zeeboost

I just did this on my '83 n/a to turbo swap. Let's see: I didn't see the slave cylinder mentioned anywhere. You'll need a driveshaft with a rectangle flange (which I think is pretty much a driveshaft off an R200. I was unable to swap the pinion flange on this one. The R200 flange was too large for the R180. Since yours is a turbo, it will have the R200, and it should be a rectangle bolt-patterned companion flange. Crossmembers are interchangeable. Make sure you don't forget what Braap said, or you'll end up screwing yourself when the starter can't engage on the flywheel.

Here's my current project Z: 1983 280zx n/a to turbo swap. Basically, a while back I found a 280zxt donor that I bought for $250 - the owner didn't know anything about Datsuns and couldn't get it running. I went over there, bought the car from him, spent a few hours doing a basic tune-up, cleaned all the connectors, corrected the wiring on the TPS, tweaked with the AFM, and she fired right up. She still had to be trailered home, though, because after driving about 8 miles the LF wheel flew off - it was rainy, midnight, and I didn't trust the spare donut, so I called my uncle to help me get her home. The turbo body was pretty shot, so I was searching for another shell. That brought me to the n/a. It was owned by a 19 year old girl (she picked it out too, imagine that!). Every feature works, clean interior, minimal rust, but will need some bodywork and a paintjob. Only one problem: the n/a had a hole in the block (as seen in my sig). The dad said it was from running without oil. I asked her how 5 qts dissapeared out of the engine, and she began to explain to me that she took it to Jiffy Lube...I stopped her right there. From her story, what I was able to gather was she saw them drain the oil out, and when they lowered the car down the worker (I refuse to call them techs)called the other workers over there to check out the engine. They were hovering over the engine bay when the manager walked over there. Seconds later they scattered back to work and shut the hood. So, it was my assumption that the guy working on her car forgot about the oil. She asked her boyfriend what the red light meant on the oil pressure gauge, and his reply was, "It means you need to change your oil soon." She drove it for a month with that light on, and she was 20 miles from home after returning from a 300 mile trip when the engine coughed out a rod. After I tore it apart, I saw that two rods actually broke - #4 and #5, only the #5 managed to plow its exit out of the block. Here's some pics of the n/a: So, I bought it, trailered it to work, and swapped the L28et into the n/a shell. Since we had one tech on vacation that week, I decided to take advantage of the open lift I'm still having some wiring issues, but as a bandaid I have the fuel pump wired to a 12v switched source. Anyways, both the turbo and the n/a 280zxs were automatics, but I wanted a stick, and I had a spare T5 in the shop. I bought a 240mm flywheel and clutch assembly, slapped it all together, and couldn't find the driveshaft that came with the T5. Sooo, I took the turbo automatic driveshaft, cut the collar down to where there was approx. 1.5 inches of it left, and slid it into the transmission only to find out that the n/a had an R180 differential. So I traded some parts with a local guy for an R200 and halfshafts. Installing that was more of a pain in the butt than I had expected (hence my write-up on it in the drivetrain forum). I'll have to find another R200, though, because when I decelarate, you can watch the companion flange slide way out of the differential, and it makes a horrible whining/roaring noise. As of now, I've installed Konig Monsoon wheels on her and drove her home. Sorry for the dark picture - better ones will be edited in later. Future plans: I just received a BRE-type rear spoiler that I bought on eBay (same one as KTM - very nice car BTW), I should be receiving a set of tokico hp struts/springs this Wednesday. I'll be adding a front air dam, smoked headlight covers, and will repaint it with a black/red paint scheme (a little different then the current scheme). The biggest driveability issue I'm having right now is she feels very underpowered right now. I bought a boost gauge for her, and she's hitting 7 psi pretty quickly, but she just makes a lot of noise - doesn't really go anywhere. It almost seems like the cam timing is retarded, like it jumped a tooth back or something. I noticed there was some slack in the chain, so I'm going to look into that a bit further. Ignition timing is at 20* and a compression test showed 145 on all cylinders. So that's where I'm at right now. This isn't a technical post, but if anyone wants to chime in about the lack of power, feel free to.

They said drifting was just rumored, so I wouldn't revolve the VW around that plot just yet...

Gone

To make a long story short, I was recently burned on an eBay transaction and lost $200 on a couple of tickets for the Rock the Bells concert going on right now in San Francisco. You can still catch Rage Against the Machine and a few other bands if you act now. The tickets are at a post office near Sacramento, and the lady at the post office just called me to tell me that the address not valid, and the tickets are just sitting there. They close at 5:00, and I told her if I could find anyone to take the tickets, I would give her a call with the name. I would rather somebody use and enjoy them, instead of letting them go to waste. Reply to this ASAP if you want a couple of free tickets to the event. Someone please jump on this. Thanks!

Well that didn't work worth a crap...it helped the view counter, though

Huh, last week I bought some fender mirrors from another user in Thailand. They looked to be in much better condition, though. The seller told me he could probably get me other JDM things as well, but I couldn't really think of anything else.

Should look great

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=190138528823&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=009 Advice taken I'll see how well she does

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=112543

Wow, he's lowered the price quite a bit since the last time I saw those. IIRC, he was asking almost $3k, if not more. I remember it being in the $2k range for a while, then I lost interest. But now, that's a pretty decent price. Seems like it would be a PITA to find a tire to fit those.

I think the car is a great deal (minus the fwd), but the looks just don't really do it for me. I don't think it's ugly, it's just not something I would buy.

Which Z? S30 - You could work with it. S130 - You need it. I've had all the trim off one of my 280zxs before and it didn't look right.

Shots look great! I looooove the dish...freaking awesome, man!

Man those hums are annoying aren't they?? Exploders, Expeditions/Navigators, and the occasional LS . I have a few of those gearsets laying around if anyone is interested.

It's not much, but hopefully it will help others trying to swap their R180 for an R200. I searched this forum for some info on the swap and found one post years ago where Ross C mentioned something about it, so I'd like to elaborate a bit on it. A few months ago I purchased a 1983 280zx n/a that had a hole in the block (see sig) due to the previous owner driving over a month without oil. Since then, I've installed an L28et and Borg Warner T-5. The previous transmission was an automatic, but I was able to still use the same auto driveshaft; I just had to cut the collar to where there was about an inch left. However, the turbo driveshaft won't bolt up to the R180 because the bolt pattern is different. The turbo driveshaft has a rectangle pattern, while the R180 companion flange is a square pattern. I was just going to change the pinion flange, but after removing it from the R200, I saw that it wasn't going to have that much luck. So, I removed the R180 and halfshafts and installed the R200 and halfshafts...well, almost. There are two things you will need to modify to get this to work. One is the rear diff mount - you just need to ream out the holes (dremel) so the mount will slide over the larger studs of the R200. IIRC, the threads are M10 x 1.00, compared to the R180's M8 x 1.00 studs. So, once the diff mount can slide over the studs, you'll find a new problem: the stud that slides vertically through the center of the mount is too far forward, and will not allow the rest of the bolts to line up. Then I noticed that the stud came out of a slotted hole, so it looked like I should be able to slide it. Actually, you have to flip it: First I removed the two bolts and nuts (already removed) in the areas pointed out in this pic: Then I lowered the gas tank a bit...enough to slide this out: Once you slide the two bolts out, you will notice the stud is very loose. Now you need to get under the rear hatch carpet, where you'll see a black square pad glued down to the center area of the rear hatch. You need to remove the square, and then pull the block out that was underneath it (sorry, that was the best way I could think of describing it) - this block has the diff stud on it. Since the stud is offset in the block, simply flip it around and re-install it. Now the differential will be able to bolt up without any issues. I now realize I should've taken more pictures, so if you need me to draw anything else out or if you're confused about something, I can take some more pictures if necessary.

Let's see if California can up the ante... I know Texas, as well as a few other states, also increased financial penalties.

Bah!! You don't mention this until AFTER the auction is over!

Yeah, I'm interested too.

In mine, at first all I could fit (as far as true duals go) were 2" piping. The engine didn't like that too well, so I ended up with 2 2.5" pipes joing into a single 3" right before the pipe goes over the cv axle, with a flowmaster at the very end of the system. I don't know if you will gain any more clearance by running the halfshafts versus CVs, though...I wouldn't think very much. I think your biggest problem will be routing them around the differential and axles - after that there should be enough room to run dual mufflers. I was going to just run 2 2.5" electric cutouts before the pipes joined together, but there wasn't enough ground clearance - she sits too loooooww.

Yeah man, I'm kinda stuck in the same situation with my '72 240zt. She's beautiful on the outside, but she's bubbling a bit on the rockers and those frame rails aren't too pretty. Sorry to hear this man, I know it sucks but check your floor boards and frame rails before you get too down about it. Helllloo camber!

My v8 280zx is a bit touchy in the rain, so I usually have to keep my foot out of it - I'm running 255/40/17 BFGoodrich G-force T/As with new tread. My '72 240zt drive fine with 225s in the rear and decent tread. My Ranger on the other hand...good god that thing is horrible in the rain.

The '05 4.6 is a 3V SOHC, not a 4v DOHC, so it won't be as wide. I've seen the 4v swap and it still makes me cringe - that's TOO tight for me. I'm not sure how the motor mounts and brackets are on the '05+ 4.6, so that's another thing I'd look at.

I'm about 6'4/5" and I've driven quite a few of those, but I never really felt awkward driving it. I felt comfortable shifting, but as with all mustangs of that generation, my left leg is still too closely wedged between the door and the steering wheel / multifunction switch.

You should be able to run a standalone more lean than you would with a factory PCM. From what I understand, running over 15.5:1 air fuel ratio will shorten the life of the catalytic converters, so they're programmed not to run that high. Also, I thought most standalones allow you to run closed loop with target AFMs. Correct me if I'm wrong...