Dan Juday

Yes please. Granted, this will be a lot of work, but the results will be well worth it. People will be reading your report for years. This is the type of thing Sport Z Mag needs to revitalize it. I second the suggestion to include a regular Hybrid section as well.

I think all Tim is saying is that it has been discussed here before. If there is one area of the Z car with many options and many more opinions it's brake mods. I know one fellow in Sacramento that is doing this swap. He has lots of $ in fabbed brackets and machine work. Is it the best brake mod? It is for him.

Viper Blue, that is. The first sneak preview. Some of you have been waiting a long time to see this (years ). She comes home next weekend and the reassembly begains.

Ron Tyler made the adapter for me when I did the T56 swap. His adapter will work with either the T5 or the T56 slave. His price was $30+ shipping. Ron is a member here.

Dave you make me cry. If you're going to part with the ZX just put it on the block as is. It's a beautiful package. You're too nit-picky, (I CAN attest to that). The Porsche is sweet but you're going to miss the torque.

You're sick Alex, very sick. Such a deal though. Usually when you get a cat for free you have to kill it yourself.

Notice the frameless side windows?

Don't send your money to Showcars, you'll be sorry. John Washington's SubtleZ kit should accommodate those just fine. I have the SubtleZ fronts with 265/50/15's, no problems. It bears repeating, don't buy from Showcars. Poor quality, worse service. Here's Johns site. He is a professional, excellent quality. http://www.reactionresearch.com/automotive.html

The SubtleZ front fenders, though not as wide as the YZ's, accommodate the stock headlight buckets, and 265/50/15's

...and some other headlights, and the door handles, and... Well, maybe that will be my second Z project, in 30 years.

I'm going to pipe up because I did a little research here (the YZ fenders, not the Viper motor, you thread hyjackers ). My original plan was to buy the 280YZ fenders and fit the stock Z headlight buckets into them. I am of the opinion that the stock headlight design is a key element in the winning look of the S30. JMHO. I drove to Arizona with a headlight bucket, a big wad of I-can-do-it-ism, and a fist full of cash. I left with my headlight bucket, a strong dose of get-real-ism, and, uh, John got my cash. When it comes to mixing and matching parts shape is everything. Straight lines will match straight lines but there ain't one dang curve on this planet that matches another. I learned this a second time (I'm a slow learner) when I decided I just had to have Z32 taillights on my S30 (Yes, I know, everyone wants to see pictures. Soon.). When it was all done there was very little left of the original steal on the rearend. Doing a body mod in Photoshop is one thing. Doing it for real is quite another. You need to ask yourself three questions: 1. Are you a master of fabrication? 2. If not, are you willing to pay one to do it? 3. If no to 1 & 2 are you willing to have the finished product look like, well, you did it yourself? Answer those questions now before you lay out the cash for the fiberglass, or whip out the sawzall. Just a little hindsight from a guy who's been there, done that.

That's correct. Don't drill out the washers. When you install the whole thing back on the car and let the car down off the jack the weight of the car will compress the strut and the washers will come down and meet the upper perch. You're doin' fine buddy.

Arizona Z car $299.00 each side. http://www.arizonazcar.com/lowarms.html

If your is wife telling you to spend a wad of money on a new car just to have a little more time with you then she is desperate. It's not about what you drive, it's about that wonderful person you committed to spend your life with. We all get sidetracked every once in a while. And a Z is a big temptation. But it's still just a car. Family needs to come first. They need to know that you love them more than that Z. My advice would be to take a two weeks and do nothing on the car. Spend that time with your son and wife and reconnect. It will do wonders for your marriage. The car will still be there when you get back to it. And it will never know you set it aside for a while, unlike your family.

The bearing came out with the rest of the parts when you took your struts apart. If that has been a while look around, I'm sure you'll find them. They may even still be stuck in the isolators (the big rubber part with the three studs that bolt to the inner fender). And, yes, unfortunately, you will need to drill out the "D" shaped hole to bolt in your new struts. I wrapped a rag around the polished strut shaft and grabbed it with a pair of channel locks as high up as I could get to hold it from rotating as I torqued the nut on. It worked fine with no marks on the shaft but next time I'd use some thick rubber in place of the rag just to play it safe.

At the kit car show today in San Leandro there was an in-process GTO replica that is using a C5 drive train and suspension. The car had to be significantly widened to accomodate that bad boy transaxel. It's a big pig and would likely offer no advantage in a V8 Z over a conventional configuration. Wow factor only goes so far.

I have only a couple of miles on mine so far but no problems. If I had it to do over I'd buy an adapter from Ron Tyler. This is what I did with the LT1/T56 swap and it was very reasonable and easy to install. Plus no worries about it popping out. Here's a link to Rons page. http://www.home.earthlink.net/~rontyler/rontyler.html

Like Zrossa I was shocked at how well the fit appears, at least in the pic. There will be aftermarket parts available for the Z33. It would be interesting if someone could modify an S30 so that a stock Z33 nose would fit. Then any aftermarket nose would fit as well. This could be a project for Michael Johnson. He did the black roadster with the Miata windshield and the cool rectangular quad headlights that was at MSA this year. Like Rebel says though, you would need to have an integrated design that includes the tail and flanks. Thanks for posting Kyle. Man you sure are Z-busy these days.

RangerZ is also having a difficult time finding the right bar as well, strange. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I believe there were three different bars for the first gen ('70-'78 ) Z cars. The earliest cars had one type for the forward mounted R180 diff. The standard or aft mounted R180 bar. And the R200 bar. Anybody know of any others?

There is another way as well. It's messy, requires two buckets and a lot of fluid, but it is fool proof. You said you had the entire system out of the car. Fill both buckets with enough brake fluid to submerge both the master and slave in each bucket. Remove the bleed screw and pump the master by hand untill there is no doubt all the air is removed. Pump fast, pump slow, long, short. Turn the parts upside down, move'em all around. Do the Hokey Pokey for about an hour and you should have it. Make sure you reinstall the bleed screw before you lift the slave out of the bucket. If it stil doesn't work after that you have bad parts or the wrong parts (in my case it was the wrong parts).

Ron Tyler is experimenting with an unequal double A arm type front end.

Welcome to Hybrid Chi Chi. MSA (zcarparts.com) sells a kit but I believe it is incomplete. DO NOT buy from Showcars-Bodyparts. Very poor quality parts and no integrity. If you don't believe me just do a search, the stories are here. Drop an e-mail to John Washington info@reactionresearch.com He has been considering producing a g-nose kit. He is a professional that sells top quality fiberglass for the Z car. I have first hand experiance with him and have lots of his glass on my car.

Angle grinder, drill press, oxy/acetalene torch, band saw. Ka-Ching! That $250 to JTR is starting to sound like a good deal. Actually all these tools are a great investment, and I think your idea to spend your money on tools and fab the parts yourself is a smart move. Hmmm, I have all those tools, except the band saw, and I still bought my kit from JTR. What's with that?

Actually, I didn't find the wiring all that easy. Just glad this one was a manual tranny. The auto, by the looks of the wiring diagrams, seems like a real challeng. Either way, more work than the tpi. I have a new policy on pics. People who come to events get to be first to see. Pics to be posted after Saturday. I know, all the non-locals will gripe. Sorry guys, you'll just have to wait.