LSx in 280ZX trial fitting result

[VinhZXT]

Here is the result and thi is with the Auto trans. Stick the motor in and jack the trans up and the motor was stuck in there. The front of the oil pan is wedged agaist the crossmeber. We pulled the motor and cut the front of the oil pan and put it back in and now we have some room to move the motor back and forth. Now it's time to trial fitting the headers. We have a few set of headers and all of them fit OK on the passenger side. The driver side is not the same. I slide the motor all the way back against the firewall and none of the headers fit. I tried on my 98 C5 header, JTR header and the stock Fbody header. So it looks like custom header on the driver side is the way to go if you want to keep your original firewall. Since my ZX won't have heat and AC I really don't care about the firewall. So my plan is to cut the fire wall and slide the motor back some more and I should be able to use the JTR headers. The other option is to install a ujoint in the steering shaft to clear the driver side header. I have some pictures but from a camera fone so the quality is not that good. I will post some pictures after this weekend when I snap with the real camera. GL.\

V.

[judas_light]

Which steering rack did you have, rack and pinion or steering box?

[VinhZXT]

Which steering rack did you have, rack and pinion or steering box?

 

The trial out was with a car with the power steering rack. Mine will be the manual rack. I don't see how this going to work with the steering box.

[judas_light]

Well good luck with this I'll be waiting patiently to see the outcome. I'm really curious to see how it sits in the final resting spot. Not enough people mod the ZX, so I hope this will inspire more followers. I personally am using my 280zx to learn the basics as I have never worked on any car before and boy is it a learning curve . I believe there was another member running his steering linkage through the gap in his headers in order to work. The problem is I can't remember who it was. I dunno if that helps but maybe it might simplify the routing of the linkage?

[danj]

I completed the sbc conversion in my 83 ZXT. I originally had power rack steering but had to give it up in favor of the manual rack to allow the headers to free flow on the driver side. There may have been a better solution, which I lament bcause I do miss the power steering. If you can find a way to fabricate the headers around that steering assembly in the 83 model you will be among the few.

 

Here are a few pics from a few angles of how we ran the steering rod.

 

DanJ

[80LS1T]

Have you thought of having someone make some headers for you? It might be worth the money rather than choping up the firewall. Please post some pics asap! This is a swap I am very interested in because I plan to do it as some point.

[VinhZXT]

I've done some search and there are quite a few places sell kits to build custom headers for cheap. So it looks like I will go with custom headers. If you plan to do this swap I suggest you start shopping for the manual rack & crossmember from a 79 ZX. The manual rack and crossmember go together FYI. With the manual rack you will more room to run the header on the driver side.