Leaderboard

Just my opinion after having a fire due to spitting back into paper air cleaners, but I would run the airbox. I built one after my fire and have a filter sitting in front of the radiator for it. I went with paper filters thinking they would be less flammable than the foam socks, but not so! Thankfully I had a fire extinguisher in the car

Bit of a waiting game at the moment......turbo is ordered, pistons and rods ordered, 9" centre is ordered. Good news is that spacers for lower shock brackets, panhard rod and front 4 link mounts are done:

Haven't updated this thread for a while, few little things done on the zx in the last year. Removed the ERG system from the intake manifold and had it welded up, which cleans things up a little and removes a small amount of weight. Installed a Lithiumax lithium battery, stock lead acid battery was 13.5kg and the new battery is 2.5kg, huge 11kg weight saving! Had a beautiful new radiator installed along with electric thermo fans I had also bought some apex engineered quick steering knuckles however we couldn't get the to fit at all, word of warning to any zx owners looking at these.

When Robbie got his Z on permit and started driving it, the poor shift quality of the old 71A flange drive gearbox became apparent. As he has been driving his 240Z quite regularly, this gearbox issue was detracting from this whole experience. The monkey motion shifter mechanism isn't great after 50+ years, so the best fix is to fit a 71C gearbox from an S13/14. The 71C box has a tall 0.75 5th gear ratio, so this allows a shorter final drive ratio to be used - 4.44 is perfect as at 100kph the engine is still only doing around 3000rpm in 5th. So Robbie & I started forming a plan to convert his Z. The WRX STI 4.44 ratio diff was easy enough for Robbie to procure, but finding a decent S13/14 box locally was a bit of a challenge... That was until another member of this forum who was planning the same conversion had bought from Nissan a NEW S14 gearbox, however he was offered good $ for his early 240Z so he sold it - leaving him with this new S14 gearbox... When I found all this out, I told Robbie to go buy it - which he did! This gave us the major parts for the conversion. All I had to do was find a L series bell-housing & tail shaft... With an L series bell-housing obtained, I had it hydra-jet blasted and then sent off for machining so it could be swapped onto the S14 box. Likewise I procured a tail-shaft - this was sent off to be rebuilt & shortened. Once I had workshop availability, Robbie dropped the Z off - along with the diff & box - so we could perform the conversion. The new Nissan S14 'box! The WRX diff stub axles are 27 spline which means that the 24 spline 240Z stubs cant be fitted. Thankfully Kameari make new stub axles just for this conversion, so they were duly fitted. The pinion flange was swapped over along with the mustache bar mounting studs in the diff cover as the WRX studs are longer. The WRX diff was installed and that was when I noticed it: Blast! Why it wasn't done previously I don't know, but obviously this needs to be rectified now. Out came the diff again & I went off to hunt for the required parts. I managed to find the later model curved transverse link & a good 2nd hand diff mount, but I didn't have a mustache bar. I had another customers mustache bar in the shop so I thought I could copy the bend & bend the original one to the same profile - my little shop press protested but I managed to bend the correct offset profile into the early mustache bar - success! Next was the diff strap mounting points on the body-shell - some new nuts and I extended the mounting pads: N Not my neatest work, but it'll do the job & it looked fine once I'd painted it. The bell-housings were swapped over, along with the original fork & TO bearing & carrier into the 71C box. Next the gearbox cross-member was modified & painted, as the 71C box mounts further back in the tunnel: And then we installed the 71C box into the Z: P Perfect. The shortened tail-shaft was installed with new bolts, and all the fluids were topped up ready for a test drive! I also cut & shut the gear-stick as the thread on the 71C stick is 10mm compared to 8mm for an early box - just so the original knob could be used: And that's that job done! It drives SO much nicer now with the modern box and it's much more entertaining to drive with the shorter diff ratio. Robbie - you are going to love it!