badjuju

Sorry, forgot to say they're of fantastic quality, the dude answered all my install questions and shipped within a few days of my order being placed.

I'm running the production C flares from classicdatsun, here's a link to the install progress. https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BzMsMVcRvGhlZGJOOGZwbHVzTkk

That is entirely possible. Lol

I violently object to being referenced as an expert. XD Are you going to stick with the Z idea and buy one when you find one or are you looking for a neat car of no specific make and model?

Also also, I second what Miles said above, there is no way this car is worth $15k. It's worth $5k, maybe $7500. To safely drive a 50 year old unibody with 320 horsepower, you need to KNOW there is no rust in critical parts (even if it's only important in case of an accident). The difference in work between knowing where all the rust is and only replacing some and knowing where all the rust is and replacing all of it is not huge. Just the body prep, paint, and fab work on a car which has had the time and money (and tbh the love) into it to say "this bitch has no rust, I know for certain" is going to have $10k+ into it, or thereabouts. This guy's car does not have that. I will have ~$35k into mine by the time it's finished. It will never be worth more than $15k. If that. I have no doubt he's put $20k in it, but he's put it in all the stuff that is easy and fun. Malibud's right, these things are getting harder to find, but you can always buy one with rust in unknown places for less than $1500. The body of this car in my eyes is worth $1500.

This isn't meant to shit on anyone, so if you disagree, that's cool, but please don't read into this as a personal attack on anyone. If something I say below doesn't apply to you and your project, good. I'm not trying to throw stones here. Dave, Move "not much rust" from the Pros column to the Cons column. There is more rust than he's letting on OR there is more rust than he knows of because he hasn't gone in to fix it all and gone "aw shit" yet, and previous owner before him told HIM there wasn't much rust. There are two accurate statements I've seen regarding rust on an s30: "Lots of rust, needs floorpans redone" and "No rust, I've stripped it bare and done a full resto to get it back in fighting condition. Everything else is a sales pitch. Speedo/Tach not working is commonplace, but so is people not doing something in a swap because they can come back to it later and then never coming back to it. I know because I have done it and I no longer do it. Point is: what else has he left behind to come back to take care of later and just wound up coping with it not being up to snuff instead? Reverse lights don't work: this could be because the reverse switch isn't wired up right (points to the same thing as above, just thinking 'man i wanna drive this, I can sort out the details later'), or it could be because the wiring in the car is 45 years old. If it's because the wiring in the car isn't up to snuff, could have a ton of problems down the road as you troubleshoot other things that pop up. Leaky window gaskets: yeah, you would want to have a shop do the work. I have no experience as to why someone would be okay with doing an engine swap while their windows leak. But then, I live in Seattle. Leak in trans at the output shaft (you believe): The drivetrain having been swapped in is the only argument to be made for this car's value. If the trans leaks, that's a big ding in the value of the car. That means you need to redo something that the current owner should have done. "Heater core DC'd for hose leak" - this isn't a repair, this is a bandaid. This is further indicative of the "eh deal with it later" problem above. Also, not having heat in California may not be an issue, but if you need to draw heat out of the cooling system to prevent it from overheating at some point, having the heating system hooked up would be good. Hope something here helps, and I hope you wind up with a Z and hanging around, this is a great forum!

1. My uncle runs a stud ranch, so this example doesn't necessarily work in all situations 2. No he doesn't, that was a joke 3. I care very much about grammar as well as the differences between words like "they're", "their" and "there" because language is a man-made invention we use to relay our ideas, and it's hard enough relaying our ideas using the rules of language correctly (consider how many miscommunications you've been a part of), so anything we can do to help reduce miscommunication, I'm fully behind.

Really though, this is a tremendous resource (as you know) for any swap because most of the conversations here center around how to do something or why to do something vs "I saw someone do this once, let's copy that".

www.hybridz.org

I was just sitting here going "I wonder what it would take to make an 8.8 diff work in my z." and then noticed this thread. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some reading to do.

I am looking at buying the rear kit for my 2jz build. For the $800 it's currently listed at on their site (https://www.shopgreddy.com/17020400.html), it seems like a great solution. I'm concerned with mismatching that look in the rear with whatever I choose to go with in the front, though. The front isn't my cup of tea, and the rear is frankly the most Z-esque solution I have seen so far to fit 14" wide tires in the rear. My problem is that pretty much anything that will fit that kind of rubber either makes it look like an industrial bandaid (bolt-on flares) or a Porsche (the rolled-out style body kits). I'd rather have the Porsche look wrecking my lines than the industrial style, but to get that size of a patch I'll have to make some concession. *cues Flinstones theme* Criticism can be good, but I agree with the above, I came back from a few years' hiatus and everyone is crapping all over everything that isn't their favorite. If everyone dogs everything new, there won't be anything new and the 240z will start to become a dead icon. I may pass this kit up just because in 15 years I don't want to look back and go 'damn I wish I hadn't done that' when popular styles have changed.

Got the block powdercoated on Saturday, started reassembling on Sunday! I'll post pics later!

OP: I have seen older corvette and new mustang tail lights work well with s30s, I see no reason why you wouldn't be able to come up with something amazing. Of the ones you posted, I like the bottom left the best. Helghast is right. I jumped from my old Golf to an s130 more than a decade ago, and the difference in the communities is very strange. The younger generation of people interested in Datsuns seem to be of a higher caliber mod/knowledge-wise than the VW community, but the older generation of folks interested in Datsuns seem to poop on anything that isn't rebuilding the s30 to its glory days. Do your thing, man. Don't be discouraged. HBZ is different. If you want overjudgemental posts, look for that ish in that other forum so many of us migrated from.

I was lucky enough to find an SC300 in a junkyard, so I paid $180 for a motor with 80k miles on it that had been totaled. After breaking it open for inspection, I lucked out. After ARP hardware, a new HX50 for a single turbo, and a cometic HG I think I have $1,800 into the engine. I'll be running VEMS for engine management (lots of love for MS, I just like VEMS better), and I'll be doing all the wiring myself. I'll have a complete wiring diagram when all is said and done, but that's likely a year out. I'll be fabricating my exhaust and intake manifolds, as well as my mounts. A big part of my work on the project so far has been "buy the tools and learn to do it yourself", not because I have some hatred for people who are able to pay to have work done, I just love to learn.

I just wanted to drop in and say hey to everybody and let you know that the oven I've been working on is just about finished, which means my soda blasted\tanked\masked 2jzge block will be hopefully be powdercoated here within the next 10 days. After that, I'll be keeping the block hollow while I fab mounts and manifolds, then reassemble, work on engine bay prep and paint (or powder ) and finally I'll be dropping my setup in and starting my wiring harnesses. It's good to creep around a bit and see the new and old folks' projects.