Ian's 1977 280z Restomod thread

[ISPKI]

Hey folks. This is going to be my log thread of all the work I am doing on my 77 280z. The S30 is my dream car, I searched for years before I found one that I could restore and I finally ended up with this gem. It was a metallic sky blue originally I believe (the old paint scheme can still be seen on the frame rails and some areas underneath the car). It was repainted a pepsi cola sort of blue. The vehicle did not run when i purchased it for 1400$ up in MA and it has some rust issues. The biggest problem is the area under the battery tray...or where the tray was supposed to be. It seems as though a battery had cracked and dumped acid all over the area which ate everything, including a hole in the body that is just large enough for the battery to fall through. For the time being, I tack welded a metal support for the battery to sit on. I will do almost all the work on this vehicle, the delicate body work will be done with the assistance of my very good friend who is a Baron Tech graduate in Auto Body.

 

The first steps were to get it running. I dropped the gas tank and cleaned it and undercoated the entire area while it was off. I also unbolted the rear bumper and mounts. I replaced all the fuel lines going from the tank to the pump and from the pump to the filter. Also repaired the connections for the pump as the wires were horribly frayed apart. I also put a clear filter inline from the tank to the pump and replaced the pump and the fuel filter. Next, I did some general maintenance - oil change, filter, coolant flush, brake fluid, spark plugs, cap, rotor etc etc. We got her running after all that and I got to take my first drive down the street in it.

 

I moved on to some more complicated stuff - firstly, the fuse box in the cabin and the fusible links. All the links had been burned up, some were replaced with incorrect size wires, the link holders were burned and had no covers. I decided to convert it to Maxi Blade fuses. After that, I pulled out a ton of useless wiring for kill switches - old crap sound equipment, etc etc. The wiring was so messy and there was so much that did not belong, that i decided to rip out the entire sound system and discard it. I pulled out about 100ft of wire that was supplying eight 10w speakers.

 

Moving on from there, I was trying to solve the rough operation of the engine. I suspected that the coolant temp sensor might have been bad and they are cheap enough to replace. Also - the thermal transmitter was faulty as the gauge did not function properly. When I tried to unbolt the temp sensor, the thermostat housing broke in the area right around the sensors. I purchased a used housing from a fella on here, polished it, painted it, picked up all new sensors and plugs and gaskets for it, helicoiled the holes in the head and put it back in with shiny new stainless hardware.

[ISPKI]

While I had the thermostat housing off, I decided to just dive in and do some more work on the manifolds, rail, injectors etc. I hate having a dirty/grimy/rusty looking engine bay so I pulled the pieces of the fuel rail apart, yanked the intake manifold and exhaust manifold and basically ripped apart everything attached to the engine on that side. I cleaned up almost everything - between media blasting and polishing with stainless steel brushes and sand paper, I think it looks much better than it did before - its not as clean as I wanted it to be, but it will have to do for now. At least I dont hate opening my hood anymore. Many of the holes/threads for the 8mm studs were severely stripped out, and I could not get my new coated studs to thread into some of them so, I broke out the helicoil kit and redid just about all of them.

[ISPKI]

Pulling the injectors out was the most difficult part I believe. Phillips head screws should not be on critical components in a car! Almost all of them stripped out or broke off - I pulled more out with vice grips than I did with a screwdriver. Picked up another helicoil kit along with all new gaskets and stainless hardware for reinstalling the injectors. The injectors themselves were actually very clean and seemed to function properly, the holes they were in were extremely dirty and packed with grime and oxidation. Once I had the injectors out - I picked up some super clean from the parts store and dunked the entire manifold into a solution of super clean and water. That took most of the bulk gunk off the manifold and cleaned the carbon/oil buildup inside. I included some close up before and afters of the injector ports - I polished these with a conical brass brush on a dremel tool.

[ISPKI]

I got everything bolted back on with new gaskets on everything - thermostat housing, throttle body, intake/exhaust manifold. Everything has shiny new stainless hardware (except the studs). I also clear coated everything to try and preserve it a little longer. The fuel rail components were media blasted and painted. They had what looked like copper all over them and it darkened when i clear coated it which sort of bummed me out since it now looks like rust from a distance. I also replaced all the harness plugs with nice new plugs from yet another fella on here (cant remember his name). They are so much higher quality and cleaner looking than the old, dry rotted and broken plugs.

[ISPKI]

Next step - While cranking the motor, sometimes it would make a brief grinding noise. I pulled the starter off and found the teeth on the gear on the starter to be torn up really bad as well as the teeth on the gear in the transmission - Looks like the starter was only engaging on the edge of the teeth and just ended up breaking off about six inches of teeth. New starter installed and no more grinding. Fortunately, I will be ditching this automatic transmission in the near future so I wont have to worry about any long term issues with this. After replacing the starter, I picked up a 1980 280zx distributor with the e12-80 ICM and swapped the car over to that ignition system as well as picking up a pertronix flamethrower coil.

[ISPKI]

Here is the last update so far. I got a good deal on a front air dam from a gentleman on here. I have always liked the look of these air dams so I could not pass it up (even though the vehicle needs mechanical work more than visual effects). It took several hours and many broken bolts but i finally got the old front valance off and test fit the new air dam. I just has the bolts on the ends holding it on but looks like it fits pretty well.

[BluDestiny]

Nice work. You should look into shaving the intake and removing components that you don't need. and get some headers, that will make the engine bay look great.

 

For the airdam you should also get 240z turn signals and a 240z grill. Will look amazing.

[ISPKI]

I see you noticed that I did nothing with the manifold. I am planning I getting headers and custom dual exhaust so I decided not to bother cleaning the manifold up at all. What type of headers do you recommend? I have read both good and bad things about all the standard options (Pacesetter, twicepipes). I have 240z front and rear bumpers that will be going on, and I was going to modify the lower grille to take up the space under the bumper but we will have to see how it will fit.

 

I am aiming to keep the total cost of this build under 10,000$ total. I am currently 2500$ into it which includes the initial purchase and new manufactured floors and rails. I just have a ton of fabrication and repair work ahead of me.

 

Once the vehicle is restored to daily driveable condition, I might look into a turbo setup or V8 swap - my buddy wants to give me a 5.0 ford V8 for this vehicle so I may go that route.

Edited July 23, 2013 by ISPKI

[ISPKI]

I have been trying to figure out a good way to stiffen the front air dam while I wait for some hardware to ship. I mocked up an aluminum bracket that seems like it will work. Will post pictures momentarily.

[ISPKI]

I have been having an issue with my engine running very rough during idle. Last weekend I tested the vacuum in the intake manifold. When the vehicle first starts, it runs pretty smooth for around 30 seconds to a minute. The vacuum at that time is between 15-16. As it idles, the vacuum will start dropping, abruptly at first and then it will slowly drop until the engine dies. When it initially drops, the vacuum drops down to around 6 or 7 and will bounce around between 5-8 until it dies out completely. I have read online and spoken with some people about this. I have heard that it could be a crushed exhaust pipe restricting flow or something wrong in the cylinders. My next steps are going to be compression testing the cylinders and removing the crushed exhaust pipe after the manifold.

 

In the meantime, I got my new fuse block and midi fuses, and I relocated my battery to behind the passenger seat and ran most of the cables for it. I increased the cable size from 4 gauge to 2 gauge since the cables are around 6 feet long to reduce resistance. The negative is bolted to the rear of the block, where one of the transmission bolts are located. I also have a short ground from the battery right into the chassis where it is sitting. I would like to know, should I also run a separate ground from the engine to the body? I have the old, shorter ground that was used when the battery was in it's original location but I am not sure that I really need it.

[LanceVance]

If you look through my threads you'll find how I cleaned up my exhaust manifold using electrolysis. Might be worth trying if you plan on keeping the stock mani, would definitely help clean things up a bit.

 

Eager to see more progress, car is looking good so far.

[ISPKI]

Had a little bit of time to work on the Z. I decided to go ahead and hack the old exhaust system off and replace it with headers and single straight pipe side exhaust. I got the MSA 6-2-1 headers from thezstore.com super early, shipment was supposed to arrive next week sometime at the earliest but it ended up arriving Saturday morning. Big thanks goes out to Jeff over there for picking up on the small details of my order and saving me from a huge headache!

 

I test mounted the headers with all the shiny new hardware and jacked the car up to see how I would run the pipe. This was the first time I actually had the car this high in the air - I could get a really good look at the underbody! Driver side floor and frame looks to be in good shape - just a hole rotting out around one of the rubber plugs. Frame is very clean though, factory teal paint is even still showing on parts of it. Passenger side is pretty bad. Floor has multiple large holes in it, frame is starting to rot out towards the front of the floor. Good thing I have new manufactured floors and rails for it!

 

Anyways - I ordered heat wrap for the new headers, and about 5ft of metal pipe and a 90 degree bend for it. Just need to figure out what kind of muffler I will run, suggestions are welcome.

 

I also hooked up my new fuse block, looks pretty darn good compared to my old setup. Uses MIDI fuses to replace the fusible links. It also has ATC/ATO blade slots that I am not using.

 

Once I get the piping in to do the exhaust system, I will be able to get it back together and see how she runs. I am suspecting that the old stainless hardware may have been contributing to how poorly she was running as all the washers and nuts are warped due to not being able to stand up to the heat/pressure needed at the manifold. I was concerned that I was stripping out the threads in the head when I tightened them down, but I see now that I was just concaving the washers into the openings.

 

Something that concerns me about the header is that when I bolted the left side down, there was a large gap on the far right side between the flange and the gasket. It was about half an inch before I put the nut on the right side. It smoothed out as I tightened the nuts down but it still seemed odd - the flange is so thick, I dont know how it could have bent except by stresses during manufacturing.

[ISPKI]

Been a while since I updated this. I decided to remove my old manifold and rusty exhaust piping. I purchased some MSA 6-2-1 headers new, used a chemical stripper to get the paint off and painted with Rutland's stove and chimney paint. Looks alot better than I expected, has been on the car for a month or two now and no rust. I picked up 5 feet of stainless 2.5" pipe, a Borla Pro-XS muffler and some Torctite clamps to run the exhaust straight back and then out the side behind the door. Sealed the clamps with permatex. I also made up some exhaust hangers with these cool vibration dampening clamps from mcmaster and a SS threaded rod.

 

While I was removing the manifold, I found the PCV hose was literally falling apart on the car - perhaps this was my issue with the engine not running very well? I picked up a new PCV, new SS hose clamps (I got a thing for SS) and a NOS flared hose. Bolted the new header up aaaaaand now it wont start. I have spent the last three weeks trying to find the electrical problem. Everything checked out but the injectors were not firing - not being grounded by the ECU. I finally found that the ECU has no connection to ground on pins 5, 16, and 17. Will be tackling these next.