Jesse OBrien

There's no disputing that the car was 'non op', but it wasn't registered as 'non op', which I think should still be legal to park on the street (plenty of people get away with it, anyway). My big complaints come from the fact that by the time I could take action, I've already been charged for almost $300 in storage fees, and was given no option to do otherwise, since nobody informed me of where the car was, and I could not get an answer out of the PD (seems awfully suspect to me). I really appreciate the input, and see where you're coming from. I'm definitely picking up the car on Monday, and I'm trying pretty hard not to point any fingers at shifty behavior, as I don't know the specifics of the situation. I'm going to assume they were pressed for time or something to that effect. That's one of my biggest complaints. If I don't know I've done something wrong, how am I to fix it? Some sort of notice/warning/citation/ticket would have gone a long way for me. Bottom line I would have appreciated some sort of contact and a chance to move my car before it was towed. I think this is a clear-cut case of overzealous towing (disagree all you like, there were many options open to this Officer, and he chose the most extreme). Disregarding the lack of contact beforehand, wouldn't it make sense to inform someone that their car has been towed? Leaving a note on my door or a message on my voicemail would have allowed me to pick up the car on the same day. I would still be upset, but wouldn't feel as taken advantage as I do now. If not, at least send me a mail notice so that I can act on it immediately, not on Saturday when the PD is closed (and impounded cars cannot be released). Also, I'd really appreciate if the tow company would reply to me, and actually give me some means to pay them and get the matter resolved. Refusing my request to speak to someone who can help me, and wasting my time by not calling me back does not help the situation. On top of this, Vallejo has a shooting almost every week. The crime rates have steadily increased over the past few years and most of the "business district" has closed down (antique shops remain, but ~75% of the buildings are empty). And while I'm offer a rock or an ounce every time I go to/from the bus stop, the PD is still centered on immediately addressing the car that looks like it doesn't run right now. I'm disgusted. Thanks for all the input so far, guys! I can't tell you how much it helps to hear other peoples' takes.

I hate to say it, but the 305 was a craptastical engine. It had all sorts of non-interchangeable parts with the other small block chevys. Try to get a 283, 327, 350, 383, or 400 (the 327 and 350 being my personal favorites). My suggestion would be something more like this: http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/car/711693760.html if it's not too far from you. You'll need to purchase interior pieces, and maybe carpets, along with a hood and headlights (none of these things are hard to find, but can be expensive if you're looking for MINT parts). You'll need to make motor mounts (or have a local welding shop make them for you from cardboard cutouts you make). If possible, I'd say check the car out and make sure it isn't rusted through the body panels anywhere. The LS1 is an amazing engine (technically much better than the other SBC engines I've mentioned) and the way it's set up now you could decide whether you wanted the old-school carbed intake manifold or a fresh new fuel injected setup. In any event, most of the necessary parts are there, but you guys would have to track down the little bits that aren't and put it all together.

Congratulations! I think this is a great way to get to hang out with your dad, and I think a 240z would be an excellent idea for a first car. Most body parts are relatively easy to get ahold of with a little work. Fenders tend to be the most commonly sought after, as they tend to rust through (especially on the passenger's side, where the battery tray is... watch for that). Rocker panels (the metal that runs along the bottom of the door jamb and extends under the car) is very often rusted out. Keep an eye out for it. If you're planning to use the stock 2.4l l6 from the 240z, your performance is going to be limited to around 150-175hp (give or take). Unless you want to go hog wild and rebuild it from the ground up, the old iron blocks are sturdy and reliable (with the right carbs) but not track monsters. If you're planning to SCCA, keeping the stock motor would be my suggestion; it allows you to stay in a competitive class. If you're looking into making real power and having a monster, a small-block chevy v8 can be shoehorned in for around $1000 or so. It's becoming a common swap, and you'll find lots of info here. A bit less common (and a bit more expensive) is swapping a Ford v8, but if you're on a fairly strict budget the stock motor or a chevy is probably the way to go. Focus on getting a straight body with a dash that isn't cracked (you almost definitely won't find one, but try anyway), and you should be good to go. I don't know how adept either of you are with mechanics, but getting something that already runs and drives is a good idea if you can afford it. If either of you have ever rebuilt an engine, you may want to tackle a bigger project (like buying a non-running car). As far as price, I'm currently selling my 260z that doesn't run (but is 90% complete) for $200 this weekend. That's quite a bit under average; here in Cali I generally see decent, running Z's for around $1500-$2500. Keep your eyes peeled, and make full use of Carfax to make sure it hasn't been in any accidents that people aren't telling you about. If you come up with any other questions, we're always here for you! Oh, and one more thing... get a few good manuals before you start.

I like the idea, but tuning that correctly for the short/narrow s30 might be a trick. Also, it kinda kills the daily driveability of the car, unless I'm missing something. ... but yes, I do believe that with a bit of math based on how much power you're putting down and a good guess at how much weight is being transferred by rotation, you could maximize your traction without swapping to an LSD.

Uploading the 'old' pics for reference.

Davy, admittedly, it did look pretty nasty. However, it didn't turn out too bad. It doesn't appear to have any rust on it, because once I let them soak all that buildup came off and the cylinder walls on the bad cylinders are just as smooth as the other cylinder walls. Very happy. I also did a little work on my heads to clean up the valves, but they look like they're a wash anyway. Pictures of the cylinders attached (since I can't link to picasaweb directly). I now have the engine hand cranking about 5 degrees or so easily. The more gunk that gets worked out by soaking, the more it's going to free up. Then I should be able to get the crankshaft out and send the block out to get honed or bored if necessary.

It took me awhile to get around to it, but I got some pictures of a few of the local cars that I like. Bear in mind, this was just a walk around a few blocks and getting pictures of whatever happened to be around. I didn't go out looking at all. *edit* WTF, hybridz isn't allowing me to link images from picasaweb. I've uploaded them as attachments, but can't link to them using img tags. Anybody who's interested can check out the local cars I've snapped here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Jesse.B.OBrien/LocalCars

It was on a public road, parked in a legal area (not a lot). As far as I know, nobody had complained. If I had heard about any sort of complaint, I'd have moved it into my driveway (if not all the way to the back of my garage). Thanks for the input to both of you. I'm debating whether or not the cost of a lawyer would be justified for this. I'll have to call some law offices on Monday to find out what it's going to come to.

DISCLAIMER Forgive me if this comes off as a whining session, but I really need some honest advice. I'm going to keep this as unbiased as I possibly can, please bear with me and try not to post any comments that are one-sided toward me just because I'm a member here and the other parties (most likely) are not. I'm sorry it turned out so long, but if you intend to reply, please take the time to read the whole post and be as impartial as possible. Tuesday I parked my car on the street on Tuesday, June 2rd, in a legal parking space, with a legal registration and insurance in Vallejo. I went to bed because I had to work in the morning. Wednesday I woke up to go to work, got ready to leave, and turned the key to start it up to drive to get some coffee, go to the bus stop, and take that to work, and the car did not start. Logically, I wanted to check electrical components first, so I jacked up the passenger's side of the car to drop the starter, removed the alternator, and removed the battery, with the intention of charging the battery and testing the individual components directly after work. I had taken the hood off the day before, as I had just found out that having your hood off while driving is legal, and my hood needed some touch-ups, so I had removed it and it was still removed. I then went to work, and had an average day there, despite the fact that my car was having troubles. When I came home (6:00pm +/- 15 minutes), one of my friends stopped by and asked me where my car was, since he had stopped by around noon to see if I had stayed home for the day (since my car was parked outside when I should have been at work). Now I was home, and my car wasn't. I thought he was joking at first, then went out to see, and found that it was missing. I was floored, and after I put my head on straight, I called the Police Department to report it as stolen. The registration was in the glovebox, but I had the license plate number written down and gave them that. The pleasant lady at the PD said that it had been towed, but could not give a reason why or where it was towed to (the PD had been the ones who called in the tow, she explained). I asked when to call back, and they said I should receive a letter with the details. I reluctantly said that's fine, and hung up. Saturday Today, I received two letters in the mail: A lien sale warning, stating that my car is going to be sold by a local towing company (I'm not mentioning any names here just yet) unless it was picked up, and that I owed them $35/day for the past 3 days in addition to a $70 lookup/processing fee, and $120 for a tow to their lot. A police report(?) that stated that it was towed for being a non-op vehicle. My first course of action was to call the tow company, who did not pick up their phone. It just continued to ring. After it rang for a bit, I counted another 20 rings just to be sure, and hung up. No answer. I called back a half hour later and got a pleasant lady on the other end! Yay! Unfortunately, she couldn't help with anything, and put me on hold while she called the driver (wtf?). When she came back, she told me he would be calling within the next 15 minutes. So I put off everything else I was planning for the day (no seriously, I had a busy day of errands and bill-paying and an appointment set up) and waited a half hour with no call back. All right, I said. I'll call the tow company again. I got the same pleasant lady on the other end, and she said that something more important had come up for the driver and he would call back later in the day. Umm... what? I explained that that was unreasonable, and that I had other things to do, and not to bother because I will come into the office on Monday. I then walked down to the Police Department (it's not far from here, and I don't mind walking). Apparently the Vallejo PD lobby is closed on the weekends, and they keep a small gray box with a phone in it to talk to the Dispatcher. I picked up the gritty, dirty phone, and talked to the nice dispatcher (she really was quite pleasant). She proved herself to be utterly unhelpful, however, stating that I'd have to come back on Monday to fill out a Vehicle Release form (or something to that effect). Before I left, I asked if there were somewhere I could attain the Vallejo Towing Policy in print, and she said she had never heard of such a thing. Later tonight, I did a bit of googling, and a bit of emailing around, and found the Solano County Towing policy, which apparantly covers Vallejo. It states that (among other things): I am now a little curious as to what "a reasonable effort" is. A phone call could have eliminated all this trouble. I have also searched for any publication that explains that a vehicle without a battery (or any non-operable, registered vehicle) should be towed immediately and without notification. My search has thus far been unsuccessful. So, my questions are: Was the officer justified in having my car towed, given the circumstances? I was unaware that my vehicle was illegal to park on the street, and could easily have been relocated to my driveway if I had been notified. Should some sort of warning be issued before my car was towed (I know most California towns use bright orange stickers that are stuck to the windshield 12-48 hours before a vehicle is towed)? Is the tow company legally allowed to charge me for storage fees on days that I could not pick the car up (through no fault of my own) or days that I was not informed that they had my vehicle? Am I overreacting, and should this be considered standard policy? It's entirely possible that I'm completely off my rocker and shouldn't feel violated because my car was towed. The fact remains that I didn't know I was doing anything wrong and feel that I should have been informed (or at least been given a reasonable opportunity to inform myself by having procedures posted publically, say... on the Vallejo website?) before such drastic action was taken. Again, please don't take my side just because I wrote this up. I feel completely taken advantage of, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm a victim here. I'm mostly upset that I wasn't contacted before the car was towed (ideally by a warning, or even a ticket) or directly afterward (when the car was towed, leave a note/citation on my door?), and am currently being charged for storage on days when I am not given the ability to get the car out of storage.

Uhhhh... I found some new problems. I started tearing the motor down, and the pistons were completely stuck. After I got the heads off, this is what I found on the two rear-most cylinders: I'm guessing something lived in there, but who knows. It's not rust; it's all just strange build-up on top of the cylinder walls. It's soaking in WD-40 and will soak in diesel tonight. Hopefully I can get those pistons freed up and have it at the machine shop by the end of the week. The cylinder walls are as smooth as a baby's bottom, which means it's probably got some serious miles on it since the last rebuild. I'll measure the bore on each of them, and see how much meat I have left to play with before taking it down to the shop. It's possible that this has never even been honed before, we'll see about that though.

Whoa, what an awesome hemorrhage of great information! The stand I got is somewhere between the two. It's basically the second, but with double-legs (A-shaped rather than T-shaped), I'm pretty confident that I won't run into any problems, but rotating it is a BITCH. I only moved it a little to see how much effort it required, and I'm really hoping that after I get the oil out of it it'll be better. Updates to come soon, intake manifold and valve covers are off... The heads do not look very good, we'll see what it looks like under them.

I picked up a 327 yesterday, and hope to have it torn down and dropped off at the machine shop by the end of the week. I left the 283 mostly in tact for now, so I can get lots of pictures while pulling it, just in case I forget which way a bracket goes, or which bolts came out of which holes (even though I'm big on ziploc baggies, that sometimes isn't enough). I need to find some bolts to put the engine on the stand I picked up, I believe they should be 3/8" coarse threaded? Can someone confirm? Pictures and detailed update to come on my site.

It's on my 'must read' list. I'll probably order directly from Amazon. There are lots of engines around here, I just need to decide which to go with. The motor was installed in the car when I bought it. I only paid $2500 for the whole kit and caboodle, so I can't really complain too much. The oil pan is pretty seriously messed up, though. I wouldn't put it past it to have leaked all my oil out when I wasn't looking, and driving it down to the store killed it off. I would think it would've overheated, though. I think I'm going to toss a new motor in, keep this carb and intake manifold (if possible), and take this 283 with me when I move (probably at the end of the month) then tear it down and rebuild from there.

I ran into some rather serious engine seizure issues this weekend. Here's the article (with video) that I posted after it happened: http://madnessmanual.com/2008/05/27/rattling-engine-part-iii/ I thought I had a new engine coming up to me, but that doesn't appear to be the case any more. So, I'm wondering if you guys think this is worth pulling and rebuilding or just swap it out and replace it. Bear in mind, I'm moving in a month.

I'm definitely going to check them out, especially if I can fit 315's under them. The BAMF fender flares are a bit less "smooth" looking than your overfenders, and I like the backyard-ish look more than the clean-cut look your overfenders give. They still fit the 315/35-17's in there, so I think that takes the win. A few new questions (answer whatever you'd like, don't feel obligated to hit them all): 4.5" of backspace works well, though? No rubbing on suspension components or the inside of the fender well? Any particular suggestions on where to find tires that wide (I tore into tirerack, but came out wanting), or which tires (Yokohama S.drive seems pretty solid) to get? IMHO, they make the car look small-ish, but that could just be the side skirts. I'm not used to seeing side skirts on an s30, and I'm still trying to decide if I love them or hate them.

I think I'm going to directly copy http://www.cardomain.com/ride/827044 He has: CCW CLASSICS -FRONTS: 17x9.5" (5.25" backspace, 0 offset) (BFG g-Force T/A KD 275/40/ZR17) -REARS: 17x10.5" (5.25" backspace, -12 offset) (BFG g-Force T/A KD 315/35/ZR17) I may not end up with CCW Classics, if I can find something else I like more, but just finding tires in those sizes seems impossible. I like the Yokohama S.Drive, but they just don't go that wide. Am I just shopping in the wrong places? If so, where should I be going? I've been poring through http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=100039 and http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=116603 but there's a lot of info that isn't immediately pertinent for me, so I'm skipping past it. I really want something that fits the car nicely, and Justin's just look great squeezed up under the overfenders. I have to admit, I'm a fan of the car overall. I'm looking to do something similar as my final goal, but with a black/white color theme and no headlight covers.

I think you may be right. I've been doing my math wrong (the formulas were right, I understood how it worked... but my calculations ended up wrong). I think most of the reason I was so far off was because I currently have 14"s on there, and they're 60-series. My (incorrect) math told me that my sidewall would be around the same if I went to 295 width and down to 40 sidewall. That being said, is there a nice, wide 17" tire that's readily available, cheap, and doesn't look too flashy that you know of? Seeing the 295/50-15's they do look a bit big for this car. Almost like it's got drag slicks on it. I'm really only concerned about getting the width. There's nothing sexier than really wide tires, and the ability to USE all that traction. That being said, I'm open to suggestions. Feel free to offer any suggestions you may have, I'm all ears.

I just did a bunch of reading on wheel and tire sourcing, but I'm a little disappointed. There are a few reasons why: I like a little sidewall to my tires. 40-series is as small as I'll comfortably go with a road car. Smaller diameter wheels save rotational mass, letting me accelerate and decelerate more quickly. I want wide wheels. Why have all this power if it's just causing you to slip all over the place? I really want to keep the stock rear, and not have to convert to 5-lug. It just saves me lots of headache. So I've been looking around for wide wheels that aren't 17" diameter. In my ever-so-humble opinion, 17's look like ♥♥♥♥ on Datsuns. They're too tall. 16's would be fine, but there just aren't any tires available. I found a set of local steelies off a Levin that are 15x10 in the rear and 15x8 in the front, and are 4x114.3. They're $570 for the set, which sounds fine to me. I'm also planning to slap some 295/50-15(rear, 10" wides) and 275/50-15(front, 8's) Toyo Proxes on them and call it a day. All told, I'll be spending around $1200 for this first set of rubber (including mounting and balancing, assuming they need it). Before I go spending all this money on this setup, does anybody forsee any problems with this setup (other than my welded diff, which will chew through tires... I'm sourcing an lsd r200 to replace it) that I might be missing? Do I want the exact same width tire patch to wheel width? I've always thought tire stretching was idiotic, and having the sidewalls as close to parallel to each other should be the ideal for performance. Thanks for reading as always, and I'm really looking forward to any replies or thoughts. (yes, I'm getting BAMF zg's to cover these)

This is some really really great information. So great, in fact, that I feel bad that I didn't have a hand in paying for it, but I definitely get the payoff. I just read through the whole sub-category, and I think I absorbed about 90% of it. Aero still isn't my specialty, but we'll get there someday. Back to my point, is there somewhere we should be donating to see more tests like this? Possibly something about weight distribution, ideal traction, breaking points of drivetrain, etc? I'm really happy with this, and would love to contribute to getting more good info like it.

You know you want one of these: at least, I do.

I'd go with something like a CRX. It's sporty-ish, fun to drive, and gets great mileage. Also, if you keep it clean, it's a good date car. Of course, you only have two seats so don't go trying to take out multiple ladies to the same date. Just my .02, it's not as flashy or snazzy as the cars you mentioned, but it'll get the job done and even does fairly well in the snow (provided that it has decent tires).

That looks pretty clean and complete for $850. Personally, I say go for it if you'll have the budget to carry it through. Which engine would you plan on using?

also, you get looks from the ladies in your car.

Start up a business! 5% on anything you find! Work it out globally, and make friends with a freight shipper so you can look ANYWHERE and get them delivered ANYWHERE. I was going to be charged $600 to ship my CRX from Massachusetts to California. If you find a straight shell for, say $500 with no rust and ship that to the East Coast, you could easily get $2k for it. Just a thought.

Which kind of defeats the purpose, IMHO. I definitely think finding a good spot is paramount, then leave it. OR, you could always just tune it in to that good spot and ditch the pot altogether. That way you don't have to worry about it corroding and ruining your signal (causing all manner of weirdness to track down). Just my .02