Gollum

I don't have pics, but I've pulled my dash and I'm working on rewiring a lot of stuff. I'm still working out what all I do and don't need, and how I want to go about some of the wiring. The nastiest part of the wiring is the ignition key wiring, as it was pretty badly hacked up by a PO. There's wire leads going everywhere to everything. So I'm considering just adding some manual switches for the various ignition positions, and putting in a push start button. I'll be working on the car monday most likely, despite my finger accident (posted in the non-tech section) so I'll get some pics then. I'm also trying to figure out what I want to do for a dash. I'm thinking just like half of mikekelly's dash. Just a simple 2 angle dash, maybe with some sun visors for the gauges. I'll most likely add a switch panel closer to the driver than the dash so reach isn't a problem if/when I get seat harnesses.

That'll buff out.

Meh, make it a 6 rotor and shoot for 2k I don't know that I've seen a 2 rotor dyno half that, so I guess that's pretty damn impressive.

If you can find a stock turbo dizzy you can use it with MS iirc. I know there's plenty of people that have installed MS without ignition control and just worked around the stock timings. You can do edis pretty cheap though. Braap even got EDIS working with 2 saw blades half a tooth apart in phase!!! I'm seriously thinking about doing that if I ever go EDIS with MS, just for the garage DIY wow factor. Saw blades on the crank pulley! The EDIS module is pretty inexpensive, and can be found at junkyards. The coils might be the most expensive part, so that leaves the coil packs to be the most expensive part, but luckily they last a LONG time, so if you find some at the yard pull em'!

So I tried to take my finger off with my car door with little success, I'll try harder next time. I was in a bit of a hurry, avoiding mud at the edge of the driveway while getting out. In the hurry of the moment I apparently didn't quite get my hand out in time... Right after I realized what happened and before I looked at my finger I thought I might have cut the tip right off. Luckily it seems the nail did its job. I ran to the garage where I knew I had tape. After grabbing the tape I went to the kitchen and started running my finger under cold water. The tape sucked at grabbing my skin so I ran to my bathroom in hopes I'd have some bandages. I happily found some and rinsed my finger again before putting it on. I was able to get it tight enough to stop the bleeding so off I went to my girlfriend's house in what I would call "traumatic pain". My girlfriend, being a saint, went and got me some gauze, medical tape, peroxide, a finger splint, and some alcohol. (you know, for that umm... internal cleansing). The pain finally died down about 6 hours later, 6 Tylenol, and a few glasses of happy juice. Those pictures at the beginning are from a few minutes ago when I cleaned it for today, now about 48 hours after the incident. You can see the angle of penetration and if you visualize a line between the two points on the opposite side you can see the cut went a good 1/3 of my finger width deep, almost to the bone. I never got a chance to see how deep it was initially, so I can only speculate how deep it was. All I know is that it hurt like hell! Moral of the story? Don't slam your fingers in the door kids!

The reason those pics aren't working is because we can't access your computer. Notice how the path says "C:/"? That's because that location is on your computer. You need to upload (reverse of download) the pics to a host site like photobucket.

I knew there'd be people who'd disagree, and that's ok. But here's why I think what I do. Most Z owners own them BECAUSE they're so affordable. When they loose that factor then there will be tons of people who will loose interest in them, and the supply will go up, while the demand is fading. Then the value will go down, and some of those people will buy them again. Z guys are cheap. Even most of the purists I've meet are freakin' penny pinchers. That alone will ensure they stay a low value classic imo. I might be wrong though. I'm not going to say it's not possible I'm wrong, that's for dang sure. I don't tend to create beliefs out of every opinion that comes out of my mouth.

Please note source on this information, since 20W-50 is supplied FROM THE DEALER for some motor applications. Are you making a blanket mechanical statement, or an application specific statement about the L engine? There's guys on here with decades of race experience that don't warn against using 20W-50. I'd guarantee the problem is gauge related to some level. The stock gauge acts funny under low oil level, but we've ruled that out. Unless the screen is blocked (which I doubt since you just did an oil change) then the problem lies in the sender or the gauge itself. I've always felt that OEM electrically driven gauges (especially from the 60's-80's, even into the 90's on some makes) are more like educated guesses, not reliable information to bet your life on. I've been driving for almost a year now with my volt meter pegged at 16.5 volts....... I haven't changed the battery once and it's still doing fine. The gauge is wrong, it's that simple. Oh, and for those wondering, I don't think he's running 20W-50 in ORDER to get oil pressure, but simply to keep it from burning off so fast. I do the same thing in my 280ZX. It's been burning oil since I got it, and I've put 10k on it already.

Oh yea, i forgot about this option... Find a Z purist. SELL IT for a sizable amount to this sucker. Then go buy a 74/75 for $500-1000 nearly rust free AND a donor vehicle for what ever engine you want and STILL have money left over... That's IF this 240Z is in good enough shape.

A header won't do anything substantial. In fact there's some evidence that headers on the earlier 240Z engine can actually REDUCE your average power depending on your setup. You can't just do a single mod to an NA engine and expect a ton of power. If you have the money, get MS and get it running on your car. That alone might actually make a good 5-15hp difference. The stock tuning isn't "close to the edge" at all, and if it ever pings it's usually due to the mix going lean, not reaching max advance for a given RPM/MAP/Mixture value. Once you know the MS well and have tuned several tables and feel like you're reaching the limit of tuning (getting great economy and not finding any more power to gain at any point) then you can start on the turbo conversion. I've said this before on this board, and most of the guys actually doing serious engine builds with the L series agree with this statement. The stock NA and stock turbo pistons have nearly identical HP limits What this means that you can run 300hp safely on the stock NA pistons. It doesn't matter if that's at 7psi with head work, or at 20psi. The accepted limit that starts getting hairy with the stock pistons is around 400hp, but most with NA pistons haven't dared venture into the land of the unknown out there. The benefit is that the NA pistons have better quench (reduces knock due to accelerating the mixture) and due to the higher compression (still low by modern standards) it will spool quicker and have more power off boost. I'd also recommend searched the coolant head mods on this site. I think that if you're going to be going for the limits, or running low octane gas then you need to look into the head cooling issues these heads tend to have. It's not that they get too hot, but rather have hot spots which can cause you to ping long before you've really reached the limit. All that said, here's the order of events I'd recommend: Get MS - install it Upgrade any sensors you desire, since you now can. Maybe install edis if you want. Buy turbo conversion parts: -Manifold -Turbo -Oil Pan -Injectors -Down pipe There's lots of other parts you're going to need if you don't MS first, in order to get the stock turbo ECU to work, hence why buying MS actually simplifies everything. On stock wastegate pressure you're probably looking at putting around 200hp to the wheels, which is darn scary to jump to from stock NA. Add: -Intercooler -Manual Boost controller -Fuel Pressure Regulator And now you can run up to 12psi easily. By boosting fuel to around 55psi you should have enough fuel overhead for that power level on the stock turbo injectors. At this point you'll probably have over 250 wheel HP. Once you reach 300hp (might require larger fuel injectors, or a second fuel pump and insanely high pressure) you've pretty much started hitting some hard limits to defeat in regards to the intake design, head flow, etc. At this point I'd highly recommend doing the head coolant mod if you haven't already, and possibly having a custom intake made. I'd go external wastegate, and upgrade to a higher flowing turbo, even if it's just a T3/T4. Upgrading the cam might have a small improvement, but having the head ported by someone with experience with these motors will have a much greater improvement. But now I've mentioned enough to get you into piston melting realm, and it's not just "casual" at this point. It's my personal belief that unless you're in love with these engines this is where you should have stopped already. There's much cheaper power out there in other engines. The turbo L series is great for a budget 250 horse engine, maybe 300 too. But beyond that.... the LSx can make 400hp for far less imo. Oh, and one clarification. Someone said to upgrade the fuel pump to the turbo one. I used to think the were different, but they actually share the same part number. Though I'm comparing the 81' NA to the turbo, which has the P79 head, so I don't know if the 79-80 has a different pump. My 75' is pushing AT LEAST 170 to the wheels on 7psi and I've been running the stock 280Z pump... SCARY!!! I'm actually going to be adding a second pump (280ZX pump) to the system soon, then I'll never have to worry about fuel supply at my power goals.

I can understand persuading people not to heavily mod an early 240Z for the sake of money, but I don't understand it practically. The Z cars are not, and will never be, a mustang. They will probably never be worth more than the average house in an urban area. I don't ever foresee them being a "rich man's investment". But maybe I'm wrong. IF you're an investor, don't touch it. Clean it up, get rid of rust, and vacuum seal it. IF you're a car guy/hot rodder, do what ever you want. It's a car, it's meant to be enjoyed. THAT being said, you can get 200na HP out of those engines easily enough on a reasonable budget, and about 250 if you want to spend some doe on having the head well built. 200hp in one of those will scream like a bat out of hell. I wouldn't use the stock L24 for that build though, so that if you DO want to sell it, you can drop it back in. This also saves your high dollar engine for another car if you plan to buy another S30 down the road. But again, if you don't care about the value, and just want to have fun (like most of us on this board) do what ever your heart desires.

Yea, I-5 from sac to LA is pretty brutal. I recently went just for the weekend, ouch. I'd much rather drive all the way to washington on I-5. Oh, yea, ummmm.... keep up the good work!

I had origonally thought all the ZX rims were 7 inches wide, but found they're actually 6 inches wide. I believe they're all the same width, possible slightly varying backspacing, but within 10mm of eachother. Hope that's a starting point for you. This site: http://www.xenons130.com/wheeldifferences.html Says that they're a +12 offset, and I believe that to be accurate.

Wow this thread brings back some memories. I last posted back in 2005 in here! Now that I've owned a S30 for quite a while, and I've had a S130 down to literally nothing I can say with a lot of certainty that I could get a daily driven 280ZX down to 2500 pounds while keeping the stereo, heat, AC, power windows, carpet, sound dampening, etc. If I make a "street" 280ZX that was completely gutted and dashless like some people like to drive thier S30 I think I could get the weight down bellow 2200, or darn close. That's within spitting distance of 240Z potential, and the S130 platform has lots of benefits, other than looks... I think to some level I still contend that if smog wasn't an issue in cali, I'd be much more interested in having a S130 project car opposed to a S30 project car. I still love my 75' though.

Ok, so people (drummingpariah namely) have been bugging me about getting a project thread going, so here it is. This car isn't exactly "road worthy" to many people's opinions, but that doesn't stop me. My rear tires are bald on the outside, the front tires are insanely bald due to a past camber issue. The car likes to hydroplane quite easily, but predictably. The car also likes to make lots of vibrational noise above 65mph, I think due to wheel bearing issues. So here's the car as it sits now: (I personally love the overflow tank, it looks like a loose tooth to me. It's getting moved soon) And here's the engine currently: I've been slowly working on removing unused wires lying around, making things a bit neater, grinding off brackets that aren't being used, etc. When I got the car it had the earlier N47 intake manifold and not the stock intake J pipe. Instead it had several pieces of pipe hacked together with multiple couplers... so I installed the turbo, intake, and pipe off of my spare L28ET engine. I'm going to change that valve cover soon... Notice anything missing in those pics though? Here it is: I was working on cleaning up the wiring one day, and I'd pulled the battery out in order to gain some room to work on it. While it was out I realized I had plenty of cable length to just put the battery in the passenger foot well... So I did it. It moved approx. 20lbs down by more than 12 inches, and inboard a good 6 inches. Win win win right? No worries, I'm going to move it to the back and get it sealed up sometime this summer, probably when I make my dash: That's some spare stainless my dad had lying around, so I stole it and brought it to my place. I'm not sure if it's enough, and if I've got the dough I'll just order some ali instead. Also in the near future I'm going to get around to installing my rust free doors: http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b346/Gollumandsmeagol/280Z-Helen/DSCI0699.jpg Which have now been painted the future color of my car - semigloss black w/clear. Should cost me about $75 in rattle can supplies. I might be driving around with some nice doors before I get the rest of the car painted at my current rate.... I really want to get my dash started soon though, because this wiring has been a nightmare, leading to patch work such as this: I just keep telling myself it's temporary. I also need to get all this damned dynomat crap off the car. I don't care about noise that much, and it's been a pita getting it off. It's leaving it's goo behind: So that's that for my first post. The car is my daily driver when the weather is good, and when I'm driving it (instead of the 280ZX) I tend to work on it a lot more, so this summer should bring lots of improvements. The car isn't forever going to be my daily driver. Eventually it's just going to be a fun car that I'll be building to take to HPDE events once I've got the money to pursue racing as a serious hobby, not just working on potential cars... This isn't a SCCA racer, an autox car, just a fun car. I don't want more than 250 wheel HP with this engine, and if I do ever want more I've been toying with the idea of the LSx engines since they do everything so stinkin' well. But first things first. I need tires BAD. Then I need to make the wiring safe. Then I need to dump some money into good struts, springs, and bushings everywhere. Then I can start talking about power.

Why is there not a single post from anyone in here?! Go braap go! I love the project, and I can't wait to see some work on the upcoming crank.

Sorry, I should specify so i'm not passing around misinformation. Chrysler corp engines themselves tend not to have issues, and I was mentioning the car, which has little relevance to the origonal car in the thread, I know. My remark was simply directed towards the fact that there were indeed issues with Chrylser cars like Ford or GM. Electrical systems just weren't like they are now back then. ...but they're still not VW when it comes to electrical problems... Overall I would agree though, they've made some good stuff. But like everyone they've had thier lemons.

I was talking about back in the day 50's-70's, you know, the era of the car in question. Back then most of the GM subsidiaries had their own engines, chassis, interior parts, even down to many unique elctrical parts. Dodge was much more platform oriented by the 60's.

Dodge, Plymouth, and Chrysler all share engine series though. Pontiac, Chevy, and Buick don't for example. Dodge engines themselves seem to be decently reliable, but they've made some pretty shotty stuff in the past.

Think about how much easier it is for him to find parts now too. I'd sport that car. I think it's neat. Maybe not as much of a monster as a dodge engine can be, but who cares? There's a reason why RB swaps and the likes aren't done too much in the USA. It's just a huge pita when you need something you don't have. I'd loved to see a BMW V8 in it though.

Wait, where's the problem? j/k, I'm sure you'll get some one day if you really want them bad enough. Oh, and that's badass speeder, and I support the change!

Some update info, since it's been a while: I daily drove my 81' for a while to get me through those really cold months. If I can survive the rest of this month it should be nothing but good weather for the forseable future, so I'm driving the 75' again for the last 2 weeks. I never got around to getting MS running on the car, and have basically decided I won't. I plan a "secret" engine swap probably in about 4-5 years from now, and since I'm only going to go for around 250 wheel HP MAX on this engine, there's just no point since I won't need the MS for the next engine. But here's what I HAVE done: -Fixed MASSIVE camber problem due to insanely inapropriate springs -Changed to the turbo intake and blocked off everything pretty much -Removed the heater core, AC core, and blower motor since I wasn't really using them anyways -Swapped turbos from my other engine when I did the intake -Switched to the stock J pipe so the intake piping isn't sectioned together like a hack job -Add some much needed switches and removed much uneeded wiring -Moved battery -Changed hood to a "prettier one" -Added a nice front lip -Blocked off all open holes in firewall so I don't completely freeze -Gutted tons of stuff that wasn't hooked up, being used, or just plain uneeded (still more to do on that though) -Tore apart all that wasn't being used of my dash Things I plan to do in the VERY near future: -Fab a simple dash and switch panel -Buy tires so I can have 4 matching rims again -Put on the spare doors I have and get the whole car rattle can semi-gloss black -Duct the radiator and block off the front the best I can for next to free -Vent engine bay air to the cowl vent -Buy some much needed bushings And for those unaware, last time I posted the car looked something like this: And now looks more like this (this was still a while ago though) Oh, and those aren't my rims. Those were the prototype Rota's for the group buy that rudypoochris organized.

That one back abot 300 posts ago about bananas was pretty freakin' hilarious. Seems like a year ago now.

yella, I'm not trying to be an ass, so don't take this the wrong way. But are you SURE it's a 79'? Reason I ask is that as far as I was aware nissan didn't make any turbo models until 81', worldwide, not just the USA. Definitely a sweet car though man.

Yea, I love the S12 chassis 200SX. I'd take one over a Z31 any day. Good engine options, decent suspension to work with, decent aero, and light enough too!