Hugh

Here's Mine for sale with SR20DET installed. Fast daily driver.

Take a look into a JDM parts catalog with a price list. It's outrageous. Trust, HKS, etc... their list prices are nuts. The shops in Japan sell them for less than the list and its still expensive. Once its shipped back over here, then its just out of control.

So goes business. Those fake Greddy manifolds are what we call "Freddy" manifolds. I've seen some studies on them several years back. One guy cut one in half and showed how horrible the ports were inside. He had to grind away a bunch of material to clean it up. It looked like a porcupine died in the port or something. The cheap casting was so porous that it was causing leaks in the middle between runners. There was no way to identify this until you really inspected it very closely. Once you apply a ton of boost pressure, it would be blowing air right out those holes... wasting power, and causing the engine to run rich for no apparent reason. Once he fixed all that and welded it back together, it worked. He then said he'd buy the more expensive one next time and avoid all the trouble. There are 'good' knock-off parts out there. You have to research them and find people showing good results from them before you try, though. I personally don't run any. There are name brands that are not Japanese that produce great quality parts... as the Japanese gouge their prices really bad. You wonder why companies like Apexi and Trust are at risk of going out of business? How about the exorbitant prices they charge for their parts? Lot's of the R&D involved is simply buying a part from an American company and stamping their name on it. Then they double the price. I'm not going to start listing specific parts here, but I discovered a lot of dead-on rebadged American parts in Japan when I lived there for 5 years. We ordered as much as we could from the states to save money. JDM = BS. If you can get the part elsewhere, go for it. Even the Japanese manufacturers are moving all their production out to China. (actually, the likely beat us to the punch, as they are right next door and shipping costs a lot less)

RHD in the US in just annoying and a bit dangerous, in my opinion. Not seeing the driver side causes clearance issues, and you can't see when you're pulling out into traffic. I drove RHD in Japan. Also done LHD in Japan, and it was scary. (and inconvenient every time I came to a toll booth, drive thru, etc...) Just my 2 cents.

and now you get what I'm saying about 56 led's pushing 10,000 mcd from 14 volts.

Definitely not my favorite BMW color, but wow that looks great! Nice work, thus far. I'm considering shaving that logo, but I kinda like them. Still undecided on that.

That's how my brother built cars. He'd have a built motor with a blower and heads etc... piling up, and not even know what chassis to put it in. They were all really fast when he did, though.

Looks wider to me. (pantera)

Whichever is newer, engine or chassis, designates which smog laws you have to comply to. If you pull an engine from a newer chassis, you are required to have EVERY smog device that came on it. You will have to pass the smog regulations of the donor vehicle. If the chassis is newer and the engine is older, then you have to make the older engine meet the requirements of the newer chassis. (to the best of my understanding) The engines he mentioned are not street legal in the US. There are no smog regulations for them, because they weren't sold in California originally and shouldn't even be on the road.

This is the Hybridz site, right? Cut that thing up!! Go wild. Hahaha Good luck with it not caving in on you, though. The roof is an important part of the structure of a unibody. If you had a good roll cage with a targa top, I could see it working. Or if you somehow managed that newer porsche style where it retains the roof around the windows. Everyone whom ever added a sunroof can tell you it leaks. (fyi)

What's my level of commitment? This car is my only mode of transportation, and I run my own business. This is how I get there. Problem is the business takes precedence, so the money gets invested there now, rather than into the car most of the time. $100 isn't that huge of a commitment, by the way! Now if you had a motor set in your garage waiting on a car... that would be a different story.

How often has this come up for Hybridz Members? I mean... how often have members here been given a date with the ref? I know there are plenty of 240sx owners who had to swap back to stock motors to visit the ref. I've just never seen a 1975 or older car owner have to make the trip. (although I understand it is a possibility)

I went ahead and contacted Devfuse directly with these comments. I don't know if just one guy complaining will help, but at least they've now heard my suggestions. This system could be really cool with some work.

Let me clarify my statement then: There is no regular smog check requirement. (I said there is no smog requirement - a little vague)

Something I hadn't considered.. haha - how stupid of me. A dimmer. I'll go ultra-bright then, and adjust it til I like it.

Don't be offended. It's all been done, or someone thought of it before. I wanted to get that piece made out of aluminum several years ago, but never pursued it long enough to get it made. I would buy a set if the price was right.

I built that on a flat plastic sheet with no regard for the inner shiny housing. When I perfect it, I plan to do the same sort of thing. I'm now thinking the more they blend together, the better. I suppose I will switch to red and possibly step down to slightly less bright LED for them. Makes sense that they would disperse and blend better, with less obtrusive straight line brightness. I don't want laser pointers sticking out of the back of my car. Especially when they can't be seen from the side. The day running lights would break up the look of the smooth lens that has no features to look at. I suppose that would look pretty interesting. How much side angle do you anticipate? Is your lens going to to protrude out of the back of the car, or be flush?

Haha, yeah. Should I use some armor all to put some life back into that window track? I know it makes a mess out of windows, but I've seen it do wonders for lubing them up. I also have silicon spray lube, which is probably almost the same thing as armor all. Maybe I should just use that?

OK, I got it! This is what I did: I tested the washer/shim method on the passenger lock cylinder and put it back in. It worked. I then did the driver side, and it didn't work. I figured I'd follow the advice in the instructions above and swap sides. Driver side still didn't work. I got in there and analyzed what was going on. I used a spare door latch mechanism to understand it. The lever that the lock cylinder rod pushes down on is a little loose on its mounting point. It rocks slightly, keeping it from engaging the lock. The other end of the lever may be missing some bushing or something.. it seems to have a ton of play. I realized getting the latch mech out of the door requires removing the window track... I don't want to get into that right now. I decided to keep it simple and extend the lock cylinder rod by just straightening it out. I removed it and put it in my vice. Got it perfectly straight and reinstalled it. The lock works like a charm now! That's the rod. You can see the curve in it. It works fine if straightened, and gives that extra movement my mechanism needed to engage the lock.

Yeah, every year. I have a 1973 240z in California. No, there is no smog requirement. I highly recommend against buying 1976+ cars unless they run really clean and you plan to leave it almost stock. The seller in the state of California is actually required to get the smog certificate. If you are to buy a 280z, make the seller deal with that. Otherwise, just get a 240z and change your display name here on the forum.

I thought I read that you had to be a current supporting member to use the classifieds. See where your group says "Members"? The supporter tag you have is just your member title. On some boards, you can edit that yourself. It carried over from the old board. Pretty sure you have to donate yearly to access classifieds.

This could be combined with my thread about issues with the garage system. It's a separate program written by a third party and added on to IPB.

These cars get picked to pieces in SoCal. I wouldn't hold my breath expecting to find a turbo motor. That would be the first thing out of the pick-ur-parts place. Keep searching craigslist and any other classifieds you can find. Where is your location, anyway? You don't have one in your profile that I can see.

I don't like even real projectors. They're not very bright and perform worse than normal lighting, in my experience. All the Japanese models with them were terrible. I have some 7" H4 conversions I got in Japan years ago. They have a sweet very light blue tint to the lense, and its flat and smooth. The problem with these is they shine up the left side instead of the right side like a US vehicle should. This means I can't see the sidewalk well, and some of my light is hitting the oncoming traffic. (only though the driver's light, as the passenger light is blocked by the bucket. JDM \_\_ American _/_/ I've been considering removing the lenses and swapping the housings out with something else... likely those diamond lights. My fear with that is the dreaded water-in-the-headlight-problem. I used to have the rectangular diamond conversions on my 180sx, and those looked and worked great for me. I prefer the subdued look of my current housings, though. Less 'diamond' flash in the daytime. I'm also not a huge fan of HID for a couple of reasons. One, its very directional and usually misses spots. Two, I hate when I'm coming up on somebody with ultra bright HID lights and as they hit bumps, the cutoff passes into my field of vision. It immediately goes from cool to I'm freaking blind over here.

Yeah, somebody else mentioned the physics of passing a white LED through a red lense. I can tell you this: If these lights were 3 times brighter, it would burn a hole into the back of your head. It's bright as it is. I think the fact that I used 56 LED's that don't light up as bright as red would makes for less of a christmas tree lighting look. The brighter each individual shows up on a spot, the worse the dispersion will look. Maybe I should have used red ones for the turn signal/brake lamp portion. I wish they could perfect the technology to make them spread out more. I think I might like to retry this with the flat square PCB type LED's and fill the entire housing with them. I'm not trying to reinvent the lights, just modernize them and do something a little unique. Your method is a complete change. We're just approaching it differently. As for your lense, is it just a flat piece of smoked plastic or something you're planning on? It doesn't look like anything without the lights lit up... which makes it boring in the day time. There is also that pesky law about having a section of red reflector on the back of your car. (and the police here love to nail you for it) I like the large arrow. Come up with something that looks good during normal use, though, too. You spend more time with your lights off, typically... and then when they're on, the chase sequence is cool - but its gotta look good when its not chasing. The single strip of the upper arrow might look good. (and somewhat like my design)