Gollum

Both of the first two pics you posted are the same all aluminum intake as what the 350z had. They just also have the plastic vanity cover that makes an engine not look like a "mess" to non-car folk. If you keep an L engine then EFI doesn't mean the engine bay can't be clean. To the contrary I'd say it's easier to maintain a clean look with EFI, but you certainly need to ditch a lot of the OEM design to it. I have ZERO focus on aesthetics with my car and it looks world's cleaner than that 280zx engine bay you posted.

It all adds up, and I said less than 700. The real diff might be closer to 600. You have to consider that a lot changed over the years between the 240z and 280z. Added wiring alone is likely a 10-20lb weight gain. The moral of the attached story isn't so much that the later year cars are heavier, but rather should be that the weight if your car will be far more dependant on how you build it and what kind of creature comforts you want. I've driven a 71 240z that weighed over 2400lbs because the guy who restored it was running piles of sound deadener everywhere, AC and every feature original to the car. He was still running 240z suspension and the r180 diff, so add those and you'd be in 280z without bumpers territory.

If I'm honest, I think you should go with the VQ. A VQ35DE out of a 350z would be just fine and fit most of your priorities well. There's also the VQ25DET but they can be a bit hard to find. With how far back you can get the VQ to sit (especially with a forward facing intake) clearing the steering isn't an issue. There's also prefabbed cradles on the market ready to weld in. It's a well established swap at this point, so little custom fabrication if that's your jam.

It's amazing what a powerband can look like when you max out a turbo with more than half your rev range left to go...

This is well covered so I won't get too deep into it. From within the 240z years there's about a hundred pounds or so drift upwards. The 260z is essentially a 240z the first half of the run and a 280z the second half. An early 260z should weight basically the same as a 73 240z and a late 260 should weight the same as a early 75 280z There's a good 100-150lb difference in the bare chassis where they added reinforcement through the years but the much bigger items are the 280z having beefier suspension, heavier diff, federal regulatory bumpers etc. All in all I don't think there was more than a 700lb gain from the first 240z and last 280z. People love to talk about how heavy the last cars were, and no doubt they were heavier, but I don't believe the factory curb weight specs. Not even a little. I've never seen evidence that shows it as accurate. My 75 with a L28ET and no bumpers and no interior was well under 2600lbs. That said, search. Use Google if you have to. There's a lot of good data on the topic.

At least a few are well known entities: For example, the S52 is just over 400lbs, spitting difference from the L engine. Real difference would come to what accessories, flywheel, and clutch you run. The transmission different is significant though, And you can really see that in the L28+ trans compared to the 7MGTE+trans weight. You can also see that the VQ+trans is about the same package weight as the L engine, despite the engine being a good 20lbs or more lighter. The stock Z transmissions are light! Also why they're not super stout.

I was taught the same thing. Personally, I feel there's a lot of marketing BS that's created this stigma that 50/50 is "ideal". I will say, that a 50/50 balance is generally much easier to setup and tune, since you can put four identical tires on the car and then tune the suspension to balance out itself and the chassis and steering geometry. That said, how many supercars do you think are 50/50? Almost no porsches, and they've never been poor handling cars. And in fact, Porsches generally dominate braking tests... Why? Because they can utilize a lot more rear brake and heat the tires more evenly during braking beccause that 40/60 split when tossing all it's G's at the front under braking retains more weight loading on the rear tire. A car like a FWD two door honda with 60% of it's weight on the front has almost no rear braking requirements, hence why they used drums for so long (and still do in some cases). In these cars, that rear car can't do much braking because there's no weight on the rear. Now, this also means the front has more weight on it and you can apply more braking force because there's more grip available. But tires respond differently at different temperatures. There's a lot of research you can do on coefficients of tire grip but the short of it (this is already long, sorry!) is that a perfect tire would grip the same at all temperatures but never do. With a perfect tire, a heavy car could handle every bit as well as a light car because the added weight would equate to more grip. Obviously well all know this isn't the case, though it's important to realize that "heavy" cars like the R35 GTR don't bend physics, they're surprisingly fast for their weight because they do a great job of spreading the heat between all the tires evenly. And that's the key to all of it. Maximum grip is only attained when you can maintain consistent grip across a tire patch, and across all tire patches. Hot spots in a tire will deliver sub par performance, and having a cold or hot tire in the group will deliver sub par performance. That's the reality of what OEMs look at when engineering a car, as well as fine tuning it. Also, what most people think of as "responsive and good handling" rarely has nothing to do with skidpad results. A car that's eager to turn in and feels stable and predictable have almost zero correlation to skidpad results or even ultimate slalom speed capabilities. If you want your car to "feel good" then spend time on ackerman angles, caster, toe, and scrub radius. Something I see a lot is people putting wire wheels on and then complaining about how "heavy these new wheels feel" when really the problem is that they gained a lot of positive scrub radius. The same problem exists with lowered cars and ackerman angles. I say all this to showcase the reality that there's far too many variables at play to say that an engine is going to hurt your handling. In fact, I'd say that an engine should NEVER enter a discussion about handling, another common internet myth... Choose whatever engine you want, and then build/tune the suspension around THAT choice. Choosing an engine that fits your existing suspension is like choosing the flavor of pizza you want based upon the size of your plate...

Some weight placement and handling perspectives: 1. The 240Z won a lot of races with the factory engine, even in the factory engine location. The node weight didn't seem to hold it back much at all, and Pete Brock has mentioned that they could have likely gotten a lot more power out of the engine within regulation, but it wasn't exactly needed. Their largest obstacle was convincing Nissan to manufacture and send them a fully counter weighted crankshaft so they could get the RPMs up. Once they had that, and improved factory cam oiling, making the necessary power suddenly wasn't a big deal. 2. The factory engine can go back about 3" with almost zero change. The only thing of concern back there is the brake lines which can easily be remade to route elsewhere. Once further back, the engine can also go down a bit. Some hardcore racers have gone a lot further back than that, some with extensive firewall redesigning. 3. The factory engine is about 390 pounds in factory spec with flywheel bolted to it. An all aluminum BMW I6 will come in within 20+/-lbs of that. Which means the exact placement of the engine in the engine bay will matter for more than any potential added weight. 4. A vehicles ability to "turn in" has almost zero to do with how much weight is over the nose. The Integra Type R was something like 63% weight on the front tires, a lot of which was in the engine bay. That vehicle dominated autox and lower speed tracks in scca. Obviously it had no issue "turning in". A vehicles ability to readily change direction is all about chassis tuning. And I use the term chassis and not suspension because it's far more than just suspension. Yes, you need to have good suspension, but choosing the right tires, wheels, right height, and on and on all have an effect on turning performance. 5. A gas tank will affect weight balance from full to empty far more than any engine swap, yet we don't hear people getting all particular about gas tank weight and placement.... I'm just trying to drive home the idea that how well it's going to handle ultimately has almost nothing to do with engine choice. Also, why is a rotary swap hard? It's actually relatively easy in my book. Just don't use the factory exhaust manifold if going turbo.

The DOHC I6's in the list will almost certainly add weight to the nose. An all aluminum BMW I6 might not be much gain, and you can bury them pretty deep into the bay which helps. That said, an all allow LS will have LESS weight on the front wheels, by a lot. Not only is this because the engine's center of gravity is much further back because the overall length is shorter, but the engine itself is actually within the ballpark of the factory L engine. Which is lighter would depend more on specific accessories and add ons used. Where the REAL difference in weight is, and why most end up heavier after doing an LS swap, is in the transmission. The stock Nissan trans is only about 80lbs and doesn't like 300hp/tq. There's a reason Nissan put the T5 behind the L28ET in the 280ZX Turbo, and that wasn't even rated at 200hp... I'm running a L28ET in my '75, and my reasons are as follows: 1. Any swap requires a lot of little bits to finish, it's not just mounts. It's mounts, driveshaft, throttle adaption, wiring, exhaust, etc. People often overlook just how much goes into a well engineered swap. 2. The L28ET can make enough power with relative ease that it can easily be "fun". 300hp is a well known recipe and a number many shoot for. And honestly, anything over 200hp in these cars is enough to have fun and also enough to be competitive in many forms of racing and starts being far more about the chassis setup/tuning than power. 3. The idea of chasing more power in the L28ET is entertaining for me. I know what it would take to push the limits and I enjoy the thought of the challenge. 4. It sounds unique. If I wanted a great NA sound with similar power I'd strongly consider the BMW S54. Could I make good NA power with an L engine? Sure. Just not sure the build process interests me enough for the output. Once you've put in the effort to complete the S54 swap, a replacement engine is semi-readily available. Rebuilding a 250+ NA L engine wouldn't be something to just do casually. But all that to say, the turbo L engine sounds good and "uncommon". It's obviously not a V8 or a four cylinder to anyone who hears it, and it's not a boring V6 sound either. Personally though, I find engine choice to be a very personal question and answer, and there's no right, and dare I say very few wrong. Nobody can answer if for you, but at least you know why I run what I run.

If only they'd made a I6 version of the KA.... If you dig through the various KA DOHC L series threads you'll see a fairly strong reoccurring opinion that the KA head is superior in many ways to the RB heads, and that the main issue the KA engines have is the crappy factory crankshafts. A KA paired with the crower stroker kit and a big turbo likely has a better power/psi ratio than most RWD 4 cylinder platforms to date. Clean up the head with mild work and the right cams and you can just push power until you run out of turbo or find block power limits.

Yeah, squat is a serious problem with semi-trailing arm suspension, and if you look at the OEM LCA you can tell it sees a LOT more force acting upon in than a typical McPherson strut setup like on the S30. The "best" thing you can do to alter the stock geometry for less toe and camber change, and also improve squat a little, is to actually raise the inner pickup point. This is far from trivial, but it should also make it apparent than if raising the pickup improves geometry, then lowering the ride height degrades geometry. All the dynamics are operating on curves, and the thing about arcs is that they tend to intersect in a logarithmic fashion, meaning that they have sweet spots of operation and once out of that change dramatically. If you limit the stock movement to be within +/- 2 inches then the camber and toe changes are minimal, and obviously if you can keep travel that minimal then you've prevented squat somehow. The easiest solution is insanely heavy springs, but that also means significantly better struts that can handle the stress of stiff springs. On the plus side, if you run springs that hard, you don't need much of any rear roll bar, which can help gain back some of the ride quality loss. But for context of suspension travel vs ride quality, the stock miata can travel about 1" before contacting it's long bump stops that are incorporated into the suspension travel goals. A well set up miata can ride surprisingly smooth and only have about 2" worth of compression space before hitting shortened jump stops. Also, I'm no expert on all this. I just take the time to read and listen to the experts or those that know more than me. One thing echoed in many places, is that compound matters more than patch area. A 275 wide tire that's a mediocre all season with a 400 treadwear is never going to outperform a quality 205 wide tire with a 200 (or lower) treadwear. Getting a tire's contact patch to the right temperature, and keeping that temperature as even as possible across the patch matter far more than the shear size of the patch. Also, a well performing 205 wide tire is likely WAY lighter and also on a smaller and lighter wheel, improving performance in all directions. I'm all about fitting as much tire as possible, it's just one of those things that you have to consider the goals and why you're doing it before making a decision. If I owned a 280ZX again I'd shoot for about 245 on all four corners as that looks really beefy for the size of the car, and likely is more than enough contact patch than I'll ever need, and would have stickier tires around if I ever needed them.

Though I'm not sure I made it extremely clear, the common rota rb-r group buy rims fit 245 and 255 front/rear with relative ease (some rolling in back). But if you get a bit more backspacing, 275 in the rear is easy, and can even go a lot wider if you get really crazy with suspension tweaking and getting the perfect rim/tire combo. Here's a car running 245/255 F/R And here's a S130 running 255 9" all around instead of the staggered setup (yes, 255 in front O.O) : If you made a custom rear LCA (not a trivial thing on a trailing arm suspension) and moved the lower spring perch inboard a bit I bet a 315 would fit in the rear! Not joking, there's miles of room in there. But for an easy setup, getting 245/255 range all around is fantastic for this weight of a car.

Wheels for the ZX aren't actually THAT hard to find, you just won't find donors for them everywhere. Widest wheels F/R is generally around 255/275. 255 will likely rub a bit at full lock, but 245 is pretty safe with the right offset. 275 in the rear is even a bit conservative if you have perfect backspacing and roll the fenders a touch. If you dig through the 2 million pages of the rota group buy thread you'll find details of how well they do/don't fit the 280ZX. The short of it is that the group buy rotas fit the 280ZX without the need for flares but the ZX has a touch more room inward than a S30 without coilovers and thus a bit more backspacing could be used to tuck the wheel in a little. The EFI is pretty rudimentary. It doesn't have any knowledge of when the cold start injector is open, or the vacuum bypass systems and such. The ECU itself operates like most MAF vehicles and has a RPM by AFM table. Most other things that add/remove fuel in various transient conditions are handled outside the ECU. Removing most of the smog stuff won't cause much harm, but do note that if everything is working RIGHT and in good order, it shouldn't be hurting power at all. No idea on the latch panels Dashpads? You mean like those 70's/80's carpet covers for the dash? MSA has them last I checked, but that was a while ago.

Looks like a prime candidate for a front tube chassis! I'd weld on some 1x1 square tube to locate a few things for future reference and just start cutting that front end off. You've already mentioned a LS, and you're on hybridz so you're obviously not a purist. Put some better front suspension on the thing (the largest handling issues are up front) and call it a day. Far less work than trying to make large bent metal straight again imo. The rest of the car actually doesn't look that bad. Once you clean the inside out and start getting it clean you'll know how far gone the pans and other parts are.

Oh I agree wholeheartedly. My point was that we've had docs on how to control spark in these cars LOOOONG before anyone was making trigger wheels. I spent $166 on my trigger wheels, coils, plug wires, and connector kit... It's peanuts in the grand scheme.

You only need that trigger if you want to run COP/Wasted Spark with an easy to setup config. The stock 82/83 turbo can send signal to MS (any version) and manage the coil directly, as long as you have a high current driver you can use for it. Otherwise you can use some form of ignition box to activate the coil from signal with MS. Look up "mobythevan". His setup used MSnS + a GM HEI module to control a factory coil. This is no different than many direct coil control setups that have existed since the first days of MSnS, in that you send MS basic tach signal from any digital distributor and let MS inject it's own control over the ignition module that fires the coil. That said, looking at what I spent I'm not sure I'd go any other way than full Sequential COP. Using MS2 would mean you have to run batch injection, and wasted spark, but that's not a big deal in the grand scheme and gets you GOOD coils with WAY more power. Not to mention I can get replacement coils anywhere and they're not very expensive.

Believe it or not, those numbers aren't THAT BAD. Sure, lots of stock L28ET's dyno closer to 160-170who, but there's a myriad of things that could be reasons why your numbers are low. Regarding the dip in power, that could be a million things as well. The AFRs show stable though, so it's likely mechanical in nature of some form. If it makes you feel better, here's a random dyno I found of a 350Z with a similar dip, and that's a heck of a lot newer design in all areas: I bet with a proper timing curve tune it'll just... go away. Also, could be something as simple as the factory knock sensor getting triggered by valvetrain noise or what have you. That'd be the kind of thing to check when doing FIVE runs instead of TWO.

Today's tire options essentially tell us consumers that the wider tread you want the taller wheel you need to have good selections. Slowly but surely, the 15 is dying and now 16s are in the same state as 15s were 5 years ago with thinning selections. Sure, there's still options for both, but not like there was back when more OEMs were using them. Can anyone find me more than one tire to fit the Ferrari F40 stock size? I bet you can find several options for the current fleet of super/hyper cars. Rota will build whatever there's damand for. Rota didn't make a 17 with the right backspacing for our cars until rudypoochris organized the group buy, and now it seems they're everywhere and our distributor kept our group buy pricing for a LONG time because we just kept bringing him business. Get 100 other people together who want a 16" RKR and they'll be happy to prototype it for you. ...but what tire are you putting on a 16"? Because you can't utilize huge flares with a 16" tire commonly available, and the remaining 15" options fit nicely without flares... To each his own, but this is why there hasn't been the market for a plethora of options. Fabricate pickups for donor suspension that runs high offset and pick any wheel you want.

Because it was the 70's. They put carpet on everything!

If you're going to actually use the engine at peak power regularly and chasing every HP, go 3". If you are just building a fun street car, go which which ever sounds better. 2.5 will sound brighter/higher pitched over tones while 3.0 will be deeper but as noted more prone to drone. If you get drone with any setup a well placed resonator in the middle of the longest straight piece will help wonders.

Read every post about cylinder heads by BRAAP. The liner heads can flow just fine. The liners don't inhibit flow. And a mild step up from head to primaries isn't a big deal. People put the turbo manifold on the linered p79 regularly. Not THAT many cases of liners breaking and eating the turbo. I'd be willing to bet EGTs were a bit higher than they should have been with a proper tune.... if you're that paranoid, get 6 EGT sensors installed with a red light if any cylinder gets higher than expected norms.

Even if it needs new floor boards. Even if it needs new rockers. Even if it needs replaced faux-rails. Even if it has no interior. ...This day in age. That's a steel. I got into these cars because they were cheap, but those days have sailed. Overall though, I think with some elbow grease that thin will turn out better off than many I've seen being daily driven!

Oh wow, this is gonna get interesting. I'll be curious how this build pans out. There's so many points of escalation at that power level and there's never a clear path forward that others have paved. How much tire is right for the goals? What compound to use? How to handle the rear end setup to actually hook up that much power? What's the right amount of brakes? None of those could I answer for anyone choosing that motor. Best of luck and I'll be following closely. The purists are gonna love you.

Most obvious choice: http://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/classic20c01/23-4042 Shouldn't be too expensive shipped to Holland. Cutting the springs is only advisable in some circumstances. Some people say it's dangerous, but I've seen plenty of historical examples of racing teams doing it regularly in the 70's. So obviously any added "danger" was negligible compared to being on a track with other cars. Just remember that lowering a car requires stiffer springs. Stiffer springs will require more force from a strut to achieve the same dampening rate. Wanting to adjust any of these factors will have impact on all the rest. Suspension design is always a balance of pros and cons and you have to realize you're giving something up if you want more of something else.

This is such a great build thread, but I the thing I'm in love with the most is the steering rack/column and pedal combo. That's all fantastic and so much better than the OEM setup (and likely saves a few pounds over the hefty stamped steel column mount).