Jump to content
HybridZ

Levi.McKinney's 1978 280z


Recommended Posts

Here comes the Project thread that I should've started when I picked up the car in 2021......

 

Firstly, I'd like to thank the person who has been the biggest help with this car, and who has ended up being one of my best friends, Andrew Mielke (who owns Milkfab Engineering). Without him the car would not be where it is today!

His hybridz profile (check out his z)

also shameless plug for his business: MilkFab Engineering

 

Z acquisition:

I had always wanted an s30 after growing up hearing my dad tell stories about how much he loved the gold 240z he had when him and my mom were dating. Any time we would see them at car shows or out and about i'd be drooling over them. When I started dating my now wife, I noticed a copper colored Z sticking out of a storage building on the road they lived on. Her and her family started jokingly calling it 'my car' due to me staring at it every time we'd drive past. Fast forward 3 years from then, we were married and looking for a house. She gave me a call because as she was driving to her parents house she saw the car outside and they were working on it, asked me if she should stop by and ask about it. I said 'yeah' never expecting it was actually for sale, and when they told her it was and priced it I was super surprised. This was in early 2021 when Z prices were going up dramatically, and she knew that. I told her we shouldn't get it,  that it would be unwise since we needed the money for a house down payment, we had no place to put it, etc. BUT, she made me buy it, saying 'You never know if the prices are gonna keep spiking and you never be able to get one....'. So, we bought it, my parents drove over two hours to come pick it up and take it to their house where I could work on it/store it until we had our own place. My wife is a nurse and worked weekends for a while, which meant I spent many a saturday getting up at 5am, heading to my parents, working all day, then driving back in time for dinner. Over the course of 2021 I got the car 'ready' to come home, and we bought a house for it to come home to.


The short of it:

Where we started (There is probably more than this I'm currently not remembering)

  • L28ET with no E or T
  • round top su carbs 
  • lots of electrical gremlins from previous owner cutting random stuff to try and get the car running
  • Radiator support bent from car being wrecked
  • nasty gas tank

 

Where we are now:

  • Frame straightened
  • L28ET with the E and T
  • many fewer electrical gremlins
  • cleaned gas tank
  • coilovers
  • proper race bucket seat (passenger still gets to bounce around in a nb miata seat lol)

 

More posts to come with some build processes, pictures, stories, and more general nonsense.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...