canyoncarver

There are some parts available for increasing the steering angle. People are basically modifying the knuckle for clearance, and (I believe) shortening the attach point for the tie-rod ends. If you look up username arcticdragon192 on 300zxclub or nicoclub, he has increased his steering angle in his 2+2. Here is a ride-along vid I did while he was drifting.

What does the smoke smell like? Oil or coolant? Have to checked the tranny fluid level, or did you just add more in? Have you checked your engine coolant level? 1) Could be leaking coolant from the heater hoses between engine and firewall. Engine rear main seal, or tranny/torqueconverter seal could be leaking. 2) Are the pink droplets at the front or back of the tranny? There are also some tranny oil cooler lines that could be leaking. Can you jack the car up and find out exactly where the fluid is leaking? 3) Grinding is bad. You need to isolate where the noise is coming from.

Some people are just watching, waiting and planning.

TT or n/a, used motors are risky at best. The imported motors that I've seen look like they never had the oil changed. A common mode of failure on VG30 motors is spun rod bearings , either on high mileage motors or JDM imports. If you're looking to save some money, have a reliable car, and you're not concerned about having a TT ........ just rebuild the motor you have, or even buy a rebuilt short-block from a reputable builder. I've seen them for $1000 - $1200. Heads can be rebuilt for $600 - $1000. It's a good father / son project. My son and I are currently building up a TT motor to swap into his '94 slicktop.

Nice find for $1k. My son and I restored an old Ranchero, like you have there, around 10 years ago.

I did a search and glanced through a bunch of thread titles without any results. Can anyone recommend a reputable shop to do some block, crank, and head work? I know of chevy and ford shops but I would like to find a place with some nissan/datsun experience. V6 preferred. Thanks

I'd feel confident that you can get replacement parts for the Chinese imports. What makes a quality piece of equipment, either mill or lathe, is the materials and precision built in. This would be the meehanite casting material that makes up the machine base. How stable that material is. The spindle and bearings, and the lead screws and nuts. A similar analogy would be ...... a number years ago, when Kia the car manufacturer first came out, places like Consumer Rreports and Edmunds stated that it would be better to buy a 2-year old Toyota Corolla than to buy a new Kia.

I would definitely stay away from stick welding. The heat will generally cause the surrounding metal to warp out of shape. Mig or Tig would be better, and still I wouldn't lay a long bead. I would do repeated spot welds, alternating to different sections and allowing cooling time in between welds. On the 90 amp welder, we had a race car chassis break at a track that was ~400 miles from home. We went and picked up a similar welder to fix the car and it worked surprisingly well.

Without going in to specifics, I picked up this 2+2 Z that was TT swapped and then converted to a single-turbo setup. The car ran for a bit with the single-T. I think the turbo is in the T-4 range. I'm wondering what I might be able to sell the whole single-T set-up for with a complete new exhaust included, or just sell the turbo and external wastegate seperately and trash the rest. The v-band turbo looks to be almost brand new with no shaft play and very little carbon buildup. There are more pics here with the wastegate and plumbing. http://s162.photobucket.com/albums/t257/canyoncarverZ/2x2%20Z/

There are some imported brands of knee mills that are worth looking in to in lieu of the Bridgeport name. Again, they're priced relative to their quality. You can look for Tree, Lagun, and Index. When looking for a used mill, alot of times you can get the collets, vise, and other tooling included. Getting a variable speed head is a worthwhile investment as opposed to a belt-drive head where you have to manually change speeds and your speeds are limited. Check out places like http://www.use-enco.com and http://www1.mscdirect.com for all of the support goodies. They sell machines too. You can spend a lifetime and a fortune stocking up on stuff to use. If you're machining aluminum buy the low-price non-coated high speed steel cutters. If you're going to machine steels, buy the low-price non-coated carbide cutters, it'll be worth the extra money in time saved. There's no need for coated cutters if you're making one or two of anything.

Very nice job fitting those tubes. The welding was the easy part.

I've been involved with machining parts for a little while. In my opinion you guys will be better off buying a nice used Bridgeport as opposed to alot of that Chinese crap. Good used Bridgeports can sell for more than a new import. There is a reason for that. If you want the capability to machine round parts, as you might on a lathe, but without buying a lathe, a nice additional investment can be made in a rotary table. This gives you the ability to rotate the part around the cutting tool. Here are some pics of my Bridgeport and a friend's lathe. I picked the mill up for $2500 and it had new digital readouts and power feed. Here are some non-z related car parts that were done on the Bridgeport with rotary table. The lathe is a 1960's german brand. If you want to remove .001", you dial .001", and that is how much material is removed.

LOL, I'm thinking of a motor like this for a 2+2 track only car. I was looking at all of the exhaust manifold options and was hoping you settled on a set. I may just fab my own. How many z32 LSx swaps have been done on the forums here?

This was looking to be a good thread for a while.