rome03 Posted August 22, 2013 Author Share Posted August 22, 2013 Wow that response was amazing! I really appreciate the help and steps you laid out for the rebuild. I agree with everything that you mentioned. I have found the same answers on other threads but I gotta say Its perfect having them on the same one. Going back and forth and reading different threads and opinions had me a bit confused but this is great. I also had a conversation with my cousin and he brought up the same point you did. I can't/don't want to spend all of my budget on the perfect build with the horrible brakes and suspension I have now. I will buy the turbo engine, do a basic check for reliability, upgrade the other things the car needs in order to handle my power goals and finally return back to upgrading the engine. I'll have the stock turbo engine but it will be ready to go once more money comes in. I guess what I have to do now is find the right kit for the disk conversion and start replacing the suspension and bushings! Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pharaohabq Posted August 27, 2013 Share Posted August 27, 2013 (edited) Thanks Seattle... I'm glad you've convinced Rome03 to just buy a turbo engine. I would add to this that if the Turbo engine has good compression and doesn't smoke then there's no need to open it up. As he was saying, you open it up and it's opening that can of worms. When the engine is sealed, then you don't have to worry about replacing parts. If you're going to take the head off then there's a lot you'll just automatically have to check and replace. Timing chain being just one. Also he said if any of the pistons are chipped or cracked, then you should replace ALL 6 Pistons if not also the connecting rods/bearings. Things can get really expensive really fast. So, if the engine has good compression, then don't open it up. (you can use a borescope to check the insides if you want) Another note on the turbo: When you get it check for shaft play, likely you'll have some, due to the age of the car. But don't go looking for a new turbo just yet, These are easy to rebuild/upgrade. You can do it yourself, or any turbo shop can do it for you cheaper than buying new. The shops that rebuild semi-truck turbo's are a lot cheaper than the performance shops to rebuild them. So keep that in mind to save $ on the same work. If you to it yourself, watch out for sharp edges on the blades, often they're REALLY sharp and can cut the crap out of your fingers. Your plan sounds good now, Get the Turbo engine, Get it checked out. Get your car working well, Seals and brakes. (Silvermine makes a nice kit) Going with the Toyota/84'z31 front brakes and whatever you decide for the rears work well too. Even sticking with stock on the rear is great, but replace the shoes and wheel cylinders. The Bushing kits are nice but be sure to grease every bolt you put in with those bushings, or you'll get a little creaking noise. Megasquirt is awesome. It'll help modernize your EFI system, and will directly swap over to the Turbo engine. (just load a new map) It'll bring up your MPG a little too. I was seriously amazed at how well the MS setup worked on my engine. idle was smooth at ~800 rpm all the way up to 5K+ Edited August 27, 2013 by Pharaohabq Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rome03 Posted October 29, 2013 Author Share Posted October 29, 2013 Hey guys. So just thought I would update you guys on my build so far. Thanks to the advice on this thread and others I focused on getting the car in good shape before trying to make a lot power. I replaced all of the bushings with energy suspension polyurethane. Did a tune up on the engine, no need for much work there since it runs good. I got new Stance coilovers from Sakura Garage in Tempe, AZ and got new rims and tires. Can't wait to get the suspension and flares on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pharaohabq Posted October 30, 2013 Share Posted October 30, 2013 Now I'm not really knocking your stance, But just keep in mind stretching your tires like that can be dangerous. it puts a lot of strain on parts of the tires that they weren't designed for. You could have much the same look and safer, by going with a wider tire like the 245-50-r16 but you may still get rubbing. I imagine you're going to go with flares? Just keep safety in mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted October 30, 2013 Share Posted October 30, 2013 (edited) Suspension and brakes are always a great place to start, granted stretching isn't the best option for performance, but it can look quite good . I think I have 225's on a 7 inch rim and even that seems like it has some stretch. Do you have some type of camber adjustment to adjust for the resulting negative camber gain in the back? Did you have to do the spindle pin for the bushings? The rite of passage for all Z-owners haha. Personal question, when reusing stock top hats like that, do you forgo the pillow mount? Or do they drill out the stock top hat and add it somehow? I haven't seen that setup, do you have a link to where it was purchased/how it was done/who did it? I've been contemplating something similar since I spent money on adjustable camber tops. The adjustability height wise seems absolutely silly (in a fun way). I do vote for either painting or removing the corrugated metal on the side skirts. Looks pretty neat. Edited October 30, 2013 by seattlejester Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s14kouki10 Posted October 31, 2013 Share Posted October 31, 2013 Suspension and brakes are always a great place to start, granted stretching isn't the best option for performance, but it can look quite good . I think I have 225's on a 7 inch rim and even that seems like it has some stretch. Do you have some type of camber adjustment to adjust for the resulting negative camber gain in the back? Did you have to do the spindle pin for the bushings? The rite of passage for all Z-owners haha. Personal question, when reusing stock top hats like that, do you forgo the pillow mount? Or do they drill out the stock top hat and add it somehow? I haven't seen that setup, do you have a link to where it was purchased/how it was done/who did it? I've been contemplating something similar since I spent money on adjustable camber tops. The adjustability height wise seems absolutely silly (in a fun way). I do vote for either painting or removing the corrugated metal on the side skirts. Looks pretty neat. Yes, more details on the coil overs plz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rome03 Posted October 31, 2013 Author Share Posted October 31, 2013 Now I'm not really knocking your stance, But just keep in mind stretching your tires like that can be dangerous. it puts a lot of strain on parts of the tires that they weren't designed for. You could have much the same look and safer, by going with a wider tire like the 245-50-r16 but you may still get rubbing. I imagine you're going to go with flares? Just keep safety in mind. Yea I realize that, I really wanted 10" rims so I went with the widest street tire. It's actually not a crazy stretch though, much less than I thought but thanks for the heads up. Im getting the flares installed right now, should be ready tomorrow! Suspension and brakes are always a great place to start, granted stretching isn't the best option for performance, but it can look quite good . I think I have 225's on a 7 inch rim and even that seems like it has some stretch. Do you have some type of camber adjustment to adjust for the resulting negative camber gain in the back? Did you have to do the spindle pin for the bushings? The rite of passage for all Z-owners haha. Personal question, when reusing stock top hats like that, do you forgo the pillow mount? Or do they drill out the stock top hat and add it somehow? I haven't seen that setup, do you have a link to where it was purchased/how it was done/who did it? I've been contemplating something similar since I spent money on adjustable camber tops. The adjustability height wise seems absolutely silly (in a fun way). I do vote for either painting or removing the corrugated metal on the side skirts. Looks pretty neat. I don't have camber plates yet, Sakura Garage here in Tempe, Az. are still fabricating them. Greg is the owner of the shop, all they work on is Datsun. Since we are limited with coil over setups Greg decided to make his own from Stance Suspension. It's a fully threaded inverted strut with 6k springs all around. He put the top hats back on, but it will work with with the bolt in camber plates that they are making. There is no link because I'm the first person to run this set up as far as I know. He made it for his car but its not running yet. He is retailing it for 1500, ready to weld to your spindle. I wouldn't be able to answer your question about the top hat though, not sure how he made it work. I believe he chose a strut that had the same diameter as the stock ones so it would fit into the bearing without having to mill it. I want to remove that metal ASAP but its kind of a pain to get it free from those pins or rivets whatever they are. I got it off of the doors, hope to get the rest off soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted October 31, 2013 Share Posted October 31, 2013 Very cool, keep us updated on the ride comfort. I'm still shopping around for a set and some bolt in camber adjustment would be fantastic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rome03 Posted November 2, 2013 Author Share Posted November 2, 2013 Got the Flares and suspension on. Im running 6k springs all around. It rides nice and stiff but smooth, nothing crazy as far as stiffness or "bouncyness". The struts are really easy to adjust for stiffness, all you do is click left or right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s14kouki10 Posted November 3, 2013 Share Posted November 3, 2013 I kinda want this coil over setup.. Contacted them on fb but haven't gotten a response yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rome03 Posted November 6, 2013 Author Share Posted November 6, 2013 It rides pretty smooth. I would search the name on google maps and call them, It doesn't look like they use FB much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rome03 Posted December 28, 2013 Author Share Posted December 28, 2013 Been working in the Z over break. Decided to work on the dash following what others have done. It turned out ok. Wish the texture would have been different. It's still a million times better than before. The cracks were tough to fix. I used a dremel to clean out the bad foam. Filled in the cracks with foam and topped it with a bumper repair kit from autozone. Sanded it flush. Did 2 layers of fiberglass and finally painted it with the bed liner paint. In the last pic the dash wasn't dry so it looks shiny but it did dry with a matte finish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rome03 Posted December 30, 2013 Author Share Posted December 30, 2013 Its nice to look back and see how far your car has come. Here is a picture from last nights little photo shoot. Hope you like it. I thank everyone that has posted on this thread. Ive been following your steps and advice to restore this beauty. Next month I should be getting the complete turbo swap from an 83. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pharaohabq Posted December 31, 2013 Share Posted December 31, 2013 Looking good. You've done a lot of work. I bet it doesn't drive like a boat anymore. Did you address your seats or other interior parts yet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rome03 Posted December 31, 2013 Author Share Posted December 31, 2013 Thanks Pharaohabq. No it's nothing like a boat anymore haha. The suspension is nice and tight with the bushings and coilovers. The dash is the only interior part I've been able to work on, beside my cool new steering wheel ha. I want to get the seats upholstered this week. I hope it works out. I'll feel much happier with nice seats since they're totally trashed right now. I'm really saving up for the turbo swap at the moment. I hope it gets done by the end of January. I'll be running the stock ecu from the 83 until I can afford to upgrade the EMS. After the l28et goes in I might focus on the interior again, or save up for the body work and paint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rome03 Posted January 30, 2014 Author Share Posted January 30, 2014 (edited) Once again, Thanks to the advice guys. I'm one step closer. Finally got a turbo engine from an 83zxt. Next step is megasquirt since the car is currently running extremely rich and kind of crappy with the stock ems from the zx. Have any of you done megasquirt? Its giving me 12 mpg and the n/a gave me 25. Also, I never had any problems with fumes or gas smell. Now I smell like gas every time I drive it and it gives me headaches. I posted some questions about megasquirt in that forum. I hope I can figure it out and get it running nicely. I was reading at some of the old posts and read that you have ms on your z pharoa. How is your set up? Ill just paste the questions I had on the megasquirt forum here, maybe you can help me out. I just swapped in an 83 l28et into my 78 280z. We got it running with the stock harness and ecu, its 100% stock. Its been running extremely rich and giving me 12 mpg. It was sputtering really bad so I leaned out the arm a lot and got it to stop, bad thing is I don't know how lean or rich it is. I would think its still rich since I smell gas everywhere and my eyes will burn sometimes. I really need to get it running right since its my daily driver. I'm looking into buying a preassembled unit, but i don't understand how It works with the stock harness. So my question is, Is it best that I buy the preassembled unit including the 8' or 12' harness that plugs into the megasquirt ecu? Would I then cut my stock harness wires from the plugs that go to the stock ecu and connect them to their respective wires from the megasquirt harness? essentially its a plug and play/tune since I'm keeping the stock harness and just wiring it to work with the megasquirt ecu right? Lastly, how would one decide to go with MSII or MSIII? I plan on running the 83 distributor and keeping it stock for now. I just want it to be reliable, run smooth, and give me good mileage like the N/A engine did, which was 25 on the highway. Performance can come later. Edited January 30, 2014 by rome03 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 Does sound like it is running quite rich. Not sure about the fumes coming straight from an engine swap like that unless you have a leaky exhaust manifold that was swapped over. The exhaust should still exit the same place. It might be a good time to grab a wideband o2 sensor, since you will need one for megasquirt any ways to see if you are indeed running rich. I bought the 12 foot harness just so I have more room to move it around in the cabin. It depends on if you want to match up the megasquirt harness in the engine bay to the sensors, or make pig tails on all the sensors and run them into the cabin and match them there. If you have a ton of wiring the 12 foot may be a waste. If you can find the resistance curves for the sensors then yes you would need to supply megasquirt with coolant temp and intake air temp (if the l28et has it stock) from the stock sensors. It may be advisable at this time to grab a ka24de throttle body to upgrade the intake diameter as well as adding a TPS sensor, although this isn't strictly required. I would just buy the suggested GM sensors just in case, or source them locally from a junk yard. Always nice to have a back up. You should also have a wideband o2 sensor. You can actually even install the wideband o2 right now to tell if you are actually running rich or have an exhaust leak. I know when I had an exhaust leak, the smell was horrible and the AFR was reading in the 20's which seemed ludicrous, after I changed out the gasket, it dropped right down to 11-12. Regarding the selection of megasquirt, it depends on what you want out of the car. If you plan on running batch injection, with a distributor, then megasquirt 2 will be sufficient. If you plan on running sequential injection, COPS, electric fans, shift lights, nitrous, dual stage injection, intercooler mister, or want to control a few things with megasquirt, then megasquirt 3 starts to make sense. I bought mine and added two additional spark drivers (to run COPS with wasted spark) and a boost control driver, pushing my cost to about 500. I didn't plan on using sequential injection, sequential spark, nitrous, or any of the other features quite yet. And I already had a fan controller and relay/fuse board all lined up, and I figured if the time came where I wanted those features, I would upgrade to the MS3 pro. If you plan on having a shop install it, I would ask the shop what they recommend. The installer is going to have a preference and his reasonings if he is familiar with the ecu (which he should be if he is installing it). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rome03 Posted January 30, 2014 Author Share Posted January 30, 2014 Great thanks for the help Seattle. I'm going to keep reading and post more questions. In the meantime....I took my car to a shop and he said the spark plug spacing was too small. He opened them up a bit and also said the timing was retarded which was probably causing it not to burn the fuel correctly. Finally he adjusted the afm a bit. I drove it home and miraculously could hardly smell fumes. I did notice that the down pipe is missing an o2 sensor so its leaking exhaust. But nevertheless, with his adjustment I can hardly smell fumes even with the leak. Im going to drive it for a couple days and check my fuel mileage. If its horrible ill have to do megasquirt and ill think about your comment and figure out my plan. Thanks again, you guys have really helped. I've been sticking to the plan haha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seattlejester Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 I always found it a intriguing that you can run the 280zx and the early 300zx without any o2 signal. If it was any other engine and car, that would be the cause of your problem right there. Make sure to cap that o2 sensor with a bung, or better yet get a wide band o2 sensor and plug it in and get some feedback. Guessing will only take you so far. Looks like you are moving right along . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rome03 Posted February 17, 2014 Author Share Posted February 17, 2014 (edited) So It looks like I will be doing megasquirt sooner than later. The car has been giving me 15mpg on the Highway and is still running rich. Seattle....I hope you can shed some light. I bought the 12 foot harness just so I have more room to move it around in the cabin. It depends on if you want to match up the megasquirt harness in the engine bay to the sensors, or make pig tails on all the sensors and run them into the cabin and match them there. If you have a ton of wiring the 12 foot may be a waste. How did you connect the harness. Did you plug it into the megasquirt ecu and run the wires to the sensors and injectors. Essentially getting entirely rid of the old harness? I dont understand what you mean by the second option of making pigtails on the sensors and running them into the cabin...... I do plan on running the same injection and keeping the stock distributor. I just want to control spark, air, fuel and obviously be able to tune when I get larger injectors and intercooler. If you plan on having a shop install it, I would ask the shop what they recommend. The installer is going to have a preference and his reasonings if he is familiar with the ecu (which he should be if he is installing it). Here is an email I sent him and his reply, ME: Thanks for the help Tim. One more question. The guys on the forums said that you wouldn't connect the existing harness to the ms ecu. They said it's better to buy the ms harness which is like $65 and wire it to the engine. What do you think? Tim: I don't know why you wouldn't do it how I'm saying. either way it's the same. run really short wire from ms to factory harness which then goes out to say a fuel injector. or run really long wire from ms to an inch before the injector, cut and connect there. plus, doing it my way, we keep all the connections INSIDE the car and away from any water and most weather. only other way would be to have uncrimped connectors and plugs for all the injectors, sensors, etc. I have no idea where you'd get that. So he's saying, keep the stock harness connected just like it is to everything and cut the wires from the ecu pugs inside the cabin and match the stock harness wires to the new ms harness and ecu. Should I do it this way? thanks Edited February 17, 2014 by rome03 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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