Leaderboard

Dropped of my head for work at my friends place. Always a nice place to visit.

Here's a few more photos of the latest work.

https://www.virginiamotorsports.com/drag/schedule/2019/april5/ April 5th.......We’ll be there.....look for the two little Datsuns in a field of noisy Chevys and Fords!

So the ATI dampener requires a crank bolt longer than stock so off to Bel-Metric I go to get a 16 x 1.5 x 50mm Grade 10.9 bolt. We used a similar bolt on the last race engine without issue. Now I'm waiting on some very short valve seals. The stock ones would have been hit due to a very aggressive cam.

Whoooooooo Hooooooo!

False alarm! I was able to find and download the FSM for the car this diff came from (2014 Subaru WRX STi). Here's the answer in case you were wondering… Apply liquid gasket to the bolts indicated by arrows, and tighten the side retainer bolt. Liquid gasket: THREE BOND 1110F (Part No. K0879Y0021), THREE BOND 1110B or equivalent Tightening torque: 10.5 N·m (1.1 kgf-m, 7.7 ft-lb)

I was thinking I was an isolated nut case..... I'm not the only one that does that!!!

Just reading this now and see I made a typo. I should have went to bed about 30 minutes before that post. I meant August 1976, or I believe the change was around that point. That would mean there are cars built after August 76 with the 77/78 fusible link layout.

I have a hot rod buddy that lives by this saying... "If it don't go, chrome it".

btw there is a great documentary on Netflix covering 90% of the field during the 2018 season. It is called Drive to Survive. Very revealing.

Cleaned up the pan and layed down some JB Weld like bondo. When it cures, I will sand it down smooth for powder coating.

I think I will make this one a stock restore. Let someone else mod it to their tastes. It will be for resale eventually.

Bling! None of us even come close to RossiZ. He has chromed hood vents on his 280.

Only bling I have is the GOLD lettering on my Duralast Gold series battery.

Call it what you want.... I've got 2 (well, one now since I used a slot for my headlight relay feed) spare +12V fused feeds that I don't have to tap off the battery. No gremlins and no maintenance. Nothing about this screams 'bling'.

Yes, I do believe the mis-placement did carry over from 77 into the 78 year. I think the location of the biggest (black) link never changed. I think they got it right on the diagram in 76 (right front), and then screwed it up in 77 which carried into 78. It would sure be nice if any other 77 or 78 owners could verify the position of the links just for additional data points. I know I've checked my 77 and positively determined the positions of the links. And I know that @240260280 did the same on his 77 some number of years ago. But I don't have any hard 78 data points. So for any of you 78 (or additional 77) owners out there who would like to participate? The easiest way to verify the link positions... Turn your headlights on. Remove the link that is closest to the fender and closest to the firewall (right rear) fusible link and the headlights should go out.

Charles, thank your for your input. Together members of this site are the brain trust on Z cars. I used to think that I was an expert on these cars, but sometimes the members of this site make me feel wanting for Z knowledge. I just hope that I can share something from time to time that helps someone. JLP

Nice photos! Just noticed you’re in Richmond a little south of Eiji. I grew up in southwest VA near Roanoke, now in Raleigh NC area. So, you got an engine or servicing from Eiji? Sent him pics of my car. He said he liked my Enkei92 wheels. From you pics I see his too.

Started her up today after new rebuilt head (thanks[mention=6833]MadKaw[/mention]), timing chain,water pump, etc Then shared a car wash with our 18 mo old granddaughter. 72 body and block, everything else 71, Tokico springs, Illumina, R180 CLSD, 83 close ratio, 3.90 gears, Ztherapy SUs, BRE 15X7 Libre wheels and BRE front spoiler.

Yea I felt bad for a couple of minutes but the car was a good deal and the parts were better than the car and the car was a 1968 to boot. We actually took 2 510s from back there but these were not cars that anyone knew about anyway so we recently sent 2 very nice 510 race cars to new york for the LaBrun brothers to drive at the Glen this year and they were cars that really should be back there. One was a Bob Sharp look alike we made 5-6years ago and the other was the Rob Dyson original race car that Ken Mattice owned and restored and Dyson is from NY. So all's fair in racing again. Les

Thanks for all the kind words and I know that I am horrible at trying to do so much different stuff so much of the time and I don't always go on this site to check to see what is going on. So I will update everyone about the issues at hand for both Jerry and Steve. Some you may know that we are in the preliminary stages of starting the restoration of the Electamotive 280Z a little known racecar built for the 1978 season to get Don Devondorf comfortable with a bigger car since the new 280ZX was coming in 79 and he had just spent 3+ years in the B-210 winning everything in sight. So when we purchased this car it was in the Dominican Republic and came with a bunch of extra parts which we could not seem to get shipped due to the busy racing shop they were at in FT Lauderdale Fl had no time to measure,weigh and count all the junk so that coupled with the rest of the parts for the Fitzy 280ZX we also bought and whose parts were stuck in Ga due to the same circumstances it was decided that we would do a road trip to pick all of that plus an nice east coast 510 vintage shell and a ton of spares that again would have been nearly impossible to ship some (30boxes) we flew to Virginia and picked up the 510 and parts in a 26 ft Penske truck and headed to Ga and then to Fla and then back to Ca and that trip took 11 days total and got to see some cool racing and Airplane related stuff that was on our way. We also picked up a trailer and brought Adams new 510 racecar back with us as well so all in all a long but worthwhile trip. But all that being said I need to say that most of my vintage racing customers do not normally race in the early part of the year opting to start in April usually and surprise this year it seems we have had to be somewhere every 2 weeks and have been to 4 events not planned into the normal workload for this time of year. My normal after the holidays schedule is to work on all the projects we are trying to finish up until april. But I have to say that we got Jerrys car up on the wheels and finish up the engine detail and did a ton of Zinc plating and powdercoating etc during this period as well as Dashboard work and finding discrepancies in the dashes put away for several different project we are doing. now with all that going on Before leaving on the trip I found a couple small flaws that I missed on jerrys car and decided to take it back to fix them while I was traveling so we would not lose time and that worked out well as we were able to finish the correct dash for Jerry as well as Our new batch of correct glove boxes came in so we were able to give him a better one. The issue with Steve's flare became an interesting deal as he was correct about there being an area of the flare that looked bad so last Thur before leaving for the track again early fri morn I looked through about 7 different front flares both our old and new style and sure enough there was a flaw in all the left fronts and going all the way back to the originals I bought from a Japanese guy at the MSA show many years ago that he brought over from Japan. Some of you may know that I first made these available and then MSA used to get them through me and then they decided to copy mine or bought their own and made their own molds at the same shop that was making mine and we started to get couple complaints about 1 flare that was kind of more splayed out so it looked longer(they need to be pinched up while riveting) so we replaced that flare with the older one that was the same length and they now have an area that looks concave versus convex so They are currently repairing that flare and will be fixing the mold. We will be sending out Steves replacement flare asap. I will both call and e-mail him to let him know now that I am back from another race weekend. Thanks again for putting up with my ridiculous schedule and I am trying to communicate better but it has been no fun dealing with all the issues since losing my office manager Dennis in late 2009 and the fallout from that is still haunting us and will for a while still. This is for David and others waiting but the new Japanese front spoiler is now officially at the moldmaker and we will have new parts very soon. It has been my goal to redo the ZG flares but I have to have a car that I can mount and drill to make them more perfect in fit and finish so I may try that soon as I am currently going to part out the body from the 74 260Z new body for the Electramotive car and we will post seperately about this car as I would like to see all the good usable parts go to someone who needs them. We will be cutting off the rear 1/4s and are only planning to use the main shell and doors so we will take these parts and make the new flares on them. Thanks for the response and sorry for the long post. Les