2ManyZs

Eastwoods has a paint they call Bumper Black. It's in a spray can but after using some of their other spray can paint when I was re-painting my suspension pieces I'm going to give it a try. They recommend using their self-etching primer under it so if you have it sand blasted or maybe even media blasted first you could give it a try. The paints are fairly inexpensive, and the quality might be a little better than some, then again, proof is in the use and as yet I haven't tried it.

From you and everybody else!!!

That's the good thing about a two seater, not too many choices!!! I can't say anything about where you sit, I've been kicking myself for years for not finding a way to by a Fairlady a friend of mine was selling, I might not have been able to shift with the "wrong" hand but it sure would be nice to have that car in my garage right about now!!

100 bucks eh?? Hmm, guess I better go find mine!! And hide it!!

byunique, Take a look at look at this link to the Datsun Garage. It might help you decide if you really want a lighter flywheel or not. Personally in a car that is not an all out race car I don't see any benefit. http://geocities.com/zgarage2001/engine.html With the money you save you could always go to a lower ratio rear, say a 4:11 or 4:37 if all you want is a little quicker acceleration while maintaining the driveability of the car. Yes, a lighter flywheel will reduce the rotational mass and allow the engine to rev quicker but it's not going to be of that much benefit since I doubt you are going to turn 7,000 plus RPM's. There will be a lot of people who disagree with me, this is just my opinion, it's your car, so perhaps you need to look at the info and decide what's right for you.

If you have access to a parts washer clean out the case the best you can, or I guess you could spray brake cleaner in there to dislodge any buildup. Yes, the detergents should clean out any sludge builup, but any metal shavings should go to the bottom of the case, the magnet on the drain plug will attract them and hold them there. I'd go ahead and put only new lube in, but if you don't want to you don't have to. It's your car so you can do whatever you feel is best. I've never heard anyone say to put old in with the new and I've been tinkering with cars for 20 years. Maybe I'm just getting old.....

I'm not going there, I talked my fiancee into letting me race back in 89. You don't want to know what I went through after that! Get her in a Z first, then maybe she'll let you have another toy. BTW. I got rid of the fiancee, now have the old race car. Can't do much with the car if you catch my drift. So I went out and bought 3 more cars, one is another IT car that was wrecked. Now I have more cars than I know what to do with! Now just got to find a better female that will let me have my toys. I don't know if it's possible to have one with the other. Good luck!

Good question. I looked in my service manual and it doesn't say what the stock pump is rated at, but the pressure regulator is set for 36.3 psi.

If you already have a shaved flywheel I kinda doubt you would get the kind of performance gain you could really feel. I may be wrong but for the money I doubt the benefit would be worth it. As a side note, most people recommend using a Centerforce clutch (or any other brand) with a higher clamping force to use the benefit of having the lighter flywheel ( at least over a stock one) so right there your cash outlay just about doubled. Since you say you don't race the car all the time it would be my opinion to stay with what you have, as long as it works well for what you need why change it?

Thanks, here I thought I was in the beginning stages of.... what do they call that ?

Fiction: Why would anyone say to put part of the old gear lube back in? It's contaminated with the metal shavings that come from normal wear. If you have it drained and nothing looks like it needs attention (ring gear wear etc.) use new lube when after you seal it up. If your diff has a lot of wear it's going to be even more likely you will have a lot of shavings, might not be a bad idea to spray some cleaner in there to make sure you don't have any crud built up in the case. Be sure to clean off the magnetic drain plug too. You will probably find quite a bit of build up on that, no sense leaving it in there to contaminat the new gear lube.

I do hope you mean you want to convert her into a Z lover!!

I've already been thru the insurance hassle with my 71 just putting it on the road. I guess it might be time to go with one of the collectors car insurance companies that will insure it for an agreed upon value. I haven't seen Scott's video, I knew about it from an article in the old Sport Z magazine though. My metal working abilities might be a little too primitive for that. The kit from VR gives you a choice of two folding convertible tops (both are pretty expensive) or a removable fiberglass hardtop. I don't plan on driving the car except on sunny days so if I do one I'll save the money for a top and put it into a better paint job or something. There were two 280's on ebay before Christmas being sold by the same guy in LA, both were the original Origin Design kits, if I hadn't been un-employed at the time I would have bid on the red one. I saved the picture for my wallpaper just to torture myself, that is until I got a scanner and could put a picture of my own car in.

If you do the conversion to rear discs from a ZX don't you use the proportioning valve from the ZX?? Of course you could always go with the adjustable if you wanted to. I've read quite a few things on the rear disc set-up including using the Nissan truck master cylinder (1 inch). I just wish I could find where I saw the 4 piston four wheel vented rotor set-up. Must be losing it............ This is only my opinion but on a street car rear discs aren't really necessary. The ZX conversion would be OK but anything more would be overkill. On the race track we could only wish we had more brakes. Of course our enemy was heat with the front discs not being vented. For my street car I'm planning on going the four piston calipers in front and leaving the rears alone with some good shoes. Of course when I raced my 280 I was at a serious disdvantage since I was carrying extra weight with the same brakes as a 240. If I was going to race in E Production I would definately go with discs in the rear since I'd be running on slicks instead of DOT tires.

Looks GREAT!!! Did use use a kit or did you do this yourself?? I have been planning on doing this for years, just never had a spare car. Now I've got the car to do it and have been seriously considering the kit from www.reactionresearch.com which is the old Origin Design kit with the working trunk lid. I'm not the greatest when it comes to body work so I'm a little leary of trying to do it myself. If anyone wants to look at the kit I'm referring to just go to www.reactionresearch.com then click on automotive. I tried to use the link but the page wouldn't open without going to their homepage. This is VR Engineering the same ones who do the Subtle Z and the Velo Rossa Spyder body kits.

I was talking about the four wheel vented disc conversion that used Wilwood 4 piston calipers and 11" rotors all around. It was about 1500 bucks for the whole set-up. Or did I see that on another site? I just went back to strictlyz and now I don't see it. Now I'm wondering where I did see it. I was sure I saw it just last month on their site, or did they discontinue it to make me think I'm losing my mind?

If you want to see a great brake upgrade check out the front and rear disc upgrade at www.strictlyz.com It isn't cheap but what a sweet set-up!!

If you can start out at 25hp and work your way up that sounds great. It would be a shame to melt down a perfectly good motor. Just have to watch the plugs to make sure you aren't running to lean on the bottle and checking the spark advance to keep it from detonating.

Darn, if it's turned into varnish I wouldn't put it in the lawnmower.

Mike, it sounds like your pump is shot. It should prime itself, it evidently will pull a siphon but won't pull the gas out of the tank. That is probably why the gas siphoned out when you unhooked it. I have one if you are interested. E-mail me and I'll tell you about it. FWIW, I have been doing business with MSA for almost 20 years and have never had a problem with anything I got from them. By the way, is this for your 280? See the price on the pumps??? OUCH!!!

Ouch! First off, if you have the stock alternator the voltage regulator should be mounted on the inner fender near the strut tower. It's a rectangular box that mounts with 2 screws down near the frame rail. Second, if the wiring harness is burned so badly that it burned wires under the dash you probably will be better off replacing the wiring harness instead of trying to unwrap it and fix what has been burned. You might end up doing it anyway since it may have melted the insulation of the wires it was bundled with. You could end up replacing one wire after another. It is quite a bit of work to do, but it could save you from making one repair after another. Check the Sale Forum here, you may be able to buy the parts you need from someone who is stripping a car. One word of caution, if your car is a 73 make sure the harness you get is for a 73 as there are quite a few differences between each year of car. Some parts can swap from one to another but others can't due to changes in the connectors. I don't know of anyone who sells new wiring harnesses, perhaps someone else does or you could look through the links pages here. Of course when you get the harness changed you should change the regulator and possibly the alternator, as something caused this to begin with.

Good lookin' ride. Are you afraid to lower it because of those famous PA potholes??? Just kidding, but it would be a shame to grind off the bottom of the air dam because of Pittsburg's roads! BTW do you do your flying before or after the expansion joints? .

Sounds interesting, but at the same time it sounds scary. Does anyone make a kit specifically for a Z?? Probably not. So you would be making educated guesses as to how far you can go. You should be able to get away with 100hp or less with little trouble. You would probably have to fit a different fuel pump with a higher volume for sure, then tinker with the timing to get it right. Detonation with nitrous can be deadly to a perfectly good piston. I know a lot of the systems even come with a fuel injector to add even more fuel to the engine to keep it from going lean on the bottle. Of course there still is the issue of compression ratio, whether or not you have too high a compression ratio to begin with. I wonder if there is anyone out there who has already done this that you could get some ideas from. I think I would be a little nervous trying this without some info on to make it work with a Z motor, unless you have an extra short block lying around to test it out on. You do realize that nitrous is addictive don't you?? To your right foot that is!!

Last time I drained old gas out of one of my cars I used it up in the lawnmower with no problem. I just took about 1/2 gallon of old gas and put it into a 5 gallon can of fresh gas. I t didn't bother tha mower and it sure beat what could have happened if one of the neighbors had called in about me dumping gas on the scrub brush along the railroad track out back. Took a while to get rid of it all but it sure beat paying a big fine!

I definately agree that if anyone is not going to build some serious HP an R-200 is probably overkill. I know the ITS racers are putting some pretty good HP numbers through their 180 rears with little or no difficulty. The weakest link then becomes the factory limited slips if they choose to run them. When they run the rears "locked" then the weak link ends up being the u-joints and the stub axles if the stub axles were never serviced. If you are interested did you know the early Nissan 4x4 pickups have the R 180 diff in the front with something like a 4:37 ratio? I think the only thing that needs to be changed is the flanges to bolt them into a 240. Something worth looking into, with a 5 speed a 4:37 would be just about the right ratio for cruising with the overdrive. You are right Royce, I believe the change over to an R-200 is probably not the best thing to do on a street car, not only from all the parts you need to change but they are an anchor. I never looked forward to taking mine out of my 280 while laying on a creeper! I know we've gotton a little off track here but at least greenz can decide how far he wants to go with his project.