rturbo 930

The show stopper is that it's a terrible idea. The Z simply is not meant to be rear-engined. It also sounds like you intend to keep a lot of the factory chassis (as opposed to a space frame and custom suspension) and make use of the rear seats. Well, you're going to have some 400-500 extra pounds way out in the rear of the car, and the factory suspension setup is not designed to cope with that, certainly not the relatively flimsy structure they're attached to. You're likely going to need a full roll cage to stiffen the chassis, at which point you lose the use of the seats. I think you'd be better off buying a 996/7 with a blown engine and engine swapping that. They've spent 50 years refining the chassis to suit the typically poor rear-engine layout, and it has excellent suspension on top of that, plus rear seats. You're basically trying to reinvent the wheel here. On the other hand, a VR30 in a Z would likely be just about a front-mid engine layout and would perform well if set up correctly. Those are your two realistic paths to a successful outcome, depending upon whether you prefer to have a Z or rear-engined 911. I strongly suggest you rethink your intended project here. It doesn't sound like you've thought through all the problems you're going to create by relocating the engine, and it is going to be very difficult to get it to work correctly. jhm also brings up a good point. What is your budget?

Okay, don't do it. There are zero rear engined vehicles being produced today, other than the 911, which engineers at Porsche have stubbornly but successfully managed to develop into a good car. It would be one thing if you were wanting to do a mid engine swap, which the 2+2 chassis would give you more room for, but there is not a single reason I can think of why you would do this. You want the weight in the middle of the car, not at the very ends - research polar moment of inertia. I think you should stick to a front engine layout, as that is what the car was designed as. IMO, trying to turn a front engined car into a mid or rear-engined car makes no sense, and you're better off buying something rear-engined to begin with, and doing so it will likely produce a better result. Better to work with the factory design than against it. That said, if you want to reengineer the car, at least do something that makes sense, like a mid-engine. There's a good reason practically every modern super car is mid-engined and not rear-engined. You might provide some detail as to why you decided on a rear-engined swap to begin with, and what motivates you to take on such an extreme project. FYI, in the 20 years I've been on this site, I think I've come across exactly one mid-engine swap, which should tell you something about the nature of the project you want to take on. I think you might be better off building a car from scratch if you want a big fabrication and engineering project.

Like you, I also did not organize and label my bolts very well, and I don't really know where any of them go. The parts lookup feature on your site is fantastic. Thank you for putting it all together.

Haven't been here in a while, but I had no problems getting on today. Seems fast so far. Edit: Spoke too soon. Just came back on, and got an error, and when the site finally loaded after a few refreshes it seemed slow.

Is SuperDan aware of the problem? If not, someone should really contact him. I would think this is an easy fix.

Seems like half the time the site isn't even accessible. What's going on here? If money is needed, then I would suggest starting a fundraising campaign with its own separate thread. In the past, they've done well. Maybe another merch run if Cockerstar is up to it. The site is slow as it is due to the decline of forums. If this site becomes regularly inaccessible, it's probably going to kill off the remaining activity it has completely. Forums these days are mostly running on momentum, site problems kill that.

Have you done a build like this before? If you are unfamiliar with Zs, I would suggest buying a running and driving stock or near stock Z, not an unfinished project with a bunch of aftermarket parts. This is one of those things where you really need to be familiar with how they go together. And who knows how many pieces are missing from the project, and how much it'll cost to repurchase all of them one at a time. The shell looks pretty good, some of the parts are decent. Seems like he spent a lot of money on wheels and flares. Looks like probably a stock L28ET in unknown condition, and a set of coilovers from a brand I've never heard of. CX Racing as far as I know is chinese stuff, not sure if it's any good or not, and he lists the turbo as a BW T4 with a value of 600 which makes me think it might be some old journal bearing turbo. He has quite a bit of stuff from Skillard, which I'm not really a fan of, from what I've seen it's mostly sheet metal parts that are only suitable for a race car. The brakes are nothing special. Kinda comes down to personal taste as to whether or not you like the build he's doing. Personally, I'd be building it a lot differently.

That's just about the stupidest thing that has been written on this entire website.

As you mentioned, the rear strut housing is longer on a 280Z. I'm surprised the rear of the car isn't sitting higher than the front, which would be a dead giveaway that something isn't right. I would definitely swap the 240z rear struts in. The 280Z rear strut towers are something like 2.5-2.75" taller than 240Z strut towers, IIRC, and the top mount is about 1" taller on top of the strut tubes being longer. It seems strange to me that someone would completely swap the rear struts for no reason, so I think I'd look over the ones you have before committing to using them. If they're no good, I'd probably sell the 280Z struts for a correct set of good 240Z struts. The diff is up to you. People swap R200 (280Z) differentials into 240Zs, and R180 (240Z) diffs into 280Zs. It's separate from the suspension. If you don't need the strength of the R200, but want a limited slip, a Subaru R180 is a good way to get a limited slip into the car.

I remember you, welcome back! Yes, unfortunately forums have really died off with the rise of social media. BRAAP is largely absent now, the Porsche guy is probably Mike Kelly, who sold his Z and has also left the site. The guy with the Sublime Z is likely Big Phil who hasn't been on here in ages, but is still somewhat active on his YouTube channel. I don't know the other people.

Could you change out the .63 5th for a .80?

No, I read that, just like I said, not a diff expert lol. Never gotten into one, or needed to. Thanks for confirming what I suspected, that a whining diff needs a new gearset. I get that you want to use what you already have but I don't know if that's necessarily the best solution. In your situation, Subaru R180 would be my choice.

I'm not a diff expert, but if my diff was whining, my first thought would be to rebuild it. Diffs aren't really known for wearing out, but if it is, my second thought would be to just go get another. Yours is likely a 3.54 which should be easy to find for a reasonable price. As for the problem with viscous diffs, my understanding is that if used hard, as they would be on a track, they get hot, and just kinda stop working. And I could be wrong, but at that point I think you just have to replace the diff. I would only ever consider a CLSD or helical/torsen. The MFactory helical LSD mentioned above would likely be a good choice. There is also the OS Giken Superlock is another option which is a clutch LSD, but also quite a bit more expensive. I know Quaife LSDs used to be available, looks like they still sell them for R200s, but not sure if they're for short nose or long nose. AFAIK you can put a long nose LSD into a short nose with some work. There is also the Subaru option. Pretty easy swap, should hold up fine if you're only going with stock VQ power, especially if you won't be launching or racing the car. They came in both CLSD and torsen, a 3.54 torsen should be pretty easy to find. This may actually be the easiest option of all.

I think I'd just stick with the stock diff and put an LSD in it. It's already installed, ie, no retrofitting needed, and the 350Z diff is a viscous diff, which isn't exactly ideal. On top of the mounts, you'd also need to work out adapting the axles, and I don't know if there's a product out there to handle that, but if not, that could be pretty costly. Seems like a lot of work for not much benefit.

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