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Very interesting, thank you! In a tangential way, it’s convinced me I need an oil cooler ;) because when you do a 1000 miles per year it’s really important!! :p Actually on a more serious note, it does go to demonstrate the importance of getting the oil up to temp before hammering it. Especially in turbo applications where the spindle is “floating” on a film of oil between it and the bearings while doing 60-90 Krpm!! What I really want now is an oil temp gauge, because when you do a 1000 miles a year .... ;) So what I’m taking away from all this is that: - synth oil is OK. - ZDDP is good to have even if modern lubricants are much better than 70s oils. - A low viscosity oil is better for cold protection (obvs, I know but that freezer test really brought it home) - the oils degrades fast with heat, so any way of keeping the oil temps down is beneficial + frequent changes. Here is my cheap attempt at taking a degree or two off the oil - it’s something they use a lot in airplane engine air cooling applications. It gets too hot to touch, so it must be doing some good. I plan to use a small air duct to channel air to it.

This is my car. partnering with Ammo was a chance to get the paint restored and at the same time, showcase my car. The real story of this amazing car is about it's finding and the preservation we have taken to bring it back to life after 44 years in a garage. We took the car to ZCON in September and won: "First place Stock 280Z", "Nissan Factory Favorite Most Original" and "2nd place Peoples choice S30". If you are interested, here is a web site I'm working on to tell the story of this car. www.350mile280z.com

It's out there now. https://www.autoevolution.com/news/barn-find-1976-datsun-280z-gets-washed-for-the-first-time-in-44-years-150616.html

I'm very familiar with that car. I was watching it. I couldn't understand why that car had such a high bid in the first place. It didn't look like a well presented car to me. A great car to have, sure, but not a "Grand Survivor". I've seen cars just as nice sell for less then $60K I am taking great pains to keep my car as original as possible. Cleaning mainly consists of simple green and a microfiber cloth. We did have to clean the gas tank and re-core the radiator. We replaced the master cylinder and rebuild the brake calipers. Removed and cleaned the fuel injectors.

Good luck and be careful with it. Read the recent thread about the 31K 240Z, that's what my joke about value was about. If you want top dollar, you have to do what the collectors want, not what you think they should want. They're a finicky bunch. Everything that you do to it becomes part of its provenance. Keep every scrap of paper that came with the car, even the brown wrapping paper. Every part imprint on a piece of paper is like the Shroud of Turin.

Ya, that "clearance" of the primary is not one of my finer moments in messing with cars. Anyway I now have that SG header and what I suspect was one of the last headers Stahl built that I gotta get out of my garage. Any interest, let me know...otherwise one header for each kid at Christmas sounds pretty sweet to me lol

Yup, that's Marty and for $215 + whatever coating you use, you can't beat 50 years of proven performance. I'd have to ask Marty, but I think Datsun asked him to design it and he did manufacture it.

My favorite scene in that movie is when the dog wakes up the mechanic (who is sleeping on the floor with his acetylene torch on as usual) by peeing on his head. You hear the scream and he takes out the garage door chasing the dog. Shows you the high intellectual level of humor enjoyed by people with graduate degrees...

I missed those older races. Have been attending the SOVREN races for the last 9 years or so. Always fun to watch. I remember that old system for assigning license plates by county. Sure made it easy to tell where a car came from. I bought my '72 in Wenatchee, but if my memory serves, he purchased from the original owner in the Puget Sound area.

Came across this video on you tube. Not sure if anyone here is involved with this car but what a find! Only 350 miles is incredible! Hard to believe there are still cars like this hiding out there. https://youtu.be/CZlIl74b0Ss

http://350mile280z.com/ Holy moly! That is a great read out for your car. Great pictures too.

what oil temps are you getting Ali? mine doesn't normally get over 90°c

The guy who originally did the Datsun Competition Header is still alive and kicking. He is currently putting a Porsche Cayenne turbo motor in a Porsche 914! He still sells his version of the Datsun Competition Header. It’s pretty cheap too. He doesn’t advertise it since his core business has become Porsche centered. Check out MSDS in LA. Martin Schneider is his name. I bought an extra from him in case my original Datsun Competition Header ever gives up the ghost. I’ve had to repair it once so I’m a bit paranoid I guess.

I have one of the spot blasters purchased from TP TOOLS and it works great with the black oxide media on the odds and ends parts that need attention and other small areas on the car. I would imagine some baking soda would be a much softer media to use on those louvers. Thanks for all the helpful tips. I may try my hand at fabricating the passenger side upgrade. Hard to figure out why they never designed it that way from the start. My sheet metal bending skills are getting better with this resurrection project. I have gone from about a 2 to maybe a 6 on a scale of 1-10. Thanks again, John-Lugoff, SC.

First time working on the car again in 3 weeks. Got the passenger front side suspension and brakes installed and all 4 corners roughly dialed in at the final ride height and a very rough base alignment by eye. Steering is hooked up and got the driver side NOS door handle installed with all the linkage hooked up. Planning on getting the heater core and blower motor back in next weekend along with the dash and then it is ready to go up North for header, exhaust, radiator, catch can, power steering/coolant reservoirs and driveshaft. Then it will come back for rear brakes, wiring, fuel setup and final assembly before it goes for alignment and tuning. After all that, it will be fully wetsanded, buffed and then the entire car will be wrapped in Xpel clear film.

Congratulations on an awesome score. So in the video, all that work was done to clean the car, and reassemble everything the original owner had removed, and then everyone pushed it outside for pictures. Why didn't we get to see it run? Don't be holding out on us now.

I think the reason there's so much controversy about the particulars of oil (and SO many things) is because there's no obvious and clear BEST product for everyone's situation. If you used the forums' "best" and "worst" oil, I'd doubt you'd see any significant difference unless you were running that motor for 100,000 miles per year. At that point, you likely have to measure differences in wear with equipment better than .0005 indication. A friend gets so wrapped around the axles about this sort of controversy that becomes paralyzed and cannot take a decision. For the record, I pulled my 73 L24 at about 130K miles in mid 80s for a refurb. There were no real problems, just looking for optimum performance. Original honing scratches were still present, seals were still in decent shape (most were hard but still keeping oil on the correct side - for the most part. This was all based on technology that is now 40 years old. Maybe it's a bit like the guy who bought a new H&K and ran 15,000 rounds through it before he cleaned it. It continued to operate properly and well. Lubricant technology development in the intervening years has become quite sophisticated and yielded amazing improvements in friction and wear reduction. I'd probably bet that the lowest cost crap oil you can find at AutoZone would far surpass the performance of the best oils of the day 40 years ago, which suggests that decent oil today should keep them running well past our life exoectancy, but that's just me, and I've had a cocktail!

Well I still haven’t gotten my tank back, but I ordered a set of Float Syncs from @Randalla and spent an hour or so getting a “static” float level. The float syncs are really nice and made it a snap to get the levels set. I used a small squirt bottle to pour fuel into the input line with a funnel, and then just rotated the float sync to drain it back out into my bottle to reset. Really interested to see how well the “static” float level corresponds to the levels when the engine is actually running.

Excellent job.

Just the thing to improve my already great heel/toe technique. Do they come in Nomex?

What about when trashes the car and he says "$500? Seems a little steep to me" I love that movie too!

You should have used the ribbed version with the reservoir tip 👌

In twenty years I'll post about how the 280s were used like a sex swing in my teens. Open hatch with legs hanging out.

Here is the radio.

Here are just a few engine pictures I took as we ready the car for ZCON.

The real question is if the spindle pins will slide out like the FSM shows. ?

Oh hell, now California Datsun will be selling bags of NLA Barn Dirt.