VinhZXT

The C5 oil pan is baffled also. I forgot to take some pictures of the inside when I had it out.

The bat wings on the C5 pan will hit the TC mounts and it would be close to impossible to slide the motor in with the wings. Also they will interfere with the exhaust down pipes. I don't know about the oil capacity question because I have not done a comparision with the Fbody oil pan.

Hi Guys, Anyone on here has any experience with the Sweet Thunder chamber mufflers? I want to use these chamber mufflers as my side pipes for my LS1 Z. I am just curious to how loud they are and are they restrictive or not? I plan to use the 3" SS ones and put some tips on them and run 3" pipes to my collectors. Any help would be great. I got the Patriot side pipes from Summit as well and they look very restricted so I will try to remove the inserts and see how loud they will get. Damn I am spending way too much money for my exhaust system.

Can't wait to see some pix. You definitely need to think about dual exhaust in the back if you shave the rear like my yellow ZX. Something I didn't do which would have made the car looks real bad azz.

Another VNese Z lover. Where in CA are you at? Orange county?

Thanks for all the replies. I don't think I did a compression test on this rebuilt motor. I must have mistaken it with my other turbo cars. Anyway I did the same test on very turbo ZX I have before and I got the correct readings. I guess the high compression is due to the fact the machine shop shaved the head and block. I replaced the head gasket with the correct one today and the compression was around 165. I am still using the stock HG BTW. In the process of replacing the HG I found my vacuum leak. It was the PCV pipe got burned by the exhaust manifold. I didn't have the shield there and being that close to the exhaust manifold it's just a matter of time. I put a shield there now. I got 18 mmHg reading now.

I had these before and tried to weld them and I just poke holes right thru them. There should be 4 studs and a metal backing plate come with them like 280Zone said.

Stock compression for turbo motor is 143 to be exact and I knew this. It was a long story leads to this problem so I leave it out for now. I am going to replace my head gasket and redo the compression to see what I get. I want to see any one in here can explain the high compression readings when you get a bad head gasket? Thanks for all the replies. PS. This time the compressions were the same regardless of my throttle open or close

Hi guys, my stock turbo motor has a weak vacuum reading and today I did a compression check and all the readings were 175 PSI. The readings were 145 when I rebuilt this motor 2 years ago. I know my head gasket needed to be replaced but can someone explain why the compression readings are so high? Thanks Vinh

I used 40 grid sand paper on an electric palm sander. It gives me a better feel and control and I am used to it. Make sure you always wear a mask and protective suit. Trust me this stuffs can kill your lung and it will make you itch for days. Don't ask me how I know lol. Back to your question "Will it ever end"? yes if you have a solid plan and don't keep changing it. PS. Have you guy used the chicken net on your fiberglass project yet? I am talking about the net used to do stucco on the house. If you haven't use it yet try it. You will be amaze how easy it is to mold the shape of your project. In addition the fiberglass glued to it pretty good after it dried. Good luck.

The trick is to make your fiberglass parts as smooth and close to the desired shape as possible. If not you will be doing a lot of sanding and scratching at night lol. I used the small die grinder that the auto body guys used to remove paint and rusts from panels. It's small and easy to handle so you have a good feel of the high and low spots.

82, The line is still there but it won't be seen from the front. I did the same thing as Guy did in this thread.

LMAO ... a smiling drunk chick without teeth.. lol

LOL I thought he meant the side fender louvers. Larry you might be right.. oops.. lol

IMO if you can squeeze the rear of the new quarters in they would look better. However if you like the way it looks you definitely have to custom make the tail light panel to match that rear. I am in the process of doing the same thing but I am using the Porsche 944 quarter panels. Sorry don't have any pictures yet. Very good ideas and works. Good luck. V.

You don't need to spend money for side louvers. Here is a simple design I did on my ZX. Looks pretty good IMO.

Guy, Wait a minute. You are telling me that you are not shaving the door handles? lol. But it looks nice with the door handle shaved. Don't stop now. I know you have to be very good with fiberglass now lol. J/K with you but seriously you are at a point where "yeah I might as well do this". V. PS. How do you like the new look now?

Rdsk8tr, If you want vents I think cut that top piece off completely and make it flat would make the front looks similar to the earlier Zs' front and plenty of air can enter that openning. You might want to try that instead of vents. GL. Guy, All that work to the front and you will not take an extra step to finish the rear? I agree that the rear is a lot more difficult to make the ZXs look good. Cody, If you use the stock bumper reenforcement then you will need to weld the struts so that if someone hit it the reenforment piece it won't move back. Otherwise the reenforcement will interfere with the hood.

Hi Guy, Mine is over the front lip of the hood just like what you have there. Looking good. Now you can answer questions to others when they ask how to do this mod lol. I am really bad at writing and explaining the steps to do this mod. Now what are you planning for the rear? Beach_Turbo, No need to beep it up. It is strong enough.

Most back firing problems are caused by timing problem. I bought an 81 280ZXT from a junk yard awhile back. The car went thru several auto repair shops and finally it ended up in the junkyard. None of the shops can get this car running. They thought it was a bad computer. I brought it home and played with it for a few hours and found out that the chain some how was off by 1 tooth. It is pretty easy to check for the timing. Just open the valve cover and turn the crank and watch for the shiny link matching up with the dot on the sprocket when it's at TDC. If the motor is at TDC and the shiny link is not lining up with the dot on the sprocket then you need to wedge the chain, remove the cam sprocket bolt and turn the cam so that the dot will line up with shiny link. Reinstall the sprocket. Note: when the chain is off by 1 tooth my compression tests were still all good at 140s. Good luck

Hi Guy, The weak areas for this mod are the sides next to the headlight buckets. You need to add plenty of fiberglass mat and resin there to re-enforce those areas. This is to prevent the hood from breaking them when the front spoiler shifts. I have a little nick on one side of my spoiler on my blue Z. This is because I didn't mold the front spoiler into the fender and therefore the front spoiler shift at some point. You can also grind down the corners of the front of hood a little to help the situation. Can't wait to see your car finish. Keep it up. V.

The 280ZXs are not good looking with flares unless you flare the whole fender IMO. When I build this car I thought about puting flares on it also and I looked into the Kaminari full fender flare kits. They were too expensive and their design were not 100% either. The Kaminari full fender kits didn't take care of the obvious ugliness of the whole car and that is the 2 bumpers. So I didn't go with it.

This problem could be caused by a bad cooland temp sensor. Does the newer cars throw any code when the coolant temp sensor goes bad? I gotta try this out on my C5 motor and let you know tonight. If the O2 sensor goes bad it will throw a code.

When it's tumbling (feel like running on 3 cylinders) shut the car off and inspect your spark plugs. If any of them are wet then that cylinder is not firing. Replace them all with new spark plugs and try start the car again. You will be amaze some spark plugs will give you sparks when you test them out side but when inside the cylinder they won't fire. GL.

8. Figure out where to put the PCM then run the EFI wires. 9. Figure out which intake duct configuration you will run. 10. Install radiator and connect the hoses. And many more. I have a long list of things to do from the time I was doing the swap for my friend's Z. You just need to build a short list each time. That way you won't get overwhelm. lol. Good luck.