BLKMGK

Is three inches enough to allow for some engine rocking? Also, did you use a restrictor in the heater hose like Ford did in the FOX cars? You might want to consider it as the FOX cars with 5.0s blew heater cores on a fairly regular basis with it and WAY more often without. It looks like a pipe plug with a small hole on it in the inlet hose. At leas the Z has an easier to remove core!

Is that a rollling cutoff like they do in Virginia? Anything 25 years or older is exempt here

I"m with Pete - use a relay on that puppy. the Z electricals are strained enough without us adding things to them. A relay will take nearly ALL of the load off the stock systems. I tend to use fuses rather than links myself but I'm far from an expert on which is better or why. Pete if you know more about the Cobra setup please do tell. I expected this fan to be two speed but instead it appears to be single speed with two hot inputs. The motor is supposedly Cobra. No matter, it blows like mad and I expect ZERO problems with cooling my beast. If I could get two speeds I'd be much happier though...

I know weight effects handling but is it so bad you'd turn down a more comfortable car if it was available? I don't think most of us drive 10/10ths often in these cars - at least I hope not If I wanted a 280 and folks told me it was too heavy and that I should buy a 240 instead I'm not sure I'd be persuaded just on that basis. With HP as easy to build as it is a few hundred lbs, to me, just isn't that big a deal. Having said that - I'm not loading my car up with crap I don't have to. I've dropped the bumpers for glass, moved the battery, bought sort of light wheels, gone to coil overs, and chose lighter calipers than others. I almost did a cro-mo cage too! I'll save weight when I can but I'm not sacrificing things like sound deadener. We're not Hondas here - we can make power without $200 "air pipes" and $600 "headers" If a Miata or RX7 beats me through a turn I know the straighaway is just a little further away

The middle gauges aren't the smallest ones but the ones one size up - the sort of "standard" sized ones. My site has some details on installing the middle gauges so that they're "solid" and mounted to the stock NISSAN mounts. The 5inch gauges are actually not quite big enough and you'll have to monkey something to get them in. I used some silicone as have others but you have to be careful that it doesn't show and that things are straight. Be advised when getting a tach that you don't HAVE to get the "in dash" models. I bought a regualr tach with an external light and remote mounted it. An add-on box from Summit let's me make it peak hold too speaking of gauges, as some may recall i want blue lighting. I just found out that for an extra cost Autometer SELLS blue "skins". That has GOT to beat the marker I've been using. don't know cost and have never seen them on their site but will be looking next week.

Umm, I don't know where you've been reading - what truck tranny and engine? If you want a TBI injected engine the trucks have them but their transmissions are probably completely different and NOT a T56. If you've heard of a T56 in a truck somewhere I'd be interested in hearing about it as would others I'm sure.

Umm, I have no "stub". The B&M stick is ALL one piece (grr!). Stainless steel too so I'm unsure how easy to weld it might be. On top of that it's not straight so machining the top down might be hard. I'll try a stock style knob first - the height is actually looking "okay" but hitting reverse past the lock is otugh. On th eplus side B&M makes this thing so it can be slid a noticable amount for and aft on the trans - way cool! I've got it slid all the way back for me... Oh and the top of this handle is really BIG aorund which is why I'm hunting a stock style ball as most of the knobs I've got around don't have a prayer of fitting. I wanted something stock looking but... I did replace the boot though - looks decent but I paid too much through MSA for their leather boot - it's a generic replacement boot instead of one made for the Z as their catalog seemed to indicate.

Whew, thank you Dan! Maybe we can polish it up some with the experience others have gained from doing this swap since my writeup... Make sure you use QUALITY relays when you do this - good wire too. The Painless wire is awesome and sold in Jeg's. The relays will be under a pretty heavy load for possibly hours at a time and th elast thing you want is to "lose" a relay while driving. I'd urge you to use two exact same relays too with a holder for each. This way if the low beam fails you can yank the low beam relay and swap them in a pinch. I've built a little relay tray for my car to handle the fan and headlights - unfortunatly they aren't all the same and I worry a little. With a couple of relays and a little wire you shoudl be set right up. Please let me know how it goes!

Heh, would you believe that MY bodyshop bill estimate STARTED at $5K? That was for a fairly rough body. I was REALLY depressed and nearly bought a Sunbeam Tiger that weekend. Then I spotted a Z even closer to me, flipped a coin, and ended up buying the Z. It cost me about what the bodyshop bill was and was probably a little high but it had a NEW interior, Panasports, slightly upgraded brakes, Recaro seats, and ran fine. Oh, it had an R200 too that I didn't realize. Body was nearly perfect and while I've found SOME rust it's stuff I can take care of later (front fenders). I took off what I didn't want, sold it, let my other car go after mostly stripping it (BIG loss), and pushed on. If that bill is too high for you consider finding a Z in better shape. Bodywork SUX and it takes real telent to take care of. Worse, bodyshops will yank you all around - witness Pete's experience. my car had a set of glass bumpers and a hood put on. That "one week" job took a month and cost me way more than the estimate called for. Bodyshop bills NEVER go down, always up so consider that too. Does it really need the bodywork? Could you find another car? Questions you have to ask yourself and as Pete says - "it's just a piece of metal"...

Since we're talking shifters... anyone got one of those big Camaro balls for the stick? I've not got a shifter ball and want to try using the B&M shifter as-is before cutting or bending it up. It looks like it just might fly...

Guys... with all of the HP we're dumping in these cars do we really give a fig about a few lbs? I mean really, an extra 100lbs is nothing to sneeze at but the power to weight on these cars is sick. I've got a 240 but now realize that the 260 had an interior console that I liked better - if I'd found one I'd have done it instead. We're goingto spend timie driving these cars, if the 280 interior is really the one you prefer I'd go for that instead and just add a few more HP to compensate. Obviously if you're doing SCCA track days and really "racing" then the weight isn't desired but most of this is fun and street driving. It also boils down to what's available. People seem to hate 260's and they carry a stigma - that works to our advantage since we replace anything that causes a problem Just my .02

ARGH! SuyperDan please post my headlight relay upgrade tech article back! Whew, okay. Here's the deal - power flows from the battery through the lights all the way through your switch. the switch ages, brushes corrode, it all gets old, and the switch will even begin to heat up. Do NOT simply upgrade to the Hellas! Get an upgraded relay harness. I used the Painless Wiring one and it was a mistake - too expensive but very nice. There's another company that I mention in my tech article that has a BETTER harness for our purposes who's name I don't recall (Dan please...). Do this harness upgrade FIRST. I'll bet that your old lights look like new when you're done. I've got Hella H4s in my car and the difference was night and day. No longer was my brand new switch BURNING but my lights were WAY brighter on LOW beam. High beam is incredible. I got probably 4 volts to my lights by doing this and you may get even more if you're are in worse shape. Trust me, it's easy and worth it - buying a kit makes it fast too. I prmise that if you've got voltage coming out of your switch and a decent alternatorbattery that you'll be shocked at the brightness difference. It's really noticable. If you goto higher wattage bulbs now you'll simply burn things up, with the lowered voltage I know there's high resistance in your wiring and I know that burning the harness would occur. Do the harness first, if it's not bright enough do the lights next. I only wish there was some way I could have documented the difference easily. With the rash of headlight questions lately I really wish I'd kept a backup copy of my tech article. If Dan can't find it I'll try to reconstruct it from the photo's I've got and double check for my text.

For those of you building EFI Fords I just spotted soemthing cool in a Ford mag. SDS is coming out with a plug-in replacement for the EEC-IV EFI computer. Sweet! They're working on one for the 4.6 too but it's not out. US price is something like $995 for the EEC-IV. You'd still have the wiring to do but I think it's a decent computer to consider and would be nice and sanitary. Probably removes the MAF though which is a downer but also cleans up the engine bay...

Just paste the URL in and let the BBS software take care of it. With a graphics URL where you want the pic to appear use the buttons down below when posting to set it up right. That being said Neat idea and I'm surprised they didn't post this here themselves. Not sure I like the "chrome" decal myself. Reminds me of the stick on lower rocker garbage the ricers use. I'll bet they could do custom stuff if we sent them a design though. I'd rearrange it to say V8 Z too (shrug). Nice catch on E-Bay BTW - I'd have never spotted that sucker out there!

Ya' that price is the 18inch unpolished unit. I'd link it but I'm away from home and can't recall the full URL sebringsomething or other Mike shot me a quick note and said it was a little louder than he thought. 18inches makes getting under the rear a bit tough. I'd hoped a 14inch would be a better choice but not if the 18 is already a little loud. The price is right - th elook too I think. I'm waiting to see final pics and find out how fast they can ship - I'm in a hurry now

Pete... he's looking for an LSD but yeah th ecutoff might have been 88 I'm not sure. If these are 280s they won't be LSD unless someone monkeyed with them. Grab the CVs even if you've got the 240 stuff as the CV are stronger. I've got U's myself but am working on getting CVs so I'll have a plan if my U's break or should I say when?

Ya' I think they're fragile - I own an FD3 too Still, they make good power if you take care of them and a turbo 2 rotor would be very nice. I'd think there would be tons of room but beware one thing - torque. Most of th eZ rears are in the 3.336 to 3.90 range with 3.7 being found in LSD. The RX7 uses a 4 series gear I believe and that's due to the rotaries lack of torque. You might have to seek out a 4 series gear for the Z and it could be expensive. Just somehting to consider but I think the rotary would fit - fits in darn near everything else!

Mike shot me some pics of the Sebring muffler. That muther is pretty big and will be visible from the side. Still, I like it and the price is right! If it's not super loud I'm THERE! BIG 3 inch exit and it's all stainless baby. Can be bought polished or raw, I'm thinking polished for that added rice look. If it's too expensive polished I'll polish it myself - stainless is a bear though. Think I could find a Folgers tip for it? So far all the tips I find have tiny inlets (lol). Clearance under the control arm could be an issue - we'll see. Mike's plugging along and I'm eagerly awaiting his thoughts on it when it's all bolted up. DISH is fixed, previous guy was an idiot but my signal is still lower than I'd like on one bird, I'll tweak that later now that I'm hitting both birds. Spoke to exhaust shop - no problem! Spoke to friend with trailer, he'll help! Now just need muffler By this time next week I MAY be on the road if everything works out. I'll take time off of work to take care of things and try to get it done. Would love to hit the Saturday cruise as a coming out and take it to work too. My coworkers are bound to be tired of hearing about it but my manager is a gearhead working a project too Hrm, maybe test fit hood on Sunday. I am SO excited!

Neither will have an LSD. LSD are found on 86.5-89 Turbo 300ZX. Avoid the pearl whie special edition SSE model. LSD come in 3.7 only unless you're buying an R230 from a later model Z and that swap is still being worked out. I'd grab the CVs if they're in really good shape and for a reasonable cost. I don't know what the ratios would be. The brakes migh tbe worth something too - I'm not sure.

Heh, looks great until the car is lowered and encoutners a speed bump. I've seen about 4 sets of those fiberglass skirts cracked all to hell from speedbumps and such! the funky U turn th eexhaust has to make has got to cost som ehorsepower too. Looks really sweet but there are a few more tradeoffs involved that I think I'd want

True the JTR book isn';t as thorough as we'd like on the T56 swap. However if you get the TPI book it's got all the detail you need I bought both If you liek a stick, do it. We can tell you what to do in order to put it in if you don't want to do an auto. Just make sure that you use a trans with an overdrive and NOT one of the manuals that have an external linkage as those can require some nasty tunnel mods. Truth be told, my T56 went in with a bare minimum of tunnel mods and I was pretty surprised. No cutting, a little banging - that's it! Clutch masterslave was easy too once I got over th eidea of tapping a piece of plastic (shiver). It looks like it's going to hold up fine! It's up to you. I honestly don't think an auto would be any easier than my stick. It would probably be a bit faster and more consistant but I like to feel like I'm driving the car and I wanted the deeper overdrive too. To each his own...

What trans? My T56's little shifter "stub" form th estock shifter poked up through the hole even without the rest of th estick bolted on. That being th ecase I don't see a custom bent handle buying you anything. A T5 would likely be much the same way. To really do it "right" I believe you'll want to do the JTR setback.

Sweet, big article with pics on working with CF Step by step instructions - my issue just came in the mail this afternoon. I've not yet read all of it but info is info

Bloop bloop is what accompanis th efireballs out th ebottom - it's lighting off the fuel. It just won't quite catch and run is all. starter still hangs once in awhile and doesn't "kick" right but it's mostly okay. I had the woman in the car once before but once in awhile it makes a REAL deep "bloop" and it sounds like a grenade going off - she was done after that (lol). I'm going to turn it over by hand and stick something into the cylinder to check for TDC. I've got room to advance but NOT retard the timing so I might have o move the distributor yet again. No biggie, I no longer fear doing that but getting the oil pump shaft lined up can be a bear sometimes. Glad to hear I was right about where the vacuum can is pointed. I was pretty sure I was right but I've been proven wron before. It's close, I'll get it closer and then get some friends over to help. Doing this all by myself is a real PITA. with friends and an exhaust I can crack open the throttle easily too. It might just need some air is all! As you might guess I've not had to start many brand new machined engines (ahem). I'm trying to be patient but man it's tough - I'm going to be bouncing off the walls this weekend if I end up out of town! Me wanna' go Vroom Vroom all night long! Bleed front brakes and measure for a fan belt tonight, no fun but it needs to be done.

351W EFI motors are found in trucks like the Lightning, vans etc. but the Lightning is the only one that had the good intake so far as I know. It also had batchfire injection using a MAP sensor. You'd probbaly be best off buying a Lightning motor or building your own EFI motor which is what I did. The intakes are easy to find as are the fuel rails etc. Most everything is 5.0L related and easy to find except the intake. Late blocks are roller capable too using 5.0 components and cams. DO use th e5.0 computer and chip it as the MAF is better along wiht full sequential. I don't recall what the distributor comes from in that case but it has to be modified slightly to take the hardened oil pump shaft. Yeah, I've been down his path myself It was in a Mustang though....