Jeff G 78

Hey Robert, Catching the ZX in the background was just a coincidence and there were likely lots of them around as it was only a few year old car at the time. The photo was taken at my sister's apartment complex, so I had no idea who owned that car. I was trying to post old photos of a few more old Z's I had, but the forum crashed last night as I was uploading them. I'll try again tonight.

OK, I finally dug out my old photo album and scanned a few pics. Here is my first Z taken in 1984. I bought a pair of Z's for $600 that had been sitting in a field with the hopes of making one good car. They were an orange '72 and a brown '76, but both were way too rotten to save. I learned a ton stripping them and working on them and I still use the carbs and wheels on my 260Z race car. I took this pic on the day I brought them home, but I had already swapped a few body panels between them as you can see. After I gave up on the two rusty cars, I drove to Atlanta from Ohio in the spring of 1986 and bought a rust-free auto trans '76 280. Here I am washing it the day I bought it before I drove it 750 miles home on expired GA plates. As soon as I got it back to Ohio, I swapped the auto trans for the 4 speed I took out of the '72 and I removed the headlight covers and Libre copy wheels. I still have both the headlight covers and wheels in storage. I plan on painting the headlight covers and putting them on my BRE tribute race car and if anybody wants the wheels they are for sale. Otherwise, they will probably stay in storage for another 27 years. Wow, I was about 100 lbs lighter back then.

Go with +6mm offset if you don't want major rubbing. I run 16x7 zero offset Panasports with 225/50R16 tires and I had major rubbing. Another option is to go with the 225/45R16 Dunlop Direzza ZII tires. They will be slightly shorter which will give you more clearance. Like Guy said above, you will still likely have to play with the front valence, but zero offset will be much worse. There is a thread here that I think was started by Guy (Diseazed) where I posted pics of what I had to do to keep my rears from rubbing. My fronts still rub badly while turning in reverse.

Cool thread Guy. I'll have to find and scan my old pics.

What brand of belt(s) did you use? I tried a store brand belt once on my race car and it kept stretching during the first practice session. I tightened it and it worked fine for a bit and then start squealing on start-up again until finally failing completely. Luckily, it all happened during practice. I now only use Gates belts.

I run the Carter pump in my race car and it works great. My installation won't really help you though. I run a surge tank to maximize the range. Before the surge tank, I could only run about 1:40 on a tank, but now I can run a full 2 hours which is our driver stint limit. I run a Facet pump to get the fuel into the surge tank and then the Carter pump to feed the engine. The Carter is fairly loud, but it is inside the car. The Facet is much louder and it's under the car.

I've tried both the original coil with the ballast resistor removed and the MSA Fireball coil on my race car and I couldn't feel any performance difference. If your car is stock or even lightly modified, I wouldn't waste any money on a performance coil.

There are lots of people successfully running the stock fuel rail, but I struggled for years with fuel starvation issues on my race car. It turned out to be vapor lock caused by heat radiating from the head through the stock steel rail into the fuel. Once I ditched the stock rail, it runs like a champ for hours on end. You might want to at least isolate the rail by replacing the steel spacers with a heat resistant material that doesn't conduct as well. I could only run 20 minutes on the track before I started having symptoms. As always YMMV. Good luck with the triple swap. It will sound glorious!

chaztg, As far as I know, the spindle pins are still available. MSA just sells the OE Nissan parts, so they are one in the same. fuzze, the outer bushings do degrade over time. The ones I removed from my '78 were shot. Other reasons to remove the pins would be to replace bent control arms, upgrade to adjustable arms, paint/powder coat suspension parts during a restoration, etc.

Welcome to the forum! Post some pics of your new purchase. Value is hard to judge without a thorough inspection. It's all about condition. Where in Michigan?

Did you dyno this one yet? What do you expect to get at the wheels? It seems like it should make about 185 or so.

You left out the only important info. Is/was there any rust? If the body is completely clean, it will be worth far more than if it has or had rust. The value should be between $3k and $8k. If the body is rust-free and the paint is great, expect the high end. Bad paint and rust-free brings it down to about $5k and if there is rust the value will be at the bottom end of the scale.

I have a spare pedal box I could sell you.

There was a lot of OBX talk on hybridZ. It's a Quaife/Torsen copy and other than the fact that many of the units are assembled wrong, they seem to work very well. Buyers usually disassemble the units when they get them and make sure that the assembly is correct. If not, it's a simple reassembly in the right orientation to fix the mistake. Once assembled correctly, the buyers have had very good success with the OBX unit. Again, I'm not questioning your decision, I just wondered if you weighed the options. The OBX LSD is fairly unknown outside of the hybridZ world so I understand that you hadn't heard of it. I'm not sure why nobody knows about it, but I've never heard any chatter on this site about the OBX.

I like the upgrade and I understand that you are getting a modern, good condition diff, but wouldn't finding a low mileage R180 or R200 and installing an OBX LSD be a cheaper option? It's not a shot at you, I'm really asking which is better/cheaper. Here in the east, there are countless rotted out S130's with low mileage 3.90 R200 diffs. The OBX sells for about $400 and the S130 R200 can be had for nearly nothing. I paid $500 for an F54 engine, 5 speed trans, 3.90 R200, driveshaft and halfshafts all with low miles.

If I lived close to you Guy, I'd break into your garage at night just to drool on your cars...

Beautiful as always Guy! Are you going to get dyno numbers on it?

After a quick search, I found that the KD 3087 is discontinued, but it can still be purchased as a Sealey VS168. Here it is on ebay. VS168 Sealey Valve Spring Compressor Lever Type OHV OHC Brand New Sealey Tool | eBay

Virto, fighting broken studs is all too common. More often than not, there is at least one broken stud when I remove a manifold for the first time. Take the time now and replace them all with quality new ones. If you find any head threads that are iffy, use a Heli Coil to repair them. Manifolds are fairly forgiving, but headers love to leak, so you are better off making sure everything is good before you drop the head back on the block. Good luck getting it all finished and back on the road.

That car sounds amazing!

This is the easiest way to teach you. Follow the link and play with the numbers. Custom rims, wheel tire packages for your ride - RIMSnTIRES.com

No, you can reuse the old ones. Just make sure the block and bolt threads are clean and free of sludge and rust.

Make sure the "new" head is flat and full thickness prior to installing it. Put it on a known flat surface and use feeler gauges to see if there are any gaps. If it isn't flat, get a refund. Then measure the overall thickness of the head with dial calipers. It should be 108mm and if it measures less, it has likely been milled. A milled head will cause a change in timing, so if it has been milled, you might need to use the #2 or #3 hole in the cam gear.

No thinning and pretty much one coat. If not for the two colors, it would have been done in about 2 hours with 2 guys. One rolled white and one rolled red. We then let it dry overnight and taped it off to get the other color up to the tape. Total paint time was about 4 hours including the BRE stripes which took some time to lay out, tape and paint. Wetsand? No. When we have to remove decals, we sometimes peel paint. When that happens, we just re-roll the area and it blends right in. Like Jon's car, mine doesn't have to look great, but from 20 feet, it photographs really well.

Chances are good that the collar stayed with the trans when they did the swap, but it's possible that they reused the old clutch setup from the 240 and transferred the collar to the new trans. Just measure the collar height before you order your clutch kit. If you guess and get it wrong, you'll have to pull it all apart and find the right collar to fix it. Another option if you are in a hurry is to order both clutch kits and return the one you don't need.