How fast you do it?

[BrandonsZ]

You can easily do a basic V8 swap into a 240/260/280Z in decent condition within 120 manhours - if this is your SECOND swap!!! If you already know exactly what to do' date=' you can do the job quickly. If you're learning and scratching your head and going down blind alleys, 120 hours is impossible.

 

My swap has been ongoing for 6 years - and this is with a relatively stock suspension, almost no rust repair, copious amounts of professional help with welding (there isn't a single weld in my car that I did myself - because I can't weld!), no kids, plenty of budget, a very understanding wife, and an empty 4-car garage.[/quote']

 

Off subject, but if you can;t weld, get a Lincoln 185 Tig or better, it only took me a couple weekends to figure it all out and get really decent welds. With nearly 50 hours experiance on it now I can weld with the best of them (judging by the stuff I buy that has welds on it).

 

It took me 9 months working about 50% of the weekends from 7am to 7pm sat and sun. and probably 50% of the week days from 5pm to 7pm. OVER 600 HOURS???? Dang. I never calced it before. And I was a mechanic for 5 yeas. Wow. Did it all myself though... crazy.

 

The longest lead items will hurt your time budget driveshaft took 3 weeks, you already have a working drivetrane I assume, if you leave the diff stock, but the stealth kit... you'll still need at least 120 hours just to search this site for advice! IF you've done it before...

 

Allow

3 days for exhaust

3 days for removal/installation of drivetrane

3 days for wiring

3 days for fixing old crap that crapped out during the swap

3 days for "while I'm at it" minumum.

 

My days would be 12 hour days BTW. That's get you there I bet... about 5 girly-man weeks, 15 real-man days, only if you did it before.

[Guest tork dork]

well I'm in the same boat. I have a 280Z running well. in a few weeks i'm going to start the rebuild on the 350 and buy the JTR manual. take three weeks looking the book over and prepping the engine. then I'm going to do it. I put the l28 in myself and I know I can have the thing out in two hours. take one day to sandblast and paint the engine bay. I am a pretty good welder and will have a mig and a stick at my disposal not to mention a cutting torch, plasma cutter and air tools... I know the basics of all the electical and mechanical. so I'm not seeing what is going to take me a matter of months if I have all my time to devote on this project minus about twenty hours a week. I'm thinkin two weeks

minus the time to get a driveline. not saying I'm going to have a working heater right away or even to be able to tell how fast my engine is going or the car for that matter. but running in two weeks sounds good to me.

It sounds like I might be unpleasantly suprised however. I'll tell you how it goes.

 

and harrison what kind of a unit are you in? do you know a doug white from utah? maybe I should email these types of questions

[BrandonsZ]

In the 9 months I spent,

 

I bet it took me at least two weeks of work just to take all those hundreds of pictures.

It probably took at least two weeks just time spent sweeping and putting tools away so I could find them again. (time well spent)

I know I waited about 4 weeks for parts that were late.

 

And of course the wife's demands, happy to say no altimatums and only got yelled at once or twice for spending too much time on the Z.

 

Remember the cost of this project goes up with the number of times you get the wife/girlfriend pissed off.

 

I had to do maybe 2 months of "other" house related projects to keep her happy. Including redrywalling the firewall, and some new cabinets int he kitchen. I talked her out of getting new windows (which I'd install) untill next year. So maybe it didn't take me that long just for the swap. Let's say a solid 4 months of 30hour weeks. so 360-400 hours.