Pharaohabq

No problem, I'll print up another set, I've got black ABS plastic now too, so it'll be less obvious than the white. You'll have to send me your address again. I keep looking for the article about the fabrications, so I can see what your TIG girl can come up with. Though, I'm not sure that the 280Z uses the same latch setup if I remember correctly. I can look at my 280Z tonight and clarify that. These are also uploaded to Shapeways so we can have them printed in metal if you want.

Well congrats on the car and kudos for trying to save it. Great job on getting all the old nasty paint off. You can really see what you're looking at with that out of the way. Those areas behind the front wheels are Structural metal, Meaning you REALLY need to repair it right, and as Rturbo pointed out, the car has hit something, so expect more damage on that side.. You can cut and replace that whole section from a good donor car. You've got the outter arches, but you'll also need to put in new inner wheel well arches too. As they said, Tabco is the place to go, but you can also get the parts through Rock-auto (who buys from tabco, but is often cheaper) You might also consider adding Bad Dog frame rails. They'll fix up your old rails quick and really add to the safety of your car. It's probably better you started on the cosmetic side of fixing this, since you want to do a REALLY good welding job when you're fixing the structure. that's safest. Tabco has all the panels you need. The rear deck, the inner arches, the doglegs, the floorpans. That tension rod mount should be replaced as one piece. meaning you'll want to cut around it then weld it in place like the original to the surrounding metal. now if you can't get a replacement panel for some area, use your grinder and cut out the section, pull it out without bending it too much, then you can used that part as a template to make the replacement piece. You can use some blocks of wood to carve out shapes to help you form your sheetmetal. A set of bodyman's tools will really help. Especially that copper spatula can keep you from burning too far through your panels while welding them in. just take your time, and watch all the your tube videos. You'll get there. There's a lot of yards out my direction who have good parts they'd be willing to cut out for you. One guy is Nelson, his email is NLAckerman1@aol.com, just let him know what you need, I think he's got 15 cars and a barn full of parts. Now replacing those panels, Are you using Panel clips? You can buy them on ebay cheap, but they really help hold the panels in place while you weld things up. The panel warping is an issue to watch out for. you can warp it while grinding down the welds too, so be careful and move around a lot. Always wear your safety equipment, Fixing the car won't do any good if you're dying in bed from chemical poisoning, metal gas poisoning or even cancer. So keep well ventilated. and always wear goggles. I'll second his suggestion for using Por-15, Rust bullet, or some other, both under the car and inside any panels where at all possible. Especially out where you are, Things will rust quickly, and these Z's didn't use a very high carbon steel so they tend to rust a little easier than most. Keeping them coated is the #1 method for preservation. Again Kudos for saving this one. We're proud of you. I hope you budget will allow you to complete her.

Link Broken, can anyone repost?

Pretty nifty, What's build Area on the Replicator 2x? I've been wanting to reproduce the A pillar covers for the 280Z. They're few and far between though I do have a set of bad warped ones I can take measurments from. Issue is that they're ~ 20" long making it difficult to print myself. I can send it to shapeways, but that sizing may get costly. One thing I Really do want shapeways to print in Stainless Steel; I want to make a pair of headlight cover moulds for moulding S30 Pyrex headlight lenses. Has to be stainless to hold up to the heat. The main issue is making sure they're smooth enough and thick enough that there will be no warping when the glass is slumped between the moulds. I may have to braise them and polish prior to slumping. Pyrex is superstrong so hopefully I can also make mounting tabs in the glass, or at least a groove to fill with adhesive like modern lenses circa 300ZX era. I may have to try to get a crowdfunding setup for the cost since these moulds may run $1000 bucks to print. How to you like inventor? I've got it, but have never used it

I'd recommend the Vq35de out of an 03'-05 350Z over the VG30DE from the 90's 300ZX. it's a much more modern engine and quite powerful in just stock form. Though an LS1, is certainly work thinking about. both require mods to the body and aren't for the inexperienced. I'd recommend you start with an L28ET which is next to drop-in ready. A good search on all these swaps would be a great idea, just so you know what you're getting into.

Hey Jesse, Sounds like a good deal for a parts car. Now you know the L28et is lower compression than the NA cars right? So if you are just swapping your carbs over you may have some issue. Though the L28et isn't that hard to get running on the stock electronics assuming it's all there. There's a lot of Turbo swap threads on here so I won't go into that. but another option is always Megasquirt. It's much more modern EFI that's been proven to work really well with these engines. As for what to look for to resurrect the Parts car, is all the regular rust locations, but also just look for completeness, you don't know what they've taken off the car. So that could be a factor. It sounds like a deal though. Oh Let me know if you need any other parts designed.

Now I'm not really knocking your stance, But just keep in mind stretching your tires like that can be dangerous. it puts a lot of strain on parts of the tires that they weren't designed for. You could have much the same look and safer, by going with a wider tire like the 245-50-r16 but you may still get rubbing. I imagine you're going to go with flares? Just keep safety in mind.

Hmm, puffing white smoke, and this is with the "new engine" I would guess it's just the moisture in the pipe, but how much are we talking here? This is White, not blueish? Anything in the pipe should burn off in about 30-50 miles. it's curious though. I'd keep an eye on it and just see. Did you figure why your rear brake was locking up? Return springs rusty? Cylinder dirty? So long as it's working now, you're good, but another thing to keep an eye on. As for the wheel shake, it could be your ball joints or your tension arms. if the rubber is really bad it'll allow a lot more wiggle. jack it up and try to wiggle the wheel side to side and see how much play you have in the steering.

You might look at some of the other designs we have seen on here. Most notably a couple points on these: 1. The designed plenums usually have most of the internal corners filled and shaved. That way as air flows by there's a lot less turbulence than you'd otherwise see. 2. Another point is to note that on most of the custom intakes, the volume gets much smaller as you get father away from the throttlebody. The effect of this is air velocity. As you move farther away, the air loses momentum. Having the Plenum narrow toward your back cylinders ensures even combustion. Look at the plenums that Mark made in this same v6 section. you'll see what I'm talking about.

You may be able to get a consult interface through Ebay. I know they have some, and it'll run on a Pc, but I don't know too much about it.

Docaam, It's probably not a NATS issue. I don't think you car had that. You'll need to find an FSM for the donor car to make sure. But you should be able to call the local Nissan dealer to ask about it. Either way you're probably going to need the FSM to find the test points to see what it's doing. You may be able to get a hold of a Consult II or a Consult III to see if the ECU will identify the fault. Towing it to the Nissan dealer may be needed. I know I will have to do that with my HR, so that Nissan can reprogram my BCU to work with my Key and ECU to make my NATS happy. A Consult II should be able to identify the fault.

As little as possible... That's always what you want to get away with. but really it's worth $500 in parts easy. That underbody concerns me though. It looks like someone sprayed a cheap undercoating over bare metal and it failed. It looks like it's just chipping off. The metal may be all still good with heavy surface rust, but it could be much worse. I'd want to tap on it and poke at it with a screw driver. I'd want to put it on a lift and wire brush all that off then coat it with Por15 or some other rust neutralizing paint. The Pans may be needing to be replaced. The hood is an easy replacement. bumpers not so much, but still possible. Other than that it doesn't look too bad.

It's easy to develop OCD with Z cars. Yes close enough, Though like I said, reds and yellows are a lot more obvious. Red can be incredibly hard to match

Really it depends on the time to print. If I'm charging $10/hour to print then it is how long not how much. It's better to go by the part though since some parts have overhangs which can be a pain to get to print right if the model isn't well oriented. I can print layers as small as .1mm Most automotive parts don't need that resolution, but it is possible. Really it depends on that the customer wants. Reproductions are pretty easy, Custom parts are harder since we have to make multiple renditions to make sure what I'm modeling is what they're wanting. Zero, Your print looks pretty good. What printers do you have? it looks like those parts were off a mendel of sorts. What do you design in? Scad?

None of these lenses are Glass right?

Hey, Yeah ABS isn't too tough to work with, it just requires a higher temperature. I would NOT print anything automotive in PLA. since PLA is water soluable it will not last on the exterior of a car. ABS is not very UV resistant, so you'd have to paint whatever you printed. Not really a big deal. I can print out most anything you send me the files for. I have a Prusa I2 and a Hybrid I3. Shapeways is pretty nice for their sintered prints. I want to print some in stainless and see how it looks, but the cost is up there. Let me know. I'm cheap comparatively.

I'm in Albuquerque (roughly the same altitude ~1mile.) and my readings were between 100 and 115 across all 6 cyl. My engine ran okay, but the AFM was messed up, causing issues. Could have been my thermotyme, in anycase it was okay for a year before I started my swap. Sold the L28 as good and never had a complaint, they swapped it into a Zzzap and it's still driving around.

Take that out in the sun and I'd bet you'll see a little variance. In as dark a color as you have it may be easier to match. Reds and Yellows are much more obvious.

It's really sad that this thread went from promising to toolshed worthy in so few posts. I only hope the OP gleaned enough information to help him make an informed decision before the spooge started flying. I feel literally dumber for having read the last 25 or so posts. It is almost to the point that I'm finding difficulty piecing together enough words to form a cohesive sentence, much less attempt to steer this thread back on track. As I understood the posts; the EMS systems these cars were designed with were great for the day, but now 30 years later, we understand so much more and our technology allows us to take advantage of this. Even Megasquirt has improved much in the 15 years or so that it's been around. So yes a 30 year old engine sounded great and ran great new, but that exact same engine would run better using modern EMS technology than it did on the original Bosch system. I know I've seen some L28's on MS+S and have always been amazed at how smoothly they run.

Okay I wasn't going to comment on this, but as I was thinking about it a little more I was thinking a new hood could do quite a lot for the flow inside the engine compartment. The base of the windshield is a high pressure area, meaning air flow is compressed against the windshield as it flows over the car. Some people have figured that if you leave your hood popped open on the safety latch that you'll have better cooling. Well to a point, because that allows more air to actually be drawn through that crack and down across the firewall and into the low pressure zone under the car. Either way, Additional vents like on the 280Z hood may allow better flow through the engine compartment. A Ram air won't work well due to the radiator placement and Air intake. The mouth of the radiator under the point of the stock hood is already a pressure zone, thus the HP increase from just changing to a K&N filter up there. So what is the point of putting vents in a S30 hood aside from improving A. Intake air pressure or B. Improving Engine compartment cooling. ?? Everything else is basically cosmetic unless you get into making specific application hoods for swapped engines eg. Shaker hood scoops, or actual Ram-Air ala early mustangs. Those would change the signature S30 lines. One hood I liked had the scoop in the center for an LS1 intake. My point is that if you're going to make a new hood, you need to look at what it's function is going to be. If it's purely cosmetic, then go for it with the corvette summer hood. Otherwise Lets talk function... Maybe some integrated pop-up machine gun ports?

Nice! Looks like you've come a long ways. Once you get to drive a 5 speed you're going to want one, but the 4sp is fine for now. Depends on how much highway driving you do. As for the reverse switch, was there one on the donor tranny? it is a 2" long cylinder thing with wires off it, on the side of the tranny. The Tach Issue may be related to your Electronic distrib upgrade. everything else is mostly just parts. Some of which you might be able to scavenge from that donor car if he'll let you.

Yeah, that's a good point, Tamo. If you paint your engine bay and body on separate days or even months apart, you can get different shades of color, due to paint age, humidity, temperature. So keep that in mind if you decide to do it separately. The color will be close, but it's unlikely to be an exact match.

I'm sure you've read a lot of the Swap threads. So whatever you choose, make sure you have the right reasons for doing a swap. It's not going to be cheap, and the reliability fully depends on the quality of your work. What do you want the end product to be? What are you going to use it for? Obviously getting a prefab kit to go with whatever engine you choose is going to be best since you won't have to recreate the work other people have already put in. Things should line up well on a quality kit. Of course no kit is going to handle everything, but the major hurdles are going to be addressed. so that will save you a lot of work. So you've basically got to decide where you want to be in the end, Select an engine to get you there. (I'd love to see that new caddie twin turbo -450hp- dropped in one). Then select your mounts, then engine management - aftermarket, stock, whichever, then go on to fuel, gauges cooling and cosmetics. Since you have your shop you should be pretty comfortable with the cost of the work. We are here to cheer you on and help you sort things out if you get a snag. of course we love pictures, so let us know what you decide. Personally I love the VQ engines, I can tell you a lot if you decide that direction. (check the V6 area)

Another thing to think about is that most of the older cars have such lax rules that if there's no visible smoke and the gas cap pressurizes usually they'll allow it to pass. You'll see the tolerances are quite wide for anything pre- 1990.

hell if you're into wearing stripes and want to Swap vin plates around, you might as well show up with a flat bed in the middle of the night. You might make a few days, but the guys in blue will track you down. Swapping VIN plates is a stupid stupid thing to do, even if you own both cars. it's dishonest to say the least. On a S30, there's NO reason to do it, Earlier VINs don't change the value. The Emissions guys will know something is fishy if they see an old Z with the wrong plate. You want to let uncle sam crush your car for you? Don't do it. You CAN get an allowance from the DMV for a swapped engine. Depending on the state. Most just say that the donor engine has to be from a newer year car than the body. Of course California may have different rules, you should call the DMV. or talk to some of the customs shops. As for the 260Z, you can buy it and move your later year parts into it. Getting replacement hoods and such isn't too hard if you talk to your local Z car club, or look on the for sale/wanted here