Dan Juday

It depends on your air cleaner but if it's not to big it should clear. The spacers are there to give you more hood clearance. Go ahead and install your motor. If you find later that you need them you can easily install them without removing anything more than the front wheels. To install them jack up the front of the car and put jackstands under the frame rails. Pull off the front wheels. Put your floorjack under one side of the front crossmember and remove the two bolts from that side only. Slowly and carefully lower your floorjack just enough to slide the spacer in. Drop the new bolts in and tighten them up. Switch over to the other side and do the same. Put the wheels on and you're done. Make sure you have four new 1/2" longer bolts before you begin. You just gained another 1/2" of hood clearance. You also gain a little clearance between the top of the bellhousing and the tranny tunnel. I used them on my car but didn't on Steve's Tomahawk LT1 swap. Can't really tell you what effect they may have on handling. I know they change the roll center but they also lower the center of gravity. Could be a trade off.

Hey Larry, I hope you're going to bring that pressure cooker to the Rio Vista show. I know you're pretty excited about your ZX right now but I think most of us have a seen a few nice stock ZX's. Bring the blower and I'll promice you a sweet spot up front. 8)

Actually Mark I believe the scam works this way: The poor english grammer is intentional. The $8000 is the bait the keep you e-mailing back. The more you corispond the more confident you start to feel about this guy. The english gets better. Then after four or five, or eleven or twelve e-mails, whatever it takes, when he is convinced you believe him the sting comes down. At that point his english is crystal clear. He has a check for $8000 he can't cash for some (now very believeable to you) reason. He wants your parts and will trade his check (which you now believe you can easily cash) for the parts. All he wants from you is the international shipping charges which, you guessed it, are about $600. He will arrange the shipping. Notice he said he will send his shipper to you? So he needs the $600 to pay his shipper. You send him $600 and you believe you will receive a check for $8000. You get $7400 for your $2300 parts!$!$ Only it doesn't work out that way. You may or may or may not get a phony cashiers check. You never see his "shipper", there is none. He doesn't want your parts, just the $600. Honest people wont offer you twice what your stuff is worth. He hopes your greed will cloud your thinking. Sadly, he is right enough times to make a living conning people. The best way to combat this scam is to ignore it and tell others to do the same. Replying only encourages him.

I think you would be looking at the same issues as any SBC in the JTR position. Clear the steering shaft, clear the frame rails, clear the T/C rod mounts. The knock sensor is really not a deal since it can be mounted anywhere on the motor or bellhousing. In the two EFI swaps I've done I relocated it to the same spot, a boss on the side of the block near the oil filter. The threads are straight and not NPT but it's an easy retap. The other plus is that it's near enough to the original location that the wire reachs without cutting.

Another thing is that aluminum work hardens pretty fast and then cracks easily. Exhaust systems heat up and cool down, thermal expantion and contraction, and they vibrate all the time. I would think that to counter that you would need to go with a relatively thick wall. Do that and thin wall stainless looks really good, like John says.

Yea, it does actually. The Z32 lights are not "one dimensional" (for lack of a better phrase) like the earlier Z taillights. They have a clear outer lense and the red and amber portions are inset and vertical. Set the light in so the outer lense is vertical and the inner red and amber sections point downward. That would really look goofy and have a poor dispersal pattern of the light. Plus the lights wrap around the rear corners of the Z32 somewhat. So set the lense vertical and the lights would look like they were smiling. Next time you get up close to a Z32 take a look and you'll see what I mean.

Well forgive me if I'm off base as I don't have any ZX experiance. Are you sure the holes in the bumper and the holes in the fenders lined up before you took them off? What I'm thinking is that there may be a little Z shaped bracket with the holes about one inch apart that attaches the bumper to the fender. If it has been a while since you removed the bumper things can get lost and memory can get fuzzy. I'm learning this as I put my car back together. It has been apart for three years and even though I bagged and labled everything some things still came up missing. It's nice to have a parts car to refer to (and scavenge parts from) when you're putting the driver back together.

From a straight on rear shot it looks like you could place them anywhere. But if you look at the pics I included that show it from a 3/4 angle you can see that the lights slope forward and the rear of the S30 slopes backwards. We actually extended the overall length of the car by about 3/4" so that the lights would not be so recessed into the rear panel. This actually created a curve to the top edge of the lower valance that more closely matches the curve of the rear edge of the hatch. Stand close to the rear of your car and look straight down and you will see what I mean. The hatch is more curved and the lower valance/bumper is more straight. All this to say if you raised the lights you would have to extend the lower valance even farther or have a light surround panel with a lot of odd curves to it. Also you can see by the shadows that even after we extended the lower valance the outside/upper corners of the lights curve back rather drasticly. The way I placed them still recesses that corner about two inches into the body. So, raise the lights and don't extend the rear valance any farther and you will bury the lights into the rear panel. Raise the lights and extend the lower valance to match and the lower valance sticks way, way out. And finaly, raise the lights and then create a curvy, bendy light surround and you risk making it LOOK like you just plugged the wrong taillights into the car. Some will say that's exactlly what I did anyways but that is the risk you run when ever you have the boldness to alter an already beautiful car like the Z. So you may have gathered that I explored every posible location and position before tacking then in place. This is THE spot that they were going to go and no other. But hey, I could be wrong. Now, on the subject of painting the area around the lights black, I am considering it. How about doing me a favor and PhotoShop that for me? One version in flat black and another in gloss black if you could?

That's Ron Best's car. SubtleZ fiberglass hood and fenders. Buy you own here Reaction Research A great company. $300 plus shipping.

Denny, you should stick to safer stunts, like lifting motors all by yourself!

A targa top can be a hard top like the Fiat X19 and the Toyata Supra, or a soft top like the Lancia Beta Zagoto and Porsche 911 targa. Targa just refers to a removeable roof panel.

Way too big to be a heeler. She looks like a real sweetty. Just love her and care for her and she'll be a good dog. You may never find out what breed she is but anyone who rescues an abandoned pup is a purebred in my eyes.

In the old Hot Rodding days when bodies sat on frames the proper way to lower a car was to remove the body and cut out slots in the floor where the frame rails ran and weld in channels so the body would drop down over the frame into the channels. No loss of ground clearance, no major changes to the suspension. The challenges came in refitting the seats and other interior bits like the pedels around the channels. But don't do it Tim. Keep it a classy cruiser. Clean it up, new paint and chrome and absolutely put a four speed auto behind a quite but powerful sbc.

They have a Z based Ferrari GTO with a SBC V8 for sale on that site. $39k

Nic, you anti-searcher. Good threads here: http://www.hybridz.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=28200&highlight=ttops http://www.hybridz.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=27118&highlight=ttops http://www.hybridz.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=25759&highlight=ttops http://www.hybridz.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=19059&highlight=ttops

Sorry Goldraven, I just threw away a set of those LT1 manifolds last summer. Wish I had known.

Hey Leonard, I know a guy that will sell you ten right now. He says he can tow them over tomorrow.

Dag, welcome to hybrid. Buddy, you got to do a search and some reading. The motor mounts are easily fabbed and you can buy the tranny mount from JTR for $55. Several guys here have done the 280ZX V8 swap and I don't think any of them bought there motor mounts. Just plug in 280ZX into the search function in the Chevy V8 forum and you can get up to speed quickly.

Well this will piss you off. I think the GTO looks lame too. But mostly I think it looks like...................................a DODGE!!! Well doesn't it? Kind of a Sebring/Stratus morf thing goin' on there. Only thing missing is the four part grill. The real beauty of that car is under the hood!

There are other options as well if you want a manual overdrive tranny. There are kits that increase the capacity of the T5 to 600hp or more. And there is always the T56. A great tranny that's hard to bust and it comes with a bonus gear.

Please forgive me if this sounds too obvious. A lot of trucks have proportioning valves that operate from a rod that moves according to the relationship between the rear axle and the frame. Rear axle close to frame=full brake pressure. Rear axle far from frame=minimum pressure. As the truck pitches forward under braking the rear lifts and hence the braking pressure to rear brakes diminishes to impede rear wheel lock up. When the truck is loaded there is less forward pitching so the rear brakes get more pressure for stopping. All this to say if you have jacked the truck up and set the frame on jackstands and let the axle hang you will be at the minimum pressure setting for the proportioning valve. Put the jackstands on the axle and you have full pressure. This may not apply to your truck but it came to mind when you said you had minimal pressure to the rear wheel cylinders.

Stock Camaro slave cylinder about $50, Tilton 7/8" master cylinder about $65, Ron Tyler adapter $30, -3 AN hose with fittings about $30. A reliable easy to service and install clutch system... priceless. Sorry, I've been watching too much TV.

No headers that I am aware of will fit. You will need to use factory manifolds. Here is a shot of Dave Greimanns car. You should check out his site while it's still up. http://home.earthlink.net/~dvgreimann/index.html It would also be helpfull to do a search and read all his posts. He was a very prolific poster and extremely helpfull reguarding the S130 V8 swap.