Ben280

I've seen a few renders that seem to make the front end work nicely, most dividing up the space, painting the lower section of the bumper black, adding lights, or some combination of the 3. The rear doesn't really bother me, maybe some strategic vinyl, or a different color will make it slot together. Overall, impressed and excited. I think Nissan is moving in a good direction, and I'm excited that they are at least doing SOMETHING!

Just for clarity, and because Dave did me a solid, I broke the old style bumpsteer spacer/short knuckle. There's a machined pocket that I think was the failure point on mine, but that pocket isn't present in the new style parts. Dave did take these back and shipped me a new set of the updated style. I'm still not a fan, since I'd rather not have a failure at all, so I've moved on to the Apex Engineered pieces, which are all steel. I'd love to see someone do a double sheer style mount, since more and more companies are moving to heim style outer tie rods, and with short knuckles and people using bigger wheels, it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

T3 uses a significantly better strut (Koni's) vs the AZC mystery strut, so I'd let that drive my decision. I also have reservations about the AZC rear control arm, design, where if that crossbar slips, it can adjust all sorts of alignment specs. I haven't seen anyone do testing with the Apex Track Attack stuff, and I'm not sure if it's a dramatic improvement over a well sorted strut system. There are certainly theoretical improvements with a double A arm setup over the Z front end, but I'm not sure the percentage improvement. I'd be more excited about the track attack kit if it came with a modern front knuckle, rather than re-used the OEM spindle.

Sounds like Godzilla will be selling a custom driveshaft. Can't imagine that a stocker off the shelf will work with this arrangement.

If I didn't just do the Jerico swap in my car, I'd be rubbing my pennies together to make this swap happen!! Amazing work, love this solution. +1 for Godzilla Raceworks putting together a full kit.

I had one in my old Subaru autox car. They work alright, and are the ONLY viable option if you are really set on a 4 point harness. I found that unless you get the lap belts really tight, they will ride up when you tighten the shoulder straps. I only used mine to help hold me in the car while racing, otherwise they sat in the back. Knowing that these are a compromise of safety, I would question why you wanted to add them. Do you have race seats as well, or factory seats?

See what @JMortensen and @NewZed said about non-replaceable u-joints! (THANKS NISSAN!) The Nepaco piece is just what you need if you want a driveshaft made with the stronger 1310 style joints.

Looks like it's thinned out to save weight and be easier to install and not be inches thick, interfering with the control arm action. I imagine it has to be several pieces to accommodate chassis flexing over the years and being out of square. The steel plate appears to be 3/16"-1/4", the aluminum is probably close to 1/2". I guess looking at those photos, I'm not seeing the issue that you see. The diff isn't twisting in a way that it will break the thin side of the slot, and pulling the bolt head through the plate isn't going to happen. They've bushed the diff properly here so it's free to flex more or less independent of the "power cradle".

This is the steel plate cradle, their aluminum option is a billet piece that looks substantially thicker.

@AydinZ71 That Nismo diff looks good. Something with clutches will be far superior to a helical. OSG, KAAZ, or ATS are other good brands to look for. I recently had a custom driveshaft built. You probably want 1310 u-joints, and you'll need a Neapco N2-2-899-1 flange yoke for the long nose R200's.

Good write up! So long as you don't mess with the gears, it SHOULD be a simple job. Double checking the backlash is a great go/no-go check and to make sure you have the shims on the bearings in the same places. I would add that with the S13 "open" LSD you will need 12x bushings to get the long nose ring gear bolts to work with the LSD center section. I'm pretty sure the ring gear bolts in a 280zx R200 are 10mm, and the holes in the S13 LSD are 12mm. McMaster Carr or your local hardware store should get you sorted!

Pad compound and rotor size have very little impact on overall bias. They can be used to tune in brake feel, but it's within a few percent and at the end of the day, don't effect clamping force. At the end of the day you need to start with the correct piston stagger, which I'd hope T3 can figure out. A prop valve certainly would be a good addition, I won't dispute that. I do wish generally that these companies would tell you what calipers they use. Saying "Wilwood 4 piston" is about as useful as saying "New calipers" since Wilwood has so many caliper piston sizes within the models. The tools and calculators exist for people to figure this all out, but the companies need to give us the information. Anetcodaly we all know the rears see less pressure due to the factory prop valve, residual valve, drum cylinders etc, but does anyone have actual numbers?

Now that you mention the car, I do remember seeing photos in another thread here! I'll have to file your username away as one of the good ones I think a setup similar to mine (3.90 R200 from a 280z, S13 Kaaz 1.5 way and Wolf Creek CV's) will be good to get rolling and have the benefits of a LSD right out of the gate. Chromoly stub axles like @JMortensen mentioned will be a good upgrade, but not IMO strictly necessary for your first round of mods. The Subaru conversion has it's fans, but with how easy it is to find R200/S13 parts I think it's overrated.

Seattlejester makes a solid point about tires. I've broken u-joints in the factory shafts at 230ft-lbs on big ol sticky tires. Drag launches and clutch kicks are what break diff parts, so as long as you stay away from that, and lower than your 450ft lbs, the smaller diffs will be fine. 8.8/9.0 Ford diffs and R230's all require some level of fabrication to fit. The easy move here is to keep/get a R200 rear end, and put a LSD build for a s13 open diff in, and then buy the Wolf Creek CV's. That's my setup, and it's held up amazingly well. With this option, you don't have to source the Subaru to Datsun adapter stub shafts, or the increasingly annoying to find Subaru R180's. There are a couple threads on here about using the OBX helical diffs if you want a real cheap solution, but you can also just leave the factory diff alone, and add in a LSD later if you aren't sure you want one now. Some more info about your goals would be instructive here and we could give you a better answer!

It really depends on what you plan to do with the car. If you want to cruise around, enjoy some spirited back roads and don't want to break the bank, the R180 is probably the better of the two options. The factory stuff will work just fine unless you've swapped the motor. If you have a R200 now, you could just swap in a new LSD center section, do the Wolf Creek axles and have a pretty reasonable setup.