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Thanks guys... Rotorbust I live in Pacific Beach and work in Miramar... Grumpy, thanks for the opinions... you still the man Woodyhooten, I was having some problems before. Everything came together smoothly and it started and ran but I just didn't want to tune everything myself. Ignition timing, advance, jets... it seems simple but all those millions of adjustments would just strain me. I tried a couple of different jets with meager success so I knew I would have to tune the ignition and I thought what the hell, might as well let somebody who knows tune it and get some dyno runs in at the same time. Before the tune the car ran great, idled fine and pulled hard, but I had to tip into the gas and ease it up to WOT... A quick, deep stab and the ignition couldn't cope with the secondaries and it would hesitate and backfire. Driving the car to work tomorrow... I can't wait

Thanks Grumpy, I'll put that stuff in the file... No not the circular one Yes, if I ever do get a need for more speed, I'll be looking into heads first as the heads on my motor are nothing special. Do you think it would be a worthwhile investment to buy the MSD 6AL kit from Summit (with Blaster 2 coil and all that for stock HEI ignition) right now? 250 bucks... Or should I wait until after other modifications?

If you can get me a date I'll do my best to make it... I work weekends but I might be able to take a sick day or some such.

Thanks, Tim!! Yours has come a long way too, WAY farther and more quickly than mine! There was a while (when you saw the car) that I worked on it like a maniac. The past year and a half or so, I've barely touched the thing, so whatever I do now is very little and far between. It's been driving for a year but I've barely done anything to make it "a real car". I'd love to see your beast! Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to make the MSA show this year (again) as I'll be in Coast Guard boot camp at the time! But I look forward to seeing you and some of the other Cali guys at some point in the future. Len, that's right, I love the car, I can't imagine ever giving it up. Though I wouldn't mind a turbo car like yours sometime.. hmm

let's see what i can remember. Around 9.5 compression, forged pistons, 1.5 roller rockers, cam, valve springs... RPM Air-gap manifold, Holley 650dp carb... Plain jane HEI with a coil (think I'm going to get some MSD soon)... T5 tranny with a 3.90 rear end. Ceramic block huggers to a full dual 2.5in exhaust with an X-pipe and MAC mufflers. K&N and all that. It doesn't have a lot of money in it, just a basic rebuilt motor with some bolt ons. I was mentally hoping for bigger numbers but driving the car makes me forget about all that, it's just too much fun as it is. 8)

Got it to work, try it now. 8)

I'm trying, I'm trying I don't get it!

and despite about 40 dollars of unnecessary charges on the bill, i'm very happy! The car put down 251hp at 5000 rpm and 309lb/ft at 3700. Check out the dyno sheet in my personal gallery. I'm impressed with how smoooooooooth and flat the curves are. It is awesome to drive now - no hesitation when getting on the gas, so much smoother when tipping into the throttle. It doesn't require a delicate touch to drive anymore! First and second gear wheelspin on command. 8) Now, to make it run cooler...

My Z likes to run hot on the freeway, and pretty much any time it's in 5th gear. Remind me of anything I forget: 180deg. thermostat with a small hole drilled. Griffin aluminum radiator 2-speed Taurus fan Radiator sealed off on both sides with duct tape Mild motor (300hp? we'll see) 50%water...45%antifreeze...5% water wetter My Autometer temp sender is by the thermostat. While moving it will usually show 180 deg. on the Autometer gauge. Sitting at a light it will indicate 210 and sit there all day. While on the freeway, however, it pulls up toward indicated 230-250... VERY scary! My hood is not vented so I may be trapping hot air/heat under the hood, or something, but it seems like having a vented hood should not be "required"... Removing the battery/master cylinder doors to vent hot air makes no difference. I am taking my car for a full dyno tune middle of next week and we'll see what happens after that... But until then.... Does anyone have any ideas? It overheats only in 5th gear, it seems.... It can be running hot and I can slow down a bit and drop it into 4th and it will clear right up. That doesn't make any sense I have a T5 with, I believe, a .63 overdrive. It is overdriven pretty far so I think it is .63 though I have no way of knowing.

They're sectioned 2" and the car is lowered about 2", i'd say. I don't think I've ever bottomed them out.

Sorry about your bad experience... I tried to put an MSA turbo muffler 2.5" exhaust on the car when it still had the L6 in it. The damn thing was so far off of even thinking about imagining being close to nearly fitting that I just took it down to the muffler shop and had them re-bend the pipes (they had to make a whole new section and toss one of the three that came with the kit because it was so far off). Ended up costing an extra 150 or so over MSA's price

I'm getting my car aligned this week or next (then off to the dyno!), then I'll let you guys know what's up... yes, I did lower it without getting it aligned It's been lowered for oh.. two years or so... without being aligned Driven VERY little of course... Everything I described above is WITH the rear sway bar installed. I was dissappointed because the car pushed without it, but with it, it became a mess. We'll see what proper toe-in settings and all that do to the equation. My tires are Yokohama AVS Intermediates, almost new, I run like 35lbs cold in them... Ball joints are new and the rest of the steering has no play. It sits pretty level front/rear.... I change the settings around on my Illuminas a lot depending on the roads. I mostly notice by the "seat of the pants" how much rebound damping goes in when I firm them up so I usually just run them on like 1-2 for regular driving.. 3-4-5 whatever for when I'm really in a frisky mood. Oh, and the one thing I forgot is that my car has a full urethane bushing set.

Let me see if I can recall my setup: I have Tokico Illumina 5-ways, Ground Control coilovers with Eibach springs, 225 front 250 rear (IIRC). I have the MSA stiff swaybar kit and a rear strut brace. I have an open R200. With the front swaybar installed, the car definitely pushes; I decided to install the rear swaybar because I had read that this will bias the handling more towards oversteer, especially with an open diff. Turns out, the car just handles scary. It's literally as though the steering wheel has no effect upon the front wheels. I can swing the wheel a full 90 degree rotation and wait... and then it kind of starts to turn in. Let up on the wheel, and it keeps turning for a few heartbeats... and then quits turning And this isn't through fast or sharp turns, either, this is through my standard set of sweepers that can be taken by a well set up car at 80-85 but which I was running through around 55-65. This happens when I'm barely even pushing the car. Any ideas?

Crap, that sounds like a sick car and for that cost? Fgetaboutit Want to resell it to me?

Interesting, keep posting your progress, I will be curious to see the results.

Sure... Cut a HUGE hole, and hook the motor directly up to the differential... You might have to get rid of the transmission as you'd be using the motor for an armrest otherwise... Enjoy

Sounds like you've got it figured out already. If you can imagine it, it's possible. I don't know if it would be worth the headache, though.

Fully custom. If I had to guess Mario Lozano of TSR in Long Beach made them.

Sounds exactly like my car. To a tee. Same mileage, color, condition, useage. I bought mine for $1900 three years ago.

Actually, they're the headlight buckets from a Lamborghini Diablo... http://www.supercars.net/PicFetch?pic=1999_lamborghini_diablo_gt-1.jpg Just kidding. It's well known that Lamborghini stole the 300ZX's lights, though they certainly won't admit it. If you ever get a chance to see one close up take note - there is a thin strip of carbon fiber running across the top of the glass. This was put in to cover up the NISSAN logos

Tires have come a long way in 30+ years... However, .77g is very good for any car from 30 years ago, especially an inexpensive little car like the Datsun.

Down for me too..

the u-joints should be Spicer 1310 or equivalent. You could call someplace that carries Spicer u-joints and verify whether or not the dimensions are the same as what you've got. Do your joints look like they will fit but not quite, or are they visually too big/too small?

Pretty cool, thanks for the link! I hadn't seen that article before.

heck, it doesn't even take that much to lift the front end on a bug or ghia. Mid-12 second bugs lift the front end as a matter of routine! it's a blast! I'm actually selling my squareback on that site and stumbled across this listing. I'd be very afraid to drive this car!