Zetsaz

People's Choice at a small cars and coffee in town this weekend. Brakes feel really good. It's weird feeling how firm the pedal is compared to the originals now that it's all stainless hoses and the rear has been upgraded. Even the parking brake is better than I expected! Getting wheels balanced today - I know for a fact one had a couple weights knocked off, I can see where the adhesive was, and I'm still upset about how many weights they used to balance one corner. Someone wasn't doing their job right when they mounted the tires I think, because there's no way you need two long strips on opposite sides to get a wheel balanced.

Car is finally back on the ground after waiting entirely too long on mismatched parts and alternatives when the flare on one brake hose broke. I was worried about the E brake capability based on some reviews but it seems like it's plenty capable on even a gentle hill after adjusting. at worst it's comparable to the original parking brake ability, but with less adjustment to do not. Not that drums were terribly complicated, but adjusting them properly was tedious.

Small jobs today- Replaced that short hardware on the front rotors to hubs I mentioned in a previous post. Included Pic is the size difference. Brakes didn't feel particularly unsafe on my few drives around town, but always better safe than sorry with the most important things like brakes. Second pic shows how the new hardware actually goes all the what out to the wheel mounting surface to engage as many threads as possible Next small job before the correct rear brackets arrive is re-adhering a part of the headliner that is sagging a bit. I think the adhesive didn't cure properly when I installed it forever ago and the intense heat on the roof at one show made it droop. Only fix is to reapply but fortunately it's easy since the rest of it is already adhered well and lined up. Hardest part of the job is centering it

Small update from T3 - Called today about the bracket issue, and their service guy on the phone told me the new brackets would get shipped out today. While bleeding the brakes yesterday to get a head start on some of the work left so they'd at least be close I noticed some fluid dripping from the opposite side. After inspecting it looks like the flare for the -3 end on one of my hoses was cracked. I ordered some new ones myself since I don't know if it was an installation error, but it's just one more thing wrong with the rear end. Despite shipping today I know they might be getting it out late enough that it won't actually leave California until tomorrow. Hopefully by Thursday I have a driveable car again. Two weeks until I leave on a road trip

Tons of work this weekend getting the new axles and rear discs in. The HD outer from futofab were by far the most time consuming part between removing everything, cleaning, cutting for clearance of the new outers, recleaning, the making sure the inner bearing and seal were properly seated. Probably spent about 5-6 hours total just doing that. The axles are greased and in place and I've been cleaning up the garage after all the mess. I was really exited about how things were looking then I realized the rear calipers looked wrong. They were offset a bit too much from the rotor. Checked again and it was super obvious the pads were only contacting the rotor with a bit over half their surface area. Checking the pics on the site it seems clear they sent the brackets for their regular rear brake kit. I'm incredibly frustrated because I did all this work leading into the weekend and now the car is unusable for a few days as a result. I was scheduled for tint on Monday and I'll probably have to cancel. Really hoping they can rectify it and send the correct brackets as fast as possible.

Here's a pic of how the hatch is pulling on the seal no matter how well I try to tuck it in right. It pulled the center off the adhesive. I should be able to redo it and try to turn it farther to the front after I try the shims, but it's frustrating to say the least. That said, this is a huge step above how the previous one sat. In mostly happier news the spare tire fits incredibly well. Very happy with it and it all comes clean under the T3 cover. I bought the cover ages ago just to have even carpet in the back, but honestly could never put much weight in the back for fear that it would bend with nothing underneath. Only downside is the 280z tie down hardware doesn't seem to fit well with it. The way the lower piece is shaped raises the screw handle enough that it won't thread in. For now I flipped it and put the freebie shop rag I got at the car show between the wheel and hardware while I find an earlier style tie down that has covers the full hub opening.

They follow the curvature pretty well, but it's still getting pulled down a bit even after major adjustments. At this point I think the bigger issue is my hatch and the way it's fitted than the seal. It's dragging just the tiniest but in the center at the top. I know hatch shims would probably completely solve the problem, but my gap between the roofline and the hatch is already just slightly bigger than I want. Might test the skillard hatch shims that go between the hatch and hinge instead of the hinge and body and see how far off it is anyway. Tire for the spare was supposed to arrive yesterday but must have been held up. Should be here soon and I'll take it to get mounted and snap some pics for you. The spare looks so nice and Panasports are great quality. It's so nice that honestly I'm tempted to finally upgrade from my Rotas to the 16" Panasports that X Car Garage sells. Hadn't considered them much before but they look far nicer in person than I expected

Horn is working! Surprisingly loud. The issue was the contact that slides against the steering wheel to ground the horn switch. I guess it was bent back slightly (straighter than it should have been) and was not grounding. Took off the multifunction switches to get easier access and just very slightly bent it to make easier contact.

More small updates -Wired the stereo yesterday. Already had the rear speaker wires routed since removing the plastic panels is a pain. It sounds terrible 😅 people aren't kidding that the speakers pointing at each other is a poor design. It's okay, but since I only have the two tears right now it sounds very thin. I think I'll be ordering some from speaker panels to fit in the original kick panel locations from MSA. Should help dramatically and wiring will be very easy in that area. Only issue right now is the time keeps resetting on my unit. I thought it was a battery issue or just when cranking but it looks like it happens even if I turn the Key to off for more than a minute or two. -New spare wheel arrived. I think it's now the nicest wheel I have haha. Tire arrives today. I'll get it mounted and report back on how it fits in the stock area. -Futofab axles arrived. The rearend is going to be a big job since I have to completely tear into everything from the diff out so I'm waiting to see if my OS Giken stuff actually ships at the estimated date. If it's not shipping in time I'll just install the axles and save the 3.54 swap until next winter or next summer. -Adjusted the T3 tri bar latch plate. Some of the bolts had come loose in the past several years of driving. -Tightened up some of the oil pan bolts and have basically no oil drips now. I think I was just overly cautious about not over torquing when I first reinstalled the pan after the rear main job this winter. -Current job is figuring out why my horn isn't working. Tested the horn switch with a multimeter and it seems to be grounding fine, ground the horn relay and I can hear it clicking, and also tested the horn directly with the battery and got a plenty loud sound.

Lots of small fixes the past week: Replaced the glovebox light and made sure it was all working well. Replaced the hatch inner and outer seals. My installation was better, but the Resurrected Classics seal also fit far better, especially the inner. The precision kit felt like it need to be stretched just slightly, but the RC held in place on it's own before adding weatherstrip adhesive and clamping down. The RC seal was pre-cut to provide clearanc for the hinge seals. When I first opened it it seems a bit ugly or poorly done, but after checking fitment it seems to be very well trimmed for correct clearance. Also added new oem style hinge shims when I reinstalled the hatch. The striker on the bottom was adjusted as well. Will need much more work to get the fitment right since the passenger side has a much bigger panel gap despite shoving it over as much as I could, but at least now I can comfortably open and close the hatch without dragging down the seals. Added the rubber stoppers for the door handles to prevent vibration and finally reattached the escutcheon / finisher plastic in the door cups. Looks much tidier and less noisy. Next step here will be to really clean up the door panels from the tiny splatters that I never cleaned from the lizardskin. O2 sensor cable routing was far improved by going through the body harness grommet in the firewall. It's in a safer position away from the driveshaft now. No longer running down the console. Wideband controller grounding was also fixed after I blew a fuse then repeatedly had it blow. Driveshaft was rebalanced. Seems a weight had knocked loose at some point. Was vibrating really horribly on my drive back from SLC with my brother. Replaced the diff pinion seal with a spare I had while the driveshaft was out. New OSG limited slip may not arrive in time for me to rebuild so I wanted to not have that leak in the meantime. Finally added the barb to the turbo intake as a vacuum source for the catch can. Hopefully this resolves any future oil leaking and premature seal and gasket failures. Adjusted the brake pedal travel. The brakes were already a huge upgrade and now it feels even better. Couldn't get it to the FSM's required height, but the suggested pedal height seems excessively tall, so I'll call it good now that the pedal and clutch are even heights and the stoppers are adjusted to make them less noisy. New hardware for the brakes is on the way from T3 and I'm getting some local help to wire up the new electric fans. Futofab HD stub axles arrived yesterday. Very well packaged. The axles should be arriving today, along with the new spare tire from Z Car Garage that will fit in the original spare tire compartment while still working with my new big brakes. More pics and updates to come soon...

Got the front wildwood brakes installed today! A couple small quirks along the way on my install: First side I installed the rotor on the adapter ring to the hub wrong and the caliper didn't line up. It has two separate mating surfaces, one for a 240z and one for the later 280z hubs. Since I've replaced my 280z hubs with the T3 hubs, I failed to realize they're essentially a universal hub for early and late models which is why they had an extra shim ring of about 10mm to account for where the 280z mounting surface is. I took the ring off, so technically I had to install them where the 240z ones are, unless I wanted to run my rotor ring AND the hub spacer shim that they came with. Avoiding too many unnecessary pieces so I redid that side to mount on the 240z mating surface of the adapter and we were fine. Problem 2 - because I ordered the 280z brake kit, the included hardware also assumes you're still using stock 280z hubs. It's on and worked on my short drive, but I noticed in the picture where they're installed that the bolts don't go all the way out to the mating surface for the wheels. Quite a few threads left unengaged. It's probably safe for the time being, since I thought about the forces on those specific bolts and it's not really in or out since they're perpendicular to the rotational force applied by the brakes. I also didn't feel like I had particularly few threads engaged as I was bolting the rotor to the hub. Probably safe for casual driving, but it's a high priority fix right now to get the correct length bolts from T3 or locally. Better safe than sorry! Other than that I'm really happy. Bled the system with my new Motul brake fluid, which should cope much better with the heat off the turbo vs the cheap generic O'Reilly fluid I had before.

I don't know how much you stare at your phone for gps, but honestly the Milkfab cup and phone holder that replaces the ash tray has been fine for me to just glance down quickly. Only downsides is there's no way to get a cable under your phone for charging unless you have it upside down. If you're the sort of person who likes the biggest phone possible it might not fit too, but I'm a huge fan of it. It's one of the nicest and simplest quality of life updates I've made on the interior. Difficulty charging while also having gps open is a non-issue on anything but very long trips for me

Broken photos and links is honestly one of the biggest detriments separate from the attention span and social media issues. Most forums barely make enough to sustain themselves so the self hosted photos are always quite small and it's a bit frustrating when you're trying to see something in detail. I've been thinking of hosting my photos elsewhere but a lot of places like imgur could end up suffering the same fate as photobucket someday. That being said I'm still regularly updating here and directing people here when I can. I'll say one last thing that's a praise of forums and makes me hate social media lately - AI accounts and scammers making the 50th shitty group called "S30 240z 260z 280z and 280zx lovers and owners group" with stolen photos from reputable people make me want to blow up some Facebook servers. Drives me insane. Every few days lately someone posts about how someone scammed them out of money from some group. If you're even remotely active online the accounts have so many red flags too, so it hurts to see.

I got my hatch hinge seals from Vintage rubber back when those weren't available basically anywhere and they seem pretty good quality. Cheaper reproductions are now available, but after my frustrations with the fitment on a lot of the precision kit I don't think I'd bother. Vintage Rubber's kit is expensive, but it seems like it's far more complete than any other. It has damn near every single piece of rubber you can find on the car. I know for a fact the kit from Resurrected Classics has most of what you could want, but something like the hatch hinge seals aren't in that kit, just as an example. There's one piece that I didn't even have to install to know it's better than most other kits and that's the hood to cowl seal. The Resurrected Classics is a good reproduction of the later style with metal insert so it just sort of clamps on without the need for adhesive. It's longer than necessary though, which isn't ideal for a piece like that where cutting the metal inside is tricky sometimes.

Three weeks until I'm home and properly working on the car before a long road trip. I've been creating a detailed list on some Google notes of everything I hope to accomplish. I'll update once I truly get to it, but for now just wanted to share my excitement for my new brakes. Was in Utah about two weeks ago for a handful of days for a music conference and my brother was kind enough to let me borrow his truck to drive up to Logan just for one evening to have a quick dinner with the siblings up there and I took a quick trip to my folks' place late in the evening and opened up some of the parts to keep my motivation haha. Also had a big box of new seals from Resurrected Classics. They were kind enough to give me a steep discount on their weatherstripping kit when I asked if I could get it without the door seals since I had already purchased the S30 world seals before they released their kit. Looks like they were kind enough to give me the discount and kept the door seals anyway! I'll be making a thorough comparison of it against the Precision kit I have, mostly to see if it's truly far better for some of the worst fitting parts.

The Escort diff cover has their logo in about the same spot, but despite the much higher fluid capacity they kept it small. Only 3 fins are interrupted.

Didn't realize that cover would just bolt up (other than the machining to clear the ring gear of course) Solid choice! I would have done the same with the logo as I'm honestly not the biggest fan of branding. I even had all the emblem holes welded closed before paint on mine. Only logos left are the Z emblems on the quarter vents. My own OSG probably won't ship for another month unfortunately but I'll have to start looking at some shops to rebuild my 3.54 in the meantime so I'm ready to go

I've used Arizona tint before and liked how it turned out on the G37, but I'm more than happy to try a different reputable place especially if the cost is better or I can get better work for a comparable price.

Daaaaaaaaaang You had literally the same idea I did. At a minimum I think I'll be ordering an OS Giken LSD to avoid future tariffs. That Escort piece is super nice. Was tempted to get the escort finned R200 cover, but I know realistically I have no use for it. Will be negligible benefit at best compared to my oem finned cover. Better off saving that money for the KW suspension haha. Looking into more stuff that I might need in the future and trying to get an import order done within the next week.

With summer only a few months on the horizon I'm planning the next several changes to the car. Things waiting to be done: -Install driver side spindle and bearings - only passenger side was replaced this winter to allow the car to move for now. -Install micro brake kit from T3 - sitting at my sister's place begging to be used. -Check wiring for new stereo. -Install and seal nismo shifter - washers arrived after I last left, only plastic cup missing. Things that require purchases or mild side work: -Redo oil pan gasket... again ... small leak from rear passenger side. Will likely purchase the reproduction nissan comp gasket from MSA - has been very well reviewed and recommended. -Clearance throttle cable bracket for AC bulkhead - my AC bulkhead unfortunately bumps into the skillard piece. Would prefer to grind that bracket a bit than grind the rounded side of my printed piece. -Fix/remake intercooler and AC condenser brackets. -Swap to 3.54 rear diff - my 3.9 was great with the worn old engine, but is probably holding back my turbo build, and even worsening my fuel economy on my long trips. Have been told it'll be faster since I'll be able to stay in boost longer without shifting too. -Potentially rebuild my old 3.54 with an OS Giken diff. Still debating if it's worth it or if I should just drop in the old diff as is. -Install and wire AC Fans - Looking into how I want to wire them now. Would like to control them with megasquirt, but I know it'd be simpler to just have them trigger by a thermostatic switch. -Cut and crimp AC hoses. Low priority, but will likely buy parts and hope I get to it: -Resurrected Classics has remade all of the important gaskets, and I'm considering ordering a kit so I can finally get decent sealing and fitment from the front windshield seal and lower rear hatch seal. The rear hatch seals in particular have driven me insane and ruined some of the usability of the rear hatch because I'm never comfortable opening it and having to tuck in the hatch seal so it doesn't get pulled down when I'm closing it. -Drop off somewhere to have exhaust redone (or cut and fit myself and have someone I know weld it) - Planning on improving the clearance in the center and by the trans mount, as well as getting a Stainless Bros center resonator (bigger and oval to help with clearance and volume) and a Stainless bros oval muffler. Will still be straight through but with much more volume to absorb some of the sound. -Drop off for light tint to further improve interior temps on long drives - Lizard skin did some miracle work on keeping the interior drive-able for more than ten minutes at a time, but the greenhouse effect of the windows, especially the rear hatch, will always catch up after a while.

Out of curiosity how much baffling does that tank have? When I first saw them I was excited, but it almost looked like it was just that formed wall in the middle for baffling just like the metal piece that's in the center of the original one.

Excited to see your progress! Even though the KA24DE is a bit dated, I honestly think they remain heavily underrated. So many people moved away from them to the SR20, but the KA is (at least in my opinion) much more stout, and it's hard to turn down so much extra displacement. It would be my choice of affordable swap if I was in a 510 wagon which I've always wanted. Even the sohc version in my D21 has proven pretty great, though it's now relegated to farm truck in mexico with my parents. It's interesting that you didn't like the CD009, with how popular it is. Though I know most people have to swap shifters which affects how it feels a lot. I really liked the later JK in my G37s when I had that. Synchros were great, and the stock shifter felt "short enough" to not want to change anything. I hate short shifters and the notchiness, however. On my 71c trans I'm switching to the stock shifter housing and a nismo solid shifter. Throw will be a bit longer, but I want a slightly closer to stock feel and to not feel like I'm screwing up my synchros from a too-short and notchy shifter. Also, surprised you got such terrible mileage on the 2JZ. What was your rear end ratio? My L28ET gets me 22-23 highway mpg when I've done roadtrips and it's not even really particularly well tuned for it. I've been tempted to switch from my current 3.9 rear to a 3.7 - the 3.54 seems a bit too long for my taste, but I think just swapping to the 3.7 might get me to an easy 25mpg with better tuning.

Is your "new" fusible link from before or after replacing the alternator and having the headlights left on? Fusible links aren't particularly reliable, and there's a reason they are no longer used. Continuity by itself isn't enough to know if it's passing enough amps to do anything. Did you bypass the old external regulator properly? It has been a very long time since I switched to the later internally regulated alternator on my car, so I'm not sure the wiring you're describing in point #2 is related to the bypass. Most of your checks are reasonable and detailed, so that's the only two I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure someone with an early 240 instead of my early 280 will chime in at some point who would know more.

Love the new overflow tank location. Receiver will be ready to wire, and I'm happy I got to drive a bit while the weather was good and streets were clear.

Last day in Utah Only managed a couple more things. -New reproduction door seals from S30 World went in. They are MUCH softer and more compliant than what I've used before and fit much better, though I kinda wish I had bought the later style from Resurrected Classics. I think they released just after, but the RC ones are a single piece like later seals instead of separate rubber and harder C channel -New coolant overflow finally arrived. Love how it fits and looks MUCH better than the old one. Will upload pics this afternoon. -Bought a Kenwood Media player and mounted it to the console. Still haven't done wiring. Did a test with just some spade connectors and cut the original plug off. Wasn't working, but I think it might just be the glass fuse being out. Full wiring might have to wait until summer, but I'll use the new Deutsch connectors I have for all my wiring from here forward. -C clip and wave washer to get my Nismo shifter on won't arrive in time, but I'll swap to it over summer. -Oil pan seems to be dripping around the starter area, but I'm mostly certain it was just that a few of the bolts weren't snug. A ton of people were recommending the MSA reproduction of the Nissan Competition gasket. I think I'm gonna order that for summer and swap that in next time I do an oil change if the drip continues. Some said it was the best they'd ever used and should be reusable and much less messy than the RTV solution