Gollum

Love it! I've always said that if I had the money to get out of Z cars (whole reason I got into datsuns was for the cheap factor) I'd build a FFR Daytona. I've been a FFR fan since before getting into datsuns (10 years now, holy crap!) and my first love was always the cobra. And for the money I don't think you can do much better than a FFR kit. I've always wanted to tube chassis a S30 and do all sorts of radical stuff, but whenever I price things out I just cry. In the end I'd always end up spending what it would cost to just start with the bones I want, the daytona couple. Even with the added cost of IRS it still makes more sense than modifying the S30 up one side and down the other. And to clarify, I'm not knocking the S30 one bit, I love it to pieces. But many of us have these grand dreams which will most likely never become a reality. The daytona has served me well to keep my focus and keep the datsun what it is, a budget racer platform. Subscribed.

Correct! Sonic blue was available on the Base, GT, and Cobra in 2003 but not the Mach 1 or the Anniversary package. It's a righteous color for sure. Unfortunately OEM paint jobs tend to suck rather hard, and you could find quite a bit of orange peel on the mustangs (even the cobras sadly). I've seen the sonic blue color code repainted and it wears beautifully when done well with good clear coat. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention. Sonic Blue is making a reappearance in the 2012 mustang though I think it might be a mid-year production appearance. But it HAS been announced by ford and will definitely be roaming the streets again.

In all honesty, the hartly is a deal at 30k. Find me another motor that will make 400 na HP that I can pick up and load into a trunk by myself. Does that mean its the best option for that price? Not necessarily. I've seen dimensions of the vg and vq and they're definitely shorter than lsx motors. That said, almost any v8 or v6 will be shorter than the l6. And THAT said, the l6 isn't nearly as heavy as other inline 6 motors like the RB. They also tend to be lighter than an all iron v8. So in all my confusion I've intentionally caused, nearly ANY motor can yield driving characteristics that most people would consider good, spritely, and forgiving. Suspension and chassis tuning is what it will come down to every time.

The slant six motors aren't all that bad, just suffers much if the same fate as the l series in that because of the better options most people don't see the real potential. There's several slant six guys that say that the 170 can attain 180 HP easily enough, just takes revs. The upside/downside is that the head is virtually the same across the board so the low displacement versions have a good high rpm head while the larger ones get choked at the top. No matter what it would be a unique swap and have as much potential as a mild l build. I wouldn't do it personally, but many people wouldn't do the things I'd like to do.

Yea, I had to chock the wheels good and use a 4ft breaker bar + a 3 foot bar... No fun. The entire car was lurching up on the chocks pretty good and when the bolt let go I had to catch the car a bit to keep it from rolling more than the foot it did... Yay. Glad you got it taken care of.

I've build/rebuilt/worked on a couple of 150+whp B16's and a 500+hp B16 (on nos) and can attest that it's amazing what the RIGHT parts can do. It's not just throwing parts at a motor sometimes, but choosing the right parts for the application. I personally don't feel you need 620hp to get to flat 11's, but that's just me. I also think you can get under 3,000lbs including driver, unless you're 400lbs yourself. Light bumpers, fiberglass hood, and careful attention to othre weighty bits can really trim down a 280Z. With all that time and energy you're looking at putting into the motor I'd suggest looking into the rest of the car as well. I have a feeling you might have a hard time getting all the guys in the low 11's to chime in because many of them don't spend their time checking out every thread. That said, many of them have quite a bit of information posted on the forums to be found... All that said, my across the internet edumacated guestimate is that you only need about 475whp to reach a solid flat 11 on street tires. But that's my guess. What really matters is your guess, your wallet, and your time.

Blow up your motor and don't have it on film? Fail! I love the L motor but you gotta do what ya gotta do. As much as it pains me to see your car with a new heart, do the RB.

Actually rotating the crank will change the timing as the timing of events is based on the ROTOR in relation to the HOUSING. since the crank is tired to the rotors at a 3:1 ratio then spinning the cranks away from either 60 degrees would give you a net effect of being in sync. If you wanted the timing separated you'd want a 30 degree split, but you'd still end up with twerp rotors in sync I believe. That's something that's avoided in the custom shafts I believe. All that said, I've been saying for a while that an adapter to bolt onto the rear snout to the front pulley would be much cheaper and make more sense for that average car project...

280z without stock bumpers and full interior = roughly 2600 lbs. There's no reason you couldn't get lower, just time, energy, and money. Fiberglass hood is a good example of easy weight removal. So with that figure, your weight added, and that link above you should be set... Regarding tire, I'd recommend at least 245 but wider would require flares or serious attention to fitment. 275 is able to fit in the rear if your suspension and rim package are perfect and you roll the fender. 245 if fine IMO though.just means you have to be a little more careful.

I've always used a 3 jaw puller, but then again every time I've needed to pull a crank pulley (not all that often to be honest) I hook everything up and get my ratchet on the puller and I never needed more than just a light twist of the wrist to get it cracked off. It's never been tough to where I was worried about breaking something. I honestly can't imagine the nimwit that would put jbweld on a crank pulley. Even loctite doesn't make sense to me (though if it made it into the "how to modify" book then it must have at least marginal credit). R0N ~ If nobody gets you the answer sooner, I'll check my tool box and double check the size tonight. I don't want to quote you the wrong size from memory because I honestly never look at the size because it's the only one in my box...

Not that i'm in the market, but those are sexeh ron!

Photoshopped blue. Look at the grate on the floor, and the walls of the building in the background. The color on that image ins't anything CLOSE to a realistic rendition of what the natural eye would see. I'm not saying it's a bad photo, I'm just saying matching that guys color code won't give you a car that looks like that. It'll give you a car capable of being photographed like that...

Tony ~ thanks for the input. I understand I'm in the minority that think what they do about the Z-car market and I understand why. I've watched people make products that people said would sell like hotcakes, just to see sales be mediocre. I think your points are solid, and I won't try to disagree. Where I think I differ is that I think the climate of Z owners is changing and might not look the same in 10 years, but at that point who knows what will be what. Regarding the smog legal issue, I totally understand, but that said I know plenty of people will illegal heads on their daily driven muscle cars...

On principle I agree with you, but I think where we got started swapping in SBC motors was because it was cheap, effective, easy to do, and most importantly, many more americans know how to work on them. They're "easy", no extra learning required for the average gear head.

There were roughly 40k S30's sold per year on average between '70 and '78. And that's US only. I could see there being more B series out there, but only by principle of worldwide sales. A vtech B series isn't all that common in the USA, which is why most guys doing swaps get imported motors. Civic Si production numbers were rarely much over 30k a year, and integra GSR numbers are extremely low. B16 del sols make the others seem plentiful. Honda motors as a whole are much more popular and modified, but their engines have changes constantly, resulting in a market that looks much bigger than it is I think. What I can really appreciate about honda motors though, is that through the popularity of the brand there's some stuff available for them that will never be available for nissan engines, like Dart engine blocks. I know there's definitely more 4AG's out there, but I don't see them being as commonly modified on street cars in the long run. They've seen a recent renaissance of sorts, but who knows how long that will last. Yes it's a great engine that's seen wonderful racing success. So did the L-gata though, and I'd argue at a much more grassroots level than the 4AG. Mazda's only popular rotary in the states was the RX series. There's less than 40k FD's total, and between all the years is around 150k, much less than Z car totals that had L motors. And I honestly don't see that many people on the street with modified rotary motors, yet they seem to have a much larger bin of parts made for them. And who's modifying Mazda B motors other than miata guys? That said there were a buttload of miatas sold, and they're an extremely popular car to modify. So there's a good point there. The 22R is common yes. Modified? I wouldn't know honestly as I'm not sure how many 4x4 guys there really are in the world. I plead complete ignorance. But I go to car shows, I go to junkyards, I keep my eyes open and I see L motors all over the place, and I see many people that pour lots of money into them. I think there IS a viable market there. Maybe instead of arguing a meaningless point on the internet, I should be taking polls and finding hard data to take to a manufacture.

I understand all that tony, and I understand that prices would only come down with VOLUME, but that's what I think people don't think is possible that I believe is possible to an extent. Being in the bay area, I just have to go to any big Z gathering to see that at least half of the "z enthusiasts" (read: purists) have had their engines built by robello, and half of those being stroker builds. Those people dropped some serious coin on their cars (by american standards), and many of them were only half involved in the process, which means they paid shops big bucks to do all the hard work for them. I think if the price was down to $3k there would be people lined up around the block to buy one, even though it's not legal in any race class. Are any of these guys with a robello engine going racing in a historic race class? I seriously doubt it. I think the real problem, is how do you make a head for $20k+ and then expect to lower the price as people buy? If that person WERE to sell 100 of them and then drop the price a bit, how's that supposed to make all the current owners feel? If they were then to see 1,000 and drop the price dramatically again, I'd imagine you'd have one pissed off customer base. It's almost seems like in order for the prices to really get down to the every man (here in america at least) that the investor doing the initial run would have to be prepared to make a LOT of them to get the prices down. And that's quite a gamble, especially if you're in a country where just owning one costs a lot of money.... Nobody makes aftermarket heads for Ferraris, but everyone makes heads for the SBC. I'm not so sure that people overseas understand how that relates to the L motor... I'm sure they treat the L motor like a Ferrari, but here in america it's like the SBC. Is there a more plentiful AND modified japanese motor?

If I recall correctly, $40k for a head, and $90k for a complete 400hp motor. What I don't understand, is why so many other motors have aftermarket cylinder heads available, some of which have far less numbers produced than the L engine. For example, why on earth is there a fairly affordable aftermarket head for the ford pinto motor? Yes I understand it's a popular head in circle track, but you can't tell me there's that many more of those motors lying around. You also can't convince me there's more market for those in street cars as there would be for L motors, as there's plenty of serious Z enthusiasts. I don't see many people hopping up their 4 cylinder mustangs or rangers. Is this simply an issue of someone actually with the money not seeing the interest? Or is this a case of just not enough people WITH interest banning together to make it happen? Seems to me like Trick Flow or similar would eagerly take this bait if they saw the market and how many people pay big bucks to have their heads ported...

Actually that looks typical of MSA. Don't buy it. They have some decent products, but that is NOT one of them.

No need for a rising rate, so you aren't running boost. The point of a rising rate is that it leaves your pressure stock at anything bellow atmospheric, but then as boost increases fuel pressure increases giving you the extra fuel required if you're running higher than stock boost levels, thus running lean on the top end. It's a band-aid fix work around if you're in a situation where modifying the ECU isn't really an option. It's not a bad option at all for boosted motors, but it's limits should be understood. As far what to get for your NA application, anything will work, just don't got for a $50 ebay special. Expect to pay $100 at least for a decent unit. Brand doesn't really matter imo, as it's just a simple mechanical device that could be replicated by anyone, even cheap chinese knock of shops in many cases. This is a quality piece, though a little pricey imo. I like it's features, like that it has a dedicated gauge out, but at nearly $150 it's a hard sell. http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/sx-performance-15402-10-an-fuel-pressure-regulator-p-301.html This is about as cheap as I'd go. Yes it's $100, but it's coming with a lot of kit, which honestly makes me wonder how good it really is. If it were me, I'd be willing to give it a shot though. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Adjustable-Fuel-Pressure-Regulator-Kit-Gauge-GTE-2JZGTE-/200634819155?hash=item2eb6c46253&item=200634819155&pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&vxp=mtr#ht_2941wt_941

We need comments like that in a sticky all by itself somewhere....

Turbo injectors would be as much as I'd run. That'd be equivalent to running your NA injectors at around 70-75PSI. That's a lot of extra flow. You might even still want an adjustable regulator so you can drop a few PSI if you can't get it to run right at WOT with AFM adjustments.

Get a wideband on that thing and find out what's really going on! Even if you have to pay for dyno time for it. Don't guess when it comes to modifying an EFI system. If your numbers are off less than a point you can probably get away with just some extra rail pressure. If the wideband is being jumpy then you know you're looking for an issue. Also remember that with a different cam you're moving the power band, which would generally require a retune of the ECU to adjust the maps. Unfortunately modding these old systems is a little crude, and more like modifying a "smart" mechanical fuel injection setup, hardly better than a carb in some ways. You can't just go and increase the power 50% without some serious drawbacks/limitations. Odds are you'll be able to get it to run nice on the top under WOT with just a pressure regulator and some time on a dyno if everything is working correctly, but you'll be giving up tune quality in other areas.

But to be forcing everyone with a P90 to buy a more expensive rocker simply because of a minority needing an oil feed hole is ridiculous, especially when so many people convert over to solid lifters anyways. If I was that part supplier I'd be ashamed to be ripping people off like that, even if it's not a high value/volume part. Simply specify what people need and sell them the RIGHT part... Makes me wish I still had my hydraulic P90A sitting around.

Well I'll have some pictures in a couple of days of caliper readings. If any feels it's important enough I'll even post them in the L motor dimensions thread.

Yea, PMC... if you think THIS is bad, just spend 24 hours on some other Z forums... I look forward to what you have to share regarding this next stroker build you mentioned.