CU Zcar

The upshot is that we get a bunch of front clips sent over with all the goodies

I have a friend visiting Japan right now, in fact, and he says it's rare you see a car more than a few years old. Their tax laws favor new cars and really hit you hard when the car turns 3 years old if I understand correctly. He told me he's hardly seen even S13's (our 240SX, their Silvia/180SX if you're not familiar), though he saw a 280ZX once, a few AE86's, an FC RX-7, and some other older cars. I think he did mention that some popular cars like the 240 are held onto regardless of taxes due to their classic value, it's just the middle-aged cars like late 80's/early 90's that not so many love. I'd love to go someday...hope you have fun when you're there.

Well running an aftermarket FI system should give you the flexibility you'd need to get the engine to run well with huge injectors. If those are your goals I don't have any more advice to give I hope to be satisfied with less than 250hp and the '83 ECCS for a little while, by the time I get there I may know more about what I want to do next with this/other cars. Dunno about the fuel pump issue either, I have a feeling though that for the time being (the 300hp you mentioned your engine putting out for now) that one pump would suffice...

On injectors...from what I read, people seem to have a hard time getting a good idle with huge injectors, up beyond 5/6/700cc. Some advice I saw someone else give once was to figure out what your power goals are, and use a formula to figure how big an injector you'd need to support that kind of power (it's somewhere in the archives here, and elsewhere on the internet), and then add some "cushion" area to account for the accuracy of the formula, or for a little extra growing room. I've got a 4spd in my 280 (still just a mild NA motor) but I beat the crap out of it, I have been for over a year now, and it seems to take whatever I dish out. The 5spds I had were pretty tough, I'm not sure if the problem I had with the last one was my breaking something or just a worn linkage though. I'd say stick with the Nissan tranny until you find it to be your weak link, that's what I'm doing, and there seem to be a few here anyway who say the same thing (hence the reason I'm willing to try it ).

I'm just putting my boost gauge in the broken clock's spot on the dash...well actually I'm going to try to shuffle the temp and gas gauges down a spot and have the boost gauge in the spot closest to the driver. I'll probably switch to pillar pods if I get more gauges though, only so many stock locations to choose from

I bought two '83 turbos for $600 several months ago, just recently sold the running car's engine/T5/ECU/wiring/everything else needed to run the engine to a friend for $400.

I was also once told that the 81 ecu's have no limiter, but the 82-83 units did. I received that in an Email after I asked a question (maybe here?) about the 81 vs. the 82-3 wiring harnesses. I've got an '83 though, guess I'll have to learn to deal with it when it goes in. Probably a good safety feature though with the P90a hydraulic lifter head?

Yes, the covers looked the same as I can remember. I think they were supposed to also have a "VISCOUS LSD" sticker, or something to that effect, on the back cover as well but the one I got didn't, or didn't anymore.

I think the viscous diffs were usually in 3.70 rearends as well, making it difficult to tell without pulling the cover off and looking at the differential unit (the viscous center section looks somewhat different from the clutch-pack type). Below, the first pic is a viscous diff, the second one is a clutch-pack diff.

Yea I looked briefly once into JDM imported SR20 front clips, looked like many were in the $2000+ range, and those won't bolt in (I don't think?) like an L28ET where you can find a whole running, driving car for less than that. However, if you want to do things different an SR20 would be cool and lightweight. Seemed like RB20DET front clips were a lot cheaper than SR20, maybe it was just the one deal I saw but that's probably a question to take to the RB-series forum.

On 300ZXT LSD's...make sure you don't get a viscous one unless you're making custom axles anyway. The early Z R200 halfshafts will pop into a clutch-pack LSD but supposedly not the viscous one, when I found I'd gotten one I returned it immediately (lucky). Viscous LSD's were found in the 300ZX special editions, I think they were all pearl white when stock (though the car I found mine in was burgundy, which is why I thought it would be a clutch-pack type), they came with white wheels too. Good luck!

I think my insurance must be in the below-$90 a month range, don't remember exactly (parents pay it for me while in school and it recently changed slightly) but it's really cheap. I'm 21 and it has good liability and comprehensive coverage but no collision, I have clean driving record, it's tacked on to my parents' policy and there's things like good student discount, etc. When I had my 84 Civic and the Z, I paid $212 for 6 months of coverage on the Civic...since it wasn't listed as anyone's "regular" car. If you spend enough on modifications, you can get coverage for what all the work/parts cost, but I'm sure that would cost a lot. You may feel it's necessary though if you're talking RB engines, expensive rims, really nice paint, etc. There's a lot of jealous assholes out there, for example a friend of mine who has a Mustang Cobra had his car keyed all the way down through the primer all along one side, and it wasn't even like he parked it there overnight, he was inside a store or something...anyway that's probably more like comprehensive coverage, but you might find that sort of coverage would be worthwhile. Or just own a beater like my car

I think I've read some posts that support what Lockjaw said, I think it was suggested you could have the adapters (basically short bolts with the insides drilled and tapped for the smaller thread) made up at your local machine shop once you explain what you want. I also think it would be easier to find another head unless you can't find one or ?? maybe had some port work done to this one already. If it was me, I'd probably look for the solid lifter head first.

Summit or whatever company you buy through should list or be able to tell you what diameter the outlet of the filter is. I think 3" is a common size? I dunno, my K&N was off a DSM and has a funky oval shape real pain in the butt. A universal one should have a more convenient circular shape. You can probably go down to your local hardware store's plumbing section and find PVC/plastic piping, elbows, connectors, reducers etc. that you can glue together, if you're like me and can deal with the "rigged" look.

I guess swapping into a 280ZX makes a couple things slightly easier I was thinking that for an early Zcar I might have to modify the T5 crossmember or my N/A tranny crossmember for it to bolt into my car, and I would also have to modify the T-5 driveshaft (?). I'm circumventing all that by just using my N/A transmission/driveshaft, I don't plan on sending too much power through them any time in the near future. Anyways you seem to have it all together, you shouldn't run into too many problems. Have fun!

Not quite, you have to get a turbo sized roughly to the engine. If you put a huge turbo on a small engine (I'd imagine a T78 on a stock Honda 1.6L engine would be a good example), the engine won't move enough air to spin up the turbo for a good part of its RPM range, i.e. you'll have a lot of turbo lag. If you put too small a turbo on an engine (hmm...T25 on a Datsun L6 maybe) then the turbo probably can't move enough air to keep up with the engine at the top of its rev range, and additionally you may spin it too fast and damage it. I'd say at bare minimum for a DIY project, I'd figure out what size turbo production cars (or aftermarket kits) of similar displacement used and try to find something similar. Or, you could probably call a company like Turbonetics or another turbo-oriented business and ask for a recommendation as to what would fit your displacement/horsepower goals. After you mount the turbocharger, there's other things to worry about like making sure the fuel system is up to the task of feeding enough fuel in the right proportions to the amount of air sucked in. A lot of people recommend the book "Maximum Boost" by Corky Bell (?), I haven't read it but I've heard it covers pretty thoroughly what's involved in turbocharging cars.

I've been working on my swap for 4 months now but I've only been working on it for an hour here, hour there...my excuse was being in college until May, since then it's been cause I'm outta money and looking for a job. If this is your first big project you'll probably want some friends/family who have pulled an engine, etc. around. If you're just going to pull the engine and drop it straight into your car, and then move the Turbo wiring harness and ECU, etc. I'd say give yourself a couple weekends at least...that way if you finish in less time you'll feel good, but if you're slow like me you won't be without a car unexpectedly for too long. I tore my engine down completely, moved it back and forth between a few different locations, and it's sat untouched in between...a LOT... I expect I can do the actual installation in a day though, since I've done that part before. I would make sure you understand ever step of what you have to do before you start taking your car apart (i.e. what wires go where, if the tranny will mount up correctly if you're using a T-5, if you're using the right driveshaft, if you have an exhaust that will fit, ...) Good luck!

Ah, I was unclear. No, it would be silly to turbocharge a 10:1 motor. I meant to say that I feel I've exhausted my (cheap&easy) options with the N/A high compression motor and I'm building up a separate Turbo engine, complete with P-90 head, stock Turbo cam and dished pistons.

Well I'm in the process of building a Turbo motor out of a 280ZX, and this is after I've done most of the "easy" stuff to my 1978 N/A L28. I rebuilt the engine with flat-top pistons (~10:1 CR with N47 head), installed a header and cheap crush-bent 2.5" exhaust, got a big K&N cone filter and built a little intake pipe out of hardware store plumbing bits, and I swapped a cylinder head from my '78 parts car with a mild aftermarket cam installed and the exhaust inserts removed. I'm also running 195/60/14 tires as opposed to 195/70/14 stock size, so I'm effectively getting a higher (numerical) gear ratio. I took a car that would run something like a 16.5 (?) quarter mile in stock form to a 15.479 best, my other runs since putting the stuff on have ranged 15.5-15.7 mostly (I'm not the best drag racer and I had worse tires the second time). There's a few more easy mods like the 60mm throttle body, for example, and I should probably do a little tuning since I have not yet touched my AFM or made any other adjustments yet, the car runs a little rich through some RPM's and for all I know power may fall off on the top end from leaning out. I think with a few more mods I could get the car into low 15's, maybe 14's? If you had some porting done and used a more radical cam, I'm sure the sky is the limit with how much power you wanted to make, but it costs $$ I've read in various posts that Turbo swaps in early Z's should get you into high 14's anyway, without modifying anything. Then there's always more boost...from what I understand boost is easier/cheaper to make than porting/other N/A mods past a point. The Turbo swap is supposedly pretty straightforward, you swap in the Turbo engine (or use yours, but the Turbo has a superior cylinder head), replace your EFI with the Turbo wiring and ECU, wire it up, and go. If you use a T-5 transmission from a Turbo you have to modify the transmission crossmember to fit I think, or you can use your N/A transmission but it's supposedly weaker (I'm using the N/A one anyway). I don't know the little things about the swap yet cause I haven't done it yet but I have no doubt I can do it. Sorry if I missed your point by a bit, but here's a quick question...if you do want to go turbo, you might not want to spend any money on N/A mods (like the header and matching exhaust) that you'll just throw out or have to change when you do a turbo swap.

Well how 'bout this...I have a couple EGR-equipped intake manifolds that came with N47 heads, they wouldn't have any advantage from what I gather? I could block off EGR in either case and plug the popoff valve without much trouble, but are the runners the same diameter and both will flow the same? Thanks

I have not wired mine yet but I am doing a similar swap. In my '78 I noticed that under my dash there is a 4-prong plug that comes from the ignition switch and signals which position the ignition switch is in. My '83 computer would seem to require these leads if I read my wiring diagram correctly, so I found a matching plug from one of my parts cars and I plan to splice those into my '83 harness. There are other connections I think for things like the A/C clutch and others, I can't remember off the top of my head but I made up some marked-up drawings of the wiring diagrams for myself. If you can't make sense of your wiring diagrams (I'd recommend getting Haynes man.'s for both cars to compare the wiring harnesses) I can try to send mine, but you might want to wait until I actually see if mine works in the end Or wait for someone more experienced to help out.

I noticed in browsing through a bunch of pics of L-series Turbo swaps that a lot of people end up using the N/A fuel injection intake manifolds, do they hold any advantages over the turbo intakes (besides the pop-off valve not having to be removed)?

Bad question? Poorly asked? Just wondering why no one replies...

I have a 1983 280ZXT that I'm trying to clean up to sell, but the problems that are appearing (broken turbo shaft; if interested I'll post the neat pics ...wiring gremlins...probably needs clutch master cyl repair...) are discouraging. I was wondering how many of you who would potentially buy such an engine/car to do a turbo-into-early Z or ZX swap would rather buy a running, driving car that you could drive home, and how many would rather pick up the choice bits and load them into your truck to cart home. The 280ZX that the parts are in right now is pretty ratty, but I could see someone who really liked ZX's reviving it...but parting out is so much easier. I guess I'm just wanting to hear some other people's views on the subject, so, if you would... Lemme know if you think this thread would do better in the L6 forum.

Saab 900/9000 Turbo's apparently came with T3's, I have no idea on the A/R's. As you pointed out there the Dodge 2.2L Turbo cars came with T3's as well AFAIK. Supposing you have a bad 280ZX turbocharger and a good "other" T3 with a different compressor housing, will the 280ZX housing bolt on the "other" cartridge? Or would the difference in the other turbo's housing matter?