Ironhead

You ever have the feeling with these car projects, that you are working your ass off but getting nowhere....or even going backwards? I got tired of stitch welding the body shell(mind numbing PITA of a job, far worse than I expected), and I got the rest of my diff parts from Japan, so I was hoping to finish setting up all the diff parameters and buttoning it up...you know....so something was "done". As anyone who has done this knows, it involves a ton of assembly and disassembly checking bearing tension, backlash, and gear contact pattern. Well, the last time I was taking it apart, o

Good to hear....I am not clear how the 4.6 ring and pinion was used in its OEM application, because it needs more shimming than would be met by any of the Nissan shims I can find part numbers for...if that makes sense. I think most of these 4.636, 51/11 R/Ps came from the front of Nissan Pathfinders....but the parts diagrams don't list any particularly thick shims, so I assume the front diff case was just different in terms of spacing. By my calculations....I am going to use 5.32mm ...total...shims as a starting point. Thanks for the input....good to know we came to the same

I'm going with the T56 with a .64 ratio 6th gear, which brings top speed (6500 redline) down to 166 or thereabouts with the 4.636 final drive. Otherwise the chart I used gave about the same results as yours. This will be strictly a track-day type car....very little street driving....and my goal was simply to gear it for most flexibility within the speed range I am likely to use on track (roughly 40-140 MPH). My current track car has a 5-speed and a very peaky engine, but with its current gearing I never use 5th gear at all on track, while I would benefit from more gears as it only makes

Sorry, I didn't word that too clearly. This is the crate engine I am referring to: http://www.chevrolet.com/performance/crate-engines/ls376-525 I was wondering about whether the exhaust manifold it comes with would clear the stock steering shaft, Hoke motor mounts, etc.....or if I would likely need to go with some sort of header. I wasn't asking about the intake manifold.

Sorry if my question/wording/presence here somehow fails to live up to your expectations. Not sure what else to say about that. As far as sharing my solution, all I did was to bribe a hoarder buddy with beer, dig through his leftover shims, and through pure luck found a pinion pre-load shim that will work for me. I didn't think posting that would add much to the forum, frankly. Agreed. I have been pondering the ratio choice also, Jester. It is going behind a T56 on an LS3 powered track car. According to my calculations with the T56 gearing and the tires I will be using

I just re-read what I wrote in the first post Zed....and I honestly don't see how I could make it any more clear what I was asking for..... You absolutely need certain shims to set up the bearing tension and ring/pinion interface in a differential. How was that not clear? Since these parts are "NLA"....and since people on this forum (probably thousands) must have confronted this as they worked on Nissan differentials...I just hoped someone here had a workaround. I realize now I was "wrong"....but I must say the request still seems clear to me. Softopz....thank you for the suggesti

Everything is looking great. Do you have any idea if any of the various stock LS engine manifolds tend to work on "Z" conversions? I am looking at using the crate 525 HP LS3, and since I don't really want/need any more power...figured I would just use the stock manifold....if it fits the conversion.

Thanks to all who offered advice...LOL...but nevermind I think I have it figured out.

If it helps you, I used a Recaro Profi SPG XL to test fit into the car....that is the "fat guy" model that is both wider and taller than the standard seat. It fit into my car fine. I moved it as close as possible to the trans tunnel (almost touching) so I would have room for door bars on the other side, and it looks like there will be plenty of room. I have read other people's posts about problems fitting racing seats into first gen Z cars, and I am not sure what they were referring to. Even the SPG XL seems to fit fine in my car.

I am waiting on parts from Japan to finish setting up the differential, so I have gone back to body work. Despite my rosy predictions, I did come across a small patch of rust under the rear corner of the passenger side door. I am certainly not complaining...considering the state of rot of cars that other much braver souls are tackling....but it is what it is and it had to be dealt with. The outer rocker panel had some small pinholes where it had rusted through (that was the only way I found the issue) but after wire brushing the rust o

I am currently building an R200V from a 300zx with a lot of changes, including OSG limited slip with Skyline GTR 6-bolt axle stubs and a 4.636 ring/pinion. So far everything is going swimmingly, except that with all the swapped out parts there is no way the original shims are going to work. At a minimum, I am going to need new pinion height shims and new pinion bearing pre-load shims. No sure yet about the side bearing shims. The problem is that all my inquiries into these parts have been returned "no longer available". How are people handling this? Is there a source I am missing

"Life" has sort of taken over lately, and I haven't had a lot of time to work on the "Z". In the intervals I have had, I decided to tackle the differential build rather than get into body work. I picked a R200V differential from an NA 300ZX as the basis for the build, even though I initially thought with an LS3 build I should go R230. The problem with the R230 is that the final drive is much too tall for my intended gearing and tires....redline in 6th gear (T56) would have been somewhere around 220 MPH (yes I know it would not go nearly that fast) and I could not find any available ring

Looking great... I wish I was even CLOSE to that point with mine...

American Stripping Company in Sacramento. Very happy with the work they did. They took off all the undercoating as well....although I had to remove the seam sealer myself as it is largely resistant to the blasting process. The only problem with having the car blasted, is getting the remaining blasting media out of all the nooks and crannies. I still have a lot of it falling out of the frame rails, etc. Not a major problem, but definitely annoying. The only other alternative is acid dipping, which definitely brings with it some potential issues as well....from what I have read

Just wondering, what diff and CV axles are you using?

Just working on replacing damaged or otherwise ugly sheet metal. This is the first time I have ever done any sort of bodywork, and I was a bit apprehensive about how it would go....but so far it seems pretty straightforward. I am spraying the back of the "blind" panels with epoxy primer before I weld them in, but obviously the welding will burn off the epoxy in the immediate area. Any suggestions for rust proofing the resulting bare metal on the backside of the panels, since there is no longer any good way to get at it? I was going to spray in one of the "cavity

Great work....I have huge respect for your bringing that shell back...I honestly think I would have run screaming from that one. BTW...I like the larger pictures. The earlier ones in the thread were too small to really see what you were doing.

Car is back from media blasting and has been epoxy primed. No real surprises emerged, except it had a fairly substantial dent right behind the driver's door that had been pulled a bit and heavily bondoed. Also the rear hatch had somehow been damaged...was all rippled....and will either need bondo or replacement when things go back together. The only rust was the small spot (2"X2") under the driver's seat that I mentioned in my last post, where someone probably spilled a beer in 1977 or something. Nice knowing exactly what I have to work with now, and also nice that

Great to see, and very timely for me. Outstanding work prepping the chassis. I am going along the same route but am far behind you. I was about 80% convinced I was going to use the Hoke kit and I think you just sold me the rest of the way. Branden, not sure what you mean by remote bleeder...? You mean for the clutch slave cylinder?

Project is in total disaster mode. Found rust on the driver's floorboard. Game over. Actually just wasting time. Don't have a real update. On waiting list for car to be media blasted.

Just more boring teardown photos..... Car is completely dismantled, and again I am very happy about the condition of the OEM metal. I will have to check "rust repair as needed" off my list of jobs. It does have bowed up floorpans from improper jacking/lifts, which I hope I can address with a 5# rubber mallet and a section of 2"X4" lumber. Next on my list is removing all the assorted brackets/harness attachment points that I won't be using, and wire brushing off most of the seam sealer in preparation for media blasting. Thanks for looking.

Just a small update....been spending the past week gradually disassembling the car. I realize this forum probably does not need more photos of dismantled Z cars, but for the sake of thread continuity, here they are. Big job, tearing a car down to every last nut and bolt. I have worked on cars a lot before but never a complete disassembly. More time consuming than I expected....and I expected it to be time consuming. So far shell looks good. Frame rails are a bit dented and abused, but still no sign of any rust at all. Thanks for looking.

As the title says....I am just starting the teardown on a '74 260Z that I am going to strip, media blast, cage, and swap in (probably) an LS3 and T56 6-speed. Here are pics of the car in its current form: The car clearly has had some cosmetic restoration work done to it during the course of it's existence, and some have expressed to me that it is "too nice" to do to it what I have in mind. But it really isn't all that nice. The paint job looks OK from 20 feet, but in reality it is a cheap respray with over spray on bumper rubber, glass rubber, and many