Build Thread - New Turbo-Swapped 280z from WA

[wheee!]

I agree. After building two of these tools of increasingly stronger stock and failing, I realized that nothing short of heat, anger and a 60 tone press was going to move these suckers.
This tool is only good for marginally stuck pins and not for seized pins. The problem is, you don’t know until the tool snaps.... twice....!

[AlbatrossCafe]

Finished a lot of work yesterday. Got my TTT control arms put in. Put the stock struts back in so I could measure original ride height. Then immediately took them back out! Dropped off my struts and coilover sleeves at the shop to get them cut/welded. I can't wait for this all to be over

BTW I ordered new spindle pins before doing all of this in anticipation of the old ones being unusable. Little did I know that the TTT arms come with giant bolts to use instead...

Also painted my MSA BRE-style rear spoiler. I think the silver paint I got is more "silvery" than my car which has a bit more gray to it. Oh well. At least I actually had patience with my paint prep and it all went on cleanly for once.

Note: I am a little disappointed with the MSA spoiler. There were imperfections and large gouges on it the moment I opened it out of the box. I didn't expect to have to do bondo/fill (which I didn't) to make it look good before paint

 

Jacking up front control arm to help get the front strut back on:

 

Primed Spoiler:

Side by side:

Old parts I need to sell:

Edited February 21, 2018 by AlbatrossCafe

[Jaymanbikes]

Are you repainting your hatch? If not what are you doing with the holes for the emblems you will remove so that the spoiler can be installed.


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[AlbatrossCafe]

52 minutes ago, Jaymanbikes said:

Are you repainting your hatch? If not what are you doing with the holes for the emblems you will remove so that the spoiler can be installed.

I will fill and use touch up paint. Not worth repainting the entire hatch.

Maybe 10 years ago, my car had already been repainted with an "OK" paint job over the original silver. I am not a huge fan of the color and in an ideal world I would repaint the whole thing. For this reason, I am not too concerned about these things being perfect.

[AlbatrossCafe]

HOT DAMN!! I'm finally getting near the end (I'm probably gonna say this on 3 more posts - everything takes longer than I expect).

I took my struts to 425 Motorsports along with my new coilover adapter sleeves. They disassembled the struts, tossed the old stuff, cut them (1" above hub in front, 4" up from hub in the back) and slid the adapter sleeves on so they fit 1" over the old strut tube. These guys may not be the cheapest, but they are well renowned in our area and definitely do great work. You can tell by the quality of the welds alone.

 

Took a bold leap and started drilling/cutting into my strut towers to make room for my camber plates. Fronts were manageable. The back is a PITA so far. Especially with the Z up on tall jackstands (it might as well be on 37" tires at this point), it is hard to reach those towers in the rear. I think I will have to climb in there to cut those out.

Since the towers are not perfectly flat, I added a couple washers in the back (in the front so far) to allow the "vanity plate" (as Sakura Garage calls it) to sit a little more flush on top. Looks great so far and my short test fit with the coilover top hats is looking good.

 

Lastly, I test fit my spoiler after painting. Who knew a generic silver would be such a pain to match. From far way I can tolerate it, but up close.. well that's what I get for blindly ordering paint off Amazon

I bought different paint and will try it again.

 

Tomorrow I think I will take the day off and try to get the coilovers finished and actually on the car so that I can get it back on its own wheels again.

[wheee!]

Any reason that they cut the rears at 4" above the rear strut tube? Mine were cut and welded 2" above the stock tube. But then again, my rear coilovers were significantly taller than the the fronts. Were yours the same height front and rear and the stock tube is needed for the height offset? 

[esmit208]

On 2/19/2018 at 7:09 PM, wheee! said:

I agree. After building two of these tools of increasingly stronger stock and failing, I realized that nothing short of heat, anger and a 60 tone press was going to move these suckers.
This tool is only good for marginally stuck pins and not for seized pins. The problem is, you don’t know until the tool snaps.... twice....!

Looks good ALBY!!!!!!!!!. Be sure to get several good coats of protectant on those welded seams, thats the last place you want rust to form as well as the paint that was cooked away. If you have a West Marine in your town they sell a really good marine sealant. Enjoy the miles and post pictures of how it sits once back on the ground. Nice work space BTW!

[AlbatrossCafe]

1 hour ago, wheee! said:

Any reason that they cut the rears at 4" above the rear strut tube? Mine were cut and welded 2" above the stock tube. But then again, my rear coilovers were significantly taller than the the fronts. Were yours the same height front and rear and the stock tube is needed for the height offset? 

For my car, the rear struts were right at 3" taller than the fronts, both on the car and off the car (as measured with a tape measure).

Not sure what coilovers you have, but my STANCE coilovers came with four 6" adapter sleeves, which means I had to cut the rear a bit higher compared to the front to keep the offset/rake similar to stock. I plan to keep it at stock height or lower it maybe 1" - 2" at the most, so I didn't need them to be cut super low.

[wheee!]

Mine are CX Racing coil overs and the picture of them are in the thread a few posts back. I think mine were manufactured to stock heights so I could flush mount and weld them at the collars for the most support.

[AlbatrossCafe]

Finally finished installing the aluminum steering coupler from TTT. Holy hell that was a process... trying to get everything to line up properly and fit with no room to work was not the most enjoyable experience. Hope it is a noticeable improvement.

[AlbatrossCafe]

Took out the old K&N air filter that the previous owner had installed. Don't even wanna bother cleaning it lol. I'll get a new one. Don't think this thing has been cleaned/changed since he did the L28ET swap back in 2004.

On one side you can kind of see the K&N red poking through. The other side is just black.

[AlbatrossCafe]

Got my new Continental Extreme Contact Sport tires mounted on new XXR 527 "Chromium Black" 16x8.25" +0 offset rims. I went with 225/50/R16 tire size. I got my tires for $99 each with free shipping. I am very happy with how cheap these very highly rated summer tires were!

I am even MORE happy with how they turned out! Freakin gorgeous! I don't even wanna put them on my car, I just wanna have them in my room so I can stare at them all day!

I am pretty sure I will have to roll my fenders before these will fit on my car. One of the hardest things with my 280z so far is finding a fender roller I can borrow for an hour... -.-