wheelman

Bart, All you need to connect is the switched/non-switched power and ground. I grabbed the underhood fuse box from my donor so that part is fairly easy. It has taken me a lot of time to rebuild the harness but I'm getting to the last stages now. I'm starting to rebuild the actual battery connections and tie it into the Datsun harness. I'm replacing the original fuel pump connection to the ign switch with a connection to the fuel pump relay of the donor harness and using the hot side from the ign switch to connect up the switched power to the underhood fuse box. You can probably do the same thing, that is unless Tim totally rebuilt the LT1 harness to use different connections. Don't get to frustrated with it, at least Tim did most of the nasty work for you. BTW: Very nice looking install so far. I like the way you put the intake track together. I'm not sure exactly how mine will be configured yet but it will be similar to yours. Wheelman

zDriver, For hitting it going 30 thats not bad damage but it still sucks. I hit one several years ago in my truck coming back from deer hunting. Didn't get one with the rifle but did with the truck, except that road kill doesn't sound very good and it's also illegal to take in WA state. Anyway, didn't do much damage to the truck but it still cost me $1800.00 to get it fixed and I felt like sh!t for hitting and killing it the way I did. Much rather take one out with a clean shot and be able to enjoy eating it than hit and run over one. Wheelman

Well you know Aux the choice is always yours, you don't have to live in the Bay Area. If I remember correctly you're a network admin/computer geek which means you can find a job pretty much anywhere in the country. There are plenty of places you could live where the cost of living is low enough that you would be able to afford a house and have money left over to spend on your Z and other investments. Wheelman

What Dan said, but I do have to add that I'm using Headman tight-tuck headers and they clear with plenty of room with the engine in the JTR setback position. I ended up getting a ceramic coated set off eBay for $90.00. Wheelman

One thing to keep in mind is that the building owner might be the tight wad here. I own one apartment building and manage 2 others and it's not always the manager thats the problem. Fortunately the owner of the 2 buildings I manage is willing to spend the money to keep up on maintenance but not all owners are. Just my $.02 worth. Wheelman

Mike, Would Paul be willing to refine and assemble the tranny if you ordered the parts from G-Force and then forwarded them to him? Wheelman

If I remember correctly the main reason those spacer plates were designed is to provide more hood clearance for a tall air-cleaner. Bartman, You're correct, they do lower the engine in relation to the chassis which actually puts the crossmember and engine closer to the ground. The car's ride height will not change because it's suspended on the springs which support the car from the strut towers not the crossmember. With an LT1 you don't need them and other than make more work to correct the roll center height and driveline angles they won't benefit you at all. AWD92GSX, Even with a 5-speed you still have to cut the Datsun tranny crossmember ears out of the tunnel and beat the tunnel for clutch fork clearance, at least I had to, although now I'm able to push my engine all the way back until the heads hit the firewall without causing intereference in the tranny tunnel. I'm not running it that far back though because I want to be able to get at the bell-housing bolts without pulling the engine and if I go to far back I don't like the position of the shifter. Wheelman

Sparks280ZT, One thing I noticed thats common amoung all the vehicles you listed is the insurance companies rate all of them at a higher risk either because they are a 4X4 or a sports car. At least thats how all the insurance companies I've ever dealt with have ranked those vehicles. I personally think this young man should get a few years driving experience in a "turdmobile" before being turned loose in on the public in a sports car. But I'm an old geezer whos tired of aggresive young drivers cutting him off and acting like they own the road regardless of the car they're driving. That's why I'm building my Beast-Z, so I can be an a$$hole on the roads as well. JK. Wheelman

That is probably an LT1 and 80LT1 is correct it will have iron heads. They can be swapped for the aluminum for a reasonable price though. If you can get the whole motor and harness for 500.00 I'd do it, but skip the tranny as it's probably shot. I'm swapping the engine from one of those Caprices into my 240 and the tranny was shot in the one I found so I went with a 5 speed. BTW: The iron heads are rumored to flow about 20 percent better than the aluminum heads. Wheelman

Why couldn't a front mounted bar for a 260 or 280 be used? My 73 240 has the mounting brackets for the front mount bar already on it, did it come from the factory that way or did a PO add them? Wheelman

I don't think the problem is getting it in the engine bay but getting an exhaust system that will not hit the steering shaft and will fit between the framerails. Measure the frame rails on the Mark VIII and compare them to the rails on the 280Z. Let us know what you find as there are several of us that are interested in doing a modular swap into a Z. Wheelman

Use a modifed chevy driveshaft but that diff will probably need a different input flange if you try to use the adapter from JTR. I would get the radiator from JTR. I bought one along with the mounting kit and they are very nice. I'm getting close to finishing my LT1 swap. Here are the things I ran into that are a little different from a standard SBC install. 1. The Accessory drive must be modifed to work. I replaced the AC and PS with a plate that I mounted 2 pulleys to. JTR is working on a similar setup, in fact I got the idea from them. 2. I'm using a world class T5 so I had to cobble together a flywheel/clutch setup. If you stick with the 4L60E you'll either have to get an electronic speedometer, a speedo drive unit or convert the tranny to drive the speedo. If you convert the tranny you'll then have to figure out something for the vehicle speed sensor in the PCM. I talked to PCMforLess about programming it out but the 4L60E is controlled by the PCM so you'll need it. 3. The wiring can be a bit intimidating but it really isn't all that bad if you take your time. Get the entire harness from the donor car if you can and then delete the circuits you don't need. 4. A high pressure fuel pump is required and you'll want to either use a fuel cell or add some sort of baffling to the fuel tank. Wheelman

240zJake, You'll never see a BSOD from ME. It doesn't display a BSOD like all the NT variants do, it will just die on you. As for XP being a resource hog I have to disagree and side with Cozy, it will use all the memory available to it and then re-assign it as needed. I have run it in a VMWare partition with only 128 meg of ram and it was fine, a bit slow because I have a dual 500 MHZ machine but it was usable. Patzky1, When you buy that AGP video board be aware that some older MBs don't provide enough power through the AGP slot to drive them. I got an Invidia card for mine and ended up exchanging it for a PCI board because my AGP slot wouldn't drive it. Another thing, stop being so cheap and get a registered version of XP home. It's only $99.00 and then you'll be able to keep it updated with all the latest security patches. The DELL version has DELL specific drivers that might be part of your problem. Tannji, No app should be able to crash or hang XP. Anytime that happens its a driver or system service problem, unless you're running system hacking tools that know how to hook into the lowlevel guts of XP. If you're doing stuff like that which fall way outside the accepted Windows programming model then all bets are off. One thing all of you need to know is that none of the NT variants of Windows (NT, 2000, XP) use any of the bios for anything other than the initial boot. Windows scans all the hardware in the system to determine exactly which drivers to load. It has to do this because the bios is written to run in the very old x86 real mode which Windows does not use, if it did we would still be dealing with the 1meg memory barrier and 640k of usable ram just like in the MS-DOS days. But my guess is none of you guys have ever dealt with DOS. Wheelman (20 year veteran of the programming wars) "One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them, One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."

You want the guage to be before the regulator in the flow. Wheelman

Yes, That is an electric fuel pump back there. It's mounted to the sub-frame right? It was originally installed to assist the mechanical pump when the engine rpm exceeded 400 and to help eliminate vapor lock problems. Sounds to me like yours has been disabled, it may have died and rather than replace it a prior owner just unpluged one lead. Wheelman

I need to replace the fuel filler neck on my 73 240. Has anyone done this and does anyone know what years are compatible with mine? I know a local junk yard has a late 260 that I think still has the filler neck but if it's not going to fit I don't want ask the guys to pull it for me. They also have a 77 280 2+2 at the same yard, will the neck from this one fit my 240? Are there any special things to watch for when swapping these out? I've had my tank out and just started reinstalling it so I know the bottom of the filler neck might be tough to get through the hole but what about the top, will it come out fairly easily? Thanks Wheelman

Where in Oregon are you located? I lived in south east Washington and know local kid who might be interested on the VG30 depending in the price. He has an 89 300ZX 2+2 that he's convinced is way to slow. Wheelman

Mike, If I remember correctly the car he was driving when he won those hill climbs had all those weight saving aluminum pieces and an engine with higher output than the guy he beat so even his own statements aren't true. Also I think the thread that was refered to was about someone converting a Scarab car to a JTR setup. They were going to try and do some objective testing before and after. Am I correct? Do you know if the testing or conversion was ever completed? Wheelman

The side vents are there to exhaust air from the engine bay to prevent the same problem the Z cars have with high pressure under the hood causing a floaty front end. I've kicked around the idea of adding side vents to my Z but I'm not sure where the holes would need to be in the front frame horns and how it would affect frame rigidity. Anybody have any thoughts on this. BTW: I like the 3 small vents in the front and the side vents. I'd leave them if it were my car. Wheelman

Bilster, Do you have numbers on how much it cost you to build? Part #s would be nice also. In the future I'd like to build one of these and use MegaSquirt with a Holley Projection throttle body I've got. I think that would make a good combination. Wheelman

I think it's almost impossible to do one of these swaps without doing some test fits to get things in the correct locations. I've installed and pulled my engine/tranny several times making sure everything clears. What brand of headers are those? The view isn't perfect in the picture but it does look as if they stick out bit. A test fit will tell you. Wheelman

Much as I don't like what this guy has to say I do defend his right to say it. I would like to add though that I don't feel obligated to pay his salary. He must remember that he works for a government funded institution and therefore accepts money from each and every tax payer in Colorado and because of that fact has an obligation to take their views into account when he makes statements while acting in his capacity as a professor. The ACLU also needs to explain to me how the firing of this guy would be infringing on his right to free speech in any way. He would still have the ability to say all the things he's been saying, he would just loose his funding from the government that makes it easy for him. I think they should fire him. Wheelman

Awd92gsx, Did you do a test fit before cutting the tranny mount ear off? You probably cut enough but I would grind it down closer to the tunnel brace just so you aren't cutting yourself on it while working on things. Jolane, Do a search on this topic and you'll find a thread that has pictures I posted of how I ran my fuel lines. I put them in the tunnel about where they are on a stock 240. There was some discussion about it being dangerous in the case of a driveshaft failure but I plan to run a driveshaft loop so it should be good. One of the lines is a bit close to the top of my T5 when it installed. I'm not using the JTR tranny mount either, I moved the Datsun mount back about 4 inches and slotted the part that is bolted to the tranny so everything would mate up. I also have pictures of my setup around somewhere if you'd like me to post them. Wheelman

Glad to hear the kids are OK. This scenario is one of my nightmares. My son is 18 and thinks he's decended from a long line of race car drivers and has inherited all their experience and talent. He's a pretty good driver but way over confident. He hasn't had any accidents yet but I think it's just a matter of time. He drives a big boat so hopefully he won't hurt himself or anybody else when it happens. I've often thought about helping him get a newer car with better safety features but he doesn't want one. Wheelman

You're right on the money Dale!!! The hardest part is avoiding the "While I'm at it" syndrome. It would be a bit easier to answer the question if we knew what your plans are. You being from Arizona will make it much more likely that you'll be able to find a clean car as a base platform. Wheelman