Guest ModToad Posted January 18, 2006 Share Posted January 18, 2006 G'day folks, I've got an 84 300ZX that I'm putting a 68 289 into. The 300 is stripped out and getting ready for healthy infusion of FoMoCo. This was a project of bizarre necessity. It's for my wife. I bought her the 68 Cougar years ago, and she paid little to no attention to it. It needed some mild frame repairs, and other cosmetics. Well, life went on as it will, and the car sat outside for a few more years before she decided she wanted to start driving it. After many valiant attempts at patching it, it finally gave up, and so did we. The steering rack fell out with a large chunk of the torque box attached and that was the final straw. Sitting out front of my shop is a pristine 84 300zx that gave up its motor and 5 spd for a customer. The Cougar, while rotten to the seams, runs like a champ. Has great compression and has always been a willing motor. I co-own a performance shop in Ontario and we have a lot of Nissan products coming through. Weird scenario, I'm a Mopar guy, own a Nissan specialy shop, and I want to put a Ford in my Nissan. Anyway, I have the mechanicals figured out (motor will get more love too, voodoo cam/lifters, dual plane intake, 600 cfm AVS, shorty block hugger headers etc.) I'm trying to do this swap while maintaining as much of the Cougar as possible - lo back buckets, console and instrumentation. The Z31 has the digital speedo ... Just wanted to know what you guys have done for speedo/instrumentation to get some ideas. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trevor Posted January 18, 2006 Share Posted January 18, 2006 I believe the '84 Digital dash speedo sending unit is right at the top of the firewall, at the end of a standard speedo cable. You will simply have to adapt a "FORD" cable on that end. -or- the Nissan cable to a Ford transmission at the lower end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueovalz Posted January 18, 2006 Share Posted January 18, 2006 I cannot offer specific technical advice on this, but I have an electronic speedometer sensor in my T5 that sends a digital signal to the electronic (Autometer) speedometer. I have no idea on the compatability between the two. The sensor I am using is a 'hall effect' which to me means it's working off a very small signal, and based upon PPS which is proportional to the transmission output shaft speed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ModToad Posted February 10, 2006 Share Posted February 10, 2006 Thanks guys, I ended up rethinking a lot of this project as it unfolded. The Cougar speedo wouldn't work correctly because of the rear gear difference (3.07 for the Cougar, 3.70 for the Z31). I could get a different speedo gear for the C4, but it was just going to be way too hacked together to look good. I think I'm going to go with a 5" Stewart Warner 260 kph programmable speedo (Canada, metric system). Hopefully it will match up somehow with the archaic C4 tranny. I holesawed an aluminum panel cut to fit the old dash surround. I'll either paint it, or machine turn it ... haven't decided yet. Unfotunatley I'm also losing the G-force meter and compass, but the screams from the passenger seat are a better G-force gauge anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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