conedodger

Starting to really like the rally prepared cars. This one looks to be immaculately prepared. Great picture too. Right hand drive. Not sure what country...

I agree. The steering wheel is wood impregnated resin or something like that. When I restored mine, I didn't stain it at all. Just applying varnish brought out the 'wood look.' If you want them to match though, I suspect you can just go to a paint store and ask them to match it, though different woods take stain differently... If I were doing it, I would just get some expensive exotic wood and do it. It's worth it. It's a Z!

From what I hear from the 4 cylinder 914 guys they are junk... Sorry, if that seems like a strong condemnation but I had to tone down what they actually said.

Runs constantly when 12V applied.

I would hate to drive to some remote Pick N Pull and find out the Maxima listed in the inventory was an automatic... Automatics were becoming far more common by '83-4...

A week ago I put some clear front turn signal lenses on eBay. One was cracked in three places but not broken. That was clearly stated and shown in a picture. I think I started it at $35 not really expecting it to go higher than $40. It ended at $165 or so... Came with my car. New in box but but as I said, one was cracked...

A couple others I found today...

Here's one from the UK...

Not sure about that Blue... Dellorto carbs have had a transition circuit in my experience that made them 'an improvement' over the Weber they copied... Probably?

Those are Weber jet numbers. Probably copies...

One type of restification I like to see first timers do is what some call a 'rolling restoration.' The nice thing about this is that driving the car reveals the weaknesses. If you were to consider doing that, I'd say start with the brakes and just fix them. Do a good bleed, make sure pistons aren't stuck. Once they're operational, move to getting the car running. Batteries don't like to sit. They need to be used to stay useful. That one is probably toast if it will not hold a charge. As for your list: All new brake lines - good idea. New larger brake calipers up front - not really needed unless you're going out onto the track. Autocrossing doesn't challenge the brakes much. Replace drums with disks in rear - Eh... Just make sure everything works well and you should be fine. Remember, an engineer designed this car. They battle accountants but for the most part, they get their way I think. When you change something an engineer designed, you upset the balance that was designed in to all the other cooperating systems. There are lots of engineers on this board. Hopefully you wont get their attention here as arguing with an engineer is as they say, 'like mud wrestling a pig. After a few minutes you realize you're covered with mud and the pig is loving it.' Replace all hoses, wiring, you name it. Driving it will probably expose this as needed anyway. New sound setup (none of that gangster crap, quality sound) Good idea. New upholstery, carpet, refinish all hard plastic surfaces All available and if you look in the S30 interior section - very satisfying! Then the engine. That is for a different day. As I said, drive it. You might find out that you can go 10 years on a very solid motor. Believe me, over the last few decades, I have abused the living snot out of L6 motors and my experience is that as long as you have them in good tune and don't overheat them, they will last a very long time and not need rebuilding. I am talking about the difference between $40-$50K here and a few thousand at the most... Do as much as you can yourself. Don't be afraid to learn something new. I have so much more respect for the man who does it himself and the one who writes a check... As for sim-racing, my neighbor is a shifter kart champion. He has me iRacing. I race against some REALLY big names. I probably only get in their race group because of Brady but the point is, it isn't lame if the big names are doing it too!

Mine came to me as blanks. They were appropriately dimensioned for the 240Z door but there were no holes at all. I mounted them up and made all the holes myself.

Yes, I did install these after Keith cleared that up and I might have installed them wrong, I didn't notice any difference in the diameter of the top/bottom shaft. In short, it ran much worse. Exaggerated tip in lean condition. I have to go get my calipers and check them to see if there is a difference top to bottom.

I hear that the door panels on the 280Z are slightly longer? Did you tell Pete what year car when you ordered? His brother is handling things while he is recovering. It could be he doesn't know that...

Matt, I will look up the manufacturer and spring number for you. It is total order with shipping = $40 USD so you might be ok if you have them shipped some fancy way... 8)

More prototype racing...

Matt, Dimensionally they look identical. My understanding is that the spring rate is doubled. Keith gave us a part number and his source, the problem was that you had to have a minimum order of $40. He bought 30 of the springs and I suspect is selling them on his Yahoo store. They were about $1.40 each I want to say? Pretty lively difference I'd say.

Only a hole down the bore. I wonder if it replaces the hypojet but without the hypo?

Leon, What is this? It looks like a pump jet but shorter. Keith put them in my package and I would imagine yours but all he mentioned was the O5 tube.

Well, it wouldn't run with the O5 tubes. It would start and run badly but no coaxing of the throttle would get me moving at all. But when I put the original tuning-day configuration back in with the new accelerator pump springs things went back to running like it did at the tuning day and on the way home, with one strong exception. When I jump into the throttle from anywhere, the A:F ratio goes to 12.5:1 and stays put. It loves the springs! In fact, if I do go with my plan, to sell these rare beasts to some Maserati, Ferrari, Morgan restoration guy, I will buy 45DCOE 152's and replace the springs!

Dry as a bone here. Literally I think. I hooked up my fuel pump differently. I ran a 12 gauge wire directly to the coil with a 20amp fuse just before it connects to the coil. Increased my fuel pressure to 3psi. I took it for a spin and it acts differently. I would imagine partly because I eliminated the MSD box. It probably was covering for some problem. I have to do that EDIS! By the way, Leon, why did you do two different mounts for your EDIS stuff? You have the box on one aluminum plate and the coil pack on another. Are you avoiding interference? It seems everything would fit on that one mount... Waiting on the package from Keith to start tearing in to things. I suppose I could do two carbs but...

So, I have two wiring diagrams. One is the FSM which I have two copies of. It seems that according to the FSM, there are only two wires at the coil. One comes from the distributor and goes to the negative side. It gets no more detailed than that, which is frustrating. On the laminated wiring diagram I got off of EBay, I have a green/white wire going to the coil from the tach. That doesn't jive with reality. It indicates it is for a '72 -'73 but that configuration seems to me to be from an earlier car. There are 4 wires coming out of the harness right next to the coil. Two appear to be black with a white stripe. One is all black, one is black with either an off white or faded yellow stripe. The car runs. It has one of the black with white wires which I found to have a 12V attached to the + lug of the coil and the single wire from the distributor hooked to the - lug of the coil. So, the other three wires are hanging in the breeze. I suspect one will give me a tach. I wonder what the others are for? So which of these goes to the tach?

I'm up and running. Turns out my MSD was eliminated by the recent install of the bladed MSA fusebox. So, I wired it up stock. 8)

Not a Z but historical...

Another at speed...