Ben280

After looking at the car, the body was in reasonable shape and things looks about right for a car this old. Wasn't running when I picked it up, but the previous owner assured me that he had "hit 120 on the freeway a month ago!". Sure buddy... Anyways, he pulled the head to get a new cam installed and never did it. Thats where our story really begins. Luckily some of my friends had a big ol' truck and the came to the rescue of getting the car home. This is how she looked getting into my driveway! Not too bad, but the rain and my giddy school-girl like excitement hid from me the extent of this project! We got it in the garage and discovered immediately that one reason that the guy wasn't eager to rebuild the engine was the presence of an ugly snapped head bolt, just below the surface of the block. It appeared that he had tried to drill it, very much off center, but gave up. Undeterred, my buddies and I proceeded to rip out every last piece of the gross interior. Funny thing about pulling an interior out is that no matter how gross it was before, you inevitably make it look 1000% worse initially. Gutted interior here. Pulled out the rotting seats and carpet. Somewhere along the line the car had been resprayed black inside and out. And by inside, i mean all the interior plastics had been sprayed where they were. Looked like shit and was flaking paint all over the place so it HAD to go. Steering wheel was rotten too, need to fix that! And note the other MAJOR issue with the car here, in the form of two pedals. Not so hot! Starting to clear off the sound deadening. My slight OCD was making me go crazy before i started this! I had never done this kind of thing and was loving it sofar, but the monotonus nature of chiseling sound deadening was sapping my motivation. With real issues up front, I decided to turn my attention towards the front of the car.

First post to introduce myself! My names Ben and I've owned my Z since March 2012. Originally I was going to make it into a cool beach cruiser, but that dream quickly fell by the wayside, and a hardcore auto-x car began to emerge. Back in those early days I didn't have a great overall vision, but I managed to not make too many mistakes! I have had this build over on Ratsun for the past few years, but think you guys would probably appreciate it more at this point. I was going to try and edit these more, but the original text gives you a good sense of what's going on in my head at the time. But first, we have to go back! to the wet cold months of 2012, Enjoy!

So I am going to bump this from oblivion with what I hope to be a relevant update! I'd say this is the ultimate non-conventional diff option. https://www.sikky.com/view_item.php?id=203&catid=14 Gives me some ideas too about how to adapt a winters QC into the Z cars, and making a mustache bar that would support the whole thing. Hope this is seen in the spirit of the thread, rather than poking a dinosaur. Cheers!

Post weekend update! First weekend racing with the new setup, and I'm impressed. The kit is awesome for sure, and I my math was in the ballpark for the master cylinders. If you are going to go through the effort of installing disk brakes, I HIGHLY recommend a dual master setup. These pedal boxes are fairly conducive to the needed modifications, and several users here have already made parts/modified their boxes. Parts I used, Wilwood Balance bar 340-1757, a 3/4" and 7/8" masters 260-3374 and 260-3376 respectively and the remote adjuster, cause I could! (340-4990). Wilwood does a really nice job providing all the measurements/drawings for their products, so all that is really required is some figuring on the bias bar! I moved the center pivot point on the pedal up 1/2" to get a better motion ratio on the pedal. That is to say, longer throw, but more pressure! The bias bar extends through the pedal box, so you need to cut the sides out. This was a little trial and error for me, figureing out where it was binding or not. I used a hole saw to make each end, and then connected them with an angle grinder. I should have made the cutout follow a more angled path, so the hole isn't as pretty as it could be. After the cutouts were made, I drilled the holes for the masters (another hole saw) and welded some bolts onto the backside, and then drilled the firewall for to accept some the new studs! I also had to measure and add some additional thrust washers on either side of the balance bar. Its important to keep everything even on the bar so its easy to adjust. The thrust washers keep everything aligned and free of binding. I decided to keep the setup fully bolted together and go into the car as a unit. Got everything in (had to make a larger hole, again, more hole saw!) and then bolted up the clutch master. Mounted up the remote masters and a local hydraulic shop got my lines sorted out. Bleeding Wilwood calipers is a little weird since they have 4 bleed screws. The top two are the ones that matter, outer screw first then the inner. Always bleed a new master cylinder first! Once it was in the car, I had to fiddle with the bias bar. In the neutral position, the ratio is VERY rear heavy. I fiddled with it for a bit and got it just about perfect! Hooked up the adjuster knob and project done! Final thoughts on the kit. Very good performance, ratio of front to back grab is great. The BP-10 pads have a very predictable grab characteristic and stop quickly without being too wild. Compared to stock pedal feel, the transition is very good and feedback is great even at the limit. The whole kit is easily installed and well thought out. Its a great setup for sure! Nice and light, and after messing with them this weekend, PLENTY of stopping power.

Decided to start with the BP-10's, since they are billed as a low heat threshold pad, and are in theory less aggressive on initial bite. Will see how they work, excited to try out some other compounds once I get this setup dialed in. Ebrake is gone! But, my garage is pretty level, and I usually leave it in gear when parked anyways. Not a street driven car anymore so I was fine loosing that functionality. I'll update with if that was a smart move or not!

Hey HybridZ crew! So I finally decided that after upgrading nearly every other component on the chassis of my Datsun, and a couple really lack luster performances, it was time to do the brakes! I was suitably frustrated with their lack of grab that I started to look into other options. Since this is primarily an auto-x car, I wasn't too concerned with heat dissipation and brake fade like on a serious wheel to wheel machine, and I was more concerned with keeping my weight down. Here's the car, zooming around at Nissanfest this year at Evergreen Speedway. With those factors in mine I went shopping and settled on the Silvermine Motors "Small" wilwood kit. It has the forged 4 piston Dynalite calipers up front and the billet 2 piston dynalite in the rear and traditional drilled and slotted rotors, rather than 2 piece rotors The kit also comes with all the lines needed to connect to the factory fittings. It even has the little retaining clips that always shoot off and get lost under work benches when you pull the stock lines! Edan at Silvermine was excellent to work with and guided me in the right direction on a couple things. Fastest shipping I've ever had on a part. Think he put them in the mail Thursday afternoon, and I had them in my hands on a Monday! Boxes contents all laid out! Well packaged, and everything in its place! Comes with some awesome 10.9 grade hardware, the only bolts you reuse are the front brake caliper bolts, which hold on the new brackets. Really well made and well thought out kit. The rear install is a breeze, once the drum backing plates are out of the way, and the ebrake cables are gone! Hey, its dead weight right? Since the Silvermine kit uses a 3 bolt rear bracket, I didn't need to pull the whole rear assembly apart, so I just turned the rear drum plates into pizzas! Just cut to the bolt holes and then flex them a few times, and they snap right out. The whole rear install probably took about 40 minutes start to finish. For my method, you don't need any really crazy tools or huge breaker bars, just a reasonable quality angle grinder! You could absolutely take the stub axles out (and it would be a perfect time to do rear wheel bearings) if you wanted to keep sparks to a minimum. Part of me wanted thought to see if it was possible without removing the axles, which makes this job MUCH less of an endeavor. The caliper mounts at the 10 o'clock position, keeping its minimal weight inside the axle line of the car. The front kit goes on super nicely. Remove and save the caliper bolts, and then remove the hub/rotor assembly. Why Datsun did it this way is a mystery to me, but oh well. I wire wheeled the mounting surface on the hub and the rotor, as well as chamfered the mounting edge of the bore on the rotor to ensure a solid mount. Bolt the hub back together and then put your new rotor on! Bleed and you're done! Overall impressions, these were really well made, I give them 2 wrenches out of 5 for installing. Depending on how you decide to remove your drum backing plates, it goes up to a 3 or 4 out of 5, particularly for a new to Datsun mechanic. I'm racing the car this weekend, so hopefully I'll have developed an opinion about the brakes this time next week!

PM'd!

I have a full set, all work well, and have good action. They are from a '77 280. The drivers side has a little trouble locking, but will unlock just fine. I use the lock with button and close with the handle up method. Ignition is excellent. PM if you are interested/in need!

Here is a basic kit for these from my favorite supplier. https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecID=6208 Fairly expensive, and you have to think about how you plan to attach them. A caged car and this is no problem, anything else and it might be interesting. I imagine they are really only useful for quick suspension adjustments or swapping tires, but sounds like that is your stated usage. Their bottles are large because its more cost effective to buy large bottles, and if you are charging the system multiple times a day, you probably go through that quantity of gas.

I got you on the turn signals! Send me a PM.

These suckers! Not sure about the terminology, which might be a small issue. Pin, connector, terminal not sure! Any help is appreciated!

I'm looking to add some gauges and sensors into my '77 280z harness, and would rather re-crimp new pins than splice and solder them together. The only trouble is that I can't figure out where to get a hold of new pins! Just to clarify while I'm at it, I'm looking for body harness pins, not for the EFI harness. Anybody have any sources for getting new ones? Thanks!!

I wonder if a new billet style mustache bar would do the trick? I just bolted up a T3 bar and its WAY beefier than the old stocker.

Problem solved, mods please delete!

Hi All! Looking for some wide tires for my 16" Gotti wheels that have just come back from powder coating. Ideally looking for something in the 255/45 - 265/45 range. Wider is better, not interested in anything below a 255. So long as they have tread and are in reasonable shape I am interested! No slicks or race tires please, I already have some of those! Please also be local to the Portland OR area or willing to ship! Thanks

Weird deal I know, but I've got the carrier and spider gears from a R200 3.54 rear end in my garage that should fit in a flat rate box, and I'd be more than willing to ship! There is no ring gear, but you could just take yours off and reuse your shims. Let me know if your interested and have fun with welding!

I've been using Bassetts for a year and a half for so, some street driving and a lot of racing. Car feels super snappy and the weight is low. Wheel/offsets Fronts- 15x10 4.5" inch back spacing Rears- 15x11 5" inch back spacing With a wheel that wide in the front though, I should have spaced the front wheel out more as I BARELY clear the AZC shortened knuckles. Back wheel could be spaced in more as at my ride height I rub a teensy bit in hard corners. You can see photos of the car with the wheels on my build thread.

Thanks for the followup O Thanks for the followup with results! Glad you fixed your problem, just in time for winter too!

Thanks Jon!

I'm aware of that, should have clarified, the bolts I'd like to use are those from the s13 rear end, and fit the OBX better than the 280z bolts. I've done some reading, and it sounds like the ring gear is pretty tough to drill, but anybody have any success?

Awesome!! Saving that part number! It looks though like they don't make the left side? Very interesting! Thanks Socorob!

So I am well aware of the fact that the Inner Tie rods for the 240/260/280 are NLA from almost all sources, but I am wondering if somebody has found a solution for a worn out inner tie rod! Seems crazy that either everyone has perfect tie rods, or is living with crap ones. I've had a couple of ideas, but none of them are easy/require lots of machining. Looking for a good solution!

One thing you might check that is in a different direction is the U joints in your halfshafts. I've been dealing with a oscillating squeaking squealing noise for a while, sounded like it was coming from the rear strut towers, but my U joints were the culprit. Metal on metal action. Its easy to check, unbolt the halfshaft and if the mounting flange is loose or rattly replace the joint. Just a thought! Hope you find your squeak!

Just a thought, has anyone tried drilling out and re tapping the ring gear to accept 12mm bolts? I have a set from a s13 diff that I would like to try and use. I can think of a couple issues that slow and methodical work would fix, but any major problems I should be aware of?

DOOOOOOOD!!!! This is soooo sick! This was the FIRST Z car build that I found, and it was a huge inspiration to get my start in the Z car game. I'd checked back in a few time but with no updates and now I stumble across it again and I see these fantastic videos! Congrats on a super original swap and the excellent documentation. I tip my hat to you sir!