mtcookson

I found out recently that there is a high school, yes a high school, that has a wind tunnel relatively close by... They get tons of money because there is a nuclear power plant there and yeah, you get the picture. But, there might be a chance that I can get my car in there because my cousin has a friend who is a teacher there and they might be able to use my car as a class project or something. Basically, if there is some aerodynamic stuff that you guys want tested out, I could try making it and take the car to the school to see if they will test the aerodynamics of it. I have tons of ideas for different aerodynamic items to put on it and this would be an awesome way to find out how well they work. Hopefully I can pull the right strings and get this done. Any yays or nays?

i've been looking to make a sheet metal oil pan for other engines i have but don't really know where to start. if you don't mind me asking, what thickness is the sheet metal you use and is that aluminum?

I've been looking at the Ultima's quite often (as I'd love to have one in the future) and way the Z is designed it would probably be very, very hard to do a longitudinal mid-engine design. Now, if you went transverse like with what was mentioned on the MR2 setup that would work but something like what the Ultima uses would be quite hard to do. Since the passengers are sitting so far back there just isn't enough space for an engine and a transaxle to fit back there without hitting the seats. Look at some mid-engine cars... the cabin is always set forward and have a short front end. The z is just the opposite. A MR setup could be done but it would definitely have to be transverse. The MR2 setup would work pretty well... but if you think about it for a sec... you could actually use just about any FWD setup that you wanted. Just move it in back and it will still propel you forward but get much better grip than the majority of FWD's are capable of doing. The only problem you need to solve is, the strength of the tranny. You need to find a tranny that'll handle some good power and then find a engine that'll make some good power. You'll definitely have an awesome strip car but taking it to the track might be a bit scary. Having a gas tank in front would help a lot, especially if you can get a good sized one in there like 20 gallon or so (20 gallon tank filled up would be somewhere around 160 lbs not including the weight of the tank). That would help somewhat but from there you could also do a tube frame chassis setup. This would help increase safety in a front end collision and increase some front end weight. Also, for the best cooling possible, you'll probably want to run your coolant lines to the front of the car and have the radiator up there as well (most MR cars have this setup). Won't add much weight but will help. All in all it is possible, could be a sweet drag car, could be a bit rough as a track car, but would definitely be unique. Worth it? ..... guess that all depends on the person. I thought about actually doing something like this but with the cabin being so far back it would make it a very big pain to make it a worthy car on the track, which is what I want.

Damn... sounds like you're going to have one badass Z. I'm putting mine into a 1975 280Z (S30 chassis). Not quite near as far as you are but I'm hoping to get it done by summer '05. I have a few questions. Did the VK45DE heads bolt right on or did you have to modify them at all? Are the cams and springs you bought for them custom made or did they have some off the shelf parts for the VK? Lastly, if you used the stock computer, would it be able to read/control the sensors and such that are on that head? Seems like they would have quite a few different items on that head that would make it pretty hard to get it to work with the VH ecu and it seems like programming it to handle those sensors and whatnot would be quite difficult. Definitely seems like an interesting setup. Definitely keep up posted on how it all turns out.

cool, sounds good to me. if you could, just send a picture to mtcookson@yahoo.com. thanks!

Would the have incher work for the Q45 diff or would it solely be for the Z32 R230? If it can work on the Q diff, how much are you looking to get out of it?

Planning on having any more of those made? I have a Q45 diff that I'm planning on throwing in my 280Z... along with the Q45 engine.

Been working on pulling the engine out of the Z and Q for the past few weeks. Got both done finishing pulling the Q engine out last night. Now I just have to start figuring up a way to mount the TTZ gear box to the VH45 and then how to get all that in the Z. Should be pretty fun one I get it done. Does anyone know about how much power it requires to push a 280Z into the low 11's?

3 rotors are incredible... 4 rotors are absolutely insane. you can take 2 2 rotors to make a 4 rotor. a few people have done it before and those things are mean. a guy did that in a rx-7 and pushing over 500 hp normally aspirated! he was running low 10's in the 1/4 easily and was short shifting too.

I thought the generally accepted bsfc for a turbocharged engine was .60-.65...?

I had plans to do a similar setup on a Maxima but I got the Z so the dual engine, awd Maxima will have to wait.

I'm working on a VH45 swap into a 280Z myself. I'm using a 300zx Twin Turbo transmission and for now the Q45 rear diff. The rear diff. has a pretty low ratio (something like 3.53:1) so, according to another person's calculations, in 5th gear at 7,000 rpm it would be possible to have a top speed of 200 mph... if you had the aerodynamics and power to get it there. I'm going to need to get a different rear end in the future to bring the top speed down to about 160 or so for some better acceleration on the bottom end.

While searching for some headlights I somehow came across a nifty post on the Q45 section of the Automotive Forums. The post that stuck out to me went a little like this: "The VH45 weighs 3 lbs less than an L28 engine. I am currently putting one in a 1970 240Z, I have twin turboed the engine and it was dynoed at 765bhp at the flywheel @ 18lbs(on pump gas), and 950bhp @ 26 lbs boost(on Avgas 130oct)." If that is true.... that's incredible! What is nice is you are basically taking the stock weight of the engine and moving it further back in the engine bay and also lower in there. What's even cooler is (if this is true) he's pulling a shit load of power out of that engine. Definitely makes me feel even better about this swap. The original post started here http://www.automotivehelper.com/topic52633.htm where a guy with a 260Z was wanting to swap the engine.

Just noticed something that I never even thought of or noticed before and I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it but... that car is left hand drive. Shouldn't it be a fairlady and right hand drive if its in japan:?:

Hopefully he made this as a track only car and even then... a dry track only car. If is going to race on a road course or drive it daily when it is raining with those turbos low like that water could potentially splash onto them pretty easily. Hot cast iron dislikes water a lot.... I'm sure most of you knew that though so.

I was thinking the exact same thing when I saw that. I'm thinking for my VH setup I may dry doing a dry sump setup but I still have studying to do on how to set that up.

A member of a different forum I'm on posted this and I'm just trying to get the word out to other forums to get some more votes for them. Support the Z's and vote for this beautiful machine! "It's a shame the Classics don't get the respect they deserve. 1010Tires.com is having a car contest, and my family has entered our 71 Vintage 240Z. There are a lot of nice cars in the competition, but anyone can buy a new car, bolt on a few parts, and call it a street racer. However, to take a 34 year old car, modify it, and have it perform well on Willow Springs Raceway, and California International Speedway is a thrill. We have a lot of fun taking our Z to local tracks. It seems though, that people are voting for the newer street cars...instead of the race modified Z!!! Insane!!! Please show your support for the Classics by voting for the Z! It's not the prize we're after, but the fact that Classic Zs are still something car fans shouldn't forget. Let's show them that the Classics will never die!!! Cheers, Caligal0224 Link to Vote: http://www.1010tires.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=113 Vote for: Finalist #2: 71 Vintage 240Z"

Picked up the Q and the TTZ 5-speed so the project should be underway very soon. Are there any other VH45 swaps like this one or was that the first (making me the 2nd in the world and the 1st in the US)?

Right now, I'm planning on doing that full urethane bushing kit, probably a staggered tire setup depending on the outcome of the handling (oversteer understeer and what not due to that setup), and the nicest set of springs and struts i can get. I personally could care less of ride quality. If I have to sacrifice ride quality for performance, so be it. I guess basically I'm trying to find out of some setups that have already been proven to handle real well. I search around and see what I can find... for some reason though I hardly have much luck with those searches

What exactly would be the best suspension setup we can get for the Z's? I have a 75 280Z and am wanting to make it handle as well as I can for things like auto crossing and such. The only coil over setups I've found so far are the "sleeve" setups and I'm pretty sure I've heard before that they aren't really the best compared to the real deal. Are they the best that is available for the Z like compared to regular suspension components i.e. just off the top of my head tokico illuminas and eibach pro kit springs or maybe the msa springs if they're any good. Any help would be excelent as I not only want this thing to go fast in the straights, I want it to be able to take some mean turns as well.

ahh, i get it now! thanks for clearing that up for me.

Well I know with the current setup they open correctly but I was almost sure that with a direct current you couldn't reverse the polarity. Kind of like running say, your fuel pump with a the polarity reversed. On a direct current it would run backwards but if it were an alternating current it would still run in the direction it was made to run. I'm not too keen on electricity so I could be totally wrong. That was just my take on everything.

I had spark at both the coil and right at the plugs. Now that I think about it, since the electric system is DC the injectors would only be able to have the 12 volts on the proper terminal. Wrong terminal and it would try to pop the pintle into the injector, at least I'm pretty sure that's how it would go. I drained all of the old gas and put in some brand new gas.

Went out and screwed with the timing and got nothing new... except for a broken bolt that holds the dist. in place. I didn't even put excessive torque on the thing and the bastard broke. Guess I'll have to drill and tap or something. In the process of that happening I decided I was going to pull the dist. out so I could have easier access to the bolt to remove. So what I did was remove plugs 2-6 so that I could feel the compression stroke of 1 to get it at TDC. In the process of getting there I heard what I thought were some pretty scary sounding "leaks". After hearing that I decided to do a compression test. The results... 6 - ~150 5 - 100-110... uh oh 4 - above 150 3 - ~150 2 - 120-125... not again 1 - ~150 So... could it be that the valves just need adjusted on cylinders 2 and 5 or is my VH45DE swap starting a bit sooner than expected?

It ran all the time up until two years ago. THe previous owner had a bit of a run in with a deer and it banged up the hood and passenger fender pretty well. The antlers went through the windshield and the dash on the passenger side as well . After that he just let it set because he didn't really have the money nor the knowledge to replace everything which kind bites but was good for me. Back on topic. Like I said, it did run up until two years ago when it just sat since then. Since that time a dang pack rat got in there and chewed up some hoses and wires. I have all of them fixed that I know of so hopefully there's not a hidden one somewhere. I'm thinking the problem is ignition related myself now. Last night I shot some starter fluid in there and didn't get any response which would definitely seem to mean there is timing issues. I'll mess with the distributor a little bit and see what I can come up with. Thanks for the help!