mcmaster carr website thinking "you know, with that rod end, this threaded rod, a left hand nut, a right hand nut, and some welding, I could make some custom tie rod ends" Then you add it all to your cart and keep looking around and find you have 2 grand worth of hardware in the cart. Haha the one about pulling your earwax out with a magnet is hilarious.

Lol well you had those solid aluminum ones last time I was on SB. Nice, sounds like if they hit just barely you should be able to make it fit. Maybe filing down the steering knuckle where it mounts to the tie rod end and putting the same thickness of washers on top in conjunction with filling down the offending corner of the tie rod end will do the trick. It's worth a shot anyways. You could always piece together a rod-end tie rod end from mcmaster carr parts. If my tie rod ends hit or if I don't have enough adjustment out of the stock ends, I will be doing that lol.

Isn't this a common problem with the comp headers? The one Z I've ridden in was a 260z owned by a guy named Leon on here who has comp headers and his hit the tunnel every once in a while. It wasn't that noticeable in his car. I'd say leave the header alone (it's worth quite a bit) and cut out the corner of the floorpan as John suggested. If you replace your engine mounts, consider getting some poly ones from mckinney motorsports which will further prevent your engine from moving.

Haha ya idk I guess the problem for me is I don't like slamming my cars super far and I'm fine with running replica wheels, so I don't fit in with the crowd super well haha. Don't you have those american racing wheels? Do they fit them? If they won't work, maybe look into relocating the inner pivot of the LCA. It's pretty easy to do on an s30, dunno how much different it is on an s130. Or try and make clearance somehow.

One other possibility if you're handy is you could use the s14 system and just put the inards in your fairlady speedo. Im not sure how that would work out but I don't think it would be too terribly hard. Would be cool, that's for sure!

There's always the 240sx s13 trans swap. I'm gonna do it some day, but it does require some custom work.

I wouldn't be surprised if speedhut would even go so far as closely matching the backplate and needle out of your fairlady tach onto one of their gauges. Try emailing/calling them to find out for sure but I'm sure they'd do it. The speedhut gauges are nice, they run off gps, and have some cool features like a 0-60 time setting, a 1/4 mile time setting, etc. Pretty darn cool. If you already have an aftermarket tach, might as well sell the jdm speedo and get a normal speedhut gauge, it's not like the heart of the car will be oem jdm either...

Tell me of a good 15" tire in an aspect ratio 55 or under that comes wider than 225 and is good for the street, including the rain. I think a 225 will be fine, it will hardly be stretched at all.

I was picturing that that would be what it would look like on a 9" rim from the first picture. Looks like I've found the right tire size haha. Thanks for the input knightoftheround! I should hire you to be my landscaper, your yard looks fantastic! To me anyways Haha seeing your green Z with the wheel poking out like that... it looks great! I can't wait to get my flares installed. I'm thinking I'm just gonna order 15x9 et -25 for all 4 wheels since I think that will be just about right for the front, and will need to be spaced out a bit more for the rear. The front flares are 2.5" and the rears are 3", so I imagine I'll probably need a 15mm spacer in the back. Does this sound about right? I will be adjusting camber with LCA's as I said before, so I think I will need a bit less spacer than most people would...

No it is stretched. But not too horribly. Some people run 205's on 10.5" rims, so I think a 225 on a 9" rim is not too bad. I acctually changed my mind a bit, I'm going with 9" wheels, and I acctually got my flares yesterday, they're a bit wider than normal ones. I'm also gonna be running an all season performance tire, most likely the falken 912 or 512, since my car will mainly be street driven.