jimbob_racing

Nice convertible. Did it have a top of any kind or was it a true roadster?

Wow, some interesting stuff has been said in this thread. My only comments are directed toward savageskaterkid who has some interesting choices to make. From what I understand, you have a broken daily driver and a Z car. Having been in the exact same position as you I would urge to to not give into the temptaion to do anything other than simple repairs to your Sentra. An engine swap or other performance mods will only divert time, money and interest from your Z car and then you'll have two project cars and no daily driver. Bite the bullet, fix the Sentra and continue to drive it as long as you can while you keep working on your Z and making it what you want. Don't worry about your father not making the best decision and buying you the car, you cannot change what happened so just make the best of it. Just my two cents worth.

That's just the $25.00 Yat Ming diecast with some detailing and spare parts thrown at it-nothing you couldn't do yourself.

Remember, he only has one post on the technical side of the board. In the nontech board you don't get credit for any postings so if you're a person like me who only searches through the rest of the board, reads what I'm looking for but never adds anything then you have a very low post count.

I would love to have a valve cover like that to go along with my period Mark Donahue steering wheel.

I left the stock engine in mine and used it for autocrossing last season:

It's a Toyota Starlet but not from the US market. We never got them with round headlights or right hand drive.

It's a Honda N600.

I would use that last one for clearing out left lane bandits.

Hey, they're not too far from where I live. I'm going to have to take a drive up some day and check out their show and look at that G-nose. Since I don't have to pay for crating and shipping I think I may finally be able to afford one.

I've always gotten Datsun stuff from Speednation: http://www.speednation.com/store/datsun.html

I don't think that the first course with all the access roads and grassy areas is safe enough for me to want to autocross on.

Damn, It's in the wrong Pittsburgh for me.

If MSA isn't helpful you could always do a credit card chargeback for the entire purchase price and then have it repaired someplace. Maybe just drilling a small hole in the bottom of the spoiler and injecting some expanding foam would stop the noise.

I'm in Pittsburgh and I'm willing to PAY somebody to come out to my garage and help me do the turbo swap into my '75 280Z. The Z31 swap would be even better. Why don't you check on the airfare and if it's reasonable I'll pay to fly you out.

That would be great news if it happened. Honestly I just cannot understand how somebody could walk away from such a terrific strip like that and NOT ever think about drawing something again, especially when a good idea pops into their head. I've been a fan since almost day one and have all his books on my book shelf. Every now and then I pull one down and spend an entire day reading it cover to cover. Boy, I sure miss his Sunday strips. They were awesome.

Awesome!

I understand, I just think that they could have bought a complete set of new locks for their car from Nissan and gotten the new precut keys to go with them. FWIW, the blanks probably aren't worth as much as the keys that come with the new locks because the precut keys have key codes stamped in them just like the original keys that came with the car did. Still, I'm jelous that somebody has the money to spend that much on key blanks. I hope the rest of their car is perfect.

What's the big deal about those blanks? I have two in nearly new condition and they came with the brand new ignition lock that I bought from Nissan a while back. It sure didn't cost that much. Here's a shot of my spare key for my '75 and the only key that I have for my '77 parts car:

Some of the Trans Am cars were 2.3 turbos and some were 5.0 V8s. Rousch argued that since Ford sold Sierras in South America with V8 engines they should be allowed to run them too. The cars were basic Riley and Scott tube frames with XR4Ti body work on them. As far as I can remember the biggest Merkur sponsors were Mac tools and Strohs beer. And the cars did win the titles a few years running but that's probably due to the fact that Rousch had been running Capris in Trans Am for several years before they went to the XR4Ti bodies and they had some good drivers in Scott Pruett, Wally Dallenbach and Willy T Ribbs.

You will have your work cut out for you trying to beat the XR4Ti that currently has a a bunch of door slammer land speed records. The guy that built and drove the car is named Rick Byrnes and I met him a couple of times at a Merkur gathering in Carlisle when I owned my own XR4Ti. He is/was an engineer for Ford and used a lot of trick parts that he either made himself or were Ford Racing pieces. His car ran as fast as 208 MPH at Bonneville with a completely stock body shell. For those that don't know, the XR4Ti has nothing in common with a fox bodied Mustang or T-bird. The car is basically a Ford Sierra from Europe that was rebadged for sale here in the USA with the 2.3 turbo four installed in place of the engines used across the pond. The car had an independent rear end unlike the solid one used on US designed Fox cars. I thought my XR4Ti was one of the best handling cars I've ever owned but it was plagued by all kinds of minor electrical problems and expensive replacement and go fast parts that for the most part had to be imported from the UK once Ford abandoned the Merkur line in 1990. Here's a link to a Centerforce website that has more details about Ricks car: http://www.centerforce.com/sponsored.tpl?subsection=details&cart=11372275522558&title=Rick%20%26%20Jim%20Byrnes

You can buy the movies from Owen here on this site. I bought the VHS tapes from him a while back and the ROMS recently.

There was a long post here on the site about adding a rear spolier of some kind to break up the airflow and reduce the fume problem.

I don't want to be a wet blanket but I have never, ever been able to convince a magistrate that the story a police office tells is wrong. Basically, their word is golden. The best you could reasonably hope for is to plead your case and ask for the infraction to be reduced down to something less serious in the hopes of not getting this on your driving record. Tell them that you're willing to pay the normal fine and that you just want a break on the type of ticket.

That's awesome.