blue72

They were talking about wheel horsepower. Assuming an 18% loss, 120whp is right on target for an engine making 150 crank horsepower. Back on topic though, do you have a budget in mind CPLGDR?

FR layout, GM V platform. Looks like they came with the 4 speed auto 4L30-E. Transmission gear ratios were: 1st: 2.86 2nd: 1.62 3rd: 1.00 4th: 0.72 Final drive ratio is listed as 3.90:1 This is what the internet tells me after a quick search. Use at your own discretion. You could probably find more info in the Catera/Cimmaron section of places like cadillacforums.com

I'm surprised he doesn't have the CF airdam or taillight surrounds. Nice alcantara on the interior though.

Okay, so we'll go with ethanol then. The Simpsons or Arrested Development?

A 280Z with rust bubbling through the paint and making holes in the undercarriage (plus, you don't know how much is hiding under that body kit) doesn't rank at 4k in my book, not unless there's something really nice hiding under the hood. Judging by the mediocre single exhaust I'd guess it's not going to be a stunner though.

I've heard it mentioned before that a Z died in the making of that video. Rest in peace little yellow 280Z. It's probably long ago been re-purposed as cans or bottle caps.

I can easily imagine accidentally bumping hard into your Corvette and having it topple sideways onto your Corvette. That might just make you think twice about buying a cheaply designed lift for your car. Plus, it would ruin the linoleum in your kitchen.

Just dropped again tonight, $1.55 a gallon in Southern Utah right now. That's another 16 cents less in four days.

I like the 420 pounds of horsepower comment, sounds like something Jeremy Clarkson would say. "This car has 420 lbs of horsepowers, enough to fill a football pitch." Oh, and very nice hoodless S30. 12.9 is pretty quick.

I've learned to pull cams and spark plugs from cylinder heads because they charge extra for those. Then on top of everything they tack on core charges to many of the items they sell. Add on sales tax and environmental fees and you usually do wind up paying more than you originally anticipated. $260 for a $90 transmission though? That's just outrageous. I agree with everyone else here too, it all depends on the cashier. In my favorite yards I knew who to talk to come checkout time. "What's that thing here called?" "It's a rearend." "Let's see, ummm, a drop-out 3rd member?" "Yep, sure" I wound up paying somewhere in the vicinity of $100 for a complete 280zxt R200 with halfshafts still attached because the girl at the counter only entered the part number for the drop-out third member. A week later I took the center section back sans halfshafts, traded for a Z31 R200 with a better gear ratio, and then later sold the ZXT tripod halfshafts and recouped 1/4 of my investment in the whole rearend. Just gotta find out which person you can smile at real nice to distract them I guess.

I'd have to agree with 2eighTZ4me about the small block probably being the most economical choice for the money. As long as you are savy, get a good price on parts, and do most of the labor yourself then it's the most horsepower for the least money.

It's 33-40 ft-lbs for the main cap bolts, starting from the center and working out. Rod Nuts are 20-24 ft-lbs for the 8mm type and 33-40 ft-lbs for the 9mm type. Do you not own the How to Rebuild Your Nissan & Datsun OHC Engine book? It has lots more details like which way the main bearing caps should be facing, acceptable side clearance figures for the rods, etc...

Okay, now it makes sense. Those are some very impressive numbers utilizing the stock powdered-metal rods. This'll be stored away in my high power 383 memory bank for sure.

How's this for a faux rat rod Z? This is mine when I first bought it. The only things I had done so far were remove the rear window louvres, mount some new tires and get the thing running. Oh, and it had an L24E, so the hood scoop seemed a little superfluous at the time.

Here's a link to a guy who's modded the short shifter brackets from an earlier transmission and mounted them on an '81-'83 N/A box. http://www.geocities.com/jasonparuta/gearbox.html I even had to do some modification of the MSA kit brackets to fit my '78 5 speed as well.

Isn't it amazing how much car info we can store in our heads? Most any sequence of numbers and parts means nothing, but car parts and vehicle model numbers seem to stick pretty well. Looks like you have put more work into it than non-Z people could comprehend. Great job. Too bad they put cheapie microphones in camcorders or else we could have had the full effect of the exhaust without accompanying wind noise and such.

That's a trick I'll have to file away in my memory. Good to see you got the thing out. Hope you get it running soon so you can experience the full fury of your 2.6 inline liters.

Yikes woldson, sounds like you and the boy might need to barricade yourselves inside the garage and occasionally spin some ratchets to keep touch with reality. I realize that my story is bad, but i also realize that it's not the worst thing that has happened to anyone either. I appreciate all the offers of prayers as that is all we have done this week and at least schedules have opened up among doctors and he is receiving treatment now rather than next week or later. We'll all stay optimistic over here. Plus, my father is a transmission mechanic of 20+ years, and owned a Volkswagen shop in So. Cal before that, and this is definitely not the time for me to inherit all of his tools. That's got to wait until he's an old gray hair. I've still got a lot to learn from him. Oh, ckolander, have you made friends with the neighbors yet to get a ride? I'm sure you'll find some way to make things work.

Hey, I'd gladly trade you. Just this week my father (at the ripe old age of 45) found out that his retroperitoneal liposarcoma (very rare cancer) has recurred locally in 4 new tumors that are entirely inoperable because of their attachment to all of his surrounding internal organs. Four months ago he had a tumor the size of a volleyball removed. Two months ago a CT scan showed nothing, and a CT scan from last Friday showed one of the new tumors was already the size of a softball and they are all growing rapidly. They have displaced his stomach so much that he hasn't had anything more significant to eat than pear cups, jello and Ensure shakes all week. He's currently 40 minutes away recieving chemothrapy treatment as it is the only option left to him and it may or may not work. Like I said, I would happily trade you and move up to the cold, be unemployed and bum a ride to work instead of what I got dealt this week.

Dropped more than 10 cents again over the past week and this morning it was $1.71 a gallon for regular grade.

Here, play around with this: http://www.ozdat.com/ozdatonline/enginedesign/ Lets you try different combination, see compression ratios, get more info, etc... Or go to this page: https://www.msu.edu/~levesqu6/linkindex.htm and scroll down to the Nissan L6 Engine Builder Program. Download that for a program that's executable on your computer.

Seeing as the clutch pressure plate says "Made in England", I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that it didn't come out of a Japanese automobile factory that way.

Nope, the turbo F54 motors have a 10.9 cc dish in the pistons, just like the 75-80 N42 motors. It was only the 81-83 F54 N/A motors with the flat tops. The difference between the dished 75-80 pistons and the turbo 81-83 pistons lies in the rings. This was discussed here about a week or two ago.

Now that I can see the pictures it really doesn't look to bad at all. I vote you pick that one over any of the others so far. Small rust isn't too tough to repair, and surface rust can be taken care of easily enough. I bet that with enough elbow great the paint would shine right up.

I don't see them listed with MSA, Black Dragon or Z Car Source after doing a quick search. I'd personally scrounge a junkyard, and the local Nissan dealer might be able to help too. If not, then you might need to just buy some new hose and bend it up. If your old fittings are in good shape you could reuse them as well.