Arne

I guess my question to you would be, "What is your goal? What kind of 240Z do you want in the end?" If you have always wanted an early VIN car, to restore and show, you better get this one now. If the goal is to have a nice, solid and original 240Z to use as a weekend car, I'd pass and find a better example. Not that there is anything wrong with this one for the price - it''s a great place to start an early restoration. But it will take a lot of cash to do it right. And if you really want a '69 production 240Z, it might be hard to find a better starting point. But if your goal is a nice original (or nearly so) 240z that you can drive for fun or even daily, for that money you should be able to get a clean, rust-free '71 or '72. One that won't need floor pans, frame rails, rockers, etc. Summary - if you really want to restore a '69, pay their price now and get the deal sealed. But if you'd be just as happy with a restored '71 or '72, keep looking.

Banzai motorworks lists replacement door jamb plates through late '72. Might be worth a call to see if '73 plates are available as well.

They can be spendy, but these people should have what you want. Just don't buy them all, please. I'm going to want a set for my '71 as well! http://oregonplates.com/ Additionally, call around to local muscle car and hot rod supply houses. They frequently know where a few might be as well.

Maiden drive this weekend, Mike? What direction will you go? Maybe I'll bring mine out and meet you somewhere?

Arne likes it. It's much like what I had in mind for the yellow car, before the red car arrived.

Not blind. It's been converted to an electric fan mounted in front of the radiator to push through the radiator. You can see the thermostat control and coiled temp lead in that same photo.

Please post back how this goes. Looks like a very worth while car, assuming it's not rusted to junk underneath. Other things I noticed - non-original antenna, missing emissions equipment and aftermarket black wiper blades. But a really great starting point. If you get this car, I may have an original early steering wheel (indented, not with holes) I'd be willing to part with.

Yes, if you get your original cylinder sleeved, that could work well - if the job was well done. But that's about the only way I'd consider a rebuilt.My Nissan dealer gives me a nice discount as a 240Z club member. I got my new early master cylinder for $185.

I can't even count the number of times I had this happen when installing a rebuilt on a customer's car. Or how many of them that didn't fail on the test drive, failed in the next week or two. Eventually my employer at that time adopted a "no rebuilts" policy, because having to replace the same cylinder several times in a 90 day warranty is no way to make a profit.

In all my years of working on cars, both my own and as a way to make a living, I've never had a rebuilt master cylinder last for any significant amount of time. Many of them failed before the 90 day warranties expired. I will not trust my brakes to a rebuilt, and in fact bought a new early master cylinder from my local Nissan dealer a couple months back. There were 5 left in the US at that time.

Hard for me to say. The turbo cam is a rather mild grind. It will work with the SUs, but won't make as much power as other cams would. Depends on what you want out of it. The turbo cam requires boost to make power at higher RPM. On a NA (naturally aspirated, or non-turbo) motor, it's likely to feel pretty soft at higher RPMs.

So far I've resisted this urge - mostly, anyway. But I am strangely drawn to do so. Like you, so far it's mostly been a set of hubcaps that I'll probably never use. But who knows what part(s) will call my name next...

First - not all P90a heads were hydraulic lifters. But if this one is, finding a non-turbo cam for hydraulic lifters is virtually impossible. The hydraulic lifters can be converted to solid, and then you can use a normal performance cam. P90a is a good head for flow, although it's not a really high compression head. If your F54 block has flat-top pistons (and it should, unless it was also from a turbo), the P90a/F54 combo should give around 8.5:1 compression. Not really very high, but eases your octane requirements for street use. I know several people around this forum who have F54/P79 combos who are very happy with them. The P79 is said to not flow as well in the exhaust, so if you can get a decent cam in the P90a it should work well.

Interesting thread, considering that I'm trying to sell my yellow 240Z right now. As others have mentioned, at least the seller is being honest and realistic about the car's condition. As for pricing - it appears to me that the seller has not yet learned that you can't sell a car for what you have in it. I've played with cars long enough to know that it just can't be done, not if you're buying good parts. Right now I've got almost $4000 into the yellow car, over $1500 of that in brand new good parts (with receipts). It runs and drives, and is ready for someone who can cut out the rust (MUCH less rust than the car in the auction) and paint it. And is it worth $4000? Not even close. I'm asking $3000, but will probably end up letting it go for $2500 or even less. Short version - a project car's worth is not directly related to the sum of its parts.

If I was keeping the yellow car, I'd want yours for myself. As it is, I don't want to spend more money on a car I'm trying to sell.

No, I don't think I saw anyone who had both Tokico strut inserts AND Tokico springs who had the ride height issue. The problem is only with the stock or factory Euro springs - neither of which were designed with gas-charged struts in mind. I think this thread is the one that has you concerned, but if you read through it all (rather long), no one who had the Tokico springs (or other modern lowering spring) has the problem. http://classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21115

Yes and no. There are people like myself who would prefer to go with that rather than a header. But there may not be many of us, and those manifolds are heavy enough that shipping costs are non-trivial. So the market for them might not be all that great. I see them sell on eBay now and then, but the sale price isn't normally that high - it's the shipping costs that add up.

Good point. In fact, since the ST springs are designed with gas shocks in mind, using them with non-gas might lower the car more than you'd expect. Might drop it 1 1/2" or so with Konis.

I agree in principal, Mark. My red 240Z still has the stock manifold and I have no plans to change it.But when I made my plans to pull the oil-burning L28 out of my yellow 240Z and go back to a stock L24, I had to make a change - the round port L28 manifold wouldn't mate to the square-port E31 head. I really wanted to find a stock L24 exhaust manifold for it, but couldn't come up with one that was both affordable and not rusted and/or warped to junk. And since the parts car came with a header, the header is what I went with. Not altogether willingly, but that's where I ended up anyway. Anyway, I guess my point is that since jmark's car already has a rusty header on it, he probably doesn't have a stock manifold to put back on it. And finding a good one can be hard.

Ron has a good point, in that most of the stuff on the market today is designed to flow well on a modified L28 and will have tubes too large for those of us still running mostly stock L24s. After the issues I had with the old Hooker Super Comp header I have in the yellow car, and with some personal ideas about best flow, my own criteria for exhaust on a stock L24 would be a small tube header with a thick, machined one-piece flange. I'd mate that up to a custom-built 2" or 2 1/4" exhaust that has both a resonator and a high flow muffler. I really like how the Dyno-Max #17-741 fits in back, much like stock.

The Konis that are still available for the 240Z are not gas charged. So there shouldn't be any ride height issue. I don't know about the possible need to modify anything on them.

Do it the other way. Suck through the SUs into the turbo. British cars always sucked through the carbs with their superchargers. That way you don't need to pressure seal the carb bodies. All theoretical, of course.

BTDT. If the wiring is botched and melted, the simplest solution (and the one I did on my yellow car) is to replace the bad sections of the wiring. Wiring harnesses for 240Zs have three main sections - the engine compartment, dash and rear body. The rear section rarely has big issues, but the dash and engine harnesses do. If you decide to go this route, do yourself a BIG favor and try to find harness sections from the same year at least, and preferably as close to the same build date as possible.

Might depend on the year. None of my spare tire covers have been carpeted, but they were all '71 240Zs. All of the covers in my cars have been plain fiberboard. While I've never seen a carpeted cover, maybe the later 280Zs had them that way. Yes, they all had the luggage straps.

Yeah, the block engine serial number. Right side of the engine, on a flat boss at the top of the block, below number 5 spark plug. The first part will tell what type engine is there (L24, L26 or L28e) and the second is a serial number.I second the recommendation from beandip above to verify that you can legally take possession of this car, since it has no title. I know that not all states require titles for cars once they are past a certain age, but again as noted above, since we don't have a clue where you are located, we can't advise on that either.