260DET

A few more pics, the engine sump is low enough to be in the danger zone so the next job is protection of some sort, see pic 3. Checking with a laser attached to the diff pinion flange shows it pointing directly at the transmission output flange which is pretty cool seeing that the rear suspension and diff mounts are all custom. The first pic shows the pinion flange just under the transmission sump. The rear suspension has too much droop presently, note the angle of the lower radius rods, the design is for them to be parallel with the car grounded. No problem, it's all adjustable. .

Had a few transmission clearance issues but over all it fits quite nicely, designing and making the transmission mount has been a difficult and time consuming process but it will last a lifetime, no rubber mount to tear away because of all the powah. Tailshaft will be approx one meter long so no two piece required, one piece is stock. Obligatory pics show the transmission mount in detail, last pic shows it all bolted up. That tripod drive flange requires an adaptor and the drive shaft itself has to be splined, glad that someone else is doing that.

Consider using the entire powertrain complete with it's computer/s, the alternative would be with a manual to use an aftermarket ECU which may be simpler.

Have you tried it without ball joints? Anyway it's a process of elimination, start off with the struts out of the car to make sure that the strut bearings run free and go from there.

Here we have the race Z that I would most like to drive on a circuit, the turbo 280ZX, typical light switch power delivery of it's time would provide some challenge above the usual. Note the tyre distortion, she is pulling some G's there.

Custom spring shackle type gearbox mounts, poly spring shackle bushes inside a tubular housing with a bolt through the centre. A bloke made me a set but did not include crush tubes for the bolts. I'm wondering if snug fitting bolts with nyloc nuts torqued up sufficiently would be OK instead of torquing up against crush tubes? Nyloc nuts or lock nuts should hold the tension I'm thinking which is all a crush tube does, opinions?

Can't it be remote mounted using braided line?

I tried, good luck and best wishes anyway Taylor.

That would be for mechanics driving cars that they are working on, fault checking, that sort of thing. No point in you trying to get under that limited exemption for the reasons already mentioned by others.

Short nose pinion is too short to fit a long nose diff, the R* series R180 are stronger than the earlier Z 180's, they can be identified by a big R cast into the top of the case. For circuit work that R will take a few hundred horses but go easy on the burnouts. NB * Been ages since I had anything to do with these, I'm fairly sure the big letter is a R.

Amongst the obligatory flak there is a lot of sensible and useful knowledge here, like Post-Ironic's post above. If it is impractical to have a Z right now you can always come back later, Z's aren't going away any time soon.

Personally I'd go for the bigger rotors, 280mm dia is small by today's standards.

Good welcome there Lurch, I do notice the occasional non Z discussion here so are you going to police them too? And what about the blokes in our club who have later Z cars? Taylor, it looks like no one here can help, Lurch's suggestions are good plus a search through Carsales using the relevant search criteria to weed out those which don't suit. Good luck, enjoy your Z.

Wow, two and a half months since the last post, project is still alive though barely crawling towards the finish line. Engine with a brand new 6L80E auto is at the fitting in stage, basically there is enough room for it all but there are time consuming bits and pieces to be fixed along the way, too many and too boring to go into detail. All this endless detail does take it's toll though, I'm sure that it's going to be something special when finished but a 370Z makes a lot more sense. Anyway, pic shows it on it's Plan B wheels before being wheeled onto the hoist for transmission mount and tail shaft attention. Pissed off 280ZX looks on.

Project car presently has ~50mm clearance under the engine sump plug which I think is a little bit too low in case the car straddles a ripple strip or something. I 'm thinking that 80mm might be a good compromise, perhaps with some protection in front. What's the experience here?

Someone will sort this out for sure but perhaps the same engine had different applications requiring different clearances eg Falcon sedan, Territory...........

Bad things come in groups of three? Best way to look at it, there is no reason to think that this run of bad luck will continue.............. Is there?

So there were two types, one with asbestos and one without.

Mostly R spec Gordo, came in handy last year with the rain. Lee F will likely run slicks on his 370Z sprinter but at the end of the day I guess that it's a personal choice.

Is this the Q Zed that there was a discussion about a while ago?

The TA22 Celica was regarded as a MX5 type back in the day, besides it was under powered and had no competition history. Those are probably the reasons why they have been neglected. Is the Fast and Furious thing much relevant in AU? S30's still seem to attract the more mature type person and long time enthusiast here, note the restoration boom.

I'd have a current model Corvette over anything else, in fact I may get one for CB18

Nice looking car, looks like the sills may have been reinforced but until now did not know they/it existed. No plate anywhere identifying the conversion?

Re the later Nissan helical LSD's, I use them for racing purposes and have had no problems at all but my rear suspensions are set up to suit. No rear anti roll bar, relatively soft springs and damper settings and sufficient droop. There does seem to be a strong school of thought in AU that helicals are no good for real race cars but I've yet to see good reasons for that, a race set up car should not be lifting the inside rear wheel anyway.

Well that helped clear my mind, the nice set of wheels will be used for the track semis when the car is ready for some serious track work. To hold the car up off the ground and for initial systems checking the heavy set of wheels will get something like Federal 595 RS-RR's which in 18" are around $200 each.