Twisted46

So I finished the process of yanking out my dead SBC and replacing it with an LS. I went with the DD mounts and the engine sits pretty far off the firewall (realistically 2-3 inches) with the brackets back all the way. I had thr JTR kit and it was difficult to fit fingers behind the engine to work. Has anyone else noticed this? Maybe I am missing something. The quality of parts is great to be fair.

This needs to be added to the sticky, these look great for OTS. I have been looking at a lot of options and never came across them.

I agree with what is being said. If it is a street car stick with the rails and box up the front end. A cage has no place in a street cruiser. Cage it up if you are headed to the track.

I agree that adding strength to the frame rails makes a big difference and is probably the best thing you can do to street car, but is not the only option that gets you the same results. It also only addresses a single issue with the chassis and those using a cage are probably already past the point of frame rails. It is a good suggestion for street cars. However I do need to say for the safety of others that upgraded frame rails are NOT better or anywhere equal to a cage so please do not read this and think you can forgo a cage at the track. Apples and oranges.

Sadly there is very limited info around about the +2s as they have never been popular but the little I have gathered is actually good news depending on how you look at it. Due to the possibility but unlikely event that someone would cram some victims in to the tiny back seat, Datsun had to up the GVWR which mean adding more heft which of course means more weight but also more strength in the center of the car. This will help if you are upping the power and launching the car a lot and reduce torque flexing but it still does not solve the overall issues of the chassis. you still need to focus on the same areas as the coupe and if you look at my other thread the single biggest improvement is a triangulated front brace. All that said if you end up doing a full cage like me none of this really matters and you are just starting with a heavier car. I did also add angle iron along the length of the rockers but mainly for jacking purposes.

After trying the ZX "upgrade" I can't recommend it, I had trouble with caliper to rotor alignment and then overheating even with Hawk HT-10s. How that is with a ~400hp V8 but still shouldn't happen in a 30 minute session. I went with Wilwood and am happy now but I would stick with drums over ZX rears.

I cannot answer #2 if your question is what the stock cut spring rate is? The experts here will chime in. For #1, the short answer is yes. The long answer is maybe. Without knowing the use of the car exactly, it sounds like it may not be street driven that much. If that is the case you run less risk of "damaging" the struts on harsh bumps and pot holes. Regardless of use over damping a setup (taking load from the spring and putting it on the struts) is going to increase wear. How fast really depends on use and the specific combination. This is aside from the horrible characteristics associated with an over damped suspension. Do some reading in the FAQ section of springs for those Koni's but I would not use stock cut springs with anything other than cheap KYBs personally, you are just wasting money otherwise. There are several good threads here on sectioning and threading the strut tubes for a diy coil over setup and several vendors that sell everything you need. The struts are the expensive part of the operation so if you already have those the rest is pretty reasonable.

@heyitsrama I will certainly get some pictures of the firewall mount but It won't be apples to apples. I cut my OE hood latch out and welded in the plate your get with the JTR swap kit. There were already holes in that plate which allowed me to bolt the T3 mount up without issue. I can't comment on the rear brace as I welded my own up. And yes a welder is such a great thing to have That is a great find!

@heyitsrama 1. Hands down the biggest issue with these cars, I love my T3 bar but I am sure other work great too. Makes an unbelievable difference for the price. 2. HAHAHA, it is not funny but interesting that we seem to have the exact same issues with different setups, I used gorilla tape liberally and had no more leaks out of the filler neck. I am going fuel cell next season. because having to run in the sweet spot of fuel level is annoying at best. 3. I had the same issue , bowls would drain empty on the next straight after a tight corner. I have a Holley so the simple fix was raising the float levels just a bit and installing higher flow needle and seats. That does solve the problem but did solve the side effect. Good luck at the next event, we are already approaching below freezing at night here so car season is over Now for an update, and probably my last for a few months. The season finale started of great, car was running good and I wasn't having fuel issues. we were only going to get a half day since storms were coming in shortly after lunch. IMSA had just been at the track all weekend so it was pretty slick and the first two sessions were very short due to some black flags and wrecked cars. To make up for it they gave us a 40 minutes session right before lunch break and I was setting my best lap times yet, car was running great, I was feeling great. 37 minutes in and as I shifted into 5th on the back straight there was the unmistakable sound of an engine coming to the end of it's lift and lots of white smoke following. To make the story short I don't know what failed first but all of my coolant was in the oil pan and 4 lifters were completely disintegrated with pushrods down in the crank case. Watching back video the oil pressure looked fine and water temp never got over ~200. I don't have the engine pulled yet but I don't need to look at it to know the bottom end is toast. FYI solid rotors in front were fine during that session with good pads and fluid. As tempting as it is to just sell the car as is and move on, I know I could never buy anther for what I paid for mine and would never recoup 1/4 of what I have put in to it. So a new engine it is, and probably not another SBC as I am learning they are not the best for my application without a fairly expensive build. I feel like I have rushed this build just to get it to the track up to this point and have decided my best path forward is to take a year off an build it properly to be reliable. My initial thought is going to an aluminum LS motor with a new stand alone ECM to clean up the engine bay and interior and hopefully be more reliable, but my mind will probably change 10 times before I actually go buy a new motor. I am not looking to make more power just to make it more reliable living at 4-7K RPM. I did not intend for this to be a build thread but what the hell, may as well keep it going now!

I hate to be this person but bolt patterns and wheel fitment are probably the single most discussed topic in the car world outside of which oil should I use. Also you have posed question you posted does not have a direct answer. There are two mustang 4 stud bolt patterns; one is the correct spread and back spacing for an S30 and one is not, neither is unique to only the mustang. What you should do is search for the correct bolt pattern and spacing for an S30 (a huge thread lives on this site) and then make sure the wheels you are looking at match what is needed. If you come back with "will these 4x4.5 mustang wheels fit my 280Z?" the answer would be yes but the hub bore and offset may create issues. We need more details to give you a SAFE answer.

First off, sorry if this has been discussed but I searched high and low with no results. I am looking at using a Z32 N/A 5 speed on an LS using the G-Force adapter but am worried how far back that is going to put the shifter with the LS being snug to the firewall. Has anyone used this combo? I do not mind cutting the tunnel but just wondering if it is going to put the shifter in a bad location.

I would agree with NewZed, for someone that has already started the reinforcement journey I would be very interested in select pieces but not the whole kit.

Have you looked at APEX? That is where my money would go if I was going to drop that kind of money on a complete package.

Hmm, mine has an internal leak allowing fluid to flow between the reservoirs over time.

@jhm I have a rollover/vent with loop coming off of the top rear port in the OEM tank. I have never noticed any pressure build up, sadly my OEM cap is not very snug. I have been on the hunt for a new gasket but can't find them. I absolutely do haha, although I do not plan on doing a surprise engine rebuild again this winter

@heyitsrama As requested: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZMTusthPTrX-YXbRUJZl4vM3uAgz9SC8/view?usp=sharing Ignore the tires rubbing the front flares a bi-product of wider front track I will need to address this over the winter. Also ignore the very incorrect time stamp, no idea how I did that. So this was my first full lap out and sadly ended up being my best of the day. Coming on to the front straight to end my second hot lap I got black flagged for spilling fuel out of the fill cap. Sure enough it was soaked so I taped up the gasket and that fixed the issue. Session 2 I started good but got black flagged again because of smoke coming from under the car. Turns out a plug in an unused dipstick port came out and was misting oil down on to the exhaust, fixed that. I then started having fuel starve issues for the rest of the day that I had previously only noticed when I was running the fuel level too low but I was running around half a tank of gas (trying to prevent more sloshing out). Basically when I would get out of a hard braking/turning zone the engine would sputter if I tried to give it any throttle and AFRs shoot up in to the 20's. This was very noticeable down the back straight where I could get on it for corner exit but by the time I would shift to 4th I would basically coast along for about half the straight and then get power back. Obviously this killed my times and just threw my focus off in general and I ran in the high 1:50s the rest of the day. My assumptions are that either the stock pickup and baffle are just not able to take the Gs or have broken off. When I cleaned the tank they were in place but who knows. I don't THINK it is a carb issue because it acts fine mid corner and corner exit which to me rules out a slosh problem. It seems like the carb is not getting enough fuel during hard corners and uses up what reserve is left in the bowls before the system can catch back up. I testing the pump in car last night and it pushes 5.5 PSI and plenty of volume when sitting flat. I am already planning to add a fuel cell before next season so in an attempt to temporarily alleviate the issue I am going to run a bigger needle and seat to help with recover and try to properly seal the tank so I can run it near full without any issues. I know another quick fix is to raise float level but I would rather not. Good news, the brakes felt amazing and I had not overheating or dragging issues with the rears. I only have 1 track day left this season so hopefully I can get through it without issues.

True, The Subaru had 225/45 300tw rubber on 17x7 wheels. The Datsun has 245/45 100tw rubber on 16x8 wheels. I think the problem was down to front end geometry being out of whack and me getting used to the car. The tires are glue after 2 laps now and let me take corners faster than I am brave enough to. I will be sure to get some footage this weekend.

You guys that have long track seasons are lucky, we are pretty much limited to 5 months here and two of those you can almost grantee rain. I have 2 more weekends this year, hopefully those Wilwoods pay off!

Amen to that, part of the reason I went with SMM is because they spell out the calipers and rotors used in their descriptions along with useful specs. I priced it out as if I sourced all the parts from other big name vendors and the SMM kit was just a few dollars over me sourcing the best pricing I could find.Transparency is key to product sales for me. That said TTT makes some wicked stuff and I am happy with my purchases from them. I would love to know that too, it would be nice to have a baseline to work off of. I am running ~56/44 ATM and it feels great.

I get what you are saying but there are so many other factors that play in to bias like rotor diameter and pad compound and it seems irresponsible to tell a customer that.

I have a 280ZX setup that was on my car for over a year and worked fine with stock fronts but you will need to remove the proportioning valve and retention valve in the the MC. I recently upgraded to the SM Wilwood kit because even with $200 hawk pads they were getting cooked at the track. If your car never leaves the highway this won't matter. Please don't take what TTT told you at face value. I swapped an SBC in my garage and the rear disk swap was 10x more frustrating to finally get everything working. Also make sure you're aware of what is required to remove the backing plates. You need an adjustable prop valve. TTTs statement doesn't even make sense, if you don't need a prop valve then upgrading the fronts later would be pointless and throw off bias... Just saying There is a reason to swap to disks, just do it right or you will end up wasting time and money.

My main goal with the cage work was to protect myself but also to eliminate the work of the body between the rockers. There clearly isn't a lot of meat there so I tied the frame rails to the rockers at the T/C rod mount points and the roll hoop legs are only about 3 inches from the rear frame so that was an easy box weld with some plate to connect the rear suspension to the rockers. Door bars are there to triangulate the rocker structure and provide side impact resistance with vertical bars that come down behind the front seat brackets. I plan to add some material that connects those vertical bars to the tunnel and figure out something stronger at the firewall. I also want to add a bar that connects my rocker to TC bars to the upper frame horns. I don't expect to feel that difference very much but I do think it will be critical when running 400 in/lb springs. In other news, I got tired of the 280zx rear brakes overheating and went with a SM wilwood kit.

Good to know! I just got my Wilwoods in and will be putting them on next week.

I had a hell of a time getting my SBC V1.0 started on my first go around, replaced just about everything external to the engine with new stuff. Turns out it was way too retarded and any attempt to start failed or resulted in a backfire. Here is what I finally did and suggest that you do as well. -Remove #1 spark plug and valve cover (removing the timing cover is preferred but not easy) -Find top dead center of the compression stroke via methods already discussed (align crank and cam dots if you have the cover off, more accurate) -Take note of the position of your harmonic balancer "zero" line and mark it on the timing cover (I use paint marker) -Line up the rotor with #1 spark plug pole on the cap -disconnect vacuum advance -Rotate the distributor 15-20 degrees counterclockwise (if you have a clear cap this is very easy, I usually set mine so the rotor is resting just before the leading edge of the cap pole) It should fire right off, I use this method now every time I have to resent timing for various reasons and it works without fail. Now this is only a starting point and you will yield too much advance to most distributors but makes for easy first starts if you are doing a new engine break in. What I have learned is that it takes a pretty serious carb or intake issue for the car not to start AT ALL, running poorly is a different issue. If it still won't fire run a wire directly from the battery positive to the distributor 12v terminal and check your ground connections, the problems a bad ground can cause are immense and frustrating.

Had another good day out this past weekend, dry with temps in the 80's so it was near perfect. I beat my previous personal track record by 4 seconds and was hanging around with some prepped spec Boxsters, they were faster in the corners I was faster in the straights. I am going to have to go to different rear brake setup though. The 280zx kit has been giving me issues with dragging/sticking that is causing me to miss some track time to adjust and bleed, keep warping rotors. I don't think they can handle the heat and abuse of slowing the car from 140 mph so I am gong with the kit I probably should have in the first place, Wilwood 2 piston. Other than that I am really happy with the car's balance still. @heyitsrama I am running a fairly stock rear end with just KYB struts and German springs. I am planning on A-arms and coilovers this winter mostly for alignment tuning. I am not sure if you consider a suspension mod but I have a welded rear tower brace that ties in to the roll hoop I replaced every bushing with poly stuff. Also running no rear bar. In the front I have the same strut/spring combo with T3 NCRAs and the triangulated brace, and 280Z bar. The last two, and to answer your question, are mandatory in my book on a Z that gets driven hard. Those were my two latest additions and completely transform the car for a few hundred dollars. The best way I can explain how the car felt before is vague, disconnected, and unpredictable which I would attribute to poor suspension geometry (after lowering) and very weak suspension connection in the front. I think you could get to the same place with control arms but those are 3-4x the price of the NCRAs (comes down to how much adjustment you want) and . I don't know that the brace actually increases grip but it makes the car FEEL better and respond more consistently corner to corner which is worth way more that a few seconds off a lap to me. I have two conclusions (which are much the same as those before me) the S30 needs major help in front suspension connection (side to side) and frame to frame connection (front to rear) once you start eliminating the unibody as the main carrier for suspension loading the car feels much better. Second the front suspension geometry is a mess when you lower the car, I would wager that given the same spring rate a standard ride high Z is faster around a track than a lowered one, all other factors being equal.