260DET

How about by rail? Some road carriers are not kind to low cars.

But how much would it cost to bring back to a reasonable registerable car Gav?

Seeing that this is a bubble thread a certain sporty model Mercedes was selling for around $30k a couple of years ago. Now several of them are listed in the $90's, true bloody story. But a disclaimer, what is happening I think is that long term owners saw a couple advertised in the 90's and decided to cash in. But it's a bubble price, a real bubble price.

Look at the date and check those prices now. Sporty coupe prices have gone crazy and availability is tight, everything including BMW's and Mercs.

Have you checked the number for sale and prices, Carsales is handy for that. If it's a clean original I'd hang onto it unless you can get a Z to replace it..

I think that it was Road & Track which used to provide in depth specs on cars they tested. If they tested a 2+2 is another question.

It's going to have pretty good bag for the buck because basically it's a 370Z chassis so Nissan have kept costs down there. So to me it all depends on the price and chassis improvements because the 370Z was never a good track car and not because it was under powered. The only good track Z is the S30 and that's disappointing.

You took a bit of a punt and came out in front it looks to me.

My preference every day would be to use a block breather in preference to one up top but for a road car it probably does not matter too much.

No personal experience but the word is that they are untuneable and best junked.

Brilliant! Great to see someone doing something outside the box for a change and making it work too.

Have watched the first one a couple of times, super drive and the car's handling looks great, excellent power down out of the corners. It looks like a complete balanced package.

I know of a cheeky bloke who bought a transmission on Ebay US, he was informed that an item like that was not covered by their freight concession plan, he got a refund.

My comment is that given the increasing value of 260's doing mods just to save a few $ may not be best for the long term value of the car.

You'd better start charging a commission Gavin

The S130 and Z31 are very similar structurally, for some reason Nissan just seemed to carry the basic design over. Back in those days structural strength did not seem to be a priority like it is now, for safety and noise minimisation reasons too.

The main problem with the S30, S130 and Z31 seems to be that both the rear and front parts of the body start at the fire wall with insufficient structural connexion between the two. Look at a modern body like the MX5 to see the difference in structure there, it's significant.

The 400 has 285 wide tyres at the back, that's pretty good standard. My 350 will take 10" wide wheels at a squeeze so I'm guessing that the 400 will take 10+" at the rear with stock guards.

Great idea, let's hope that there is plenty of interest. Racing experience shows that the basic S30 is weak through the fire wall to the strut towers.

Well if the current info is correct, and it seems like it is, I think that it's a great looking car with plenty of S30 design cues, some quite subtle. Anyway, who here is/was ready to buy one in the near future? The chassis is supposed to be one all ready in production, some Infinity thing, so it should be sorted from the go. Only thing that annoys me, and it's typical of Nissan, is the small 3 litre motor when they could have used a larger displacement with lower boost. Nissan really do not want to compete performance wise at the higher end and this costs them. They don't seem to understand that one of the reasons for the success of the S30 was it's high end competitive engine. As for V6's, pfffft.

Not aware of that distinctive 2+0 ever being in Q, may have kept a low profile of course. I imported my 2+0 from Japan back in the day, it wasn't easy to find a good one then.

Could not agree more, it seems that the Z has been sacrificed so it does not compete with the GT-R performance wise. The basic problem seems to be that Nissan lost their ambition for the Z and settled for a generic semi performance coupe that was not going to get anyone excited, particularly performance potential wise. It almost seems like Nissan don't want to make waves.

Pffft, tests at Lakeside back in the day resulted in a stock S130 doing faster lap times than a stock S30.

Expensive S30's with cheap wheels, how does that work out?

Relevant comment on the front X member Matt, my race experience with the 280ZX 2+0 is that it's stock bolt system which is similar to a S30's comes loose, the nuts specifically. Because of that I have made some fore/aft supports hence my earlier comment, their weight is insignificant. I have bigger brakes so the loads involved when braking particularly are significant.