love-my-V8-280Z

Bart, Tell me, you are getting pretty close to a LT1 expert... Has the opti been a huge amount of your problems? Would you say stay away from after market optis? I will have my LT1 on the road this summer and do not look forward to the problems you have been dealing with....

If life gives you lemons make lemonade!! Remember the things about the car you did not like? Now is your chance to get the car body you wanted and transfer the best’s parts to it... It’s a chance to start over... I just picked up a great 280 for $3,000.00. I just fell in love with it! Now you have a great parts car... Your very very lucky you did not get hurt. The car would have not mattered if you had....

It would seem I should understand what you are asking but I don't.. Are you trying to hook up the back up lights and the cooling fan?? I can help with both..

That is the core question of this site. Been discussed way to much to be asked again. You will only get your answers buy reading the history. If you are serious you will only get a quality answer by reviewing the many different angles the question can be answered.

I look at the restore as a tear town than build up. Strip it down.. as you have. Than restore. I do not like doing anything twice. I would dip or blast it. Have it primmered than go to work on the body. You will bang and scratch the primmer over and over. That’s fine. After all the bodywork is done, the interior is in and the motor is in and running than you will fine tune the remaining body repairs and paint it. Than install glass, trim, emblems.. You will want to paint the motor cavity early. I chose to paint mine the same color as the car. I wish I had chosen black. It would be so hard to change it if I decide to change the car color in the future.

Most of the datsun repair books have pictures with the relays labeled. You should review one and at least once look at each relay. you will find the ones under the dash are are fuel pump, head lights etc and the ones under the hood are for the fuel injection. Don't trust me, its been a whlie. If you cant figure it out send me an email with details on where they were bolted to the car and I will look them up.

If I think back 7 years ago.. I got a 280 for almost nothing. Than I thought a little paint and it would look great! Than how about a cool engine? Lets do it right. Found rust, needs of new rubber everywhere. It did not take long and I desired a well built, done right job. I just kept picking away. I added my receipts and I'm at 13,000. I even hate to guess how much on the little extras that I did not track. Sand paper, primer etc... Probably $14,000 and I have a lot left to go. In hindsight, I love the car but I would have been a head to buy a old camero or vett with a real good resale. I'm sure no one wants to hear that but its true. I have not even gotten the chance to drive my car. I hope it’s all worth it...

Slammed, You made my day. I blew up the original diagram and had to tape it together. The pages were different sizes and it was black and white. It was a pita! I drew every line on that diagram in paint. It took a looong time. I'm sure glad someone is using it. I hope it goes down in a history book somewere. I don't know, maybe some poor employee has to draw all the diagrams by hand? All I can say is, it was a lot of work.

I did not read the JTR book, but I don't see how you can hook up the LT1 following the directions from a how to install a 350 book. I would recommend removing the fusable links and getting a fuse block with a few extra plugs. I put my fuel injectors on there own fuse. Look over the diagram I sent you, look at the starter and you will see its a blue wire going to plug C2. You will see how I wired the MIL, data link connector, alternator etc.. Its very accrate.

I've read post from men that have already paid to the work done and when they got the car back they were not happy. It turns out to be a lot more work than the shops expect. You get it back and the gauges don't work, you don't like the sloppy job with the wire harness.. you can only imagine.