luseboy

The inclination that coilovers will be stiffer is not factual. With GC coilovers at least, you can choose your spring rate. Also you can still choose your strut, I am running illumina's with GC coilovers. If you keep the stock upper insulators, you can have about the same comfort. The GC kit won't come with progressive springs which I will go ahead and assume the tokico springs are, but there are 2.5" progressive springs out there that you can buy and install pretty easily. I'd almost argue that coilovers with sectioned struts will feel better than lowering springs, depending on strut/spring chosen. The nice part about coilovers is you can raise and lower your car as much as you want. If you go too far, you're alignment might be off by a little bit afterwards, but other than that, it's as simple as turning the spring adjuster. This means you can drive around on the streets with it as high as you need/want it, and then lower it down for the track/auto-X/backroad fun. It will end up costing about twice as much as the kit you linked, but you'd probably be happier with it. The nice part is that you have so much adjustability. Plus there's tons of aftermarket 2.5" springs out there for not too much money so you can buy a softer, stiffer, or progressive spring to suit your needs. However the coilover install is fairly involved, and will take quite a while longer than the lowering springs would to install. It's all up to you, but coil-overs are cool for sure. It adds the nice benefit of being able to raise and lower your car without doing much more than jacking up the car and taking off the wheels. I say go for the coils

To answer your question, yes you can wait on camber plates. Many people use oem shock mounts with gc coilovers with no problem

I re-watched that video... amazing haha. I laughed though, the windshield wiper is like halfway up the windshield lol. That's some impressive driving... He gets pretty sideways at one point there.

You could always put your current cam and rocker arms in a P90 head. I don't know about the difference the CR will make, but as I understand, it will be a fairly noticeable difference. However the P90 does have bigger valves and will flow a little better. I still think the CR will make a bigger difference though. And stay far, far away from datsun parts llc. Not only did the guy mentioned above find dirt and overspray on his block, but there's another guy who bought a rebuilt car from Al that was apparently his DD that he rebuilt with all new NOS parts, however the car had a lot of problems and was built very poorly. There was also a lot of body filler covering up the results of a front and rear end collision, which the buyer was not made aware of. You may find yourself a good running full on turbo engine for $500. I bought a good longblock 280zx N/A engine for $100... there's all sorts of deals like that out there.

Ya it doesn't matter what insert you're using, they're all pretty much the same when it comes to installing them except with konis where you have to adjust them before install. I chose to run the Bz3099 (toyo mr2 aw11 rear) in the front and bz3015 (240z front) in the rear, which ended up having me cut about 1.5" off on each housing. Do your own measurements though! Don't go section struts 1.5", wait till you have the insert to measure from.

Good to know lol. I was planning on starting off with 1/16" when I get my Z on the road... But maybe 1/8" is better? Does front toe have any affect? I've heard toe in in the front makes it a little more predictable and "safe" and 0 toe makes it rotate better...

That's a pretty cool video haha. That guy looks like he's an adrenaline junky... In the sticky, it said to use from 1/8" to 1/16" rear toe in for a street car... If you're not experiencing lift off oversteer but you want to avoid it and make your car handle the "best", is 3/16" better?

Hmm... I think you're on to something there, it very well could be! Here's one more from my folder. Also belongs to someone on here I think...

My favorite blue Z. Something about the bronze rims works so well with the car. I don't have a color code, this is not my car. This belongs to someone on this forum... can't for the life of me remember who though

You're seriously best off getting a P90 head. If you're not running a turbo, a P79 head would also work and would be cheaper. Either head has the benefit of having larger valves, a smaller combustion chamber, the latest and greatest head internals, and best of all (in your application), nice factory drilled slots for the injectors. It's pretty common for people to remove the P79 head and install a P90 head from their late L28, so there's quite a few P79 heads out there... and they aren't exactly considered a "desireable" head due to the exhaust liners, which in reality doesn't hurt flow too much and only cause a problem in turbo situations... you could probably sell your head for about the same afterwards, depending on which one it is.

Why do you want to move the battery? I had planned on doing the same initially but later learned that the Z has a near perfect weight ratio, and acctually with you sitting in it already has more weight in the back than the front. The other benefit is the battery is closer to the alternator and the distributor/coil pack. I'd say keep it where it's at. You could also get a really small lightweight battery and switch it out for track days or something.

Haha so have you figured out the problem yet?

It'd probably be easier, cheaper, and better to buy a P90 or P90a head which will have the injector cutouts already there. It's not unheard of to buy a good used head for $75-$100. I bought a whole long block F54 with a P79 head for $100, so I'm sure you can get a good head for not too much money.

Not to mention they could be aftermarket badges... unless I'm mistaken, that is not a stock paint job, so it wouldn't be far-fetched to assume that someone got it painted and wanted fairlady badges and just went for the 280z ones.

That is a 280zx. I can't tell since I'm not super familiar with s130's, but do you have back seats? if so, you've got a 280zx 2+2. The last 280z was produced in 1979 I think... might have been 78 or a half year. But no doubt about it, your car is an s130.

Haha stuff always works out like that. I spent $60 for front strut bearings and then realized that the bearing guy at the bike shop i work at could've gotten me some for free. Oh well, we all make mistakes lol. Ya mine were a huge pain. Clamped the nut in a vise super tight, put a piece of wood under the end of the strut, and my gf's dad put all his force into a 6-foot breaker bar while I hit the end of the strut with a brass mallet. It was crazy! But we got them off eventually, luckily.

Haha looks fun. I have no insight but wanted to subscribe so I know what's wrong in case that happens to me. Have you pulled the inner shift boot yet? I know there's a snap ring in there somewhere... (I'm just going off of what I've read... I don't currently own a Z car trans )

Did you ever get the tie rods off? the passenger side one (I'm pretty sure it's the passenger side...) is reverse threaded. You probably already know that, but just in case! I initially tried getting the lock nut off first as you tried but then tried using a 16" monkey (pipe) wrench on the tie rod end itself. That coupled with a hobby torch, PB blaster, liquid wrench, and a nice big sledge hammer ended with one thumbnail broken half off and my tie rods removed. Give it a try, if it worked for me, I'm sure it can work for you! I had a much worse time with my gland nuts (6 days to get the first one off) than the tie rod ends (3 days). Anyways your project is looking good! I'm happy to see that you're getting close to being done. I'm acctually starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel myself... But I have a fair bit more work left to do than you do.

The gated shifter thing is cool, but what I've been thinking of doing is making a shifter well cover. A company by the name of craven speed makes one for mini coopers (I DD a mini atm and used to mod it so I heard about it). Here's a pic: I'm not sure how it would look in a Z seeing as how big the shifter well is. So I may get a redline goods shift boot instead, but this would be kinda cool. I think it would be doable. I wouldn't use foam like the cravenspeed has, but rather a plastic disk sitting on top of the actual cover. I'm having a tough time visualizing it to be honest, but I will see what happens with it. Any thoughts?

Well I finally (after about 3 months) got that shift knob I posted... and it sucks! I put it in my mini (current DD that I'm trying to sell) and the set screws started to strip before I could even get the thing tight. The knob feels like absolute crap, it's way too big and awkward and lame. It looks cool though haha. So I searched around online a bunch to find something I'd like. Finally settled on a mugen (dildo style ) shift knob. Only problem is they sell for about $120, so I found a knockoff one on ebay for $25 with free shipping. Apparently the only difference is that the logo is screen printed instead of etched and will wear off (I don't like logos anyways). Anyways it's one of the smallest shift knobs out there and that's what I'm really after. I will be getting an msa short shifter and cutting it down and then welding a 10x1.5 threaded rod on top to mount the shifter. I will also be bending it to my liking. Should work out well! Here's a pic of the knob: it's 3.5" long and 1 1/8" diameter (as you can see in the second pic). The one i'm getting is gunmetal. Lol I put a lot of thought into what shift knob I'm getting... literaly it's been my main focus for the last couple weeks since I realized the sparco one was so shitty. But I will probably find a use for the sparco shift knob so it's all good. Anyways I will be posting a picture when I get it installed. Let's see some more shift knobs!

Then again... they aren't too expensive, and now would be the time to do it, seeing as how you're gonna have the suspension all apart anyways. Get the msa ones if you get any of them... I bought some cnc'd aluminum ones from ebay for $10 cheaper than msa but they didn't come with hardware and 12x1.25 bolts are apparently tough to find without ordering them through mcmaster carr. The msa ones come with hardware, and you can get the ones for 14" wheels which will have more clearance, or get the 15" ones and get even more spacer. It's up to you, but I think if you're gonna do it anyways, might as well do it now.

That's awesome to see it on it's own feet. Makes me a little jealous but then I realize that I will never be as good a driver as my Z will handle with upgraded stock-style suspension. I'd say go ZG flares! I love them and will be cutting up my fenders soon for them

If we could get a high and low beam comparison too that would be fantastic!

Haha so glad to hear this. I can't wait till I'm at the stage of installing them... I have so much left to do before then.

I've always really wanted 15's for my car... but I really like these and I keep worrying about whether or not the 15's I want will clear the brakes I want. I am planning on doing ZG flares though and I don't particularly want to run a huge spacer. In the picture you posted, do you have any spacers on? It looks like that would work great with a 1 inch spacer and ZG's. That is assuming there is no spacer there... I think anything over a 1.5" spacer is a little sketch... but I could just be naive. Anyways these are the coolest 17's I've seen that aren't a ridiculous price. I may end up going for these too, depending on how much spacer they need.