Phantom

Hey - they're all the L series - L24, L26, L28, LS1 - right? 😀

Jon, For reference purposes here's a few dyno runs on a bone stock '98 LS1 running thru a single 2 1/2" exhaust.

Thanks for the nice comment. If I still lived in Arlington it would be fairly easy to hook-up but it's a good 2,000 miles from Houston to Yakima, WA. 'Course that would just be a good break in run for your car. Might be a bit tough on the ol' behind, though.

We used the John's cars compressor kit. We also had the LS1 Wire diet guys do the wiring of the computer. If they are not listed above I have the receipt, found them on eBay. There is an AC request on all LS1 computers as far as I know. We sent the Vintage air 12 volts to that, used the trinary switch from the GTO to talk to the computer. The computer then sends a 12 v signal to the Under hood fuse panel that has a relay. We just put a relay on the fender by the compressor with 12V from the battery. Works fine. We did have to get a fitting and TIG in the trinary switch though. Used the one from the GTO and used an in line port fitting. The advantage is the computer runs the AC, WOT cut out, under or over pressure, over 40 MPH no fan, over 4000 RPM cut off. Lots of good stuff happens. GM engineers are a lot better at this stuff than we are. This may help on the pin out info. Fortunately my 280Z already had factory AC when JCI was developing their components on it so it was just a matter of making the compressor fit and then work with the Datsun controls.

Yeah - the guy I had do mine moaned and groaned = but then he did it and it turned out great. I had him do my wife's Z32 convertible with a berber carpet and it turned out so well I selected a carpet made by Wavemaker called Chivas Regal and twisted his arm really hard. I googled it and this is one of the images that "Bing" brought up. https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&id=5B222EF660A0AE13BF930BA281C5D2233C733B7F&thid=OIP.NNouDs-1YmQMX8fdcDbLLQEgDY&mediaurl=http%3A%2F%2Fforums.hybridz.org%2Fuploads%2Fmonthly_03_2014%2Fpost-263-0-17968700-1394340273.jpg&exph=768&expw=1024&q=wavemaker+carpet%2c+chivas+regal&selectedindex=68&qpvt=wavemaker+carpet%2c+chivas+regal&ajaxhist=0&vt=0 Considering that photo is 14 years old I'm pretty impressed.

The nice thing about carbs is that you can actually see the parts that are doing the work - take it apart - put it back together. It's like tuning an EFI system but with a screwdriver and changing out parts rather than tapping on a computer keyboard. The bummer side is that it isn't once set, always set. My son only knew EFI and then he bought a '71 Chevy pick-up with a carb'd 350. Seems that no one knows how to work on them any more. I never thought they were all that hard with a little trial and error.

Dang - JCI is doing 1 3/4" headers? Mine are 1 1/2". Still have 2 1/2" collectors?

What kind of carpet did you install? I challenged my guy by getting a regular house carpet. Thicker and stiffer than what you normally find in a car but it certainly came out nicely - and quieter too!

Really nice thread. Ties in with the work Grenade300 did with his write-up on a '73 240Z. Thanks for the details on the intake. I've been considering changing mine over to a cold air intake for a while.

Been driving an LS1/T56 S30 for 16 years now. Just the drivetrain conversion (LS1, T56, 3.70:1 LSD R200) cost me about $14k If I'd done all the work myself (and the kit that was developed on my car had been available) I probably could have done it for around$8,500. Brake Upgrade was around $1,000 and the TTT suspension upgrade was around another $1,000. If you are super patient and shop donor cars - both Z's and F-bodies you could probably pull it off for $10K. That wouldn't include any body work, paint, new window seals, interior work, bushing replacements in your suspension, lighting improvements, sound system, etc. BEFORE you buy your first part develop a plan on what you want to do and what the correct order would be to get it done with minimal down time and cost. Get things in the wrong order and yu'll end up redoing things at additional costs in dollars and time.

The Broken Kitty (JCI) kit was developed on my car back in 2002/3. I have been driving the car for 16 years and about 45,000 miles and have had 0 issues with any of the JCI components. They may not be as sexy as some of the other kits but they are time proven. They also mount the LS motor in the ideal location for the T56 shifter to come up through the stock hole on an S30. I think it is also the most complete source of components. Engine and transmission mounts, driveshaft, radiator, tach conversion, AC compressor if you want one, and fuel pump. All the components were engineered to work together and to be relatively easy to install. The red 280Z is the car that JCI developed their components on. The gray 240Z is the car that Grenade300 did his photo how to thread for the JCI components. It is now owned by my son, DarthZ.

Yeah - it was the sending unit. Replaced it and all was fine until a year later when it failed too. Got another one and it's been good since then.

In 2002 I started a collaboration with John Radevich of JCI in Dallas, Texas. The goal was to build my 1977 280Z into a daily driver using an LS1 and T56. Ya search of "LS1 / T56 Update" will give a lot of the history of that project that resulted in one of the first S30's on the road with that combination in June of 2003 and a conversion component kit sold worldwide by JCI. Since then over 16 years and about 45,000 miles have passed. The car has been raced on quarter mile tracks, done the combination oval and infield at Texas Motor Speedway, done autocross work and a hillclimb. In between those fun events it has been my fair weather daily driver. The move from Texas to Washington state eliminated winter driving due to the corrosive deicing material used by WSDOT. Could it have been done better? Back then, probably not, but today definitely so. I'm happy to see all the aftermarket equipment available for these cars. I used to only shop at Motorport Ajuto in Orange, CA (zcarparts.com) for my bparts but with the drivetrain conversion my world was opened up to Arizona Z Car, Techno Toy Tuning, Silvermine and so many others. Every year that has gone by has seen the development of quality parts and systems for these cars - like zledslights.com down in Weslaco, TX and Dapper Lighting with their LED lighting conversions and Braille for their great Lithium Ion lightweight batteries IMG_4214.MOV IMG_4214.MOV . One thing that has remained constant, however, is the quality of the designed parts and equipment provided by JCI during that project so many years ago. To this day I have not had issue with any component designed by them. Thanks John, you did well for me.

W/black interior I’d go with a metallic medium gloss gray. I think the red or blue would look less refined.

OK. Obviously stumped a bunch of people here. Turns out it's somewhere in the hydraulics - the brake master cylinder reservoir has metallic particles in the fluid. That pretty well dictates replacing both the master and slave cylinders along with a thorough flush of the line. FWIW - my '98 LS1 and '99 T56 use GM units. The slave cylinder is the donut style with a bleed port, Part #15046288. Pretty much the standard slave cyiinder used by GM on all their manual transmission LS variant V8's. The master cylinder is GM Part #DB07AF610A. This is the master used on Chevy & GMC trucks & Tahoes with manual transmissions back in 2001-2005. This particular master cylinder is an easy install on a 280Z - almost no modifications required.

I brought this up earlier as a caution to autoX folks that push their cars really hard. This particular guy had broken the right front spindle twice on the track he was running. He did have the fastest overall time each time. While not unusual it is not a frequent failure = evidently only occurring on car/track combinations that can induce extremely high cornering stresses.

I have a '99 T56 from a Camaro Z28 behind an Ls1 and a stock GM clutch. Lately when I hit the throttle hard and take the engine into the 6K range the tranny doesn't want to shift. It will pull out of the gear it's in but won't go into another gear. No grinding or anything like that. It's almost like the reverse lockout is engaged for all the gears. Once the engine slows down to roughly 1500 RPM or lower I'm able to get it into gear. It also happens more frequently when the transmission is cold. So, do I have a tranny problem or a clutch problem?? The clutch also engages/disengages pretty close to the floor.

Mine is the original JCI conversion and they threaded the stock Datsun temperature sensor into the block so that I have one for my stock gauge and one for the computer. I also wanted to keep all mu stock gauges. been running it for almost 15 years now.

The failure is in the flange part of the spindle. Extremely hard cornering with wide sticky tires created more force than a stock 240Z spindle can handle. From what I heard this is not an unusual failure when pushing cornering limits to the extreme.

Keep an eye on your front spindles. Guy here with a V8 240 and sticky tires has broken his a couple times and is looking for something beefier.

My son is running 275/40-17's (BFG's) on the rear of his '73 240Z but they are all-weather types so he has like zero traction. He also has a lot less weight sitting on them than I do also. I see that they've changed the allowable treadwear rating to run in the street classes for autox. That will make things a little more interesting as the cars will now have a little less grip.

Good to see that you've worked through most of your problems and have gotten that S30 on the road. I'm fixing things 2nd & 3rd time around on mine as age and miles have been catching up with it. Over 245,000 on the odometer now - had to have that rebuilt too. :<) Spent about 3 weeks this winter getting a bunch of things fixed and now the car is ready to go for another season. Best it's been in 3-4 years. What are you running for tires now? I've got some older Dunlop Direzza's (300 treadwear) that I'll be needing to replace in a year or two. Down to 4-5/32's. They hold pretty well on hot pavement but not for crap when it gets cold.

Now you just need a Braille battery with a custom Skillard battery box.🙄

Wow - just realized it’s been 2 years since I last read on your progress. It’s always fun when dealing with new, untried parts. I was lucky with JCI. Hang in there.

While you're at it use a mirror to look at where the cable attaches to the release mechanism and make sure the wires aren't fraying and breaking. You'll be surprised at how much easier the release works with some grease on it.