seattlejester's 1971 240Z

[seattlejester]

Update:

 

A friend came over last week and we worked on the horrible fittings doors and some of my body panels. I had found some shims in my door parts tray so I slid those under the bottom hinge and they made quite a bit of difference! The passenger door now closes with minimal effort, and the driver door seats fairly well against the body. We got my hood to securely latch and sanded and painted some of the rougher parts of the car. 

 

I plan on doing coil overs in the near future, so I decided I was done looking at the tall ride height caused by the 280z springs so I started cutting them. The fronts really are limited by the suspension travel. I have poly bump stops in front and about an inch or two of strut travel before I hit them. The rears actually do have quite a bit of travel remaining, but I think it's plenty low.

Note on an incline, and note my terrible 1 story elevation drive way!

 

Still need to install the front grill, although the bolt size is beginning to be a frustration, M4 is too small, M6 is too big, M5 doesn't seem like it wants to thread.

 

Strangely I started hearing a clunk when I let off the clutch and the transmission grabs. Since I have an RT mount and the poly diff mount underneath, I'm leaning towards my U-Joints going out on the half-shafts. Hoping to take it to my local shop and have them sort out the rear bearings, and u-joints, while they tackle some warranty work for my exhaust.

 

I am leaning towards going back to my original scheme and blacking out the chrome bits and painting the front airdam white. But after brushing all the stainless steel I think I will give it some time to grow on me before I tear all the shiny bits away.

 

 

 

 

Now I have been fairly deep in thought for the past month. Officially the car is almost done. The small leaks should be easy to track down, it looks presentable, and with a few more seals checked and the exhaust massaged the fumes should not be a problem. With the heater installed, chokes hooked up, e-brake adjusted, and the turn signal cabin indicators the car will be down right dailyable. But something doesn't feel quite right, sometimes I ponder selling it, and sometimes I just stand and stare and awe at how cool the car is, but I don't think I quite have the fizzing sensation (according to James May) that I think most people have with their car.

 

So this all goes back to my visit to zspecialties. Oliver helped me realize that my car was far from perfect, and that for some reason I was hesitating on doing what I had planned with it. I bought it for 600$ knowing it had problems, and wanted to thrash and learn on it and instead I had been keeping it in the garage. Following everything I had read, I built a very good tier/stage 1 car by my view. The 5 speed and the 4.11 diff made flying through the gears a joy and you would get acceleration even in top gear! The spring strut combo was very functional but very tall, the rawness was great as well, nothing quite like an L-6 wailing near redline. 

 

But, I had fallen away from what I had wanted when I joined HBZ, this car is nothing quite deserving of a hybridz label quite yet. So I am going to go to as many motorsport events I can in the next few months (autox, lapping days, even drift school) to learn about the car hopefully spy on some others, and I will also start moving towards gathering the parts I will need to step up my game a little bit, more suspension, more tire, and in turn more power.

 

I think I will have to move in the next few months, so it will be a balance of trying to consolidate and finish projects before I run out of space.

 

For suspension:

I am leaning towards the proven ground control system with weld in camber plates with 200F 225R springs, with tokico illumina toyota MR2 struts in front and 240z front struts in the rear. Adjustable LCA's coming in the future, with the slotted cross member and shorter steering knuckle and bump steer spacer combo from arizona Z car coming very soon after.

 

For tires:

I am looking at 15x9 -15et wheels with meaty tires sitting underneath flares, no stretch here.

 

For power:

I am looking at a very mildly built L28ET. I've found a stock 82 turbo zx donor, and if compression checks out I think I may find it hard to justify rebuilding the motor for my modest 250whp goal.

[Pac_Man]

Wide wheels/tires make a world of difference! I went from the stock steelies with old Goodyear tires from possibly 20+ years ago to 15x8 Enkeis with (I think) 225/50/r15 tires. Really difficult to lose traction, even if it's wet.

[Gollum]

Wide wheels/tires make a world of difference! I went from the stock steelies with old Goodyear tires from possibly 20+ years ago to 15x8 Enkeis with (I think) 225/50/r15 tires. Really difficult to lose traction, even if it's wet.

 

Too true! My current DD is the only S130 I've ever owned with "fresh-ish" rubber. Simple 215/60/15 tire size, but they're decent proxies instead of "whatever I could find' rubber and MAN do they stick by comparison!

 

What's sad is that the tires they replaced where still in good shape so I was kind of sad to let them go to waste... but they were 12+ years old...

[BluDestiny]

You will have a hard time finding tires that wide in 15" that are for street use. I would go with 16x9, because I know they make a 245/50/16 tires.

[seattlejester]

Pac_man: I can break my 215/60/15 falkens loose in third in the rain with my gear set, but in the dry they barely squeak, I'm looking forward to some neck breaking acceleration when some wider tires grip, wondering if my half-shafts, transmission, or clutch will go first!

 

Gollum: I feel the same way when I replace tires, but I figure from now on I can just save decent tires and throw them on a set of spare rims to tear up on a track day or at a drift/gymkhana event without feeling any guilt, haha.

 

Blu: actually you do bring up a good point, I'm finding wide tire sizes with acceptable sidewall heights in the 15 inch category quite difficult, I may have to look around at my rim choice now, or else run pedestrian tires and switch to a set of track rims or something of the sort for events.

 

Story time!

 

So of the four or five faults creature comfort faults of my car I crossed one off the list yesterday!

 

My gas gauge has never worked since I installed the fuel cell and such. On occasion it would rise to 0-2 percent, and once and only once did I see it at 5%. It never really seemed to follow any trend and read independent of how much fuel I had in the car.

So I decided I would test everything and if needed run a new lead to the cell to replace all the old wiring.

Turned on the car, checked the handy voltmeter I have installed, 12 volts with the car not running, fully acceptable. A few gallons in the cell.

Turned off the fuel pump and kill switch so I don't have any hot wires back there while I'm working with the wiring and cell,

Gauge is only getting 0.24 volts reading 0%. With the wiring unplugged...

So full sweep from 0-99 is possible. Next I tested the sender, with the power and ground wire undone...

2.5 Ohms (my gauge and sender are both 0 ohm empty 90 ohm full, opposite of stock setup). Added 2 more gallons of fuel...and surprisingly, no difference, the sender was bad!

 

I took a break and chatted with Summit, I bought the cell a while back, but I had only used it for a couple of months. The service rep said the senders could go back and gave me the wrong replacement part number, than a correct one. 106$ for the replacement sender, and the fuel cell only cost me 160$! I figured if I was going to replace it anyway I might as well play with the old one.

 

Took out the sender and low and behold, the float was stuck! I unbent the locking tab at the bottom and slid the float out, on this style of sender the float just has a small metal bar that slides up and down a board and I'm guessing generates a type of halls effect between two of the wires and generates a different resistance based on the height of the float. So I carefully sanded down the float until it slid smoothly in the tube. Put it all back together and...

Success!

 

So I decided to go for a test drive to test the newly working gauge. Turned on the fuel pump and pulled the car out of the garage, (I think some of you may notice what I forgot...). It is fairly surprising how much the fuel level fluctuates without baffles or foam, I was reading anywhere from 12-45% based on incline. After a block from my house the car just shut off mid turn in an intersection. Limped to the side of the road, and turned on my hazards and kind of regretted my choice of leaving the house while it was raining at night...then after checking the fuses and such, I realized I forgot the kill switch...at least I know that if someone takes my car, they won't make it more than a block .

 

Next few minor things:

Adjust driver door a little more.

Make turn signal indicator pod.

Install hydro e-brake.

Readjust cable parking brake.

Wire in and install heaters.

Install grill.

Paint and reinforce front airdam.

Mockup interim flares (I couldn't resist some cheap universal ones, a friend of mine fiberglasses, so I figure if they are horrible, they can at least be used for starting the buck).

Extend exhaust tip and inspect hatch gaskets.

 

Next important things:

Have u-joints and rear wheel bearings inspected.

Order new drive shaft.

Get alignment and wheels balanced.

Install wideband o2 and air/fuel gauge .

 

Hopefully the deal for a turbo 280zx that I am looking at goes through and I can get that project going. The question is do I spend a little more for the 5-speed with the T-5, or do I just go with the auto for the less abused engine, and search for a rebuilt T-5 down the road?

 

I also received my quote from TTT for all the coilover bits and I'm looking forward to going ahead with that in the near future as well.

Edited March 1, 2013 by seattlejester

[Pac_Man]

From what I've seen, getting a rebuilt T-5 later on may cost you as much as spending more for the engine with the 5 speed on it. You could rebuild that engine and install the T-5 in your car in the meantime with the stock engine unless it's on its last legs.

[seattlejester]

That's the dilemma I'm at right now, both cars are what I would like, 1982 turbo model, but I can swing the auto for much less and my current transmission doesn't whine or grind. Price difference is probably 700$ or so, and I've seen rebuilt T-5's go for quite a bit less. Heck I even have a T-5 in parts if I want to rebuild it myself I suppose.

[Pac_Man]

Ah ok, I didn't think the price difference would be that much. I've heard the T-5 is pretty simple to rebuild so that might not be a bad idea.

 

Again, though, this is just what I've heard.

[seattlejester]

So plans have changed, and I had to move out of my garage. 

 

It's been a busy few weeks. And as I was ever approaching my break in oil change (500 miles) I've been trying to drive the Z every time I get.

 

An earlier post will show that I was concerned regarding a brake line bracket that kept moving up. Well...I drove up to my parents house and parked it to go to church, and when I got back, I turned on the car, stepped on the brake and nothing. Thank god I park the car in gear and always backed into a curb, as I looked under the car to see a large puddle forming under the car.

 

Took the wheel off to find something quite different in that, the brake hose had worn through.

 

Ordered a new line and installed, flushed and bled the system and now I'm keeping a keener eye on my lines.

 

I'm still leaking a couple drops of oil from where the transmission and engine meet. I have a spare valve cover gasket I'm going to use, just in case it is leaking through the back, but it looks like my rear crank main seal may be leaking . Kind of disqualifies me from competition, so will have to get that addressed.

 

The rear suspension has unfortunately settled quite a bit more and now I'm tucking a bit of tire in the back and have a one finger gap up front. I'm going to try some rubber spring spacers to get some of the ride height back.

 

Plan is to get some work done before the final day, including my break in oil change, installation of my hydraulic brake, repair of my cable brake, fixing some leaks in the door (found quite a puddle in my car after the spot of rain yesterday).

 

I leave you with these pictures for now, taken by my artsy friend.

[seattlejester]

Story time

 

So I had tried to autocross the Z last weekend, but the timing was off so this weekend was my first. 

 

The furthest I had driven my car to date was about 40 miles one way, and on that trip the alternator died at mile 38. The autocross would take place 90 miles away, and boy were those miles bad.

 

All was smooth on my first leg down I-405 until I got onto I-5, which is a very hilly highway, where the car immediately informed me it did not like hills by running super lean, pinging a bit and bogging on the up hill. I tried to draft some larger trucks to decrease the load on the car but to no avail, about halfway through the trip I had to pull over to try and fix the bogging and get some fuel.

 

The car had bogged in the past but only during long throttle trips, usually from a dig, at about the middle of third the car would bog and ping, but after a second or two it would go away.

My thoughts immediately turned to the fuel pump. So I popped into an o'reileys for some parts just in case the fuel pump was on the way out (higher capacity fuel pump, fuel pressure regulator, barbs etc). Strange thing was that driving around in the city the car had no problems even with spirited runs, so I hopped onto the freeway to test my luck. Unfortunately that didn't work and a worrying exit later on the shoulder I began to get supremely anxious. At this point I was over halfway about 70 miles in at this point, and thinking of running the 70 miles back on the shoulder was worrying. Luckily there was a ferry route that would bypass the freeway I could take back from the autocross location, so I decided to cut my losses and push onward. Several worrying miles later I made it to the field, if anything there would be tools, space, and people to help install the parts if needed. For the hell of it, I decided to register as well since the car seemed to have calmed down a bit.

 

First run was a 76 seconds with one cone (fast cars were running near 60 seconds, the ridiculous cars were running in the mid 50's), I was still learning the course and frankly learning the car, it was the first time I had driven the car in anger and it had some flaws despite what I thought was a decent setup:

 

Tokico HP strut cartridges

Tokico 280z springs cut to level car

ST rear sway bar

MSA front sway bar

G-machine teflon tension bushing

ES polyurethane bushings all around

Front Triangulated strut brace system

weld in rear strut bar

Bolt in roll bar

Bolt in harness bar

Welded diff

215/60/15 falken 512 <-this I think may be one of the problems

 

 

The car had some pretty drastic under-steer.  So on the second run I decided I would try to be a bit braver with the throttle to try and whip the rear around when the front started pushing. About half way through the car had massive massive bogging and pinging. Anytime I went near the throttle AFR would shoot sky high. Surprisingly, despite having no throttle in the second half, I still pulled off a 75 second clean run.

 

I decided I really needed to start installing the new pump in order to get home, and I really needed to get started while there was people still around. So I ducked out of the rest of my runs and started taking the fuel pump out. When I realized....my roll over switch. 

 

After installing the fuel cell and the electric pump, I was led to the conclusion that installing a roll over switch would be a good idea to kill the fuel in the case of an accident. The particular model I had purchased came from a ford escort and had a ball bearing in a bowl, when too many g's were experienced, the ball bearing would move and the switch would buckle killing the connection. What that meant was that when there was only some g's the switch could be partially cutting out causing the car to bog on up hills and fast turns (at least in my mind)! Well by the time I had figured it out I had already left the cue, so I decided I would install the new pump to pass the time.

 

The way home was 90 miles of boredom. The new pump made a very irritating whine compared to the thumping of the old one, and I had a chance to adjust some pads and such in the car to increase my comfort and a chance to notice some little things. It really is surprising how one part and a piece of knowledge can change a whole experience.

 

Things to do:

Install some sound deadening, possibly isolate fuel pump, possibly install a resonator and a new muffler

Find out how to kill the understeer (wider tires, shorter side walls, thinner front sway bar, suggestions?)

Find out why the steering wheel shakes at speed (hands were numb by the time I got home)

Find out why the car vibrates at about 45mph (I've heard other people complain about this, will have to search)

Balance drive shaft (I think this may cure one of the problems above)

Check all bolts (some heavy clunking when I take sharp turns at parking lot speeds)

Look into new tires

Really look into coilovers

Look into new seats and belts (long term)

 

As an aside:

There happened to be another Z owner a gold 260 or 280z (my apologies I am terrible with names!), and boy was his car ridiculous! He was running a 3.2 Liter stroked and bored L28 with ITB's on RB26 coil packs all on a stand alone ecu. Car had ground control coilovers, an LSD, and some fat 245 slicks and it was absolutely insane. He offered a ride along which I jumped at, and I have to say I have a very brand new respect for the L-series. His first run was an insane 61 seconds on his first try! Thank you whoever you were!

 

 

Sorry for the long post!

Edited May 1, 2013 by seattlejester

[seattlejester]

^Looks like the welded diff may be a problem for autocross . On the flip side, a friend and I took it on some winding roads and on that the car behaved beautifully. It may be time to look for that all important LSD swap, as well as learning to drive a RWD car versus a FWD car.

 

I did get some new rims and tires for the car and found something kind of surprising...

Guess what the size difference is, as mentioned above I have falken 215/60/15 tires on the rim on top.

 

 

 

 

The answer, the bottom ones are 225/50/15, supposedly a whole 10mm wider! Looks like falken just kind of stretched a 195 sidewall and relabeled them as 215 .

 

Good thing is the smaller tire adds a little bit of gap in the back where I was almost tucking a bit before. The bad is that the width difference makes me rub when the car is loaded: me, passenger, tools, and big dips in the road.

I think it looks ok though .

Edited May 16, 2013 by seattlejester

[280zex]

Hey I run 225/50/15's on all 4 of my wheels and its really grippy, except when I'm in boost I only rub when the passenger weighs 200lbs+ doh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[seattlejester]

Yea both my friend and I are 200+ so that may have been the reason, car is still telling me to loose weight! I agree the 225's do not break traction at all, the falken's were just ridiculously skinny for what they were supposed to be.

[280zex]

as soon as I get that 240sx trans swap done we should grap devils30 ad go on a drive!!

Edited May 8, 2013 by 280zex

[seattlejester]

Sounds good looking forward to some early summer cruising

[Devil_S30]

Somebody called me? haha don't forget Matt! Somebody should let me drive theirs, I miss mine

[seattlejester]

Let's set one up real soon, you can drive mine!

 

So I have been on the fence lately. Sell the Datsun and move on, or spend a bunch of money and time and drive it until the wheels fall off. I am starting to make and save a little money, and before I head back to school I really wanted to reward myself with a new car. I love how the Datsun looks, but I have always wanted a 3rd gen RX-7 and I mean always. I had a savings plan and such and even listed the Datsun, but unfortunately the price of the FD3S has skyrocketed. A decent one fetches 15k easily, and that is a bit too much for a 20 year old car, I would not have enough to shop around till December. So I think that will be my reward after I graduate from grad school (when the car is importable), and for the time being it is time to make the Z hybrid-z worthy!

 

Car will be going up on jack stands for a pretty size-able overhaul in the next month or two. A local member will be helping me to accomplish the work. Hopefully we will see a transformed car, worthy of the hybridz label . Plan is a super intense week (<-singular) of installs which means buying up all the parts ahead of time. I will try to do a better job of documentation, see you guys soon!

[280zex]

Give me a call if you want my help.

I am still currently waiting for my trans rebuild to be finished. Its only been 3.5 weeks now and I'm about to go "TonyD" on the poor bastards if its not finished by this friday.

[seattlejester]

Will do, I just feel bad about dragging you all the way from down south. When I'm finished, I may be able to give you a run for your money

 

I was going to ask if the trans builder was any good since I want my trans cleaned up and looked at, but I guess that's a pass.

[280zex]

The trans shop guys really know what they are doing. However my job is a low paying one, only 350$ vs. a shop full of the 1000$+ jobs. Its called priority. I have already called the guy 2x to remind him about things. I know I'm getting off cheap so I try to be patient, but really 3.5 weeks?? Some times you gota beat a guy around the head' n shoulders with reason and logic. I dont think that is wise at this moment, as I'm shure I will get my trans back in a pile of parts.

 

Maybe its time for me to take my $$ elsewhere.... Its usually not wise to mix friends and money, as I am finding out...