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Okay.. My buddy just bought a 510 that came with like 3 or 4 sets of wheels.. he's got some Minilites, 300ZX wheels, 280ZX wheels, and some others that I didn't really look at.. I was originally intending on going to 16"x7" Panasports and running like a 225 tire. But my friend got these 15"x6?" Z wheels and they're pretty nice.. tires are okay.. low-profile and have some wear left. (Bridgestones? I think). How much should I offer? I know they're not Panasports, but he's a really good friend and he doesn't need all those wheels... hell, 15" is better than the 14"x5.5" or 6" that I'm running right now. $150? $200? less?

It's possible.. Darius has one.. and yes, the NA R230 has a 4.08 gear ratio. The TT R230 ratio is 3.69. The R230 is not the same as an R200. Bigger, heavier, and limited slip, of course. I haven't pulled the two apart so I can't tell you for sure, but the Rxxx refers to the size of the ring gear(?). R180 is 180mm across, R200 is 200mm across, R230 is 230mm across.

I definitely want one!

Hmm, thanks for the suggestions Pete. I'm trying to stay as stock on the car as I can right now (stock interior minus seats, stock battery location, stock fuel tank, etc) because the car I bought was so clean in that regard I can't bring myself to chop it up. That's also why I can't bring myself to drop in a V8 yet I'll take a look at the firewall inside the car and underhood and see if I can find a good location for a switch. The only problem with mounting it in the wheelwell is that my car is going to be LOW when my struts are done and there's not going to be much room room to reach in above the tire

Hey guys. I'd like to install a battery shut-off switch sometime on my Z. It's been reccommended several times to me recently and just seems like cheap insurance. I'd like to be able to shut off the battery without having to pop the hood. It seems like I'm always connecting and disconnecting the positive terminal while working on the car. What I was thinking was this: would I be able to mount a shut-off switch to the inner fender near the battery and be able to access it by sticking my hand in through the wheelwell? I know I'd have to drill a hole. I guess my question is, is this logical, or should I just install one on the interior (longer wires) or one of the terminal-mounted ones (having to pop the hood)? I know a guy with a battery switch on a Buick drag car that's mounted near the taillights (battery in the trunk). This just seems sort of pointless to me, because it's a streetable car. He drives it everywhere. If someone wants to steal it, the battery switch is very noticable. Having it hidden up inside the fenderwell near the battery makes sense to me. What do you guys think?

You want the MR2 strut cartridges. I'm not sure of the part number for Illuminas (wish I knew so I could tell you, but they're already installed.. I could get it from the guys I bought them from). The Rabbit cartridges apparently don't come with the right size gland nut, or one at all. The MR2 carts come with the correct one. They're about 2 inches shorter than stock, you can do a 2" drop like I did or 1.5" and put a 1/2" spacer beneath the cart inside the strut tube. The front struts can be installed in the rear. I picked up Illuminas front and rear. Haven't had a chance to test both sets since my rears are being sectioned right now by a shop, but at the 3rd setting the front was nice and firm when I got a chance to drive it with them installed.

Thanks, guys. I decided not to teardown. I took the struts in to Eric at Dave Turner Motorsports down here in San Diego today. If you ever have a chance to work with this guy, he's cool. Seems to have lots of experience and is charging me $20/strut to section and build. Seems like a little much for a couple of cuts and some welding, but Dave wants Eric to charge me $80/strut! I've got no cutting/welding experience so I'll let a professional do that sort of thing. I won't be upgrading to rear discs anytime, so I just won't worry about it

Okay guys.. I'm in the middle of my rear suspension rebuild. Front end went great. I slacked off a bit, but I'm getting some real work done in good time on the rear. I'll definitely be done by the time the West Coast Nats roll around, and will probably have my carbs rebuilt and tuned, with headers and exhaust (yeah, still the straight six, but it's fun for now). Spindle pins were knocked out in ten minutes each with no heat, only Liquid Wrench and the sacrifice of a 5" long 3/8" socket extension (used it as a drift, mushroomed the end, better it than the threads of the pin). Just got both springs and strut cartridges pulled. Heat-transfer oil was present in the rear, as opposed to the front, where there was nothing. I stripped the drum brakes to the backing plate and was about to pull the hubs when I realized that these use the same kind of nuts as on my friend's 510 (which we completely stripped to bare chassis in the progress of turning it into a high-$ racecar). You know, the kind which are banged on two sides to hold them onto flats on the axle's threads? My restoration manual says that I have to bang the nuts the opposite way in order to pull them. My Haynes manual didn't really say anything other than "Remove nut," as usual. Would banging these things out to remove them really be worth it? The bearings have zero play and are very smooth. The car was restored by its second owner in 1984-85 and very probably had its suspension rebuilt by a mechanic when it was owned by its third owner. All the nuts and bolts look pretty much new and aren't rusted, and the way the spindle pins came out makes me think that it was all definitely rebuilt. The bearings don't really seem like they need a rebuild yet. I guess I'd just like to strip it as far as I can before putting it back together, and I don't want to inconvenience Eric, the guy who's sectioning my struts, by having the heavy hubs/bearings/brake backing plate on there. Is it a tough job? looks like it would be to me Thanks a lot. I love the suspension knowledge this forum has

I'd get it from one of the cool guys who sell that same type of stuff right here on the forum, personally

As seen here... Where do I get some? That's not the sort of thing my auto parts store generally has in stock, unless it's a generic part. Mine apparently disentegrated and were replaced by dirt. The ball studs are still good, fortunately, so when I put it all back together I'm just going to throw on some new boots and grease them up..

Heh.. Thanks for that idea... I got them out though.. what a PITA. I ended up using a hacksaw to cut another cut about 1/2 inch away from the first one, then chiseled that piece out.. then spritzed with WD-40 and knocked the shell out with an awl.

How? They are in there TIGHT! Might even be rusted to the arm! I carefully sawed through one shell and tried to pry and chisel it away from the arm and so I could see how everything went together and couldn't even do that.

Okay.. I just managed to get the rubber bushing and metal sleeve out(mostly) using the drill bit trick mentioned in an older post. After cleaning up most of the remaining rubber, I grabbed my Energy Suspension bushings to do a quick trial install and discovered - they don't fit! They look much too big to be installed in the stock metal shell. They look like they'll only fit if I press or saw out the shell, which the rather meager installation instructions tell me several times not to do. What should I do?

Ugh.. the only way to do it with Geocities is to create a new html file with the pictures in it. They don't let you link to their files anymore, haven't for a few weeks. Click for pictures on Geoshitties

God damn it.. can anyone point me to a REAL webspace that will let me link to their damn images? Geocities, yahoo pictures, photopoint, 100megsfree, tripod, angelfire, postmypic.com... NONE OF THEM will let me post a pic on another site. Well, maybe one or two will, but they don't have FTP capability and their uploaders SUCK! I'm about to cry in frustration postmypic.com is the most promising, but for some damn reason it won't let me upload from my Mac!

About time.. I took my front struts to Eric at Dave Turner Motorsports and he gave me a three-and-a-half-finger discount. He's done many many pairs of Z and 510 struts so he knows what he's doing. It took him a week to get all the work done because he had two other pairs to section besides mine, and a Jetta to install all kinds of suspension stuff on. But that's okay, I've had plenty to do myself. My front suspension is a mess, totally caked with oily grease and dirt. I scraped chunks that were literally an inch thick off the front crossmember - there was apparently a leak on the motor that got fixed, and nobody bothered to clean it up, because the bottom half of the motor and the suspension was just coated with dirty grease. There's nothing new that I can see at the moment, so I don't think I'm still leaking oil. The level hasn't gone down. So anyway, I'm going to take all my suspension parts in to my autoshop class and steam-clean them to get rid of the rest of the dirt, then scrub thoroughly with Simple Green, then repaint black. The ball joints are giving me trouble. Pardon my forgetfulness, but what's the name of the suspension piece right beneath the strut? It connects with a ball stud to a little arm that connects with a ball stud to the steering linkage. Anyway, I'm not sure if there's supposed to be a rubber boot there. There were rubber boots intact on the steering linkage studs. I'm afraid to clean all that stuff up, squirt new grease into the nipples, and have it instantly be exposed to the air and pick up tons more dirt. Energy suspension sent me a pair, but only one pair, of boots to replace the rubber boots on the other ball studs. What do you suggest I do with my brakes? I'm going to be upgrading sometime in the future, but for now I'd like to at least get the calipers looking nice. You can see one in the first pic. Rusty color, slightly discolored because of repeated squirts with Liquid Wrench while in the process of disassembly. I really don't feel like rebuilding the calipers, which I guess I need to do if I want to paint them, huh? Anyway, here they are. Tokico Illumina 5-way adjustable shocks (MR2, thanks a lot for the nice discussion of MR2 vs. Rabbit struts that helped me pick them out!), Ground Control coilovers (150# front, Eric said they'd be great for my application), and you can see the polyurethane Energy Suspension bumpstops. They were sectioned two inches, no spacer installed beneath the MR2 strut. I'm stoked. Now, once I get the front suspension rebuilt, I get to move on to the rear.. fun.. can't wait to smack out the dreaded pins. Can't wait to get the diff on the ground so I can discover just how many things are wrong with it.. probably end up upgrading to an R200.. which means I'll probably end up upgrading to a 5spd tranny.. which means.. etc.. etc.. it never ends [This message has been edited by Nion (edited March 08, 2001).] [This message has been edited by Nion (edited March 08, 2001).]

The stock L26 only made 139 hp. (sad, considering the L24 made 151 with 0.2 less liters.. stupid smog equipment) That 305 would make, correct me if I'm wrong, 230-245 hp. So the power gain would be very nice, and power mods for V8s are fairly cheap because they're so popular, so you could add as much power as you want.

That car looks great. Modified fairly conservatively, but with body upgrades that make it just plain from-the-gut good. I actually like the Japanese bolt-on flares. They go great with those spoilers. The wheels are nice, not my favorite, but a nice deep dish. I love Fairlady Zs

I obtained three Prelude seats, one driver and two passenger seats. They're great, the driver's seat has memory reclining, reclining in tiny increments, lumbar support, and ADJUSTABLE SIDE BOLSTERS! It's great! Spin the knob to the left, and the seat's flat as a board, but spin it to the right, and the bolsters squeeze your sides tight! I love it. Only problem is, the rails are much wider than the rails on Z seats. If they were the same width, I wouldn't have any problem mounting the seats. Does anyone have experience with this? I'm going to have to custom-make brackets to fit the seats in. My one concern is having the seats be too high. I'd like to keep the seats nice and low. One other thing - I have to stay with the stock brackets because they're an integral part of the seat. If I take them off, the back isn't securely attached, so I can't use aftermarket. Thanks a bunch.

I need a change of undies.. LOL.. Someday, my car will be this badass. But not for a long, long, long, long, long time.... http://www.taner.net/movies/Darius-240Z-full.mpg What can I say.. Look at it.

Thanks for all your help, guys! I picked up a set of front 240Z Illuminas and a set of rear MR2 Illuminas, as suggested. I got them for $110 each (nice!) from Dave Turner Motorsports in San Diego. The guy I bought them from knew exactly what I needed, he showed me a set of struts he had just sectioned for a 510. He made the order and I'm sure everything is right. Illuminas, Ground Control coilovers, and Energy Suspension bushing kit. I'm stoked Now all I need are swaybars, strut bars, camber plates, wheels, headers, exhaust, air filters, seats, dashboard, etc.. etc.. By the way, here's a picture of my car, fresh from the body shop. Got a new used door, a brand spankin' new front left fender withOUT a rust spot the size of my palm, perfectly matching paint liberally sprayed, and trim taken off...

at the 1/8th mile drags in San Diego. Guy trailered a yellow 280Z with a LOUD 350. Didn't get to ask what he had in the motor, but it wall all chromed and very nice! I think he'll be kicked out soon for breaking the 8s I was so impressed. I really wish I had the cash and experience to do the swap. As it is now, I'll just be upgrading the six. Also, there was an R32 Skyline that ran a 7.9 and blew an oil seal in the second turbo

Okay, great.. So I could pick up rear MR2 Illuminas and front 240Z Illuminas and it'd work? I'm not sure about the D-shaped hole since I haven't actually taken my suspension apart to see exactly how it all goes together yet (LOL). I'm going to have everything apart when I install my Energy Suspension bushings, so I'll be able to figure it out and shop for struts then.. I'd prefer to go straight from stock suspension to coilovers, sectioned struts and adjustables without any interim.

purchase a set of Illuminas that are meant for the front and put them in the rear, and purchase a set of Illuminas that are meant for a Rabbit? Would this work, or am I forced to use stock struts? this whole thing is really confusing. Sorry, guys

Oh my lord.. I'm so confused.. glad to see so many detailed answers! I'll have to read over this thread a few hundred more times and take a good, long look at my car to figure all this stuff out.