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Project240z.com 73 240Z + 83 L28ET + MegaSquirt = SM2 autocross car


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http://www.project240z.com/Blog/itemId/434/Out-goes-the-dash.aspx

 

So tonight after work I got the 240Z off the trailer, both of which had been parked in the Garage since we moved to Colorado a few weeks ago. I had lined up a storage lot for the trailer and wanted to get it out of the garage. Well the 240Z wasn’t easy to start, took a good 5+ minutes of attempts before it finally started up. Later in the day I realized the MAP hose wasn’t hooked up to the Megasquirt, that would explain the difficulty in starting! whoops.

 

So I dropped the trailer off and came home to organize the garage a bit, moved the newly assembled shelves in place and started going through some of my boxes. After I got bored with the unpacking I decided it was a good time to put all the bulbs and fuses that I had purchased yesterday into the car. That was pretty quick and painless, but didn’t produce any fruit! I didn’t see any lights in the rear of the car at all. So what next?

I simply decided to pull the dashboard out! The whole thing, gone, removed, not going back in (likely not) along with the blower and heater core. Why might you ask? Why not. The car will hopefully be somewhat streetable, but I won’t be using most of the gauges on the car anyways. For a speedo I’ll have the G2X (GPS data logging), for RPM I’ll likely have the G2X, or even a Netbook running the Megasquirt software to show me all the appropriate date from the ECU. So why do I need the stock dash? I don’t! Though I did realize after I pulled the dash that I left the fiberlass dashboard in St. Louis, and didn’t bring it to CO. Luckily I’m going back to STL next week for work and will hopefully get it packed up and shipped back.

 

I’ll need to do some creative wiring, hooking up a switch for the headlights, a horn, turn signals, and even the ignition, but I think it will be cool to have all those as switchable items on a nice clean looking dashboard, not the big old clunky stock one.

 

Here’s a photo sans dash.

3832794826_2bf00d6e2c_m.jpg

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So I had a guy come buy today and got a quote on what it will cost to soda blast the car.

 

I think I'm going to have that done here in the next two weeks and put the exhaust project on hold a few weeks, maybe a month. We'll see how this whole thing turns out.

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http://www.project240z.com/Blog/itemId/435/Organizing-the-garage-and-guess-what-I-found.aspx

 

So we’ve barely been in the house three weeks and I already lost and found something! So in my last blog post I complained that I thought I left the fiberglass dashboard for the 240Z in St. Louis. Well I was wrong! Tonight while trying to get things moved around in the garage to make room for our two primary vehicles I was up on the loft moving things and came across the dashboard!

 

So all is well again in Project240z.com land, well, as well as it can be! I was going to drive the car around the block tonight, and park it in the third car garage, but I quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen unless I wanted to take the wiring harness out of the old dash and hook up the wires. Right now the ignition wires aren’t going to anything, so that would make it kind of hard to start the car and drive it. Oh well, I moved it around a bit by hand and made room for one of our cars in the garage at least, the F350 will have to stay outside for a while longer.

 

Hopefully by the end of September I’ll either have a new quieter exhaust on the car, or all the paint completely stripped off, or maybe even both!

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  • 1 month later...

Haven't made much progress as of late, I have played with the wiring a bit, but am trying to track down why I can't get the key to fire the starter anymore. I may just give up on that and wire the started up to a button, just trying to find the time! Hopefully later this week I'll get a chance to do that.

 

I've also decided, for now at least, to not bother having the car blasted for painting. I'll likely just put my own elbow grease into trying to clean it up, and then even paint it myself. We'll see if I actually do that or not in the coming month, that's my goal at least.

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So I have been delaying wiring up the car a bit, partially because I don’t understand it all, and partially because I am afraid! I’m a computer geek, but not always the best when it comes to working on the car, I question everything I do, maybe because I blew up the last motor?

 

Part of the wiring problem I’ve had is that I needed to get a fuse block to start hooking things up to, the original block had melted long ago, and only half worked. Last night I went to PepBoys and CarToys looking to see if I could find anything, with no luck. Today I decided to try Napa, SCORE! I actually got two different blocks. One 6 pole and one 10 pole, that way I can break things up if necessary. I hope to get the wiring started this weekend, I would like to attempt to have the car running again, which I think really just means I need to get a switch wired for the starter.

 

I’m not going to deal with a key for the car, this car long run isn’t going to be something someone will be able to walk up and start anyways.

 

So we’ll see how far I get, I may also have to go look at this on Saturday…. http://www.toolking.com/hobartwelders_500500a.aspx

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  • 4 weeks later...

originally posted here http://www.project240z.com/Blog/itemId/446/Megasquirt-woes-too-much-fuel.aspx

 

So I will start this post off staying this: I know nothing, I am a noob when it comes to the megasquirt, and tuning a fuel injection car (or a carb’d car for that matter).

That being said, I think my megasquirt is giving the car too much fuel when it’s trying to start. I don’t know how to prove this, other than to learn how to mess with the fuel map for the megasquirt and see if I can’t back off the fuel a big when trying to start the car. The car doesn’t like to start, it’s very hesitant to do so, and to me it just sounds like it’s flooded and can’t ignite because of this. I’ll have to do some reading here over the next week or so to see if I can’t figure it out and get the car to reliably start.

 

I did start to adjust the fuel map a bit this afternoon but ended up not getting enough juice from the battery to power the starter and the fuel pump at the same time, so I’ve got the battery on the charge. The charger has been getting a workout today as it was plugged into an 89 RX-7 for a few hours while I charged the battery on that ride up so it can be loaded on the transport truck later today (if the guy ever shows up).

 

Earlier this week I did manage to get the datsun started, and even backed it out of the garage, but I couldn’t keep it running enough to drive it back in so I had to push it. I moved it over into the third bay so that I could make room for the F250 to park inside for the winter. That truck is huge, barely fits into our 24ft garage (we also have 18” shelves in front of it), but it does fit, so that made the wife exceptionally happy!

 

I’ll try to get some new photos of the Datsun later this week. I may start doing some body work prep on it, I have a coupon for a maaco paint job for $275, so I think I’ll get some bondo out to smooth out some rough spots and get it ready for paint. Bondo? Maaco? I don’t see any value in putting a lot of money into the exterior of this Datsun at this point. I just need it to run, and not be 5 different colors, so I’ll take it to Maaco for a flat black paint job and be done with it!

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  • 4 weeks later...

So I don’t know why I didn’t think of this a month ago, would have saved me some money on shipping, but the Corbeau A4s for the 240z are sold. John V, the guy who bought the Corvette has purchased them for use in his RX-7 that I bought and shipped to him a few weeks ago. Would have made sense to pack the seats in the car then, but I didn’t realize he was going to be interested in them, oh well.

 

On an unrelated note, have you checked out our sister-site, http://www.Project350z.com? You might ask, but you don’t even have a 350Z? True, but I will, at least that’s the plan, to get another one in early 2010 so I can have a car to race next year. I’ve spent a few hours over the past few sick evenings sorting through photos of the old car, which just makes me miss not having a 350Z that much more. I posted photos and got a site design together, though I don’t have much other content up there yet, it will take a few months to get it all together, hopefully just in time to get myself a new (used) ride.

 

Dozzle, if you read this, I still want to buy my old car back!!!!

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  • 1 month later...

So, the time has come. I've decided to part ways with the Project240z car. I'm a new home owner, busy working, and missing autocross, so I really don't have time to do this car justice. I never have really, but I've drawn this out for many years trying to avoid selling the car.

 

I've posted it on Craigslist here in the Denver area

http://denver.craigslist.org/cto/1530101340.html

 

If someone is interested in the car please feel free to let me know via a PM here, or using the contact form on http://www.project240z.com/

 

I would love to hold on to the car, but it really doesn't make much sense for me to do so.

 

Here's the contents of the Craigslist posting.

 

I've decided to part ways with my 1973 Datsun 240z. I've had it for a number of years now, but it's time to let it move on to someone who has more time for the car.

 

You can find out all the info you could ever want to know about the car by reading my website Project240z.com, even see build photos and videos of the car.

 

It's definitely a project car, the main things it needs right now to finish.

 

1) Fix up the wiring for the lights

2) Seats (I sold the seats with the intention of putting in race seats but never purchased those) (custom seat mounts were welded in place, original brackets cut out, to fit a Corbeau A4 seat bracket, seat bracket also available for purchase)

3) Body work and paint (see pics)

4) Fiberglass dash finished and installed

5) Steering column replaced (threads stripped for the nut for the wheel)

 

The motor (L28E) is from a 1978 280Z 2+2. It has the intake/exhaust/turbo from a 1983 280ZX. You can see video of the car running from July (on the website), before we moved out here to Colorado. It has a Megasquirt, with a Ford EDIS ignition system. It has a 15 gallon fuel cell with AN fittings and braided lines, a high flow pump that provides somewhere around 40-50lbs of pressure when turned on. Ford Lightning Injectors (44lbs I believe?). 5-speed transmission out of the 78 280z 2+2

 

There is no interior to this car, the floor was cleaned up, holes patches and painted black (using an undercoating paint).

 

I couldn't begin to list all the parts for the car but they include

brand new urethane bushings (not installed)

extra suspension parts

fiberglass dash

extra gauges

lots more

 

The car DOES not have a title at the moment, for another $300 I can get the title squared away, but it's going to take me some time to do so. I have a California title that has been signed by myself, and would need to be VIN verified, and then fees paid so I could get a Colorado title. If a title is important I don't mind doing this.

 

Why am I selling it? I don't have the time for the project, I have too much going on to get any time spent on the car.

 

The photos below are somewhat old, for a more recent "look" at the car check out the video on the site "Packing the garage, driving the car" that's the video of it driving around my neighborhood in July 2009.

 

For a price I might even consider selling the domain name, and I also own 240z.net if that is of interest.

 

Check out the website, you can see a lot of info about the car. Feel free to send me any questions you might have about it, I will answer any that I can. Remember, this is a project car, always has been. If I don't get any interest in selling it I will strip off the parts and try to sell everything individually.

 

 

Contact me via the contact form on the website. http://www.project240z.com/

 

Similar Keywords: Datsun, Nissan, Honda, Toyota, 240z, 280z, 260z, 350z,

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I would love to get some money back out of this car, I realize I likely won't, but I posted it on Craigslist at $2k to see what happens.

 

I will list it on Ebay over the weekend, though I might hold off a week or two on that due to some work commitments.

 

If someone here is interested, make me an offer.

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I emailed that guy last week to see how the car was, and he told me that he sold it a few months later.

 

If you're the new owner, be sure to look me up and let me know how the car is doing.

 

http://www.project240z.com

 

 

and also, on the off chance that anyone sees this 1973 Super Beetle, drop me a line as well!

 

leftside3.JPG

 

http://www.projectvw.com/

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