VinhZXT

Or you can just cut the wings and weld them shut like I did. It will save you some money if you already have the C5 oil pan.

I am selling a complete 1981 280ZXT with 60K documented miles and all the paper work for $1500. The car has the HKS intercooler kit from back in the 80s'. The car is not a rust bucket as some of you might assumed. I converted it to an 82-83 ignition. The motor is as solid as can be, all the compressions are perfect at 143. If anyone interest let me know. If not you will find it on Ebay soon. Vinh

Terry, I want to flare out the 1/4 panel on my Cobra Kit. I will bug you for some tips in the future. I wish you are my neighbor. Jr, I am done with the engine swap on your brother's Cobra. It's up to him to find a painter to paint the car. After that your bro and Bic can finish up the interior by themself. It's time for me to devote all my time to my Cobra. I am working on the sidepipes and incorporating the C5 cluster into the Z's dash. You are still young so get off your lazy azz and work on your pride and joy. Don't wait until it's too late. I heard by the time you get to 40 your brain slows down and you don't feel like doing much. I am getting there and I can just feel it. If you want motivation then move back to Philly and hang out with me. Why did you moved to WA in the first place anyway? I think you brother's car should be done in the Spring. So if you come back for a visit you should be able to take it out for a spin. That will definitely give you plenty of motivation to work on yours too. lol Take care and hope to see you soon. Vinh PS. You can ship your Cobra back to Philly if you have to.

Jr, What's up? Long time no see. What are you doing in Wa? Isn't Philly cold enough for ya? I am getting all these Cobras back on the road one by one. We are planning to bring them to the Zcar convention in Florida this October. Are you coming? Your brother's car is 75% complete. Just need paint and interior and he is done. Mine needs a little more work but not too bad. I don't want to rush on mine so I might bring it without paint and interior. I am sure Danny will bring his. You should bring your Cobra back to Philly soon. You can take your brother's Boss 302 and put it in yours. That 289 is getting old. Here is a link of all the Cobra info that I collected: #5 is yours but no picture. http://www.cardomain.com/ride/768663/9 Hope to see you back in Philly soon. Vinh

Can you be more specific on what is the work involved that required 5 hours? To me custom make the engine mounts and trans mount alone will take 5 hours to a day or even more depends on the design and the car. Cutting the fire wall, move it back and weld it back in will take longer than 5 hours already.

It will be very interesting to see all your AC and heating accessories fit back under the dash after you move the firewall back.

I remember there was a guy on LS1tech did this swap. He had to cut and moved the whole firewall back. You can almost tell right the way that this was a track car only because the stock dash and all the heat/AC accessories won't fit in the car. Track car or not to me this swap will require too much work and not worth it. If you like a challenging swap then go for it. If not I suggest you to do the swap with another donor. GL OOPs the stock dash should fit back in minus all the heat/AC stuffs.

I was in Japan several months ago and saw these headlight covers with the chrome trims on one of the Z I saw. I asked the owner where he got them from and he said they are no longer available. My friend from Japan been searching for them for me and he couldn't find them either.

Sorry to say this but the front looks like the bottom half of the firebird spoiler. Looks like you got some work to do on the sides still.

Pop, Nice job on the tranny crossmember. Mikelly, If Pop doesn't want the valve covers I am interest in buying them off you. Please let me know. Thanks Vinh

This is question that could lead to many other questions. Why would you want to start from scrach? Starting from scratch do you mean to redo the whole entire car? Normally you want to rewire one function at a time not the whole car unless your car had a fire. For example you want to rewiring the headlight system. You will need to know how the head light switch work first. Then figure out what wire you need to go where. What relays, fuses you need etc.

For the autometer tach you have to set it in 4cyl mode. Don't ask me why. If you set it at 8 cyl mode it won't display correctly and it jumps all over the place. I heard from a guy on LS1tech that you can hook up a pull up resistor to eliminate the jumpings of the needle. I didn't do this on my friend's LS1 swap and the tach was OK. I used the tach signal coming from the LS1 Inline Harness so it might be coming from the PCM. Maybe there is something with the LS2.

Here is picture of the C5 seats in my Roadster ZX

The 82&83 rack will not bolt to his crossmember. If he has a big gear box on the frame rail then he got the recirculating steering system. These got different crossmember. So is the manual rack. The manual rack can only be bolt the its mating Xmember. So in order to swap rack you have to swap the crossmember also. I have the power steering rack and crossmember sitting in my garage. It's a lot easier to swap them in if you don't have the motor in the car. Let me know if you are interest. If JTR already sell the headers for this set up then there is no need to re-invent the wheel. Just swap in the power rack and you will be done. Save your time for other important stuffs. Vinh

pics of the Supra seats? I also used a set of C5 seats in my Roadster ZX. They are a lot lighter than the ZX seats as well. However the C5 seats are not cheap.

Pop, Yes the converter I mentioned is the electric to mechanical converter for the speedo. When I talk to JCI they said I had to send in the tach for recalibrating. It was a lot easier to use autometer gauges and that was what I used.

Mike, Have you verified that your tach was working before the swap? This is the only thing I can think off. I didn't go this route because of this reason. For the price of buying the converter and recalibrate the tach I could have bought the autometer gauges and it's a direct hook up. It worked great in my friend's swap. I might do the same on my Ls1 swap soon too. Good luck Vinh

There are tons of things you can do to loose weight on the ZXs. First is the AC and accessories. That's stuff is heavy. For later ZXs you can convert back to manual windows to save a few pounds. Also you can remove the rear window wiper which you won't need and all the cruise accessories. For later ZXs you can swap in the manual rack and pinion from the 79 that will save a few pounds also. Get rid of the 2 bumpers reenforcement and replace them with aluminum reenforcements from new cars. Lastly you gotto get rid of the stock seats. They are heavy and so are the 300ZX power seats. I got a set of Supra MKIV seats in my car and they fit and they are light.

Thanks everyone for the replies. I am going to buy a 240Z with a perfect dash. I need to put this dash into my 77 280Z project car. Careless, Maybe we can swap since the 240Z is a bit closer to the 260Z. I am buying the 240Z regardless. Vinh

I have 3 of them laying around in my garage. Send me a message with an offer and it's yours. Don't bother with Ebay. Everyone on Ebay wants an arm and a leg for everything z related.

SHO, Nice car. Mine is just a normal Z like everyone else. For more pictures check the link in my sig

the title says it all. Thanks for the info guys. V.

yes.. $440 shipped in Japan and $2200 shipped to the US ( . I can buy a whole car for that price.

Bartman, Man thanks for the find on the top. Yup I think I will just buy the TR7 top and modify it to fit. I think that reenforcement pipe will give me problems install this frame. Sho, I think I might have to cut the upper corner of the window glass for it to fit. I will figure the window out when I get there. The more I look at the pix in the link Bartman posted the more work I think it will require to get this top to work in my ZX.

John Washington told me to use the TR7 top for my ZX. I didn't believe him until I saw this frame at the junkyard. This frame looks very simple and it will be very easy to fab up some sort of mounts for this frame. Also it is light weight so I will make it so that I can remove it easily. I think it will cost me some $ to get someone to make the rag top for it. The frame requires 2 bolts each side to secure it so it shouldn't be hard to fab up the mounts for it. A close friend of mine is working on a convertible 240Z also and he is looking for a top to fit his Z also. I will use this top and try it on his Z to see what happens. I think this top will fit the earlier Z cars better than the ZXs. I am sure I will come up with something to fit it into my ZX. Will let you guys know the result. Thanks for the responses Vinh PS. Thanks Bartman, I just fix the link in my sig.