80LS1T

I had a R180 in my 80' with an auto tranny. What tranny do you have? I have pics of both diffs on my website... http://www.datsun-280zx-lt1.com/R200.html Guy

I have been a tech for the last 4+ years. I first worked on Dodges and I am now working on Nisssan's. What I can tell you is that if you want to come home happy every night DONT GO FLAT RATE! I have been flate rate for atlest 3.5 years of the 4+ years and I can tell you it's extremely stress full worrying about if your going to make your 8 hours for the day. When you go home with only 6 hours but you were at work for 8 hours it really sucks because now you have to makeup that 2 hours some other day in the same pay period. However, if you want to make money on flat rate you have to buy tools. Not just your standard hand tools either. Lots of air tools and specialty tools that will make doing jobs much faster. When I worked for Dodge I "booked" about 35 hours per week out of 40. Now that I work for Nissan I book 50 hours per week(atleast if not more) out of 40 hours. Nissan's warrenty pay is pretty close to customer pay time most of the time. Dodge on the other hand is about 1/2 of customer pay time. That is what I would look at when choosing what type of car to fix, don't pick a line of cars because you like them that doesn't pay the bills! Guy

Copy cat away! LOL Isn't there some saying about "imitation is the greatest complement?" Something like that anyways... Guy

I don't know if anyone has seen these or used these but what do you guys think? Is it a good idea? http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/RARE-4-LUG-CONVERSION-KIT-FORD-MUSTANG-79-93-MORE_W0QQitemZ290074343552QQihZ019QQcategoryZ43957QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Guy Edit...never mind already been posted! Sorry!

Well I don't drive my car in the rain so it won't really be an issue for me. The car is my toy for the warm months. I've got my trusty ol' Dodge Stratus for crappy weather! I thought I was pretty much finish with body work but Vinh has pretty much convinced me that it will look much better with the front end like that! LOL This should be a cake walk compared to that spoiler! Guy

Um I have a 1980 280ZX with an LT1 in it....So 80LT1 just fit. Atleast this way I don't get the "what engine do you have in your car?" LOL Guy

Hmmmm....I never even noticed that on your car! How did you build up that area below the hood line? Also what did you use to sand the fiberglass down before paint to get it nice and smooth?(what grit sandpaper?). Guy

Vinh, I used a 2 part expoxy to bond the spoiler pieces to the body and then used resin/mat to bond the edges to the body. I used about 3 layers of resin/mat to do the job. And as for boding in the rear bumper.....ah no way to much for an inexperienced body guy like myself. I don't really mine the way it looks anyways. Thanks for all the nice comments too guys! Guy

It's about time they started to play like the team that their all hyped up to be! I don't think they stand a chance against the PATS or COLTS though.... Guy

Ditto to what Pop n Wood said. I am having my 1993 T56 rebuilt by a buddy of mine. Parts alone is around $600. Thats for a steel 3-4 shift fork, billet keys and a full rebuild kit. Then if you need gears or an input shaft the price really jumps! Guy

The spoiler is MSA's 1 piece fiberglass design for the 280zx but I wanted it to be 3 pieces so I chopped it up molded it into the body/hatch. When I got the spoiler it didnt even come close to fitting properly anyways so I figure what the hell I might aswell make it what I want! I figured the worst that could happen is I mess it all up and I'm out a $150 for the spoiler. I'm really happy I took that gamble! This is what it was supposed to look like(they show it on a S30 though)... Guy

I am 99% done with the spoiler now. I sprayed a thin coat of primer over it tonight to see if there are any spots that still need any attention. I found a couple minor flaws that need some fixing but nothing that can't be fixed real easy. I should be done with it tommorow! Wha'da ya guys think!?..... I must have atlest 30 hours into this thing to get it to fit right and smooth! I must say that even though I really don't care for body work it sure is rewarding when you get to this stage and you stand back and say "man I did that!":grin: Guy

The only motors I know of that were offered in a Durango in the old body style is the 3.9L V6(pretty rare), 4.7L V8 overhead cams (best choice)5.2L, and 5.9L. The 5.9L can pull better than the 4.7 but it has a lot more problems than the 4.7(which are pretty much problem free). Gas milage is pretty much the same for all of them at around 13-14 city and high teens to very low twenties highway. Guy

If that thing was repainted in 2001 I want to know where it was painted so that I don't take any of my body work to that shop! I would pay $48 for that car but not $4800! Guy

I worked on Dodges for 3+ years so here's my take... Well I if I was going to buy a Durango I would get one with a 4.7L engine. That 4.7L V8 combined with a 45RFE tranny are a great combo and have had hardley any issues. If you go with an older body style Ram 94-02(I beleive that was the span for the last body sytle...) there are quite a few things to look for. They like to go through font end pieces like no tommorow! Ball joints, tie rod ends, u-joints, and the gear boxes like to leak from the bottom seal which usually means new gear box if you want it to stop leaking. Then you have the engine 5.2 and 5.9.....the heads crack between the valves on the older/higher milage ones, lower intake gaskets blow out and you start to burn massive amounts of oil and the engine pings, the timing cover and water pumps like to leak too. Then you get the crappy trannies that like to burn up. Basically what I'm trying to tell you is unless you find one that has had the majority of this work done, I would stay away from the older Rams. The new Hemi/NAG trannys are great and there haven't really been any big issues with either of them. Guy

I ran the 1993 camaro LT1/T56 electronics in my car for a year. I am now switched over to the 1995 ECM and wiring harness. I bought my combo back in 2002 for $2200. There is no way I would pay $1500 for a combo now. I think a $1000 would be as high as I would go. With the LS1's taking over in the popular motor swap area the LT1 has just gotten cheaper by the day. $1000 should get you a good rebuildable motor and tranny. If you don't want to rebuild it then I would spend a few more bucks on a lower milage motor. When I bought my LT1 I had every intention of rebuilding it but updating the optispark. I had to buy a new timing cover from a 1996 LT1, a new opti and the cam dowel had to be at the right length(my new cam already was set up for the 1995+ opti though so I didn't have to worry about it). I think I had to spend $40 on the timing cover, $275 on a new opti(which didn't matter because the one on the motor had a 100K on it anyways). Updating the opti really isnt a huge deal or a lot of money. The only real down side to the 93' LT1 is the none reprogrammable ECU. If you have a chip burner your good to go but who has one of those! Everytime you make a change to your engine you have to send out your ECU to have a chip burned for it. Now that I have Tunercat and laptop I can just go in and edit it myself for free! Granted you have to kind of know what your doing but there are plenty of guys on here and other LT1 sites that can help with basic tuning! I say hold off for a better deal or find a wrecked car and make some money! Guy

I am looking for a set of Roush exhaust tips that fit the side pipe mustangs The cheapest that I have found them is $350 for the set! That is just rediculous for a set of tips! I would really like to do side pipes on my car but I don't what the big chrome ones like a Shelby Cobra! I want them hidden under the car and out just infront of the wheels. These tips would look nice molded into the side skirts and they aren't too big so they should fit pretty nice with little modification! There has got to be someone who will sell these for cheap! Their just exhaust tips! Guy

Just run it in till its tight or bottomed out and you should be good to go GUy

Here are some more pics of the 3 piece spoiler. This has been quite a challange for me to get it perfect but I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel! Guy

I don't play with real money on-line. I haven't really noticed that the game favors the chip leader either. What usually happens is on the first hand you get 3-4 people who go "all-in" with whatever for cards and just hope to win. Then the winner of that hand tends to blow their massive chip lead and someone else usually wins. Jersey- Sometimes you just have go with your gut. And sometimes you have to show the guys that you'll bluff at pots with nothing. That's pretty much what I was doing. Otherwise they won't play their cards when your in the hand because they will think you've got something big and are probably beat. After I took out one of the guys this week he started to look at what people were folding(nobody cared) preflop. Well I folded a 6-3 offsuite preflop because someone raised it to $2000($300/$600 blinds). I wouldn't have called the $600 either but after a $2000 raise I wasn't in it for sure! So out comes a K-6-6, oh well I just folded trips. Can't do anything about it now. Then comes a 8-2. The guy who won only had a pair of K's. So he starts ripping on me about how I folded a 6-3 offsuite! I was like ya that's almost worth calling a $2000 bet preflop! Then he tried telling me that you should always see the flop. Then I said "you see these(looking down at my chips), these are called chips and when your still in the game you get to play with them!" That pretty much shut him up! LOL He's just mad because he plays poor poker but thinks he's Daniel Negrato and can read everyone! I just laugh when he goes out and I'm still in! Guy