flatout

spend tons of time last week doing body work. I am TIRED of sanding. Saturday got the whole car in epoxy. Spent 13hr sunday, and 5 hours monday, block sanding and some final little body work touches. Weather got cold for some reason so taking the next couple days to dial in the last of the little details and hopefully later in the week get some color on this thing. I thought i had a good size garage until I need to hang 16 things from the ceiling for painting. A friend let me park my truck at his house. My 240 i just keep moving in and out of the garage. and have the dailies living outside in the driveway during this process.

very cool. new tool are always fun. Love seeing how people process a challenge and overcome it.

Trickflows are a great choice. I have a turbo 351 so not a direct comparison but when I switched from GT40s to 11r 190s it made a massive difference. Unrelated to the engine. I weighed my stock 280z door today. Its gutted so I can paint them. so no glass, regulator, handle, lock, hardware, window frame ext. just a empty door shell. 34lbs.

it didn't occur to me that it could be something specific to this page but mine has been painfully slow for at least a month. Just assumed it was something to do with my internet.

Been a long week but got everything completely stripped and got some epoxy primer layed down on all the metal surfaces. have plenty of body work to do but atleast its sealed and protected now. Hopefully in the next week or two i can get the bodywork done and get some color on it. I did talk to john and his comment is "I don’t claim to be an expert on bonding. But in my experience cracking at a bond line is often due to inadequate surface prep both the underside of the fiberglass and the underlying metal), poor bonding agent, not enough bonding agent, cheap body filler, and/or excessive flexing of the unibody. On the other hand, I know a lot of guys who do the bolt-on installation. For performance applications, it can be an advantage for working inside the wheel well". With that said I think I will spend the time to make the fitment as good as possible and make a last minute decision based on how well it fits/looks.

Those are incredible. I'm with Mitchel on needing to know the weight difference. You gotta put them on a scale for us. Very interested in fitment and your thoughts along the way. They look like they allow for roll up windows and factory door handles too. very nice.

bolt pattern looks too small to. maybe just the photo?

I should give him a call. I've talked to him several time when buying the parts. I read the PDF off ztrix site to a body guy and he was not confident in the success. but John may have some better ideas.

I'm real hesitant to try and mold the rear fenders. I have mixed feeling of molded vs "bolt/riveted on". So many Z guys mold them but very little details on longevity, expcially from something that is going to see excessive speeds, heat, vibrations. ETC. Anybody have any real world longevity experiences and installation techniques?

Although this is supposed to be mostly a race car, this car is a example of what I can build so and don't like cutting corners so changed my plans and going a bit further than originally planned. Pulled the glass (should have done that months ago). pulled the drivetrain and started sanding. Cut the arches for the rear overfenders. welded in the rear marker lights, fuel filler door, antenna, and started smoothing firewall holes etc. Hoping to get it in primer ASAP and start on body work. Found a few "easter eggs" under the paint but nothing too unexpected. Going to take the engine apart for a health check since its unknown. Depending what I find will be what I do. Hoping to see a healthy engine and just do basics. JZ are tough so feeling optimistic.

I was hesitant to respond as i've never had a "stock" Z but this makes sense. Some newer cars need the cluster to have the alternator charge but glad it worked out on the Z.

I plan on boxing it all to the grill opening as well as venting the hood just behind the radiator. direct air in and give it a place to go. I have 2.87 first and .81 5th. I have this gearing in a 2jz 240sx with a 3.73 rear and pretty happy with the ratios. so i'll see how 4.08 rear gear works with it on the local tracks.

Cage is done. Driveshaft arrived. its comically short. i dont know if i even mentioned it in this thread. I bought the engine with a 350z six speed and tried to fit it and didn't like it so i switched to a tremec TKX 5 speed with a scatter shield. lighter, smaller, better gearing, serviceable. shifter position is great, and not 20+ years old. Mounted a 240z ebrake handle in place to help connect to the 300zx rear cables. Started getting the dash sorted. FIA bars are certainly making it extra challenging to do a clean install. Pedal box is in and throttle pedal is fitted. I don't know what the pedal is even out of but it was sitting in a box that came with the car so I made it work. feels good on the foot. Mounted the heater box to the tunnel. designed and 3d printed some ducts that go to the factory defrost ducts. i also added a small foot diverter for the wifes feet as shes always cold. Mounted the oil cooler. went thru a few ideas between laying it flat and ducting it, stacking it. putting one in the wheel well. etc. Although a 3 stack is not ideal i decided to try it. Can always move it around if its impeding flow to the coolers behind it to much. probably do some sort of screen infront of everything when its on track to keep debris from damaging it. Got my front valance quickly mocked up. I forgot the headlight buckets were a bit beat up so added that to the list of things to fix. drivetrain is basically all set so I am pretty close to pulling everything out and starting bodywork.

bummer about the bolt. pretty common SBF flaw. Engine looks good. TKX will be great addition. They fit the tunnel pretty well. I have one behind my 1jz

do you have a photo of how the front strut tower bar goes thru the driver side firewall? I'm in the process of finishing up my cage and was considering running a few bars thru the firewall like yours but the driver side has more stuff (clutch master/pedal) in the way for a straight shot. I don't know how tall you are but i stayed just in front of the wheel well for the main hoop and its definitely a bit tight for seat position so up on the rear tube will be helpful for that.

I have been way to damn busy last two weeks so haven't gotten much done. I did get to borrow a set of seats I thought I wanted, but they just really don't fit. being a full containment seat they basically stick out the window. I was also pretty disappointed with the quality. My buddy had these for one season in a drift car that lives mostly in a trailer or garage and they were already real faded from the sun and had plenty of little rips and tears after just one season. I ended up buying a set of kirkey intermediate road race seats. I have one of these in my other car and have put 100k street miles on it so figured id be happy with another set. I may add some head support pieces but for now I'm happy with them. Also think I got my wheel picked out. little teaser for now until I can get some tires and sit this thing on the ground

this is very cool, I will be following along. Love the custom work. I am doing a 1jz swap myself at the moment so nice to see another with another person fab ideas

I agree with Mitchel. You need to decide what end setup will make you happy and build towards that. With that being said you don't need to go all out and put yourself in debt to do it. If the purist in you says you need it to be nissan powered than that seems like it should be a priority. Do some research on the VQ. There are a couple good versions and a couple that you should avoid. I'm personally not a huge VQ fan but power, weight, balance, etc, should be great in a older Z. Modern electronics make a lot of these swaps easier. companies like wiring specialties or similar, should make generic "swap" harnesses for these engines and will require little integration into the chassis wiring if your not that comfortable with wiring. ApexEngineered makes engine mounts. Transmission options aren't ideal. CD009 are strong but gearing and shifter location isn't ideal in my opinion. I got one for my 1jz swap and didn't like it so went a different route.

Some modern cars run CV joints but the transmission usually has a fixed output flange. I've never seen a CV joint slip yoke. What angle is the engine sitting out? can you get away with tipping it back a couple degrees?

This isn't just a track only build, just track focused, it will see plenty of street time.

Thank you. a bit overkill but im happy with how it came out. I hadn't planned on making them but no reason i can't. I can get some material and when i get some down time i could make another one.

up here in the north east we get some great fall scenery for cruising but can get a bit chilly so the heater will be used for that aswell. but the defroster on a raining track day will be important. Thank you. love being creative during a build.

Got a few more things done last week. Made a driveshaft adapter to switch from the 1310 ujoint to a 1330 ujoint flange. now to order a custom driveshaft. The technotoys rear parts allow for some placement adjustment of the SN R200 so I made a spacer to slightly move it forward to align the axles better with the hubs. For some reason the diff itself is slightly crooked with their front mount so i'll be remaking that at some point but not a priority at the moment. havent ordered yet but got a good idea what seats im going to run so took some measurements and got the most of the cage tacked in. Harness bar height "should" be good but I wont fully weld anything until i have seats incase it needs to move up or down.

I sat in those tillet seats at PRI this year and was very impressed with the hold and comfort despite not looking like it would be either.

Got a few things done and checked off the list. made some modifications to the throttlebody and an adapter on the firewall to run a motion raceworks throttle cable. Made the firewall adapter have a 17mm hex to get it good and snug. This may be mostly a race car but decided to go with a small heater to make sure if inclement weather came up id atleast have a defroster. bought a maradyne universal heater to stuff under the dash. The JZ has the coolant lines on the driver side so decided to make this fancy billet firewall bulkhead. I have a couple aluminum fittings ordered and then i'll try and find some pre molded 90º hoses to fit up. The fuel rail that came with the engine appears to just be a cheapo ebay piece and the ends are cross threaded so i'll replace it. I went with a high flow 90 but may need to go with a banjo style as its close to my adapter. Started on the cage. but have been doing seat research before i go any further to make sure i can get the harness bar in a good spot. I am friends with a local youtuber so i took a ride down to his shop and sat in a bunch of his drift cars to get an idea of what seats i liked. now just to commit and hope i can make it fit in this tiny cabin.