Zetsaz

More progress! Wired the relay board with the materials I had on hand to test the MS3. Successfully got power to it (along with everything else on the stock harness... turns I'm at LEAST a good enough hobbyist mechanic to swap an entire chassis harness from one car to another and still figure out where everything goes nearly two years after the fact) Spent entirely too long wondering why I wasn't getting power. There was a wire creating a short that I had spliced when I removed the external voltage regulator. Once I untaped and moved stuff it seemed to fix the problem. Hopefully that's all it was or my headache will quickly return. Was able to connect to it with my laptop and flash new firmware with Tuner Studio. Special shoutout to @seattlejester for putting up with, not just questions, but often unnecessarily my entire stream of consciousness while talking myself through correct wiring principles and materials needed. Some of the shielded spade ends I need for the inputs on the relay board aren't available in stores, so I'll be redoing the ends soon for a closer fit and security down the road. My new roommate works on small aircraft so he was able to help me with certain tools and supplies. Not much help on actual wiring for the car though. Turns out aircraft are even more different than cars than I realized. Not necessarily in basic safe wiring principles, just the way the systems are organized is much different. Side note: Some are probably thinking, where are the pictures of lizard skin being applied. What about the taillights? Well I haven't made a decision on the tail lights, but I didn't want to spray the interior without everything being ready. That being, the PO chopped some stock brackets that I need back in. I didn't want to weld them in after spraying and some required the dash to be at least mostly in place to fit it properly. So I figured I'd take the 10 minutes or so it takes to set the dash in place with all the primary bolts and got carried away with wiring. Dash placement and removal is incredibly simple and fast when all the hvac things are gone.

Wow, yours look a lot neater than mine haha. That's actually close to where I ended mine! Mine go up about 6 inches more than yours for one more mounting point. They're "done" in that they're bent and in place. Wanted to just keep making progress. I'll make the more permanent mounting solution later. I didn't want to be held up by tiny things that aren't essential to getting it moving. Picked up some assorted wire terminals and but connectors today along with fuses I'll need. Hopefully I have most things now. No progress made though. Spent 8 hours getting the transmission back in my '92 hardbody now that the bearing shim I needed finally arrived. Need to connect the front driveshaft tomorrow and get the interior back together so I get the feeling the car is still a few days out before i continue progress again.

Dropping just the sway bar was helpful enough for me. I was okay with not routing things ALL the way to the top. Currently they're actually in a conventient spot to limit the length of soft line I'll need to use, but it's a good compromise to avoid uncomfortably having to reach way up high for too long if I need to disconnect before dropping the tank down the road. Made small bubble flares on the ends since I'm just running rubber efi hose. They're not perfectly level since I had to cut and correct, but I'm not worried about it since they're to help hold the hose on and don't need to be the perfect angle for sealed fittings. Was a little confused about how to go about that until I ready on a jalopy forum to just use a normal 45 degree double flare tool, but only go about halfway on the first step and ignore the second step (if you do a double flare your hose won't fit over the tubing).

Got more motivation today after feeling more mentally recovered from the transition to online teaching. Currently in what would be our spring break, so I'm fortunately not stuck staring at screens all day. Mini projects included: -More spots undercoated in the rear before the fuel tank goes in with the 3M stuff I've used -Bent stainless fuel lines The fuel lines are such a pain. I'd wondered how people get them so easily then realized most are on a 240z. I was placing them on stock location so bending up over the 280z sway bar creates more excessive bends that are tedious. Saved myself the trouble of routing to the exact stock locations in the rear which was adding to the complications since my feed and return are now at the top of the tank instead of in the center. Still in a good spot to avoid using more than 12"-16" of rubber efi line in each spot at most.

Haha. No resetable fuses on mine, but the LED indicators will be very useful! Will still take me a while to pair up everything. Pulled out my old wiring and trying to label things while I have it so I can removed stuff that is no longer needed and find things easier when it's in after doing the insulation. Will be a slower process than I hoped just based on how much time I'm having to spend in front of screens all day for teaching from home, but still much faster than a typical schedule since all my evening events for the rest of the school year are cancelled and I can't go anywhere. Doing what little bits and pieces I can when my brain isn't overloaded. EDIT: OH! It will also be a nice chance to move away from the fusible links and wire them in the same place as the stock relay area. The 4 relay leash board takes up less space than a populated stock "relay" bracket one the 280z. Cleans up the engine bay, and modernizes things all in one go.

Routing fuel pump and a couple other things through the relays. The old style nissan fuel pump relay is no longer available so it's a good time to modernize the few relays that came in the efi car before one goes bad.

Have been sidetracked trying to finally reaplce the input shaft and countershaft bearings in my truck. Finally managed to find the right front bearing (parts stores don't seem to carry the front counter bearing for the 71c transmissions so I had to pony up for OEM. Waiting on the right shims to arrive then I'll be able to move forward on the Datsun again. In the meantime, I ordered a Leash Electronics relay board per the suggestion of @seattlejester and I'll be doing some wiring prep work/planning while I wait for some rain to go away and a few days of warmth to properly apply the lizard skin and Eastwood internal frame coating. (side note: I was fully expecting more lenth on the tube that came with the frame coating. a bit disappointed, but I'll have to make due)

Been slightly unmotivated with how things are developing, but I've chunked away at a couple things. Done so far: -Welded large bumper shock holes (still debating if I want to weld the inner ones... I'm getting better, but they're dimple died and will be barely visible under the bumper) -Cut out and welded a small patch where there was a puncture on the valence. So difficult to get them even with the slight curvature of the valence on top of having overlapping metal on the outer holes where the bumper shocks went through. Will probably even out in the paint process down the road, but I might try to grind things a bit more even to use the lease amount of body filler possible. It's also amazing just how thick paint gets. you can see the uneven edges on the puncture repair just from grinding through the respray and original paint. There's also some slight pitting along seams, which goes to show that even the most "rust free" examples like this one have had issues. Next debate is whether or not I use the first year 240z lights (which will require a bit more cutting/welding) or stick with the 280z lights. Have always preferred the early style, but the later ones grew on me and surprisingly, a lot of friends are voting for the latter.

Well... all schools in Washington are closed starting this Tuesday through April 24th. This is pretty unprecedented. Based on current info, I don't see it affecting my paycheck, but I will have a lot more time on my hands regardless. The car may be moving sooner rather than later. I've found the chassis harness. Was sitting in a plastic bin covered up by my roommate's stuff he'd put in the storage room. Considering the amount of time I'll be home, at a bare minimum from this Tuesday through next Sunday, or more depending on what kind of work the district will require from us, I've ordered a lot of items I need including jumpers and resistors for megasquirt, Eastwood internal frame coating, more 3M undercoating, and other small misc things. On the to-do list for this week while I wait for things to spray the interior with Lizard Skin are: -Weld rear valence holes and small puncture -Possibly cut/drill/weld for 240z tail lights -Drop rear suspension to more easily bend fuel lines -Fix more poorly applied seam sealer on floors -Wire wheel, clean, and tape interior to be ready to spray interior Once the interior is sprayed with lizard skin I'll be able to properly start the wiring process without worrying about redoing it all. If I have any leftover I'll also wire wheel and spray the fuel tank area. At a minimum I'll be wire wheeling that area and spraying it with 3M undercoating.

What did you rewrap the harness with?

The Aston Martin definitely seems about as close as you can get, but it seemed a bit lighter to me. Like you said though, it's SO hard to tell from pictures and video. That being said, I knew it was something other than 115, but it's a really nice and similar color when properly cared for.

Ideas were percolating last night... A lot of people upgrading to standalone always put their ecu on the passenger side. I always wondered about that, but remembered they mostly have 240s. I decided to make a mount to adapt the megasquirt into the stock location to keep my wiring close to the original. Someday in the distant future I might rewire, but my chassis and dash harness and all relays are in great shape and proven working so I'm leaving things close to original where I can. The gauge metal I used wasn't stiff enough to have really long mounting tabs that I felt comfortable with, so I made it the same dimensions as the factory ecu. I carefull opened up the mounting holes on the MS box and tapped them M6x1.0 so I could use the same bolts pretty much the whole rest of the car is held together with. Will probably get the shortest M6 bolts I can find soon, so they're not sticking up too far. The MS3X is noticeably taller than the factory ecu, so I'll be using some rubber isolators between the mount and the brackets in the footwell which will pull double duty as vibration isolation like the original rubber screw grommets on the MS mounting tabs were for.

Is that confirmed? I love the color and would love to match it. Of the OEM colors, 115 blue metallic is my favorite.

Not against it, just don't want to make any more holes underneath than I already have on the frame rail. I can have two going in opposite directions for the feed and return off one bolt, but I don't want to add another set of holes for the brake line. Tempted to just run it returnless for now and dead head at the fuel rail for simplicity since I have a built in regulator on the retrofit pump and don't need boost reference right now.

Some progress today. Now have more parts ready to go including header/exhaust. Before I could get to work, I had to remove a broken stud in the head. Spent a fair amount of time degreasing what I could and scraping off as much of the old gaskets from the manifolds and thermostat housing as I could. First I used an extractor... and then it promptly broke off in the stud. Took a lot tries to get it to come out, but enough heat cycles from welding and I think the metal annealed and was finally sticking after I turned up the heat. strangely the extractor came out first and I had to reweld the stud and do the same thing again. Once that was done I started test fitting things so I can start wiring soon. Had no place for a battery. For the cost of what the past owner was using I decided it'd be more cost effective to use the stainless zcardepot tray that I had and the OEM Batter tie down sitting on my shelves since it'll make it easy to remove the tray and clean occasionally to avoid rust. I drilled and tapped holes in place. Not trusting that the tapping would hold on such thin metal, I also put some nuts on the opposite side of the bolts just to ease the amount of stress on the couple threads actually present in the sheet metal. Engine is currently starting to come together. Purchasing a battery this afternoon and probably using regular line clamps for the fuel hardlines until my cousin comes up with a 3D printed solution to be able to clamp down feed, return, and the 3/16" brake line.

What IAC valve are you running?

I'm incredibly jealous of how clean your diff is. I thought mine was decent until I saw this

Looks good! What's with all the hybridz pics all over the site uploading in super low resolutions though?

Would probably be less work and similar cost to just get something like the T3 kit to mount the short nose. Just like with engine swaps, it's all the tiny little things that start to add up and drain you. I would stay on the lookout for a good R200 longnose LSD. $1200 seems very high unless it's been rebuilt. I was lucky enough to get mine for $800 with a finned cover and rebuild for much less, but I had also purchased a lot of other random parts from the seller. I'm sure you could find a good deal on the datsun parts and needs facebook page if you're patient. I've seen maybe a half dozen pop up for less than your price in the last 2-3 months.

They seem to have some pretty accurate restampings of tricker parts. I'm excited for it and hoping they're successful. A lot of American classics you can almost rebuild from next to nothing, but we don't have quite the same luck with the Zs. Slowly getting better and better though.

Progress updates: got the fuel pump assembled and installed in the tank. The inside is so clean that I've opted not to bother with a coating since the last attempt failed spectacularly and I'm more concerned about the tank or pump gunking up if it's poorly done. Will probably still do a coat of POR15 down the road just to clean it up and protect it from more corrosion on the outside from small rocks and other damage. $$$ spending updates: I bought some parts! Not fun parts though, just stuff I've really needed to actually get it going. I've been overthinking the whole thing and the scope creep was getting overwhelming considering my current mental state. Especially since having my grandma pass away, I've been motivated to work as a distraction, but anything involving power was becoming increasingly expensive and a headache to think about preventative measures to avoid breaking things. I have the most important engine specific parts to go turbo for whenever I want, but for now I've committed to staying NA and not bothering with power upgrades or engine work of any kind. Since I don't have the option of just working overtime to make more, I've decided to just get the thing moving in a way that won't risk breaking anything so I can enjoy it sooner and without the risk of it being out of commission for another long while if I need to upgrade expensive parts that might break. Once it's running and is a comfortable place car to drive, I'll be slowly working from the back forward, starting with CV axles. More updates to come as soon as my parts arrive

Looks fantastic

Sweet deal! And in my favorite color. My first recommendation as someone who's had a project way too long... don't make it your own just by chasing power haha. Get that thing running well and then "upgrade" or refresh things you find along the way in small pieces. I enjoyed driving even my old rust bucket of a 76 that wouldn't rev past 4k more than I enjoy my daily. Excited to see more updates. Welcome to the forums

If you're looking for other mount ideas you can check my thread too. The recent few pages have how I mocked up 1x1 tubing. I'm sure there are sturdier ways to get the right fit, but I'm pretty satisfied with how it turned out.

Nice to see all the progress! Pretty exciting that you have it on the road. If things go well, I might just take mine to Utah this summer, and even if I don't we'll have to meet up for a quick ride!