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HybridZ

coast to coast in an s30


MJLamberson

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My brother drove my car from the bay area (california) to Mexico around 1600 miles, We stopped to import the car to Mexico and thats it we drove straight to our destination after that......there were no problems, Car is noisy with the LS2 swap....

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  • 1 year later...

Not anywhere near the same distance, but I drove mine from Southern California to Southern Oregon stopping only for gas on a blown head gasket, and I overheated it once during the drive.

 

Then I drove around in Oregon for a few days before pulling the engine.

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I went from Phoenix to San Diego and back in one day and there were two problems. One, keeping it under 90 and two, having to wave back at every other car on the freeway and having to chat with every person at every gas station. The stock seat did get a bit hard, it was loud, and the car did get sort of warm, but I consider those thing to be part of the 'charm' of an LS1 Z-car.

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When i purchased my 260z, i got it from the original owner and she was telling me stories about the car and one of those was the 2 trips from Cali to NY and back....that really shows what these cars can do....Hell, I woulda been scared to drive my old 240sx to LA and back here to the Bay Area

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But I bought plane tickets.
Well that's not all that exciting, but it's probably the sensible thing to do. Last summer I drove from Colorado to the Bay Area (~1300 miles each way). I drove it non-stop in around 20 hours. It was actually a lot of fun and the car ran great averaging 27 mpg for the entire trip. Given I have a 4.11 diff and moderate cam, I was pretty impressed. Got to love megasquirt fuel injection!

 

The hardest part was maintaining a reasonable speed without cruise control. Steady 80 mph is rather boring, but since I knew I was likely to be fatigued, I didn't want to take chances. I did take a lot of little breaks to get out and stretch.

 

I was a bit tired the next day though and think it would be a lot harder to go all the way across the country. I was glad to not get back in the car for a day or two.

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Did Tucson to Willow Springs (North of LA) and back. Planning on Tucson to Boca Raton, FLA this summer. I love long trips in the 240!! People just love these cars, always some one to talk to at gas stops. I have had cops slow down and give me the thumbs up as I passed them.

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Several times.

My $125 Lein Sale 260Z went with me and my 8 year old son from SoCal to Thoiusand Islands (Kingston) Ontario Canada.

The Fairlady Z did a similar trip a year later. And we repeated annually.

 

The Fairlady Z was towing a trailer (800#) with three of us in the 2/2. My wife was workign nights at the time, so we literally started the car at 4PM after a graduation party in Tawas Michigan, and drove nonstop from there back home. I made it to St Louis, switched to her driving, then to me, stopped in Amarillio, and next thing I know I woke up outside Flagstaff, and drove home from there arriving at 11AM California time driving 36 hours straight (or something like that). Our longest stop was for a steak at the big texan in Amarillio. Other than that, like the trip out, I would do 3500rpms till I needed gas, stop for a 20 minute gas and dash stop, and drive on. When it's just me driving, I usually drive for 16 hours at a stretch like that.

 

I'd do it again, if I had the time. I have no reservations about doing it in just about any of my Z's.

 

And some of you have seen them. They don't look that great, but they run juuuuust fine!

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haha, I trusted mine at one point, when I was planning to drive it from CA to NH, and then I turbo charged it, But I think it will be trustworthy once again once I do this head gasket swap and dont touch my boost controller, haha.

 

The plane tickets were cheap though, 300$ round trip!

 

I figure I will be testing her a bit when I go up to redding and back in a week or so. its only a 400 mile trip, but if it does that smoothly Ill have my faith restored. Oh and then to the MSA show (nah Im not enterying it, lol)

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I disregarded the varied speed thing personally. Leaving St. Louis on the 2004 trip I ran into a bunch of idiots in a Dodge Neon. They soon learned that their car had a speed limiter installed.

 

My 260, on the other hand, petered out at 4750rpms...so I just kept it floorboarded till it was time to get gas.

 

83 ZX Five Speed, Stock Tire Height, 3.70 R180 Gear out back...

 

Come to think of it, I DID vary the throttle position...but it didn't make any difference, it would still only go 4750 rpms in fifth wether I was 3/4, 7/8th or floorboarded. So my deduction was varying the position was irrelevant.

 

For $300, you couldn't buy the gas...

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I drove my Z home after I graduated aircrew school. The drive took me from Camp Pendleton CA, to Savanna GA, then finally Southwest Connecticut. Made it from the west coast to just past Pecos TX in my first day, 23 hours of driving. Took me a two days through Texas, but I was bored and wanted to sightsee at some air museums. Next day I was in Savanna. One more day of driving got me home.

 

The Z had barely any maintenance done to it before I bought it, I changed the oil, filter and the radiator was replaced. No comfort issues, no trouble starting, nothing. It was awesome. I took a similar trip on my HD 1200XLC recently, and saw much more because I took a different route/backroads. But boy, did my back pay for it. I would take both these trips all over again in a heartbeat.

 

Too bad you got plane tickets, you missed out on an adventure!

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