rejracer

You have a heavily corroded / contaminated system. Until you fix that, the car will overheat regardless of what radiator, fan or shrouding is on there. As of now, your block has a lot of rust scale in it, and the aluminum parts are covered in aluminum oxide. The white stuff in the picture is aluminum oxide. A surface that is corroded is less efficient at transferring heat than a clean surface. Products I use to de-corrode and clean a system: 1. Prestone super radiator cleaner 2. evapo-rust 3. Prestone super radiator flush Process: 1. Use the prestone cleaner, follow the directions. This step cleans the major crud in the system 2. Flush the system using tap water, forward and reverse flush the radiator, block and heater core. Drain fully 3. Use the evapo-rust with distilled water. This step get rid of the rust in the block and the aluminum oxide in the head and front cover. 4. Flush the system using tap water, forward and reverse flush the radiator, block and heater core. Drain fully 5. Use prestone super radiator flush, this step cleans any remaining contaminates in the system. 6. Flush the system using tap water, forward and reverse flush the radiator, block and heater core. Drain fully 7. Flush one last time using distilled water, no cleaners. 8. Once system is clean to satisfaction, fill with desired coolant mix. I suggest 70% coolant, 30% distilled water. I use prestone yellow coolant. Any coolant will work, just don't mix them, (yellow with green) and use only distilled water. Never use tap water in a cooling system. With a system so heavily corroded, you might find new leaks in the system. These are problems that would surface anyway, the aggressive cleaning just made the problem visible. When the metal is dissolved like that on the water inlet, there is heavy corrosion on the inside of the engine as well. If the corrosion gets too bad, it can ruin a block or head. Every car I do this on goes from being a basket case to a trouble free system, and stays that way.

Update: T3/T4 hybrid is still in turbo jail. I called the jailer, apparently it will be done next week. I'm not holding my breath. I dropped the turbo off in March....of last year. Turbo should be configured like this: garret liquid cooled center section Comp turbo ceramic bearings Uber seals, cant remember if they call those dynamic or not. stage 3 turbine, ported/machined stock housing, .63 if I recall. V trim compressor & housing It should be a nice turbo, I look forward to getting it installed. From what I've read it's a solid 350 hp turbo, Tuned with little to no margin 400hp. The V trim compressors are efficient over a wider flow rate while E trims are more efficient in a very narrow flow rate. Time will tell if it meets my expectations for a fun street driven machine. I'm waiting on a CLSD to arrive, that too will go in soon. I also have a Bosch 040 fuel pump to be installed. Currently I am losing fuel pressure at higher rpm's. I will be cutting a fuel tank apart to put baffles and other wang-zoom stuff inside.

In my experience retarded timing will make the engine run cooler, but the exhaust system much hotter. If the previous owner ran water in the system, what have you done to clean the system? Do you know if they used tap water or distilled? It only takes a few weeks for a new radiator to get mineralized and quit working if installed in a contaminated system.

The RB 25 clutch is a 250mm. You would need to change out the flywheel, pressure plate and clutch disk to use it. I am not certain if a RB25 flywheel will bolt on to a L series. Once you get that taken care of them you will need to measure the assembly height to determine if the bearing collar needs to be changed out / modified.

I've found a few at different sites, but you're going to be spending a lot. The most cost effective I think is to get a mixed set, then take them to a knowledgeable locksmith to get them all keyed the same.

I usually go for one of 2: Napa - for the lifetime warranty. Rock Auto - for the less than 5 buck rebuild kits. You can also get the rebuild kits at any auto parts store.

In all of what I say below, keep in mind I am approaching this from the viewpoint of a typical daily driver. The part gets bolted on, and it's not looked at for 20k+ miles. If you are a racer and doing regular inspections, most of the points I highlight would be identified before it becomes a problem, assuming the design and build is sufficient. My fear is that with these parts being more and more available, that some kid is going to bolt these things onto his car and forget about them for too many miles. Then one fine day he gets the money for some sticky tires and decides to go canyon carving, failure occurs and aforementioned kid kills himself and/or someone else. Regardless of that I think what I am saying could have some benefit to the racing community in designing lighter, longer lasting and safer parts. Most of the stock TC rods get bent because of using poly bushings on both sides and fail while braking hard in a corner. The rear rod mounts need to flex. If they are not flexible enough then with normal wheel travel the TC rod will flex. Add braking forces, and you have recipe for disaster. Will it work? Sure, for a while. Will it fail. It might. Engineer accordingly. If the TC rod is supported correctly in the rear (either stock bushings not over torqued or some type of ball pivot) then the rod will almost always damage the frame rail in a collision. I've proven that point on my car, I nearly tore a rear TC rod mount cup off the right frame rail in 1997. The rod showed no damage at all. I'm using the same rod to this day. My guess is the reason companies are overbuilding these things is sometimes they will be used in a racing application, and not everyone knows that a poly bushing should only be used on the front side of a TC rod. So what ends up happening is they put a spherical joint on the rear of the TC rod, which eliminates play while allowing full travel with no binding. Then they overbuild the rest partly due to the size of rear Heim joint needed, and partly due to the size of the materials that are readily available to fabricate that design. Are they overcoming a basic design flaw they already fixed by putting a spherical rod end in the rear? In my opinion, yes. Is it a problem? I don't see a downside, aside from weight. Would I build them to act as a breakaway part so not to damage a frame rail? No way!. I've not seen many TC rod failures where the resulting damage is less than a damaged frame rail. I've never seen or heard of any crashes from a frame rail failures on a car that was roadworthy in the first place. Not saying it has not happened, It's just when the S30 chassis has a major suspension failure, I've only heard of the TC rods bending. Perhaps someone with more experience will enlighten me. The BMW part in the quoted link has the same basic design flaw: The TC rod front pivot point is behind the center line of the control arm. This BMW part is controlling the twisting forces of the control arm by using a clevis type link. It's the same as the AZC design, just weaker due to the smaller dimensions of the rearward tab. Move the clevis pin to the center of the control arm and there is no tendency of the control arm to twist. Brilliant! This design controls control arm twist by being firmly attached to the TC rod. The TC rod is girthy enough to handle the loads. The rear of the TC rod has no built in binding issue. In my opinion a well designed racing part. Only downside, is no rear bushing, so more road noise transferred to the chassis, and Heim joints are inherently high wear parts. My suggestion: 1. If intended as a racing part, and occasional replacement of Heim joint is acceptable, leave as is. 2. If intended as a racing part and occasional replacement of joint is not desireable, change rear TC mount to a inner tie rod end type. 3. If intended as a street part, change rear to a bushing setup, I think the part is strong enough to handle the loads. My design (which I have not built yet) is what you have done plus a inner ball joint at the rear of the TC rod, plus the control arm is adjustable length. Why would this design work better if there is more than factory caster? While this one appears to be built out of much stronger materials, the TC rod front pivot point is still behind the center line of the control arm. In my opinion it's a basic design flaw that has to be overcome by adding a lot of width to the control arm (this is what AZC does) or much stronger materials which is what the above link appears to be doing. Regardless it's a solution to a problem which should never have existed in the first place. The rearward pivot points will always be a high stress, high wear part of the design. I'm amazed that no one has thought of moving the pivot point forward. This way there is no tendency for the control arm to twist under braking, and the only short coming then is it's a high wear point, which is fine for racing applications that are inspected on a regular basis.

To my recollection the stock N/A cat is smaller than the Cat used on the turbo's, 300zx's and Maxima's. The stock Turbo cat has an inlet of around 2.75", where I think the N/A cat is 2". If you are going to upgrade, you will need to upgrade the entire system. What Randy said above is true, you can go too big. If your car is mostly stock, you will see very little gain, or a net loss in swapping out the stock cat. You need to know how much flow your exhaust is flowing, and then find a system (not just a cat) that will augment power in that range. In my opinion 2.5" is a bit on the large side for a stock n/a motor. Increase power on the stock motor, and it's just right. The aftermarket cats are notorious for being terrible. A good quality catalytic converter has about 200 bucks worth of precious metals in it, which is why the aftermarket cats do not work well, or last long. If you were to replace the cat I would look at a good factory replacement, not an ebay special. You can get a good used cat for less. If you are worried about legality, well then that is another can of worms as California smog laws are counter productive at accomplishing what they were intended to do in the first place. If you want legal, keep it stock. If you want to meet the intent of the law go with a larger OEM Cat. if you don't care about either get a hollowed out cat and weld exhaust pipe through the middle of it for the stealth cat delete or just fab up a cat delete pipe, and put in a cat every 2 years. I personally would go with a larger quality cat, it's cheaper, and functional.

So I scrounged a few pics that were already on my phone and PC This is the Hallman manual boost controller. It's currently adding 0 PSI. When I get the new fuel pump in, I may add a pound or 2. Here is how the FS5W71C shifter turned out. It's a nice short throw. I just removed the stock rubber insulated shifter extension and added a spare momo long shift knob. In this photo it's in 3rd gear. Here is the shifter in 4th. I made a metal ring that is just slightly smaller than the console hole. With the shift boot slipped over it, it fits snugly into the factory hole. This setup is not using the factory clips to hold the shift boot in place. Nice thing is it's only held in by gravity, and stays in place well. Removal is a snap and does not result in losing yet another chunk out of your console. The new Radiator and shroud. I cleaned the shroud up as well as I could, and spot welded it up where it was cracking. I also took the time to tack weld some m6 nuts to one side of the shroud and drill holes on the other side for some M6 bolts. before there was just a mickey mouse clip holding the 2 halves together, it's much more solid now. I painted it up with wrinkle pain, and it looks great. I 3 days after I installed it I went to Indian Wells which is just outside of Palm Springs. It did fine in traffic when temps were 109* out. I was happy. I wanted to retain EGR, So I retained it. Here is the finished install pic. I had to drill a hole in the MSA downpipe and weld on a 1/2" steel gas fitting to it. Here is the 1/2" Stainless steel gas line I used. This one was 12" in length. I bought it at lowes. The fitting on the top is a M22x1.5 to SAE 45* flare fitting which can be readily had at any well supplied hydraulic shop. 1/2" SAE flare and 45* gas flare happen to be the same thread pitch. (3/4" is not) I took the lower steel fitting and welded it to the Downpipe, and removed the old fitting in the manifold and replaced with this one and I had a DIY EGR setup with a stainless tube. The yellow paint is burnt off now and all is left is a bare stainless flex line, it looks good to boot. I wanted to have the system flanged, and I was not really happy with the 2 bolt flanges Nissan uses. After looking around the interweb I found these Vband clamps for 25bucks a pop. We will see if they hold up, but not bad for all stainless units. I did not want to weld the stainless pipe to the dynomax muffler, so I welded a short 2.5" extension piece and slip this into the muffler. I don't really like using the compression clamps to hold things together, so I think I'm going to get another vband and weld it to it, and also make up a straight pipe extension / tip. I will say this, 409 stainless is a pain to weld with mig. Had I to do it over again I would have gone with 304. I thought 409 was just a better grade, but was I ever wrong. 409 stainless is designed to be light, strong and corrosion resistant, but it's not near as good as the heavier 304. Read up on your materials before buying! to weld the 409 stainless you must go in about 1.5 second bursts, skip to the next bead on the other side of the pipe, weld for 1.5 seconds, skip to the next bead.... It was slow, and well lets just say your not going to mistake this weld job as being done by a professional welder. If anyone has any tips on welding 409 exhaust tube, i'm all ears. I'll get a few more pics up when time allows.

So it's been a year and a half and no update, I shall remedy this! Work that has been done since the initial swap: 1. New wheels and tires 2. New stereo 3. Manual boost controller installed. 4. Emergency pressure relief valve removed. 5. 280z overflow bottle 6. New 3/8 fuel line bent and installed by yours truly. 7. FS5W71C transmission from a 300zx. 8. 3.70 open diff from the same 300ZX 9. New custom driveshaft using the larger U-Joints 10. New MSA radiator after full flush of the system. 11. Bonk was kind enough to give me his old metal radiator shroud, it's installed. 12. MSA downpipe 13. 409 mandrel bent Stainless exhaust. Up next: T3/T4 hybrid when it gets out of Turbo shop jail. Pics to follow as soon as I can find them.

I've been wanting to do something like this, but use the stock TC rod and cut it down, thread it and use a inner tie rod in the rear like you are doing. For a design using all heim joints to work you will need to get the TC rod front pivot point to be centered on the line between the inner and outer control arm pivot points. In other words, I don't think there is a way to safely build it using a heim joint for the front TC rod mount. The rotating that Rebekahsz is referring to is during braking. As the front tires are pushing back it will want to naturally twist the part that that the TC arm connects to. Since the Heim joints on the control arm will run out of normal motion in this direction in about 15 to 20*, you will run the risk of the following: 1. loosening the outer and inner control arm jam nuts. 2. Changing caster during braking. 3. Changing tow in during braking. 4. Pulling the anti sway bar backwards or pushing it forward depending on if the front TC rod heim joint twists above or below the control arm. The TC rod is fixed, but as braking force increases the control arm will be pushed backwards. This backward force will cause the front TC rod mount piece to twist because the TC rod front mount center point is behind the inner and outer control arm heim joint center points. The twisting motion will have the same affect on alignment as a TC being shortened and causing the problems listed above. To test this, build a jig, (or install on a mock up car). Grab the outer heim joint and push backwards. You will notice it twisting. This is the force that will get you in trouble when braking hard. If you were to change the design so that the front TC rod heim joint is eliminated and replaced by a sturdy U shape bracket, this twisting could be completely eliminated. In my opinion once the suspension geometry is set, you do not want any motion between the control arm and TC rod. There is another design on the market today that allow for some flexing, and I think the design has the same weakness. This basic design is implemented by Arizona Z car and Datsun parts LLC, with the former being a much stouter implementation. There is a reason the OEM TC rod is 16mm in diameter up front and bolted to the control arm using 2 10mm bolts. That reason is to prevent the front control arm from twisting. By the way, nice execution, it looks well built aside from the TC rod heim joint.

The idle speed was a bit low, but that did not concern me. It sounds like a dead cylinder on accel, at idle sounds like a lumpy cam. Was the car fully warmed up? How did it run before the new fuel pump? Is the carb heat plumbing working? If it was warm during the video, I would do the following: 1. Check for vacuum leaks. 2. Pull the plugs and read them. 3. While you have them out do a compression test. 4. Set the timing. 5. Adjust the carbs. Edit: 6. Set the valve lash (Xnke actually beat me to it, 2 posts below). This really should be #1 on my list.

Concerning the white smoke, if it smells like coolant is being run through the engine, what type of round top carbs are on it? The older manifolds run coolant through the manifold only. Newer round top manifold carbs run coolant through the manifold, into the carbs, and back out through the manifold again. The manifold to carb spacers have gaskets on either side, and the spacers themselves are prone to cracking. Pull the air cleaner and see if you can inspect by opening the throttle plate and lifting the vacuum puck. The older carb spacers are square, the newer spacers with coolant ports are longer on the bottom by about an inch to facilitate the coolant ports and sealing surface area. If you take 2 pictures, one a birds eye view and one a frontal view I will be able to ID them for you.

If you are having over heating issues the first thing to do is to fix it. Do not pass go, do not collect 200$, fix it first as you will just continue to destroy engines. To fix it, flush the cooling system using a cooling system flush chemical. It can be had cheap at the auto parts store. Follow the directions. I use the prestone brand and have always had excellent results with it. When a cooling system gets dirty the contaminates end up sticking to the inside of the radiator. It's usually minerals like calcium from tap water that do this. The mineral or contamination layers inside the cooling system are very good insulators. Even though the system may look clean, if heat transfer is limited, overheating will result. The flush chemical removes them and holds them in suspension in the water, which will be drained out, taking the nasties with it. When filling the system use distilled water, it has no minerals like tap water does. Never use tap water to fill a cooling system. If the system was heavily rusted, I also run a product called Evapo rust through the system. It dissolves rust and aluminum oxide like nothing else, and will not touch bare aluminum brass or any other metals, just the oxides. If you continue to have problems then it might be time for a new water pump if the system is not pumping due to a heavily corroded pump rotor, slipping rotor or debris blocking the system. All can be inspected with the pump off. If you need further instructions, let me know, I can post detailed instructions.

Run it! If you really wanted to go all out, do as others suggested, replace some studs, gaskets and hoses. Whatever is necessary, but don't just throw money at it for making yourself feel good. But since you are going to put on another head I would not tear the engine down at all, run it with old head in place as is to determine if it's good, if it passes then pull it again and slap on the newer parts. There is nothing on these engines that makes them hard to work on while in the vehicle. What Tony described is freeing up a stuck ring. Running them WOT for long periods, and then engine braking (full vacuum at RPM) and repeating several times is the first way I try to free them up. I also will spray PB blaster in each cylinder a couple times a day for a week or so, while frequently turning the crank back and forth. The mild acids in it is not harsh enough to etch aluminum, but does good at softening tarnish/gum in the ring packs. This is done with engine upright on a stand and cylinder off or on, does not matter. If I get really particular I will run a bit of Xylene down each cylinder to get some of the PB out, and finish if off with a dab of oil as the Xylene will strip all the lube off. If you don't have any PB, then just about any light petroleum distillate product will work like liquid wrench, marvel mystery oil, sea foam, chem tool, Kerosene. Basically any solvent that is capable of dissolving tarnish will work. Just make sure it has minimal lube before startup, and while you are rotating the engine by hand. This can be done in vehicle. So no need to do this before startup, only if it smokes a little. You can prelube the engine by pulling the oil pressure sender or oil filter and injecting oil. You can do it with a bottle of oil, a drill, fuel line and an air compressor. It's cylinder pressure that seals a ring, not ring tension. Cars with stuck rings are either engines that are neglected, or babied it's whole life.

I would agree with Bonk, there are no off the shelf bolt in solutions for most swaps. Yes there are parts that can be made to work, but I've not seen any off the shelf swap solutions on these cars. But with that said, engineering and fabrication is part of the motor swap territory. Expect to have to buy or make your own solutions. Bonk's first fan controller on paper was very good. In reality, no so much, it failed in about a year or so of minimal operation. Now those neat and tidy "solutions" turn into engineering exercises as replacing a fan controller now consists of hacking the thing out and soldering in a new one. Good luck buying one at the local autozone. Now if you were to wire up a solution using a GM or Ford temp switch and standard 4 pin relay, your chance of getting a replacement part right away is much higher. Also the ability to swap out just a sensor or relay is an attractive option, which is prob why OEMs do it that way. Specifically on fan controllers, I've seen 2 of them so far on different swaps. Both worked for a while, and both failed. When you get into the world of aftermarket parts vs OEM parts, you will notice "aftermarket" comes in 3 varieties. 1. Absolute garbage. (the vast majority of parts out there) 2. rebranded oem parts (racer/ricer tax) 3. Quality engineered and built products. The quality stuff is expensive, but as is said, buy cheap, buy twice. The principles of what I just covered apply to every system you will need to address. Now on to which engine to choose? It took Bonk 2 years to get his swap on the road. Now much of this was waiting on suppliers, reading, and getting info from misc sources. The car turned out great, but to get it right was expensive and very time consuming. I did an L28ET swap. It took me 7 days from engine pull to startup. Out of the 7 days, 2 days of was diagnosis of the old engine, 1 day break. It really took me 4 days work to get the swap done, because it's all OEM/ bolt in. That's a swap with all guages working and OEM reliable, I drove it for a year every day with Zero issues. That's Nada, zilch, nothing. The reason for me spouting off on the L28ET swap vs the RB/LSx/Toyota is to highlight the difference in time it will take for someone asking BASIC questions on a swap. If you want it up and running quick, go L28ET. If you want a more powerful inline, go with the RB or toyota engine, if you want max power and parts availabilty, go LSx. The L28ET is a fast swap, parts are now getting hard to come by, but a great platform for incremental upgrades. The RB is a very smooth running swap, but it was never introduced to the US, so parts availability is more limited. The LSx is the most costly initially, but the most powerful and parts will be available in decades to come. Lastly, decide what you are going to use the car for. If you are building a street car, then I would say around half the info on this site is irrelevant. A street car, road race car, drift car and drag car are all built different. I find it helpful to know where a persons background is. If a person has a narrow background they usually give great advice on that area, but really bad advice on everything else. From your original post, sounds like you want a fast street car. Based on that I might suggest thinking twice about taking advice from a drag racer. "what do you mean a 4000 rpm stall is too much on the street?" Ahem, yeah, if you need an explanation to that in context to a daily driven street car, you don't know the definition of "Street car". Drag race drive train installed in a car with functioning blinkers is not "street car". Which ever route you go, match your parts to your goal. This principle applies to all swaps, regardless of which engine/trans is chosen. Just about any stock drive train swapped in will be a good drive train for a daily driven street car. The 3 possible candidates above increases in cost and power as you go down the list. My original 2.8L N42 head/block with Stock SU's ran great, lots of fun, but not fast. My bone stock L28ET runs great and is quite a bit more powerful, especially down low, from 2500 to 5500. Bonk's RB25DET is much smoother, refined and powerful than my L28ET, but cost 4 to 5 times what I spent on the L28ET. I think a LSX swap cost twice as much as a RB swap, but not sure as i've never swapped in LSx in these chassis. Hope that helps.

Ray, In my experience brake vibrations have always been caused by "warped" rotors. I've never had a caliper cause this type of issue. Rotor run out is the difference between inner diameter thickness and the outer diameter thickness, I've never had rotors out of spec with run out cause pulsing, but varying thickness in a radial cross section always does. Even my old 280zx with 250k of "preowned by total stoner" neglected use had silky smooth brakes after machining the rotors and getting PROPER brake pad hardware on it. When I get my rotors resurfaced I make sure everything is assembled correctly before sending it to the shop. I clean the rotor/caliper mating surfaces to bare metal, ensure there is no rust, debris or burrs that would cause inconsistent mating surfaces during re- assembly. Any surface imperfections are addressed via a draw file and know how. I just do the basics, and it's always turned out right for me. I have never used the on car rotor turning option, so I can't speak to that. If you have a 0-1 mic, you can check yourself for warpage. I usually check calipers by hand or with the assistance of a C clamp. If they are free, they have always worked for me. My experience with calipers going out (on 2 different cars) is it will pull to one side either on braking (one stuck open) or when not braking (one not releasing). Either way I've seen both, and neither was a vibrating/pulsing situation, just wanting to steer the vehicle one way or the other. On a side note I have 82/83 280zx calipers & rotors on the rear of mine, what made you choose the maxima caliper vs the ZX? Was it availability or sizing issue? Have fun!

You could always install a stock fuel pump and rely on the stock rail to regulate the pressure. You might have to drill and tap the head to get it to fit, but it's an option. As far as wiring, remove the EFI harness provide the coil/distributor with 12v (if part of EFI harness, otherwise leave stock) Run new temp sensor wire to the appropriate connector (if part of EFI harness, otherwise leave stock) Run new oil pressure sensor wire to appropriate connector (if part of EFI harness, otherwise leave stock) I'm fairly sure alternator is part of chassis wiring, but can't remember if the Coil, temp and oil sensors are part of EFI harness or not. Download the FSM and look at the diagrams to understand the circuits, and where the relevant connectors are on the vehicle. Hope that helps.

Clutchmaster and ACT are also good.

It depends on what transmission you are using, and how much power your machine is making. If you are using the ZXT T5 it has a very wide spread and low first gear, so I would go with the 3.36. Here is a copy of a speed-RPM calculator, this will tell you basically what Tony was saying above, except this gives you every possible trans/diff combo. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ato3KCDX86aedFBpTkI0X0o5R2pQaHlrQzgzbGVrQXc&authkey=CPTj89IN&authkey=CPTj89IN#gid=0

As mentioned before, stainless is not the best to use on Aluminum. For Corrosion resistance I now nod to class 10.9 zinc coated bolts. The metal used in 10.9 bolts is more corrosion resistant that class 8.8. If it's something I want to stay in good shape, I use dielectric grease on the threads/shank where the application permits. Not all stainless bolts are equal. First off they have different grades, A2 being on of the grades. I've also found that if you closely examine the threads of a cheap stainless bolt the threads are rough, which is why they chew up aluminum so quickly. You can get good quality stainless fasteners, but they are very expensive. Any time you get dissimilar metals in contact with another, add a bit of moisture, you get corrosion. Keeping the disimilar metals away from each other, bolts properly cleaned, finished, and lubed will do much more for the buck than Stainless. With that said I still use stainless on a few non critical items, but I'm using it less and less.

Download the FSM from Xenon S130. From there study the system, knowing what sensors do what. There is nothing wrong with a working stock FPR. I also start troubleshooting these cars by cleaning contacts on the ECU, Cylinder head temp sensor, AFM, throttle switch and injectors. The L28ET electronics are not complex or hard to understand, and work well for what it is.

Step 1: Set a budget. Step 2: Decide what you want to do with the car. Step 3: Reconcile the difference between 1&2. On a serious note, I would do the following: Repair the basics as needed. Ditch the Weber DGV carbs in favor of some round top SU's. Give it a proper tune up. Read up in the sections on this forum to see what guys are doing, and what interests you. You have time. Have fun.

This is what I have swapped over to mine: Engine, trans, driveline, diff, mustache bar, diff front mount bar, curved tranverse link, halfshafts, stubaxles, overflow bottle, soft brake lines, hood,fenders. Need 240z housings to make the following work tachometer, speedo, oil/pressure gauge, Voltmeter/fuel gauge. You can use the 280 strut tubes if you intend to section them for different struts.. Check out Beta Motorsports if you intend on doing that. In the S30 section there is a listing of what items changed with what years of production on our cars.

In 1979 they changed the way HP is measured from SAE gross to SAE net. It's roughly a 20% difference. They did the same thing on the Z cars as well.