bkelly

Brock lives like 15 mi from my house. The guy that owns the resto shop knows him and gave me the idea. I'm going to the shop this weekend to help out on another Z being restored there so I'll get more details of it then. I guess the original car got lost and nobody knows what happened to it. I would like to make a BRE replica someday but there are quite a few actual vintage Datsun race cars floating around my area, including an real BRE. I've got to the point that if I really wanted to I could get one if it came up for sale.

I'm making a clone of Brock Yates' Car and Driver Z. I've yet to find a pic of it anywhere online. I don't care about the cost of anything so I won't be using a chain body shop. I'm using the highest end restoration shop around for any metal work. The car is white with a black hood. White for the most part looks the same whether it's rolled on for $40 or gets a $10k paint job. I'm a decent painter so I may even wind up doing it myself. Structurally, the car is 100% solid. Below is a pic of the only rust on the underside of the car. It will be getting a roll cage as that was in the original car.

I've decided to turn my Z into a vintage racer instead of a total restoration. Not sure on the mech. specs, but that's irrelevant at this time. My car as it sits looks to be in very good condition. It needs the gas door area cut out and I've got a replacement for that. There's some slight bubbling on the C pillars, appears to be due to bondo. Other than that, there is no rust showing. I'd rather not have to completely tear the car apart. I know I need to get the door jambs/engine bay for the color change, but as far as matching the trunk, I could care less. My question is, should I just do the minimum amount of work necessary for a color change or should I completely strip the car and get every piece of bondo out? Remember, this is going to be a race car...pretty paint doesn't make it go faster.

This thread is useless without information that makes your car sound like that! Here's some more ear candy-

Thanks, I just got over a dead beat on one of my cars so I've got a hair trigger dealing with people on ebay now. They must have sent it out with a horse and buggy. Anyway, I googled trimill and it seems like they also make headers as well as exhausts, but ansa did also. Since they make similar products, it looks to be either a knock off brand of ansa or a different line from ansa.

I don't know what that is, but I'd like to know where that muffler is I bought from you off ebay. It's been 10 days since you said you sent it out. I have things shipped from California regularly with my business and it doesn't take 10 days.

If you want the best paint shop in your area, take it to Harpo at Auto Bahn Body Werks by the Mercedes dealership. His work is flawless, pricey, but flawless. This guy might also be able to help you out, he specializes in restorations- http://www.riterrestorations.com/ We are restoring the president of ZCCR's Z there right now. The owner is a Datsun freak and owns few factory Datsun race cars. Shoot me a PM, I live about 20 min from you. I'm starting my own restoration on my 70 shortly.

Here's what I'm up against. My car runs like crap, the carbs are way out of tune. I'm planning on just getting it running for now. What I'm left with after it runs is a 37 yr old engine with 115k that most likely needs a rebuild before I can have fun with it, a head than needs to be rebuild so it can reliably run on unleaded, a 37 yr old transmission with 115k that hasn't been rebuilt....again not knowing how strong it is for its age. The car is a numbers matching 70 #6802, so it's early. Considering the cost of a correct stock rebuild vs a swap that would give me more power with a little more cost, is it that bad doing this to such an early car? I'm budgeting ~$3000 on a complete engine/tranny rebuild. I see SR20DET's on ebay for ~$2500 so call it $4000 by the time it's in the car. $1000 isn't that much. So....thoughts? I'm going to be working on the engine over the winter so I'd like to get an idea of what I'm doing now.

I've come to think this way very quickly- It's your car, do what you want with it. If you're building a museum piece to appease the snotty "Barret-Jackson" crowd, then you may want to use the original hatch. The rest of us "normal" people don't really care.

The floats/needle valves are brand new so they aren't defective. I'll try to adjust them later on today. If this doesn't work, there's a guy that can work on them, but he's almost 2 hours away. He also welds so if it has to go that far the floors might as well be fixed (need some small patches) and the 1/4 will be replaced with a donor. I just hope this simple running rich problem doesn't lead into an all out restoration. I'm sure everybody has had the "While we're doing this, we might as well do that" syndrome.

The needles are fine. The chokes are disconnected...it came that way. Should the lever be pulled all the way back or forward? (this is my first car with a manual choke...or even a choke for that matter) How are the floats properly adjusted? I just read something about putting an 1/8th drill bit under the float and bending the metal "pivot" so it just sits on top.

This is driving me nuts. I rebuilt both carbs, set them full lean and they're still running rich. The car is running so rich, it can not idle. Any ideas?

That's what I was thinking. I was at a pick and pull today going over a 280 and almost broke into tears....I found an Ansa muffler like I've been looking for! Unfortunately, it was so far gone it couldn't be saved. It looks like I'll have to settle for the "stacked" type instead of the stacked and staggered. Oh well. Since I wasn't around in the 70's until the very end, what type of mods should I be doing and where do I find them? My Mustang is sold as of last night so I should have some money rolling in for this project.

I've had a horrible experience with Tire Rack....more so the tires they sold me. I bought a set of General UHP tires back in the spring. All of them took a ton of weight to balance out. 2 of them where out of round. I called and told them about this. They said to send them back (at my expense) and they would look at them. Well....lets see I'D HAVE A CAR WITH NO TIRES!!! The tires where $65 each so I just wound up buying another 2. Those didn't balance well either so I wound up spending more money having them road force balanced. Instead of running my business, I had to run around for 2 days screwing around getting tires balanced. So 6 tires at $75 (after shipping) $450 + $200 in installs = $650!!!!! My next set is just coming from a local shop. What do you really save? Maybe $100?

I've got to make a decision with what to do with my car. It's a 70 #6802. Part of me (as well as all the z car club members I've talked to) says "It's your car, do what you want with it" another one says "It's an early original car, restore it and leave it that way". I guess my plans are more of a resto-mod. I'd like triple webbers, cam, coil overs, brakes, etc. A loud exhaust to wizz of neighbors is a must. Interior I will leave stock, if anything a steering wheel, seats, and 5pt. Exterior I want to just fix what little rust there is and give it an average paint job. The only rust is the gas cap area, corners of floor pans (not even through), and battery box which is just some surface rust. I'm not going to cut the car up and make an all out race car. I know a 100% restoration can make it worth some good money, but that's not what I care about. I already have a 100% stock 91 Mustang GT with 19k on it that I don't drive out of fear of something happening to it. Hopefully, as of tonight it's sold. (Another Z?) My point is, I don't want this car to be so nice I don't drive it, I'd like to make it a car I can take to a track and have fun with it, but I don't want to bastardize the car so much it couldn't go back and be a nice 100% resto someday. So, toss out some ideas.

No oil change. I'm thinking about changing with 20-50.

This is the new plug. Immediately after I cleaned the carbs, it ran great. Tonight I had to start it up to move it and it ran very rough. I pulled the plugs and they all looked like that. Keep in mind these are NEW plugs with at most 5 min run time. Now what.....

It's a stick...hate autos with a passion. This isn't a puff of smoke, it's a plume. I may be buying an L24 w/ E88 head that I could swap in then pull it out and mod it when I restore everything. This is a numbers matching car so I want to keep the original engine and not "ruin" it with mods.

I don't know too much about the history of the car. I know for a fact it sat since May at a repair shop on consignment. The inspection was up this year so I'm assuming it was driven last year, stored winter, then pulled out of storage in May and put up for sale. I did the check with the oil and it didn't change anything. I'll give it one more try with the ATF. If this head comes off I'm going to wind up dumping $5k under the hood.

I just picked up a 70 240 a few weeks ago. It smokes a little at idle but looks like cheech and chong in the car when it's reved. It has the smell of oil, not gas. What I've done so far- I took the carbs apart and cleaned them and put them back together. It was running rich by looking at my plugs, which were replaced. Carbs were synced. I checked compression and it's 140 across all 6. So it's not the rings. It runs GREAT but just smokes. The only thing I can think of is valve seals or maybe a readjustment of the carbs? If it's the seals, can they be replaced with the head on the car? The car is in very good condition for a driver, but if I go tearing things apart I might as well redo the engine/engine bay. I'd like to at least drive the car a year before I give it a proper resto.