Zetsaz

Take a look through my thread for how I mounted my fbody tank. User you've linked a picture from has a later model 280z that's slightly different than your car and mine

Daaaaaaaang. I'm excited to see some clips and more pictures!

Yeah, I bought the new alternator from O'Reilly, but I don't even trust them all that much these days. Will probably just go through NAPA from now on. Anyway, I've been test driving some newer cars now that I can get out with my beater daily, but the more cars I test the more I just want to get the Z going and bring up to Washington with me, so I'm thinking of just dumping what I would have spend on a newer car into the Z and driving that as my daily for a year or two before relegating it to a more horsepower oriented project once I get myself a nice new daily down the road. That being said I'll be focusing on finishing some patching and suspension/brake work in the meantime. Going to try to keep up with my old purchase list especially since I got a nice tax return.

Looks about what my repair looked like on the outer rockers. Wish I'd had your pictures this past summer, would have saved me a lot of trouble haha! Some great work here.

Never trusting autozone bench tests again. After my Maxima left me stranded I couldn't figure out the problem. I had already bench tested the alternator when I first noticed problems and it tested good. So I was without my own car here for about two weeks wracking my brain with multiple multimeter tests trying to find voltage drops in wiring, ground points, and fuses. Finally on a whim I bought a new alternator because I figured that had to be it, just like my first thoughts were. Swapped it out and what do you know... I'm back over 14v at the battery when the car is running. The alternator tested good three times, and those faulty tests cost me rehearsal time when I was left on the side of I-5, a $100 towing fee, and two weeks of my social life. Next time I go into any parts store ever and I'm asked if I need help I'm just going to reply with Ron Swanson's "I know more than you." Haha Gonna keep driving this thing and get more use out of all the recent new parts while I keep my budget as it was for the Z and keep saving to get a new daily in cash.

Looks excellent. Love that you kept it I6 for the engine, and I really like the blue!

Yeah, down the road I'll definitely have AAA. This is my first real job out of college and I've been saving loads of money, but I haven't really gotten to the point of getting on my own insurance or anything. If I go with the xenon I'll definitely buy it through them, but I'm leaning towards the fiberglass type 1 dam, non-ducted. I like the classic style a little bit more and I won't really be tracking the car much, so the brake vents are really just aesthetic at that point.

Next purchase is front air dam, but that'll probably wait until next month. Muild might be slowing down just a bit. My beater daily car that I was driving in Washington while I fixed the Z or went home to rebuild my Celica's engine died on me middle of I-5 just a couple miles from home. It'd been having some electrical issues that I thought I resolved, but I lost power within a half mile of noticing my lights dimming. Had the adventure of getting pushed across a bridge by highway patrol and coasting to an exit in the dark with no lights. Fortunately I was close to home and the tow bill wasn't too much. Shame I don't know anyone here, back in Utah I could have called any of a dozen or more friends who could have pulled me home. I think I can still fix the car and get it back to Utah at some point, but I'm definitely gonna look at buying a new daily. Anyway, that being said, I'll still be slowly buying parts as I had planned, but I'm in the market for a newer more reliable car. $8k-10k.

For those curious I'm pretty sure the color is just Daytona Blue. Figured this after talking with a bunch of guys on a Datsun facebook group.

Oh dang! That's pretty close. I like that! Thanks for the response. Still wanna know if anyone knows the owner. I've been searching for a bit, but I've only found those few pictures on flickr. The pic you posted is pretty much the style I'm going for too. Hadn't seen that one. Same air dam, no flares, hood and pillar emblems only. Very nice

I've been leaning towards blue for my Z and I came across this guy earlier. Reverse image search didn't get me far and I had to go through 20 pages of flickr on the photographers account to find three pictures of it. Is anyone here the owner? Any guesses on paint code maybe? I'm seriously loving that paint. Mine most likely won't have flares, but this is pretty close to what I'm going for. https://www.flickr.com/photos/af_fotos/7511098178/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/af_fotos/7511102686/in/photostream/

http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/49037-help-what-suspension-modifications-should-i-do/ This post will probably be the most helpful. It's exactly what I used when deciding what to buy/upgrade first.

Preset will probably work if you have a stock tank. I forgot what the ohm readings were on the original tank and what the presets on mine were. Easiest way if you want to do manual calibration would be to pull the sending unit while it's still connected to the harness and set it at empty and full while it's out of the tank. That's what I did with my f-body tank. EDIT: Your sending unit shouldn't be too hard to pull out. If I remember correctly you can easily access it if you remove the rear passenger wheel and check the front side of the tank.

Routed the new harness through the body. Not long enough to reach right were the original one is, so I ended up routing it behind the passenger seat then under the console to the gauge pod. Here's a few pics of how I left it before coming back to Washington. After seeing one of Dave's autometer gauges here in town, I'm actually really happy I went with the Speedhut. Quality feels much better I think they look nicer overall. This also got me connected to some 240z style turn signals which is really the look I wanted on the front end of the car. I'm really heavily leaning towards the fiberglass type 1 air dam. I like this front end look. But I'm slightly concerned about damaging the fiberglass since it's not flexible. Might just wait until later to make an air dam decision.

http://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/classic02a01b/50-1420 Might be this one. Hard to tell with some of MSA's pictures.

I was planning on flipping the original clock bezel, with some slight trimming to get the fit I wanted, but it actually won't slide into the back half of the housing if you flip it. I ended up cutting a ring from the same cardboard the gauge was shipped in and fitting it between the lock ring and the adapter to create a friction fit into the back of the housing and just placing the front half back on. Down the road when I'm replacing other gauges I might make a new ring for the friction fit. This is working well for now, but the friction fit isn't nearly as tight as I'd like because I went overboard and cut the cardboard down a bit too much. The wires on the new gauge are routed through the same hole the original backlight would have been in. I just removed the light then the green dome. Cut into the metal just a bit with some tin snips so the wires wouldn't be bending so much and so the wider connector for the new harness would actually fit through. Extremely easy. Tried to match the original font and coloring as close as I could, so I went with black back, white tics, and a white needle. Needle will light up red however. Just liked it a bit more. Sensor contacts for the sending unit in the fbody tank also arrived and work incredibly well. Much beefier and durable looking than the originals. Part is GM64 Fuel Sensor Contacts for those curious.

The CD009 with adapter plate looks like an okay alternative. I've considered an LS1 swap, but honestly the cost of the T56 cost has probably been the biggest reason I haven't worried too much about any engine swap yet.

Gauge wiring is all done. Burned my pinky on some soldering (still stings). Routed the speedhut harness along the stock harness, will double check length later. It's about ready to go with one exception... the sensor contacts on my gm sending unit were screwed up, tried fixing it and only made things worse. From what I've read, it's not uncommon for the contacts to fail, so I might as well fix that while I'm finishing up the fuel gauge. Will update later with a short video on how I fit the 2-5/8" gauge into the stock pod to look mostly original.

Alright... so I'm trying to wire this Speedhut gauge and it's giving me a serious headache. EDIT: Problems resolved. For those curious I used the write-up by BLOZ UP here: http://www.nearwood.net/280z-speedhut-gauge-conversion/#more-336 The biggest help was this. This is specifically for a '77 but the wiring in my '76 is similar. I haven't soldered the black and white sender cables to the original connector yet, but the rest for lighting is working and soldered. The sender harness is really long, so I might just run it directly back to the sending unit, especially since I have that F-Body tank and sender. Might as well eliminate any extra unnecessary connections from stuff I've removed. Currently figuring out how I'm gonna mount this thing to look mostly stock.

Yeah, dumping in the L28ET seems to be my best option right now. Sometimes I don't know if I just wanna drive around with the L28 though. It's in good shape and it runs nicely. I'm indecisive on buying the turbo motor and just letting it sit for a while while I focus on rust, paint, suspension and pretty much everything else and save the power stuff until later.

Seeing budget swaps like this always makes me indecisive. I sometimes I want to just keep my L28, other times I want to buy this L28ET that's in town, then I wanna go big and do an RB25, or just an NA 2JZ.... Decisions are hard haha. Really comes down to power for cost. I'm not looking for much more than maybe 200whp. The car will be pretty much entirely street and really just for fun and some cruising.

That's awesome! Pretty cool swap. I'm sure it's loads of fun, especially on that slim budget. EDIT: Just saw that post I missed... must be more tired than I thought. My bad.

This thing is looking awesome! What's the cost on it so far? Only asking because the very title says "budget swap" haha

I'm going for stock seats. Had them reupholstered last spring when my dad was in Mexico. Driver side is a little bit worse. That's really the only side I might consider a whole panel for. Passenger side would just need a patch over a thumb size hole in the front, and a larger patch by the rear seat rail. Both rails will be either removed for the bad dog rails, or just have the rot cut out then hammered a bit back into shape so the bad dog rails can fit over them like they were designed for.

Frame rails have been sitting around my garage since last September. I'm around the 19th-2nd. PM me anytime either of you are free. I'm also still debating just patching the floors or making my own pans, but I have no experience with that so it makes me kinda nervous. I'll let both of you take a look and give me your opinions when I'm around.