jhm

I'm assuming he meant strut tower bar.

Yep, I think most major car parts stores should carry them.....Autozone, Advance Auto, etc. Duralast and Cardone are two of the big providers for reman units, so anywhere that carries their line of products.

1) Relays....yes. They are an excellent addition to any high-load circuit in your system. I integrated relays into my starter, headlight, and running light circuits. Physically located them on the firewall in the passenger footwell. 2) Voltage regulator....should not need it. Any SBC in the last 30 years or so had an alternator with integral voltage regulator; and if your engine's older than that, there's a good chance that the alternator was upgraded somewhere along the way to include it. You can visually inspect the alternator to verify. 3) 3rd brake light....have you physically added a third brake light to your car? If so, then it should be wired into the same circuit as your main brake lights. If not, that part of the harness is not necessary. I added a third brake light to my car for safety, like this one: https://www.allpar.com/reviews/other/LED-third-brake-light.html

Someone here did something similar (full dash cap vs sheetmetal).....not exactly the same, but similar concept. Final product should be a good bit lighter than the stock dash. Skillard produces custom gauge pods, which may be helpful for your gauge mounting.

Yes, those areas are indeed highly structural. The upper frame rails are important for locating the upper strut mounts, and the area around the door mounts ties the upper frame rails and the rockets together (as well as providing secure mounting for the doors). It can certainly be replaced with stock metal, from a donor car. There are some good threads in the "Owners Builds" section about folks that have undertaken projects far worse than yours....so anything is possible with enough time, money, and effort. Yes, many people have replaced their entire front end with tube chassis (or partial replacement). It's not an undertaking for the faint of heart, nor is it typically done for anything but a dedicated track car.

I would agree with you and the others that the "clunk" appears to be the u-joints (or possibly even the diff itself....they are notorious for having a lot of slop in the backlash settings). A grinding noise is completely different. Put the car on jacks, run it in different gears (i.e. neutral, reverse, first, etc) and check the components individually with a stethoscope. If you don't have ready access to a scope, a long metal rod does a good job transmitting internal noises (I often use a long screwdriver or ratchet extension)....just put one end on the component and the other end in your ear. If you're hearing this noise while the car's in neutral, doesn't seem likely that it would be your differential. Possibly tranny or clutch, as you suspect.

Jon, what size allen bolts are you using? You can usually find pre-drilled allen or 12 point bolts for CV axles. Vendors like Swayaway and Kar Tek carry most common sizes in pre-drilled. Might be worth the extra expense just to avoid the hassle of drilling 2 dozen bolts.

FYI -- this is a forum for Datsuns and Nissans. You will probably have better luck posting your question on a Cadillac or GM forum.

Yes, those pictures explain a lot. I don't think Edan will be able to offer much help, given that your entire front end is custom. It may be possible to bend the sway bar, as JMort described; but I suspect it may be harder to bend wider than it would be to bend it narrower (especially with a thick bar, as yours appears to be). Custom end links might also be a practical solution. Universal sway bars can be had for pretty cheap, so maybe just look for a wider bar, and possibly one that will be adjustable to boot? It does not appear that you will be able to adjust those Silvermine LCAs any longer without significantly changing some other aspect of your suspension (e.g. LCA mounting points, sway bar mounting, the sway bar itself, etc.) And as Silverado pointed out, do you really need more neg camber (or track width)?? Good luck with it -- should be quite a nice track car once you get it all sorted!

MSA Auto is also a possible option: https://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/classic10e07/12-4250

Dave has closed up shop and moved on to other life pursuits. Someone may have one of his kits that they never installed and may be willing to sell to you... https://www.datsun-240z-upgrades.net/

MSA carries those same end links as well (slightly better price, too). https://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/classic20g/23-4115

That doesn't look like the stock crossmember. Has it already been modified or replaced with a different unit? If so, that could certainly be causing you problems (if the LCA mounting points are different than stock).

Are you proposing drilling new holes in the front crossmember and moving the mounting points onboard 1"? If so, I'd say that sounds like a pretty bad idea; in that it will hurt your front track width and camber settings. Have you contacted AZC to ask them what the problem might be? Different end links might be the answer, but it's hard to tell from that picture.

The fact that it's a '71 kind of works in your favor....electricals in the early cars was a whole lot simpler than for the later years. If you have a buddy who's comfortable working with auto electrical systems, may be worth asking for his or her help with this. Buy yourself a good multimeter and test lamp....you're going to need it if you decide to fix things yourself. The "Engine Electrical" chapter in your FSM will define the correct wiring for starter motor, etc. The "Body Electrical" chapter will help you figure out the wiring for gauges....there is a separate harness for the dashboard ("Instrument Harness") that may be buggered up; or it could a simple matter of poor connections at the connector block. If you're blowing fuses the instant you connect the battery, stop. There are shorts somewhere in the system and you need to isolate those and rectify them before they cause a fire. Poor grounds are very often responsible for electrical malfunctions in these old cars. People will often find that an accessory is not working simply because the ground had corroded and just needed cleaning up. Good luck with it.

You're the only person that can make the decision whether to install a new harness or fix what you've got. It will depend on how bad the current harness is, how much time and effort you're willing to put into it, how much you want to spend on it, how long are you planning to keep the car, what other mods are you planning for the car, what is the desired outcome, etc, etc. My previous car was also an SBC conversion, that had been badly screwed up by multiple previous owners. I chose to fix it. It took a lot of time, but I know the electrical system inside and out when I finished. On my next car, I did a complete rewire because I knew that I would do it right, and I had already stripped the car down to a bare shell....so that was an easy decision.

Two solutions that I'm aware of.... 1) Get Futofab's Sti conversion stub axles: https://www.futofab.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=173:r180-sti-stub-axles&catid=38:datsun-drivetrain&Itemid=122 2) Get a set of R160 side axles for a 510 and machine a groove in them for the clip (assuming that your VLSD R160 already has the circlips internally).

What year and model is the car? And do you have the FSM for it? If not, you can download free FSMs at: http://www.xenonzcar.com/ If those two leads are for an indicator lamp, and they are still functional, you should be able to test them with a multimeter. The black would show ground, and the red would show voltage in a specific situation (e.g. when the car is in Reverse, or Park, etc).

Those don't appear to be OEM wiring (i.e. some previous owner put those in aftermarket); so you're really just going to have to trace them yourself and decide how to deal with it. If they were done correctly, the black should be a ground and the red would be a hot lead. Perhaps they are there for an accessory of some sort? Any OEM wiring for the starter should not be anywhere near the shifter, unless the car was originally an automatic perhaps?

This is a forum for Datsun and Nissan Z cars. You would probably be better off posting your question in a Subaru forum.

I believe Hung Vu and/or Minh Vu are selling nice new repro dashes in both fg and cf; they advertise on several of the S30 pages on FB. Minh is also here at HybridZ....username @grretc.

SOLD.

TREMEC has a cool little app for your smartphone that might help -- under the name "Tool Box", IIRC.

There could be numerous causes of "clunking" in the rear portion of the drivetrain. The diff mount is certainly one of them, but there are many other potential causes. Fortunately, there are several discussions in HybridZ on this very topic over the last several years -- you'll find lots of good info in them. Go over the entire drivershaft, differential, half-shafts, suspension, etc checking for worn bushings and/or loose hardware (nuts and bolts). A popular upgrade you may want to look at is replacing the stock diff mount with a Ron Tyler-style mount. It's a much more elegant solution than Datsun's stock lower mount and rubber strap. You can sometimes find them used, or Technoversions still produces them new: https://www.technoversions.com/DiffMountHome.html?. Good luck with it, and welcome to the wonderful world of old Z cars.

Yep, more leverage and heat should do it. And who cares if you snap the bolt(s)? Easily replaced. Worst case, you can grind/cut it off if nothing else works.