Pharaohabq

Check your AFM plugs. Something might be loose. Clutch: it may be that the little pivot the fork sits on needs to be adjusted, when you look under there and have someone step on the clutch, how far does the fork move?

Ooh, That ABS is an interresting setup. It's probably good for Temporary. But I'd be pretty wary of heat around ABS. that stuff has a pretty low melt temp (My DIY 3D printer I set to 210 deg for ABS) that being said it looks like it'll work at least for a little while. It might be a good idea to wrap that pipe in heat tape, or alum tape/foil at the minimum. Last thing you need is an engine fire. So how are you going to do this? Are you going to ship the car to AUS? or will it wait another 10 years for you to come back and wonder what you were thinking?

Wow, you really STOLE that car! Even the Aftermarked G nose parts are worth that much!. Someone put a lot of money into that car and let it go. Yeah there's a lot of things they did that don't seem so great to you, but it was their car, now it's yours. Make it your baby. Rip out what you don't like and put in what you do. It's amazing how much they must have spent to get it to that point and yet you got the car for $650. Someone obviously didn't know what they had. Great job, Keep us updated and keep posting picts. I can't wait to see what you do with the car.

I'd say it depends on what you put into it. If you find a decent survivor and put a little money into it, and at least replace the struts you should have a decent ride. A 280Z could get 28MPG with the 5 sp and a foot that weighs a little less than average. Really though this isn't about what the cars will do. it's about what you want. Z cars are NOT made for hauling kids around. My Z32 2+2 has a baby seat in the back, but it's a serious pain in the butt to use. I wouldn't put anyone in the back otherwise. A S30 can be upgraded as you say, but I'm not sure the carbs will get you better mileage. Best to stick with the stock EFI or go MS or upgrade to the MPI system from a jeep. You should do pretty well gas-wise jsut stock. I'd upgrade the brakes. You could get mileage in the 30's if you swap to a SR20 or a KA24. But Definitely get a 5 speed. It'll really make a difference on the highway at 85mph.

Looking good Docaam. Glad to see you got an engine. The VQ30 and VQ35de are supposed to be the same block so that tranny should just bolt right up. That engine is really dirty. I hope it won't smoke. Pulling off the heads would be a pain. Did you find those plans for the VQ mounts? I don't know if I sent them on to you or not. I'm glad the compression didn't seem to bad, was that wet or dry readings? As for the Chrome, you might hold off as for about the same cost you can get a billet underdrive set off Ebay shipped for roughly the same cost. The rest, sure you can have it chromed, but You may want to wait till you know the engine is good first. As with any swap, it's important to keep in your main goal of getting the swap running before you go onto all the other projects like AC and "Bling". that's because everything else is worthless w/o the engine running. You'll need a 350Z or compatible driveshaft to fit that tranny. Also you'll need an adapter to shorten the shifter to fit in the S30. I'll be watching your thread.

Really nice work again Mark. I always get so happy when I see another update from you. The Wiring: Are you running anything like Painless in addition to the VQ modded ECU wiring to handle lights etc?

Nice, I guess that works too. The engine is still pretty level right? You shouldn't have any issue with oil pooling toward the rear of the engine..

It's probably a vacuum leak. Check the hoses. The Idle is fine so it's probably not any back pressure. It's stumbling on throttle because the vacuum isn't enough to pull the advancement. It catching up after 2-3 seconds goes right along with this diagnosis. Take a look for cracked hoses, or any disconnected barbs. These engines are old, the rubber doesn't last forever. Fortunately rubber is cheap to replace.

Nice dash... Wow that's a pretty cool story. It's nice to know the history on a car. I can't wait to see what you do with it. I know what you mean about Life getting in the way, but really it's the distance more than anything. Parts in Aus are a lot harder to find than in seattle.

That's great you've already looked through the GC FSM, that puts you way ahead. Take some measurments, you'll need to see how tall the GC engine will sit and how long it is from front to back. The S30 frame rails are 25" apart. so that shouldn't be a big deal, and from the pictures I've seen, you shouldn't have to worry about the steering shaft to the rack. Look at how McKinney did their mounts. You may be able to use something similar to be able to slide the engine forward and back till you get the positioning where you want it. Those Brembos, they're nice, but if you don't think they'll fit then don't waste time, you can likely sell them for some serious $ on Ebay. The S30 can take 16" wheels IMHO, without looking too funny so long as the rubber you put on them is low profile, and wide. Some people even go 17" but they have their reasons. Certainly you can do the Toyota swap, it's well documented. That's another project though. Now that Differential. I assume you're meaning torsen. Pretty nice Diff. They're putting them in a lot of cars, but you're going to have some custom work to fit it in the S30. They're going for about 500 bucks on Ebay, so that's really tempting. If you make a modified RT mount with perpendicular ears it should work. The moustache bar will need an adapter plate made. I don't see any sensor wheels on the stock output shafts, so the GC probably uses a sensor in the tranny for the Speedo, which makes that easier. look at this link for Torsen equipped vehicles, that might help us find output shafts that could be modded to work with a set of ZX shafts for the S30. http://www.torsen.com/files/Torsen_WORLDWIDE_Application_Chart_2011-12-02.pdf I'm really interrested in this application, since Torsen Diffs are being used in so many cars and sound a lot better than Clutch or Viscus LSD's. I believe OBX makes a helical for the R200, but I'm not sure the fit for a Datsun R200. Have to ask about that. It's great there's no Anti theft built in so the swap should be pretty straightforward engine-wise. Using the stock electronics may be a lot of fun. I'm not sure how hard or if it's possible to swap in the whole dash. but the alternative is modding the GC cluster to fit. You may have to use aftermarket gauges. for my VQ swap I'm planning on cutting a 350Z cluster apart and fitting it into the stock 280Z pods with plugs and wires to link the parts I cut out. yeah it'll be a pain. if I fail it's aftermarket, so I don't have anything but time to lose. I don't know your skillset, so I'd recommend going with aftermarket. Keep your eye on the prize, everything else can come later. Btw: what is your focus? Are you building this as a Daily Driver? Track? it may make a difference long term.

Whoa! is that rust on that 280, or is it painted rust color? You could really spend a lot cleaning that up, but hey you said you were going to strip and media blast it, so I can't wait to see how it turns out. I hope that you'll post pictures of the process. Now for the GC swap: There's a lot of advice I could give. It's awesome you've got the complete donor. that's really great, that means the cut/paste of each system you move over should be pretty straightforward. The first recommendation would be that you get ahold of the FSM or a really good manual for the GC. The GC is a RWD car so that should be pretty good. It's also rated at 270+HP which isn't anything little from a 4 banger 2.0 stock engine. So You'll need to decide how much you want to move over. I would assume you're taking the 6 sp or auto tranny with you. so you won't have to worry about the Datsun tranny, though you'll need to have a driveshaft shop make a shaft for you once the engine is in place. Hope you can Weld. This is going to require a little. The Engine doesn't look much different than the SR20 or the KA24 engines, so read up on those swaps . You may be able to use a lot of the same mounting. When pulling apart the donor DON'T CUT ANY WIRES, it went together w/o cutting, you can take it apart w/o cutting. and LABEL EVERYTHING as you remove the plugs. likely you can leave the engine harness connected to the engine. You'll need to decide how much of the GC systems you're going to move over. Just the engine? Sure, but you'll likely need the dash harness as well as any Security modules, and of course the ECU. The FSM for the GC can really give you an idea of what's required. Likely you'll also need to change the Fuel pump and probably the lines from the Datsun. But you can do that when you get there. Conscentrate on one project as a time. your primary goal is getting the Engine fom the GC into the S30. It would be easy to start trying to move interior and all sorts of stuff over, but if you don't get the engine going, than nothing else matters. So keep your eye on the prize. Map out what steps you're going to take to do the swap, that way you'll nave less wasted time. A notebook, or better a chalk/dry-erase board can really help you from day to day or week to week to stay on track. Don't throw anything away till you're done with the swap. There's nothing like realizing you missed an important module after you had the donor body hauled off. So planning and preservation are key elements. You may later want to use the GC dash or gauges, likely you'll have to include the GC diff in your swap to use them. So identify that and hopefully it's common enough to be adaptible to an S30 w/o much trouble. Lights? Sure you can use the GC harnesses, so why not the lights? Oh, you will likely have to go aftermarket and adapt things. that's a later project. So Keep your eye on the prize, and you'll get through it soon enough.

Are you sure that's Drool on the Keyboard? Well I'd caution you about just going and finding just a block. You should be looking for a complete engine. That way you know you have all the parts you need. Now you may be able to buy just a block and put it together with your existing blown engine parts, but you're not going to gain much there since you'd have to have the block and head machined. There's often a reason people are selling just a head, or just a block. Ideally you should find a running engine that you can pull out of a donor. that way you know what's there, and that it runs and doesn't have big issues. You'll pay as much as the machine work for a running engine. All the parts to rebuild an L28 are availible at the parts store Autozone/Napa/Etc. So yes you can rebuild whatever L28 you get, but you may not need to if you find a good one. Now there's a lot of combinations for heads and blocks. Most of the 280Z's used the N42/N47 combination which is common. The later 280ZX's had the F54/P90(P90A) combination which was nice in that the Head was a hydraulic head so you didn't have to adjust the valves. Look on here in the Engine section about the Different heads and blocks. bu varying them you can change your comression by a goodly amount. If you do rebuild, besure to replace the valve seals w/ viton or some other that will work with unleaded gas.

Hey, like everyone else, I'd recommend just going with a Stock motor. You already have the tranny. If yours is a 4sp it's an ideal time to upgrade that too. Putting in a Stock Engine is really something you can do over a weekend if you can find one. You won't have to worry about emissions or any of the other rigamorole with changing to a different engine. Especially the costs. Now on a stock engine, You can do so much to squeeze more power out of it, and raise it's efficiency. Upgrading to an MPI will help MPG and power. Since you had a "turbo" engine w/o the turbo, you'll see a big jump there already. Now going for a swap. Sure you can do it, it's not for the faint of heart. If you love your Z, you should probably wait till you're better funded. Even a "Cheap" swap is going to be in the 1000's of dollars range. How are your Welding Skills? Do you have access to a welder? Almost all swaps require some welding, unless you want to go with bolt in pre-fab parts, but then you get into the $$$$ issue again. An example is the VQ mount kit from McKinney, It's just a few pieces of metal welded together in the appropriate positions, They want over $600 bucks for it. That'll buy you at least 2 stock L28 engines. Any swap will require a lot of changes too, Not just the engine, but almost always the Tranny, the Driveshaft, the radiator, the exhaust , fuel, and often the steering. These are in themselves not cheap. Not to mention the electricals. Those you should get with the engine, but are almost never complete. especially with newer engines. After that, you may need to get into tuning, which can easilly cost as much as your engine depending on the dyno time. Usually I tell people to just double whatever budget they're thinking of for their car. If I was you, and serious about doing a swap, I'd get a stock L28 and get your car going again so you can drive and take your girl out and all that, while you save up and start buying parts, the engine, and really get things ready. So when you're going to do the swap, you can get it done w/o the car just sitting for months. I can certainly tell you, from experience, that's a heart breaker right there. So if you want to do it, let us know, we'll guide you however you'd like to go. If you need help sourcing parts, I'm certain we can help you locate an engine in your area. Whichever type you go with. Oh and KROz's comment about the preggo GF, yeah, even planned kids really suck up a lot of your workshop time. I wouldn't trade mine for 100 Z cars, my daughter rocks. my Z suffers...

Funny, that's how I got my cats too.. "Take Two they're small... " But The Z bug is there, waiting to bite and suck unsuspecting gearheads into our fold. So, 30K on the Odo? How does it look inside: dash/seats and all that? I wonder if it was garaged, not many survivors left.

Can you see where's it's hitting? You may need to cut the mounts off the side L brackets and re position another .5 inch or so. that should give you the space w/o too much other modification. How is the steering crossmember looking now? Also, is the tranny bolted up, or is it still hanging too? if it is, jack the tail up a little and see if the hood clears. it's tight...

My old RX7 got decent mileage, BUT it didn't really matter just how I drove it, since I was always in the 5-8K RPM range. Most of the time I was gettign about 20 MPG on a 13B. I've heard that a well running L28 can do 25-28MPG pretty easilly. That's good for a DD. Now if you go with a 4 cyl like the KA24, or the SR20, you can get into the 30's depending on the weight of your foot. Again the Rotary engine, you'll need the tranny from it, because it's geared for higher RPM. A 20B would be great, but it's not cheap to get a hold of. I love the Rotaries, they're a pretty crazy design, but they are limited in a few areas. Biggest issue I've seen are burnt clutches. I'd love to see a hybrid electric powered by rotary. That'd be pretty cool. anyhow...

Well I've shipped a couple cars. The thing about it is that using a transport company can give you a good price, and take care of most of the issues in between, but really, They just contract with other companies or most often private truckers. It'd be best to get your insurance ahead of time through hagarty or some such, because you'll get cheaper pricing. The next thing to look for is actually a trucker who goes that way. talk to truckers at your local truckstop. They can get you hooked up with a buddy and likely save you some $ off dealing with a company. I'm not saying go without talking to a company, but dealing with a private trucker can save you money, but there may be more risk. Through a company I paid $1100 to ship my Jeep from NJ to Albuquerque. Through a private trucker I shipped an Eclipse from VA to Albuquerque for a little more than $700. Granted the weights are different, but the distance was about the same. Both cars showed up dirty, but intact. I've read the horror stories too, so it's a risk, but that's where the insurance comes from. Before pictures/inspection, then after it arrives what is the difference? That's what insurance is for. Likely it'll be fine since 1000's of cars are shipped every day. I'd recommend covering your car either way you go.

Yeah, 3500 isn't too bad assuming it's in good shape. Cars like that are $1500 or so out here in New Mexico, BUT the question is IS IT WORTH IT to YOU. Southwestern cars usually don't have the rust, but have been well baked. then there's shipping. In the end, you're the one writing the check. I'd expect you to do your homework. Look up on here about RUST. I know there's a ton of threads. I've written a few myself. The Paint, will the car is 35 years old. You can't expect perfection. But you said there's bubbling, That could mean RUST UNDER the paint, which could mean a lot of sanding and stripping before repaint, or maybe it's just a little spot to sand out and touch up The frame rails and floor pans are notorious. In the end it's your money. just know that project cars are not CHEAP. You can expect to double your budget for repairs. Look at the rubber, is it cracked? replace. look at the seats, Any tears, is the vinyl hard, or cracking, or is it still supple? Vinyl replacement covers are a few hundred. Carpet? Depending on what you want, that could be up to $500 bucks. I'm not trying to talk you out of it, I'm just trying to make sure you know what you're getting into. Check out www.theZstore.com and www.arizonazcar.com for a lot of parts and costs. There's a ton of other parts distributors like BlackDragon and others... Take a look and make a list... then see if your budget still holds true.

Sounds like you know what you've got to do. I'm not sure I'd even try to deal with someone else's frakup. You might look at just finding a 240Z distrib to get the car running THEN swap to HEI or whatever system you prefer. You need 3 things to start: Fuel, Spark, Air. You swapped the Fuel pump, so pull the hose at the carbs and verify you have fuel flow. You already figured you don't have spark, so swapping in a 240z distrib, or finding the "pointless" ign distributor upgrade thread on here, you should be able to iron out the spark issue. Air is a no brainer, you're carb'd so throttle open you've got air. The "burping" started fluid could mean the timing was off. I'd suggest you verify it. Plug order is 153624 counterclockwise.

YEah, Especially if it's in great shape. buy it. I'm sure there's not that many S30's left in Canada. Even going back to stock shouldn't be very expensive. As for Rotary, The RX8 13b is a pretty great engine, but you'll eat clutches and you HAVE to use the Mazda tranny, since it's geared for the high RPM of the Rotary. now a 3 or even 4 rotor Rotary would be especially awesome.

Sure you can Drive it, But you're taking a risk. I would keep to the side streets and off the highway. It's probably fine since it's the rails, but as was mentioned, if the rail breaks free, you could be in for some fun.

I'd say you're lucky you didn't burn any wires. The positive battery cable should go to the right large post on the starter. The spade connector comes from the key and gives the starter the signal to go. The Battery Neg should be connected to the frame or to the engine block. Least-wise that's how my car was setup. You should also buy a new Battery. Too low voltage can do bad things.

yeah, Sounds like a Alternator to me. You've got your battery hooked up the correct direction I'm sure.

Sounds good. It does look like it's pretty intact. What does a Z cost in Alabama?

Hey CDSCowboy, Welcome to Hybridz, I'm glad you own a flamesuit, You may need it, but so far you're doing fine. We can help you with all sorts of information, But, we expect you to educate yourself too. It's great you've got a plan, of what you want and it sounds like you're capable. We love seeing pictures, So the more you can post the better, especially good pictures of what you're asking about. Go download the FSM for the S30, that'll answer a LOT of questions. Now for your suspension issues. Well it sounds like you're set on the Tokico setup, but that may be some time out there. Well that's fine. You just want something in the meantime. Well the stock suspension isn't that bad, though the springs may be a little saggy after 40 years. What you want is the Tokico right? Well don't waste too much money putting something else together. I'd recommend just going to Autozone or someplace and buying the generic Gabriel shocks and struts for the car. Obviously you can go with any brand, but OEMreplacement is good enough for a daily driver till you get the Tokico setup together. You could pay to have the springs replaced, but that's more $ that you don't necessarilly need to spend. I'd say keep your eye on the prize and get something that's "good enough" for now, till you can get what you really want. You may have already seen some of the other suspension packages out there, like the AZCar coilovers. There's a few other's that are worth looking at. As for your Engine swap: Since you know a bit about cars, I'm going to assume you know that a transplant like that is not all happy bolt on parts. You'll need to be familiar with both the Z and the S10 systems to make it work. I'm not going to go into it, since you've probably got a good idea already what you need, but my advice is to take it one project at a time. Get the car running on the new engine before you spend money on any other parts. Without that, you'd be wasting your time and money. So ignore all the suspension and such until after you have the new engine in place. Transmission: Now I understand that the tranny is free, that's great. But if your end goal is to have a T5 or better a T56, then you should look at what's going to be required for those. You don't want to cut up your tranny tunnel to fit the Automatic, if you're going to want to replace it later. An Auto is fine for a DD, sure, but you'll be pulling out pedals and such to fit it. If that's not what you'll want in the end, then why go down that road? A T-5 shouldn't be that hard to source fairly cheaply. Heck you may be able to make/buy an adapter to put the Stock S30 (upgrade to a ZX 5speed) tranny onto the S10 V6. I know that's $, but these 40 year old cars will take some $ to keep running. So I'd suggest you look for a compatible manual tranny, and use that. It'll save you a lot of retrofit costs down the road. Don't forget to keep the driveshafts for both cars, since you'll need the yokes. the 73' has an R180 Differential. That should be fine for anything the V6 can put out. but if you want an LSD, then the Subaru Diff swap is a good swap Fuel, The 73' was carb'd, so you're going to have to clean and mod the system for EFI pressures. There's a few ways of doing this, which you should be able to locate on this site. Now it's easy to get bit by the "While I'm at it" bug, but try not to buy a lot of spare/replacement parts, such as interior or mirrors etc, till you get your Engine in, and running. Swapping an engine isn't a minor job, as I'm sure you know. But with good planning you can complete it quickly. You just need to make a plan, and stick to it.