Daeron

The look grows on you like you wouldn't believe. Not to mention, the same thing could be said of the contemporary 200SX: and corolla AE86: and if you want to be quite brutal, they're ALL fugly but theyre fugly in a utilitarian way that has a GREAT deal of appeal. The appearance of a car is not a linear, good/bad scale of pretty and ugly.. And howler, I LOVED the pistol grip shifter in the XT, but I was a kid then so I naturally would have. my old man had one brand new, so the shifter bushings were fine. The cylinder head cracks arent inherently the death of the motor; I ran an EA82 with cracked cylinder heads for 70K miles before the trans quit. Although you're right, they ARE ALL cracked. I think that day was last thursday actually (har har, meaning, the day of which you spoke has already passed)

I hadn't really noticed it being a 240ish bumper, but I was looking at the end caps and thinking something wasn't quite right. I'm not 260 aficionado, but that looks like a 240 bumper, bolted onto a 75 280 bracket, with the trim pieces from the 75 bumper altered to fit on there.. it looks WEIRD somehow and I couldn't figure it out before. Now that you mentioned the earlier bumper I see it IS a 240 style bar, but I think it was mounted on after the fact. I would LOVE to see pictures of that bumper coming off the car... ps The "early 260" front bumpers weren't just what I described, were they? 240 bumpers spaced WAY OUT like the early 280s were?? I have always thought that: "early 260 bumpers"== 240 bumper bar, rubber trim, and steel bar bracket "late 260 bumpers"== 75 type 280 bar, rubber trim, and shock absorber, 5MPH megabracket largely because the standard description is "the early ones were like the 240s and the late ones were like the 280"

Lemme try and draw it out in paintbrush.. I can throw together a sketch that should illustrate my points well enough. Here: The large arrow points towards the front of the car; the circled "dead spot" is the major one I was trying to talk about. For the image on the left, picture a V8 underneath, lokoing at the belts and water pump, and seeing the front of the two valve covers on either side of my plenum; for the pic on the right, imagine seeing the top of one valve cover in the foreground. Truncate one corner of your upside down house and put a TB flange there (that oval is supposed to represent a throttle body LOL) To eliminate the "dead spot" imagine what would happen if you took a large cardboard box, and held it so that only one bottom corner was in contact with the ground, filled that with foam, and then pushed a basketball down into the corner. the corner would be rounded on the inside after the foam cured and you pulled your basketball off of it. My whole "trapezoid/triangle" thing threw my description off.. is my idea easier to wrap your head around now?

Apparently, $2650 OBO. http://miami.craigslist.org/brw/cto/1008551802.html Discuss; I was surprised at the price but somehow believe it.. am I right or wrong? I can't recall ever seeing one for sale TBH.

Have you considered pulling your dashboard out??? I've got an absolute MESS to take care of to get my Z alive again (yah, I don''t ever drive it or work on it; I'm just here because the cars are in my blood ) BUT the moment I realized the damage was SO extensive that I needed to pull the dash to inspect the whole wire harness.... Honestly, everything got easier in my head. More work, for sure, but easier. I knew that every ground would be checked and cleaned, every connection inspected and cleaned.... ..Try it if you have the free time. With the dash upside down and all the wiring exposed, you can build what you need from the parts Nissan gave you and know 100% of it. NO PIECE of that harness will be unknown by you; you will know which is what going where, and you will be able to make sense of the wire diagrams, and life will be TITS. I think it may be worth it.. but its your call. I realize I am proposing a metric crap-ton of work for you to add onto your already unenjoyable jobless lifestyle... BUT you have to admit, it isn't an expensive solution, cash-wise.

okay, aerodynamically, this car looks absolutely nothing like a bare bones stock Z. This car is a flat WALL in the front: The G-nose is far superior to the stock USDM shape of the front of the car for one large reason: it lets MUCH less air under the hood of the car and diverts much more air around it. this front end does the same thing, but appears to divert more air to the sides as opposed to underneath, when compared to the G-nose. However, I would say that trying to decide "which is better" is something that guessing about is foolish, so I won't say (and don't have an opinion on) which might be "better;" this bonneville front end or a G-nose based design.. ..but to have this car used as a justification for a statement like "concrete proof" that "the 'basic, bare bones' shape of the Z-car is more aerodynamic than the G-nose" is just wrong. It isn't the "bare bones shape" part I have a problem with; I see how you stretched that bit and I can cope with that.. it is the "more aerodynamic" part of your statement. Aerodynamics isn't a "more/less" situation, its just different. You don't always WANT to make all the air go around your car instead of underneath it, but I am not qualified to make any more correction or further explanation than that.

I would be picturing AC ductworking.. make a plenum "box" but think diamonds. I am not the best ant being technical in descriptions like this, but imagine an airbox that has a bottom made from two traingles (front/rear) and two trapezoids (sides.) It would almost look like an awkward shaped house, except the "end caps" would slant towards the center of the house rather than be straight vertical. Overall, when you think of the volume of this "house" picture it a bit larger than you would want; I am going to cut some interior volume out of it later and you want the rough dimensions of this "house" large enough to accommodate it. So, take your house, chop the top of it off for your manifold flange, and flip it over; the roofline of the "house" is now flat and it looks more like a hopper. the manifold flange is now the bottom (not the "top.") Go to the top of the manifold, front driver's corner of the box, and cut the corner entirely off at a 45* angle, so you have a place to weld on your TB flange. Now, after doing that, you would have what I imagine is a "dead spot" in the upper corner opposite the TB flange, and indeed in both other top corners as well. If you could find a way to fill these corners out, and make the volume of the plenum more "egg shaped" and curved at any intersection, you would probably make it flow more naturally and evenly. Instead of packing in some aerosol foam and carving it out to desired shape, you might ALSO be able to simply profile the shape that you would want with some parallel "fins" in the corner, pointing towards the manifold inlet.. I am bascially picturing a series of walls in the corners to act as air baffles to keep airflow out of the "dead zones." I don't know how much of this concept is making it across, but its fun for me to imagine, so I hope you are getting some of it.

Here is my take on everything. First off, http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=135748&highlight=efi+bible+step. Go read my post there, and consider that a prologue to the rest of this post. Edit: Also, put a large socket and breaker bar on the front of the "seized" engine and try to turn it by hand. Take all the spark plugs out first; no spark plugs, no resistance to turning except bearings and pistons. it should be easy; if it isn't, pull the valve cover and make sure nothing there is sticking it up (12 rocker arms should all be obviously inplace and the timing chain should be intact and pretty tight.) Assuming that the motor is actually seized.... End Edit Put a well-charged battery into the non-running car. Get it to pass all the component checks in the EFI bible. Take the engine out of the non-running car. Clean everything like the T-stat housing and water pipes, etc, get all the hoses you want to replace, get a new T-stat and water pump while you are doing all this (unless you know your water pump is recent) The process of picking the engine out of your wrecked Daily Driver car and inserting it into your new, non-running car should take 24-48 hours. If I had done everything I recommend you to do, my brother and I could probably have it knocked out in 4-8 hours, depending on luck; a weekend would certainly suffice. It might not be NEARLY enough to deal with the potential problems of jumping into a new vehicle; that is why I recommend you check ALL EFI subsystems. Find your FSM and check the ignition, too; check the lights, see what the brake pedal feels like, make sure he car will be roadworthy to the best of your abilities. Do all that BEFORE you swap the engines. If needs be, make a list of "things I also need to swap in from my old car." Break the process down into little steps and you are OK. Thats the secret to any sort of serious swap work when talking about your DD; do as many small pieces of the whole task as little tasks that don't sideline your car.

wow, I cant help you, but i'll give you a bump because i feel bad for the position you are in

subscribed, thank you, our thoughts run along about the same lines. filed away for future reference!!!

Hylomar is GREAT stuff, that OUGHT to do you A-OK.. One thing I have always liked the thought of (its been HIGHLY recommended to me by someone I trust a great deal, he says it works great with his old subaru motors) is to take a new cork or paper material oilpan gasket and coat it thinly with RTV with your finger on both sides of the gasket, and allow it to cure before setting the gasket onto the pan and using it. Hammer down the gouged area a bit, file it down a little bit, and then do that, AND using hylomar, should be MORE than enough.

there is one spot, along the roof support about centered along the top of the rear quarter panel; it is a weld point, and it frequently rusts, and this car seems to have no rust at that point whatsoever.. click "Fusible Links Blow" in my sig and look at my car; I'm sure one of those pics shows a rust hole at about 11 o'clock on the rear quarter window. That'll show you the spot; your car looks fine. +1 to the comments above as well; floorboards, frame rails underneath, T/C rod mounting boxes, battery tray, the latch area of the rear hatch (snap some pics of the space above the tail light panel with the rear deck opened up; also, the underside of the rear deck.) Pull the seats and any carpet out of the floorboards to get the FULL picture. The car ACTUALLY looks like it might just be largely superficial; an ugly duckling as it were. This is a GREAT car in some ways, because its a later 260; this car has most of the advantages of the stiffer, safer 280 chassis (except for the '77 revision with different doors) and the dashboard wiring is MUCH MUCH less than even my 75 280; the difference was SIGNIFICANTLY notable when holding the two dashboards; I would say five to ten pounds or more. Also simpler and easier to work on underneath; I have a late 260 dash I am probably going to recon to put into my car.

Good thread!

Dunno how much you care, but FWIW that turbo block is already "the right color" and the paint looks to be in OK shape; if it were mine I'd let it be. Would welding the open diff be extremely inadvisable for drift competition?

That really says it best; sorry if I fudged anything up or didn't make this exact point in my last post, it was what I was shooting for. (I actually winced as I wrote "reciprocating" and thought "half of those parts are rotating, but I'm not going into all that")

I couldn't disagree more (Huzzah! not tryin to be a jerk) and I will tell you why... The T-stat housing and the valve cover will match the manifold MUCH MUCH better when they (and possibly even the head itself) have been cleaned and rough-polished juuuust the right amount. (each piece will probably need somewhat different treatment, since the head only needs to be *so* fine, and the T-stt housing is pretty rough already, so you don't want to go TOO fine on the valve cover. A good clean and rough polish on the valve cover, some serious work on the water pump outlet (but still using that piece, its actually rather a nice one for a stocker) and a good thorough cleaning only on the head and.. they all ought to line up *about* the same in appearance. Top it off with a nice polished aluminum oil cap and you are set. For nitty-gritty details, I would work the hardest on the sides of the valve cover (the greatest section of real estate) and then allow the flat plane of the "valley" on the top to retain a bit more of a rough look than the "tanks" on the sides, and then hit the letters and the raised edges along the middle with a smooth grinder wheel to give them a fresh machine edge. I tell you, I think about these things so much, you'd think I had a set on order.. If only; my goals are far mroe modest.

I agree with leaving the hood alone, REALLY, i just find it hard to find fault with the manifold I would go with a throttle cable from the pedal; if you have to retrofit a cable ANYHOW you may as well get the maximum benefit from the smoother operation. Also, I would try to find a way to hide the throttle cable; possibly snake it around the spark plug side and come from the front, between 2 and 3?? MAYBE even come up from below with it, if you can make it stand the heat... Or slanting across from the front of the cylinder head, on the front spark plug mount hole.. but full cable. There just isn't any point in retaining the potential failure points that are the solid linkage; instead, shave the stock bracketing in the engine bay and clean it up.

It sounds to me like Doug did just what you described: zero the crank, put the flywheel on, zero the flywheel, front pulley on, zero the front pulley. Then, you're good to go. He started with the reciprocating assembly, balanced it, added the flywheel, balanced the flywheel, etc.. and I don't THINK anything in that order would be inherently "custom balanced" to that particular assembly. if at any point you changed the clutch, or put that flywheel on a different motor, or whatever.. you would need to rebalance either motor ANYhow..

One thing that has never been made clear to me regarding the NisTune/Z31 swap is the cost.. I thought that the program for your PC was expensive? or something along those lines... I have always preferred MAF based systems (I can't tell you why, I'm actually thinking of posting a generic "why is which better?" thread on MAP vs MAF) and the all-nissan solution has had great appeal to me from the outset, but the MS has always seemed like such a simpler way to go. Now, I am not even ON the modification road at the moment, but budget is ALWAYS a factor (I'm a Po Boy) so any $400 software purchases involved and I am OUT. Even if the total cost is the same, I cannot offend my budgetary sense by spending most of my budget on THE SOFTWARE. The Inner Nerd in me won't let me (open source!!!) Maybe I need to do some more resaerch on the whole shebang myself...

You can ask a guy at a parts store (its gotta be a Smart Guy, at a Good Store) to get you a slightly smaller belt; the belts are numbered sequentially, by size/dimensions, and the computers simply cross reference what number belt any given car needs. some places even have yardstick-type devices that measure a belt exactly, and can enter the dimensions on a computer and get a belt part number for what you want.

Yah, no, the horns don't hit the hood.... the hood hits the horns!!!!! Fix the damn hood on that car man, just a coupla notches..... I.. I can't give you a serious reaction. I'll be staring at these pictures for a day or so before I can really give you a serious reaction. goals one through two achieved with a bullet.

HybridZ Pulitzer nominee!!

Naw, you answered perfectly.. I just tried to bone up some, but couldn't find a 78 diagram handy. looking at a 77 I find a six prong ignition relay, but looking at the factory PDF for my 75 there is, instead, a dual 6 prong connector for an ignition interlock system. Yay. I REALLY wish I could find someone who understood the ins and outs of that and could explain it to me.. the ignition interlock system needs to be fully removed from my car because I am pretty certain a PO did a hackjob removal and that is what caused my initial electrical problem... So in short, I think that relay is most certainly NOT on my 75. It wouldn't be the first time Nissan had superseded a faulty relay with a superior product though; the headlight relays on the roadster (originally) were AWFULY but at some point in the 70s (according to my uncle) they stopped supplying the original ones and superseded them with newer tech that was INFINITELY better.. Look at the external Voltage Regulators, too (but of course thats more than just Nissan doing it there..) Interesting.. I hate finding differences between model years like this.

Doors are easy; handle bolts, run around the perimeter of the panel popping the pop-ins loose, pull the bottom of the panel away from the door slightly, then push upwards on the bottom panel to disengage the top sealing pieces from the door.. The top of the panel forms a bit of a "hook" that fits well in between the top inner doorskin and the window glass. Usually they come out with the rear side tilting upwards before the front side. If you have done door panels before, they are pretty much the same in most any car; you just have to find the little hidden screw or WTFE. no hiding screw on the Datsun; if you think you;ve got everything off and it still isn't budging, something is amiss and destroying the panels might not be such a bad idea(because they are already destroyed.) hth

I've always more or less considered to to mean "Sir Turbo L-Series" Even though we don't use Sir (maybe "The Honorable Mister L-Series" would be a more Americanized translation) it seems more appropriate to me, but we all know how biased towards the L-series *I* am...