calpoly-z

280Z rails and mounts are different from the 240Z ones. Four bolts are required to bolt it down. The loss of the captive nuts will definitely make mounting your seats tricky. With the front one you might be able to get your hand in and hold a nut in place, but not sure how you're going to get a nut on the rear one though without cutting some holes. Good luck.

To me the 350Z's looked a little plump I guess. I don't think the lines flow properly and I don't feel like it looks the way a Z-car should. The 370Z on the other hand isn't a huge change but it looks leaner and I think the lines flow better. Also the interior is quite a bit nicer than the 350. I did love the Daytona blue though. The blue the 370's come in is not near as attractive.

On another note, after spending a little time on the 370z forum I truly believe that HybridZ is one of the best auto enthusiast forums out there. Hardly anyone over there works on their own cars and those that do only know how to do bolt-ons. That's not to say there isn't some good info there but you really have to dig through a lot of crap to find it. Thank you moderators for making HybridZ what it is.

I second the Eastwood welder. I've had mine for over a year now and have had no issues. I love it and you can't beat the price. All you need to do is source a tank.

Thanks guys. Seems you either have the money or the time, but never the money and the time to finish a project. I'm seriously hoping that now that I've got most of my major projects done on the house that this year I'll be able to devote some time to the 77. We shall see. But at least I don't have to spend this year driving a big slow truck!

Well I just bought my first big boy vehicle this weekend. Found a 2010 370Z Touring w/ sport package, Nav, 6MT, 14k miles and just about every other modern option that comes on modern cars nowadays. I had been driving a 2002 Ford F-250 diesel for the last few years, which is a nice a truck, but I really missed driving a sports car. I still have my 77 and have no intention of selling it, but its been on stands for basically the last 3 yrs waiting on me to find the time to work on it. During that time I have graduated college, started my career, moved 3 times around Texas (Houston, Laredo, and now Midland), met my future wife, and bought a house. Somehow working on the 280Z just didn't fit anywhere in there. With that being said, when I came across this car and test drove it for the first time, I discovered the solution to my problem. Now I have a sports car to drive and I can continue to work on the 77 when I have some free time. Win-win. Now onto the car. I had driven a 350Z a couple years ago and it was a nice car but nothing about it made me want to own one. The 370Z on the other hand looks so much better and drives incredibly. The smile never leaves my face when behind the wheel. I've been around the S30s for over 10 yrs now and it seems with them you either have a car that handles well or one that rides well. Very difficult/expensive to do both. The 370Z manages to do both as well as anything Ive ever ridden in. Its the perfect DD for my situation. Onto the pics.

Walked out to the car sitting on stands in my garage and one of my rear wheels is hanging down lower than normal. Turns out the rubber isolator in the top hat has ripped apart. Anyone have a spare or two lying around that they would be able to part with for a reasonable sum? Let me know what you want for it with shipping to Midland, TX 79707. Thanks Alec

Don't see any reason why a switch in the dash would not work in order to turn on the fan manually. That being said, the trinary A/C switch setup that I installed to protect my new Vintage Air system is set to go to GROUND in order to turn on the condenser fan. Check this on the Hayden unit by seeing if grounding the A/C input wire or applying voltage to it triggers the internal relay. If it is actually designed to turn on with the A/C clutch wire, then 12V+ through a manual switch should engage it as well.

I cant count how many times I have bolted the flywheel and clutch to the engine and as I'm about to install the tranny, realize that I forgot the backing plate. Not a huge time waster as it only takes about 10 min to bolt and unbolt the flywheel and clutch PP, but I seriously have done this every time I've had the flywheel off. At what point will I learn?

Ok. Definitely something id be interested in in the near future. Thanks for the reply Matt.

Would this give any advantage over the existing trigger wheel that's already in the L28ET distributor for those of us running MS1? Or is this only needed for running sequential injection?

Factory drive shaft U-joints for 280z are staked in place. I'm sure it is possible to remove them, but not a particularly easy job. Then trying to find a u joint that fits and doesn't use the standard clip (won't fit without machining a groove in place to hold the clip) to hold it in place adds to the difficulty. The drivetrain specialty shop said they couldn't remove them so I took their word for it. Now I can go to any parts house and find u-joints as well as easily replace them in my garage. Win-win for me. To the OP 280zx trans is fine as long as your power levels stay fairly conservative. That is what I just upgraded from, but when my second one started crapping out again I decided to try something new. Finding a low mileage 280zx trans can prove difficult, at least in my neck of the woods. 240sx trans are a dime a dozen. If you have the chance to get one that has already been modified with an L28 bellhousing (the most difficult part of the swap) then I would go for it. Just my $0.02

I did the 240sx trans swap recently. It's pretty straight forward for the most part. Trans mount has to be modifyed because the mounting point is a couple inches further back. Not terribly difficult though since you obviously have a welder. I would wait until you get the trans mounted then measure to see what length you need your driveshaft to be. I assumed the 2 inches shorter and went and had a custom shaft made and it ended up being too long. Now full disclosure, the place I took it to said they couldnt shorten the oem shaft due to the non removable u joints so they made me a "new" one. What I didn't realize is that they were going to hack up my old one for parts. So I can't actually compare the length of the new one. Cost me about $300 to get the driveshaft made but now I have replaceable u joints. I have heard there are places out there that will shorten the oem shafts though. Probably for much cheaper than what I paid.

Does it come in a 0 or near 0 offset? I run the 002s on my 280 without any issues. These are 0 offset wheels though. If the 501s are not 0 offset then they can probably be used but will require spacers. Is the bolt pattern correct?

Just picked up some 2001 Celica GT seats from a pick n pull here. Was really hoping to come across some 350Z or S2000 seats but unfortunately had no luck. There was a set of C5 Corvette seats, but they were the wrong color and I didn't want to deal with power seats either. The celica seats I found are a nice black cloth and I'm real happy with how they look. Seem pretty comfortable too. Should be a good replacement for the cheap broken aftermarket seats that are currently in the car. I'm not too worried about the tunnel hump as I have a nice MIG welder that I've been itching to find a use for lately. I'll be sure to post up some pics of the install when I find the time to get around to it. Anyone with these seats have any input on how high these seats are when mounted? I'm about 6'1" so I want to make sure I have enough head room. Thanks

I run my supra 440cc investors using the stock 280z injection resistors in-line. I would recommend putting together a resistor pack and then running your injectors in high-z mode. A resistor pack can be put together with radio shack parts for cheap. Do a search on this for details. Doing his eliminates the need for the pwm board.

PM'ed you. I'll send pics tonight when I get home if you're interested.

Thanks guys. Some great recommendations. Looks like I have a lot of reading ahead of me.

Wanted to get a couple opinions on good DIY home remodeling/repair forums. I'm about to buy my first house and I'm really looking forward to the "ultimate" project. The house is in great shape but is in desperate need of some updating. My main concern is the flooring. The master bath has carpet in it now which has got to go, and I want to pull the carpet in the master bedroom and den and replace that with either a good quality laminate wood floor or engineered wood. I don't have a ton of experience with this type of thing, but I learn quickly and have no real fear of tackling tough projects. Plus any excuse to buy some new tools is a good one, right? Let me know what you think and if any of y'all have come across any good resources for learning and asking questions as I go. Thanks in advance.

I lived in Cali for 6 yrs with my 77 registered in texas. Of course I still had my texas drivers license too so on the rare occasion I did get pulled over the cops never even brought up the issue. If you're planning on moving there permanantly I would try to find a pre-75 car to avoid the hassle altogether.

DIYAutoTune.com has a couple fairly extensive WeatherPack kits that look somewhat reasonable in price. Haven't done much research on this though so I don't really know how fair the prices are. http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/weather-pack-kits-c-74.html?osCsid=1eacfa012054f08cb2df33621216d8dd

Watts = Volts x Amperage. That fan listed pulls about 33 amps with no load at about 14.6v which means it is putting out about 480 watts. Add some restriction to flow, ahich decreases current draw, and you'll probably end up with about a 400W fan.

The MSA downpipe is a great piece for the money. In order to keep the costs down it is made of aluminized steel instead of stainless and the flange is MIG welded instead of TIG welded. I have an earlier model made by Pete Z that is stainless and TIGed, but my buddy has the MSA one and I can tell you they are identical except for material and weld type. The only issue with the MIG weld is it can be a bit sloppy. My buddies required a bit of grinding on the weld in order to get the bottom left nut to thread on. Otherwise it worked great. My only concern is the tubing rusting after a few years. Seems like getting it jet-hot coated might alleviate this issue.

I know at least 77-78 280z's have a plastic a-pillar cover not sure about earlier years or if this piece is something that could be used on earlier years. Interested though if the currently designed parts will fit on later cars...

I've got a few pics located here: http://s32.photobucket.com/albums/d27/alecnet/77%20280Z%20Turbo/ that might help you out on how mine is mounted. I also went out to the garage and took a look real quick, and I definitely don't have it mounted as low as they do in the MSA pic. But I dont think mine is quite as high up as you have yours mocked up. let me know if you need better pics and I'll try to get some uploaded.