Ineptitude01

Phil - These things are magical, no doubt about it. The stock bushings were, by this time, cracking and pretty worthless. The ride quality changed drastically, mostly (I suspect) because of the sway bar bushings. There are some nice guides you can google for that talk about the control arm bushings. To be honest, I looked at those, looked at what I'd have to go through, and decided that it could wait until I really tear down the car for its engine swap. Also, I never figured out what to do with the bump stops. Those are the other thing still left in the package. The tension rod did just snap out of the blue, though. I was driving along, minding my own business, when something under the car went 'thunk!'. I was pretty mad, because I thought I must have run over a big rock or something, but I realized something was wrong when the car started pulling hard right during braking. I think it may have had something to do with the fact that it's 27 year old metal and the bushings are really stiff. I also might not have torqued them exactly to spec, but I don't see how that could have made much of a difference.

Alright, here's a picture of the driver's side tension rod. The passenger side one is off the car, and floating around in the garage somewhere. I also need that washer.

Help me out here, guys. I know somebody must have a 280ZX parts car that wouldn't miss its tension rod, and I'd sure love to be able to drive my baby again. And if you're in the bay area, so much the better. Thanks, Corey

So a while ago, I drove up to the Marin headlands and bought myself a 1981 L28ET long block. It was a confirmed blown engine, and I probably should have waited and found myself one with a crank willing to turn... but it was cheap, and I just went right on ahead. My hope is that it may one day form the basis for an engine build to swap out my 1982 ZX's NA block. I've recently had a chance to get some good work done on the whole car, and I blew the dust off the valve cover and cracked her open. Now... the problem is this: I finally got around to taking the P90 off (which, mercifully, was pristine, and if nothing else will have made the purchase worth it) and taking a look at the pistons. Aside from a generally 'pleasing' aroma of burnt death, and the compulsory carbon deposits... I discovered that the pistons were arranged somewhat... oddly. As in, piston number one was all the way at the top of its travel... and really... nothing else was. In fact, the rest of them are all kind of... erm... down. I'm not quite sure what to think. The story the guy told me when I bought the engine was something along the lines of "Yeah dude, it was like, making this 'clangclangclang' noise, so I thought I'd pull off at a gas station and check it out, but it kept getting louder and louder until it went like 'BANG' (and this point he demonstrated by whacking his fender with a breaker bar; I winced)". This guy also was running 550cc RX-7 injectors and an aftermarket fuel pressure regulator (the kind of chrome crap you see on eBay for $5 advertised for Honda Civics). No tune of any kind. Of course, the turbo (stock T3) was DONE, having long since been beaten to scrap. Let's just say that I could measure the shaft play without tools. With this strong evidence of the PO's mechanical aptitude, I'm vaguely mortified that I'm going to put this up on the ol' engine stand and discover that one of the rods has made a desperate bid for freedom and ended up halfway through its cylinder sleeve. I don't have any pictures of the arrangement right now, but if anyone is interested I can go out tomorrow morning and snap one. Meanwhile, if anyone has any thoughts as to what I might expect from this crazy situation, I'd love to hear them.