Jeff G 78

I've never heard of road course bracket racing. Pretty cool! Where is your cage builder going to land the rear diagonals Steve? Mine go to the top front of the shock towers, but they are a bit steeper than the 45° recommended angle.

My bad. In your first post, you mentioned bracket racing, so I figured it would only be a drag cage. You might consider adding an additional driver's side door bar up higher. Z cars are so tight though, that you really need to gut the door and do NASCAR bars which might or might not fit into your plans for the car. Here is mine.

I'm a road racer and not a drag racer, so it might not matter for what you need, but I see no way to get 360° welds around several of the bars. For example, in the last picture where the door bars meet the main hoop. The door bars are down tight against the boxes and also tight against the rocker leaving only about 180° of the bar exposed for welding. I also see this issue at the front of the door bars and even the A-pillar bars where they meet the rocker boxes. In most road racing sanctioning bodies, anything less than 360° is a fail. Again, it might not be an issue for your needs, but I wanted to point it out so you can ask your cage builder if needed. Otherwise, the cage looks pretty good.

Works for me too.

Pull the distributor and see what the shaft orientation is. When I bought my 260 and tore the motor down for gaskets, it went back together and didn't run. After checking the rotor, it looked exactly like your picture. I knew I must have put the shaft in a tooth off, so I pulled the dizzy and checked the shaft orientation. Hmmm, it was at 11:25, right where it was supposed to be. Since I only had eight weeks to build my race car from the ground up, I left it alone and rotated the wires on the cap to get the car going. Later, when I got a newer distributor, I compared the 260 dizzy and the ZX dizzy and sure enough, the orientations were different. I have never seen another one off like that, but mine was different than any other S30/S130 dizzy I've seen. Looking at the way they are built, I never did figure how it could have been built wrong. The point of my story is that is is possible for the shaft to be oriented correctly and the dizzy be off. Has anyone else ever come across a Datsun distributor that was off 60°?

Looking great Brandon! Keep the pics coming.

Looks great Brandon!

You are likely right Jim. I was only going by what I read online about the large diameter hose and even if I did find out it was available, I wasn't about to spend $101 for a vent hose when I bought my whole race car for $350. I restoration project is a different story though and $101 might be a bargain for originality.

I don't have near the stiffness John does, but my inside front gets light as well. This is with cut springs and aftermarket bars. This is my $500 crapcan racer.

Dammit, I typed out a nice, long response and my computer decided to reboot. Dropping the tank isn't terribly difficult, but be warned that the "While I'm At It" syndrome will take over. The tank drop will be easy if the strap threads and nuts are not rusty. It they are, soak them for several days before you begin. The biggest thing you will find is old, dry vent hoses which, while you're in there, should be replaced. This requires the interior trim panels to be removed and some fabrication work since the large vent hose in the back of the tank is NLA. It has a 180° bend molded in, so bulk hose cannot be used without additional hardware. You can find a how-to online to make a copper fitting to replace the 180 in the hose. This is easy, but I would recommend incorporating beads on the ends of the copper to keep the hoses in place. I didn't do this and had the hose pop off. I had to drain and drop the tank at the race track which cost me a lot of time and aggravation. When you replace the hoses, be sure to use fuel-rated vent hose and not heater hose. I had to special order the 5/8" fuel hose as it's not very common. Chances are very good that all of your hoses are way overdue for replacement anyways, so use the opportunity to do it right. Be sure to seal the hoses where they go through the floor. You are probably getting exhaust fumes sucked in through the old grommets.

Careful, I might not leave!

The next time I'm your way, I WILL stop and see your amazing collection in person.

I agree Guy, but he should probably keep working to improve before restoring his own Z. Brandon is more than welcome to hone his painting skills on my Z.

Take a white or yellow paint pen and draw a line across both pulleys. That way, if they don't stay lined-up, you will know it slipped. I do this even on good dampers.

I have watched quite a bit of BJ this year as well as many BJ's in the past. The prices overall are WAY down this year. Cars that used to bring great money are now bringing far less than what it costs to restore them. One example was a '65 Vette with a 00005 VIN. The car was beautiful inside and out and it brought something like $40,000. A few years ago it would have easily been a $100k car. That car's selling price was very typical of the cars I watched go across the blocks. There was a numbers matching '69 Mopar 440 convertible that sold for $30k. A friend of mine sold his '69 Road Runner 383 in decent driver condition for over $30k about 7 years ago. The BJ car would probably appraise for close to double what my friend's is worth.

Do you have the wrong pulley/pointer, or is your damper torn and rotating? If the damper is ripped, you need to replace it right away. Not only can you not use a timing light, but you can break a crank. My race car damper ripped and was so bad that I could spin the fan with the engine off. Another member was kind enough to give me a good damper and I'm back in business.

Did you buy the ex-Bondurant car when they switched to using GM products? I know that there were some great deals on cars that were brand new. The old pre-'99 cars were pretty used up. They are super easy to drive and are very durable if taken care of.

My Z looks way worse than it really is because I don't have the money to hire the body and paint work and I have zero bodywork skills. I do everything myself on my cars and house, but auto body just isn't my thing. I have tried it and I suck at it. It's awesome to see others do it so well! Keep the pics coming.

Very cool Brandon!

Why would being lowered scare you? It's probably one of the most common mods to a Z.

The gear reduction starter is a bit lighter and will take less battery power to crank the car over, but otherwise, both will work fine. Only upgrade when the old one dies.

Don't make a decision without posting detailed pics of the car(s) you are interested in. We will look at the pics and give you a much better idea of what it's worth. You are right. The body is WAY more important than the mechanicals. A rusty Z will cost you FAR more than a clean Z no matter how cheap it is when you buy it.

The standard answer is that the cam became internally oiled with the introduction of the N47 head in the '77 model year, but this isn't completely true. I happen to have a N47 head that came from Nissan with a spray bar and a solid cam. I'm not 100% sure the head was ever part of a production Z though. I bought the head about 10 years ago from a guy who claimed it was owned by a Z race team and the head was taken off a production L28 when the car was new and had been on a shelf ever since 1977. I couldn't find any evidence to dispute the seller's claims. It looked like a brand new head with no wear pattern on the rockers or cam, and it didn't even show signs of having been run. It was also obvious that it had never been cleaned or bead blasted. I replaced the valve seals and have been running it ever since.

Taking the seats out of a 2+2 doesn't make it a coupe. It makes it a 2+2 with missing parts. I'm not sure, but 2+2 interior parts might be getting hard to find. Since that interior is trashed, finding door panels and other plastic trim might be hard and pricey. When I said it was a good deal, I had only looked at the first 2 pics you posted and didn't see that it was a 2+2. I'd keep looking.

I didn't even notice that since his side view pic wouldn't expand. The 2+2 certainly reduces the desirability of the car (for me), but I'm not sure it changes the value of a $600 car much. If the OP plans to do a full restoration and spend many thousands on it, it could come into play. Then again, we are all very aware that Z cars are not investments and most of the money we spend on them will never be recovered when we sell them. To the OP, if you WANT a 2+2, great, but if you don't know much about Z cars, you might want to decide now if you want/need the extra size.