ideas for the new guy

[mannyvig]

my name is manuel, i am 20, live on my own with my little brother, work at the nissan proving grounds, have a lot of racing experience, and need your help.

 

i have a passion for Z's and am dying on the inside due to the current lack of one. i am ready to purchase another one but first need some knowledge shared with me.

 

i am ready to buy a JCI kit, and am negotiating with a local yard for an engine tranny and ecu, and am about to purchase the beast itself.

 

the questions/concerns i have are as follows:

1. what would work better a JCI or JTR kit

2. what model and year of z would work better with the kit

3. what ls1 is ideal for the kit

4. what did you not ecpect to run into that i probably will

 

and any other hints will be greatly appreciated

thank you for your time

[Twoeightnine]

Welcome mannyvig.

 

Here's what i did.

 

Decide what you want from your car, (race, street, show, ect..). this will define the equipment that you will need to get you there.

Make a list from top to bottom of what you will need to do to the selected car.

After that, this site has 90% of the answers to the questions that will come to mind. Although still evolving, all of the basic questions, that you have, have been discussed and are published within.

 

Use the search feature located at the top of the page. Search, take notes, and print off all of the pertinent material. Reasearch and reasearch for a few months untill your know what you want and what it's going to take to get you there.

 

When you get stuck, the folks in the forum have emassed a tremendous volume of knowledge and are invaluable.

 

If you learn something new, please share.

 

Your original questions are a little too vague to be answered with out generating even more questions.

 

Cruise the site, search with your questions, dig in, and have fun!

 

Look forward to hearing from you.

 

Twoeightnine.

[mannyvig]

this is going to be a roar race course car that can still be driven every once in a while

i does not need to have ac (even though i live in phoenix) or any other luxuries like a radio and what not

i have read many peoples stories on their swap but am mainly worried about which kit to buy

for the jci kit some people say the tranny mounts are wrong and others that the tach will never be right and similar stuff about the jtr one

i want to know what you would do differently if you started all over

[mark]

If you are using the LS-1 you need to get the JCI kit. If you are using an LT-1 or older V8 get the JTR kit.

[mannyvig]

good i was really leaning more toward the JCI kit i just hope it works the way he said it would

[jaime240z]

Well if you're going to do an LS1 swap you will have to use the JCI kit. JTR does not make LS1 mounts for the Z. JTR does sell LS1 headers and tranny mounts which will work with the JCI ls1 mounts. That answers that.

 

As far as which year S30 to choose from. For me, this was decidied by local laws in CA. I needed something smog exempt. I would check around your state if you plan on making this car "street legal" with an engine swap. This may very well be your deciding factor too. Any year will make a good candidate for the swap as long as you have a solid car to begin with and you invest a little time and moey in proper reinforcemnt of the subframe, etc. Search around a little ....

 

What should you expect to run into....? Rust, lots of down time, rust, unexpected costs. I see you are in AZ, you might be lucky as for as getting a rust free car, but still be sure to check out the car for any collision damage that is as easy to hide as rust can be. Take your time finding a car. The cleanerthe car is before you start the swap the nicer it can be in the end with minimal mods.

 

And of course, welcome aboard. I'm sure you will find all the info you need here.

[mannyvig]

thank you for the tip i am a fan of the 71-72 240 and the 78 280 so it will probably be which ever one is in the best condition

[Mikelly]

Bottom line is any S30 will work, but the earlier cars do have a weight advantage. You may want to poke your head in at ArizonaZcar and speak to Dave, the owner about locating a rust free car for you. Bet he'll have leads on them.

 

Oh, and search here for tons of info... If searching to buy an LS1, look for a 2002 camaro. Go over to ls1tech.com and do a search on the serial numbers for the blocks that came in those specific cars. Later 2002 production cars came with truck cams, the LS6 block and the LS6 intake. Those cars who had this configuration were showing higher numbers out of the box for torque and horsepower.

 

Mike

[Bartman]

Here's a local source for Z's that would be good candidates for a HybridZ.

 

http://www.zcarsource.com/shells.htm

 

Good Luck.

[mannyvig]

again thank you this is exactly the kind of stuff i was hoping for i think i will stop by and look at that 73 240 and hopefully bring it home

[mannyvig]

any other tips what about transmissions how difficult was it to get the linkage to hook up