Me and my son acquired a 1979 280zx from a friend that owns a junk yard. At no cost to me. It sat for 25 years. We will be doing most of the restoration except the body work. The motor and transmission had already been removed. I want to put a 350 under the hood.  My question is (I will have plenty more in the future) can the stock rear end handle the 350 motor? I'm not looking for crazy horse power. I'll upload pics as soon as i get them on the computer.  Thanks for any help.

The 79 model year had a huge number of differential options, to go along with all of the trim options.  Find out if you have an R180 or an R200.  The R200 will handle it but not the R180.  You'll want to know the ratio also, there's a bunch.

 

Thanks, but having trouble finding info on the vin # on my car. HS130-100882

You can just look at the diff and tell a 180 from a 200.  Or post a picture up.

A 180 is the size of a whole  chicken. 200 a turkey.

 

It's a 180. So what would be the best swap? I have friends saying Ford 9 inch, but not wanting to do a lot of modification if i can help it.  Engine will be a 350 with not crazy horse power. We have begun the front end. Would like to keep as much stock as i can.x

 

Thanks again for any help.

Ford 9" requires a lot of fabrication. Just find an R200 and move on

The R200's are strong and you can get an LSD for them.  It's torque and traction that kills diffs.  Big tires and a torquey motor, along with some gear banging will blow up any diff.

There are V8 swaps with R180's out there.  They just don't drive them hard.

On 7/19/2020 at 2:51 PM, siteunseen said:

A 180 is the size of a whole  chicken. 200 a turkey.

 

Thanks for the analogy!! My friend has 4 more 280z at his place, hoping one of them has a 200 rear end.

23 hours ago, Zed Head said:

The R200's are strong and you can get an LSD for them.  It's torque and traction that kills diffs.  Big tires and a torquey motor, along with some gear banging will blow up any diff.

There are V8 swaps with R180's out there.  They just don't drive them hard.

Thanks for the info, going to find a R200, and go with that.

 

Do the math on your gear ratios before you get one.  That's one of the problems with most V8 swaps,the GM automatic transmissions like "tall" diff ratios.  3.3 and lower, I think.  Hard to find in the R200.  If you're going with a manual then the 3.54 or 3.9 should work.

If all goes to plans, I will be dropping the rear end this weekend to take a look at it. After everything you all have told me, I believe it to be a R200. With that being said my plan was to use a 4 speed 700r4 trans, but this is still early stages of this restoration. I want to make this an automatic, so just looking at options for the rear end.