Nickanicus

Looking for a good L28E head in Orlando. You can PM me on here or call 772-559-4075 and let me know what you've got. Thanks Nick

Need one of these in working order. Let me know what you have. Thanks

I figured I'd report back. Decided to invest almost no money in the engine. New gaskets and seals, and toss it in... The thing runs fantastic. I've got a tiny bit of oil usage that's coming from the valve stems, but the bottom end is great. 190 psi across the board. Glad I chose the easy/cheap route!

bump

Someone decided it'd be fun to run into my 75' 280Z the other day and smashed the crap out of the tail light trim. I'm looking for the flat black and chrome pieces that go around the drivers side tail light. Let me know what you have, doesn't need to be perfect, I plan on painting it to match mine anyway. Thanks,

Hey guys, I usually don't have much to add here, but I dug through the catalogs at work (Advance Auto Parts) and found a part number that works great for duct tubing for behind the dash. Dorman #96002 (can be ordered from Advance, or google it... amazon.com even carries them!). I purchased two of these and was able to replace all my hoses. They fit the ducts nice and tight and make the small radius turns perfectly. I used zipties as a hose clamp of sorts, but it isn't really even necessary. Also, home depot has foam weatherstripping for around 4$ that I used to connect the blend door housing to the evap housing and evap housing to the vent system. I just reinstalled my dash after doing a similar job as the original poster here. I have great flow through the vents and no more nasty cigarette smell!

Any chance we can get a little more info on what year legacy? I'm really needing something for the hatch seal. Thanks!

Just as the title says, the rectangular piece of metal that goes around the shifter hole to hold down the boot. Thanks, -Nick

Looking for a pair of mirrors to put on my 75'. They need to be black since all the rest of the trim on my car is black. Bullet-style mirrors would be nice if someone has any of them laying around. Thanks, -Nick

Brought it home and started putting stuff back on it!

So we loaded it up and sent it to get painted... And now its one color! I'll pick it up Tuesday!

There are no stupid questions! Adressing the first post: I'm not sure if you mean what did I do with the distributor after converting to wasted spark, or how I did the wasted spark conversion... If its the former, I just used a freeze plug in the distributor hole to block it off. If its the latter, read up on Megasquirt, then PM me for some details. I HATE DISTRIBUTORS! Especially dealing with the trigger angle in Megatune. I'd much rather take the money for an MSD or some other CDI, and put it towards some 3000GT junkyard parts! With my setup, I'm not limited to the Ford EDIS rev limit, I can use all extra functions in megasquirt (rev limits, launch control, etc), I can control dwell, and best of all: if/when I go turbo, I don't have to make any hardware changes to my ignition system. Also, the 3000GT ignitor has a tachometer output, so I don't even have to build the Megasquirt tach output circuit (which works most of the time, at best). Not to mention the implicit increased spark energy!

I said bye this morning to my car... I should see it next week after its 1 color!

Once I had the engine working well, I pretty much began a strategy of working on interior and bodywork simultaneously. I'm not going to post a bunch of pics of the bodywork. Its boring and nothing to be that proud of. Instead, I'll post pics of my completed interior. You may recall that pic I posted in the first thread showing chaos in the interior. Blue seats, wires everywhere, household carpet, missing panels, etc. Well, this is the end result of the front of the dash area. I'm still working on things behind the seat, but the hard work is done: I posted those pics in the interior forum too. They're Nissan Pulsar seats of the late 80's vintage. Cheap automotive carpet that I cut myself. Overall I'm pretty happy with the inside. The bodywork required some basic surface rust repair in a few areas. Only a couple spots had actual rust-out damage. Mostly welded in sections and/or used fiberglass to repair flare damage. Again, I don't consider myself a bodywork fiend, so I'm not proud of it. The car is going in for its 20ft/20mph paint job this week. I'll post pics after I get it back...

...yes it is. The specs on the Megasquirt are pretty basic. I'm using a version 2.2 board that I put together myself. Glensgarage daughter card, Volvo s80t6 injectors, Pallnet fuel rail, crank sensor wheel & bracket from a board member on here (forget his user name), mitsubishi 3000gt ignition coils and module, AEM UEGO wideband and a Volvo TPS sensor. I also converted to dual electric fans that I let the megasquirt control. So yeah, the engine RUNS ok. It also SMOKES a LOT. Damnit. I ended up pulling the head off to find what had to be the worst cylinder wear on an engine I've ever seen. I didn't take any pictures, but its no wonder the engine smoked, and I'm surprised it even ran. I procured another engine from craigslist for 150$. It ended up being a low milage motor pulled from a 76' Z. Cool deal, just put new gaskets on it, swap all my current crap over, install, profit: I decided it looked good enough to skip any sort of rebuild on. If I'm going to rebuild a motor, I'd want to actually throw upgraded parts in it. I dont have the time or the money right now, so I let it go. The new engine runs well, and despite a little smoke from valve stem seals (which I plan on taking care of soon enough anyway), I'm happy with my decision.

So I've decided to post the pics/story of my 280Z restomod project.... It all begins a long time ago... I began messing around with cars back in high school. My primary specialty was making Volvos fast (or alternatively, less slow). Upgrading the turbocharger and raising the boost was a no brainer. Adding bigger injectors, standalone fuel injection (megasquirt), larger intercooler, stronger transmission/clutch, etc. definitely puts a Volvo 240 in the category of a respectable vehicle... When it was all said and done though, the car was fast, yet it definitely was missing something. I had always planned to make the car handle by upgrading the suspension, changing geometry, and was even looking into doing an independent rear suspension swap. In the end though, it wouldn't give me what I wanted: a sports car. After reading, test driving, and consulting my bank account, I decided it was time to try something different. I looked into BMW e30s primarily, I wanted something European styled, light, good suspension on all four corners, a reasonably sized engine and most of all: small. Those Volvos are huge! I ended up with something very different.... something with its origins from the other side of the world. With the recommendation of a coworker, I ended up purchasing my first Japanese vehicle ever. I was taken to the previous owner's residence on the word that the car needed a little work... boy was that the understatement of the year. It must be noted that I'm a college student with a full time job. So big, long term projects aren't usually something I like to get myself into. The back-story is that the car hadn't been run in 10 years. Before that, it wasn't even close to having been properly maintained. "Oh well" I say to myself, "It has amazing potential." After an amazing 5 hour experience to get it home (rear shoes were rusted solid to the drums), I now owned a 1975 280Z with big fender flares glued on! I got the rear brakes freed up and got it into the garage with my roommate's 71' Corolla with a 3800 GM supercharged motor. Well, at this point, I decided that I should just dive in and start fixing things. The short list goes something like this: Fuel pump, fuel hoses, fuel filter, brake hoses, clutch hose, clutch master, clutch slave, brake master, wheel cylinders, brake shoes, brake hardware, halfshaft U joint, air filter, oil & filter, ignition lock cylinder & switch, starter, belts, coolant hoses, spark plugs, spark plug wires, new fluids, and more crap I dont remember anymore. Basically, the plan was to get the engine running on the factory management, do other repairs to the car, then come back later for a full upgrade. I did get the engine running without too much effort: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUxgXYR1TWA Unfortunately, the car ran very poorly on this system. I chalked it up to bad injectors coupled with possible other issues. Either way, the car was in no shape to drive... At this point, I weighed my options: fix this ancient EFI system or install the Megasquirt that was sitting on a shelf in my garage from my Volvo project. DUH! I decided to ditch the distributor (one of the possible causes of my issues with the factory system), and run a very simple, efficient wasted spark setup. At this point, the car started easily and ran quite well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-H8n21MAvw

Yay! Bracket fabrication was a little more difficult on the drivers side. The inner track sits directly on that transmission tunnel hump, so you can imagine its tight. But yes, they do fit the car quite well, and for 50$/pair seats, I couldn't be happier. Just for comparison, this is how I received the car: In addition to an alcoholic (I'm still finding beer bottle caps in that damn car), the previous owner was an idiot. Household carpet and some random seats with disgusting covers was his weapon of choice. As you can imagine, I'm pretty satisfied right now.

My 75' 280Z didnt have seat belts when I bought it. I ended up picking up a set of belts for what I only now realize is a 77-78 S30 chassis... which means the shoulder belt mounts to the rear strut tower. Is this a chassis difference, or is there a part that bolts in that location to allow me to use these belts, or am I better off trying to find an earlier set? Also, does anyone have a picture of the towers where these would mount to? I'm curious to see how its supposed to be mounted. Thanks, -Nick

Yeah, I ran into a couple of issues, but I came up with a pretty slim bracket that does a good job with keeping the seat low. I'll post pics later

Just thought I'd share another option for those looking for inexpensive seats. I got these out of the junkyard for 50$. Typical bracket fabrication required. They're manual, not too heavy, and pretty much the perfect size. I'll take some better photos later when I get the driver's side in and my good camera's batteries are charged...

So, typical story here. I'm a college student, willing to pay for parts, but I'm not rich. None of it needs to be perfect. My interior is black. Let me know what you've got.

I'd probably avoid running that at all costs. It will be out of balance and it will probably send a bunch of metal shavings into your engine, even if it does work. Get a new wheel and housing.

I cleaned them. They have a 3 then a small 4 on the pistons. IIRC, my old motor had that written on them as well. Motor appears to be factory assembled, but who knows. I didn't see it running, I bought it from a guy who had it stored for a few years, waiting for a clean chassis to throw it in. Oh yeah, and I plan on boosting it.

The person that I bought it from claimed it had 75k when the car was wrecked. It has been sitting for a while. I very carefully got the motor moving again and decided to pull the head off last night. I think the bores look good enough to put the head back on, fresh gaskets everywhere, and run it as-is. The motor coming out of my car would smoke mercilessly and as it turned out, there was a crack in the cylinder wall leading to a coolant passage. What do you guys think?

Just block and head... I may have found something, going to look at it on monday. I'll post back if I still need one.