Whittie

That is some engine. Is that engine power measured at the flywheel or power at the wheels? I'd say in the region of 5's for sure. But then your gearbox might not like you for long with that sort of power!

Forever, as far as I'm aware. However, you are allowed to reproduce 1 chapter or 10% of a text without contacting the copyright owner for permission. So, 1 article from a magazine is fine

That's cheating! I've been driving my mirage, even on the track!, for the past 6 months. Everyday I miss my Z more and more

Looks like you're all over it then! I just got worried that you might have integrity issues and didn't want to find out down the track that you'd had a crash due to modified bits, but I see that's not an issue any more. I'll stop hijacking this thread now, I'm sure there are people in Adelaide who can help you find your bits and pieces!

That's correct, you need to push the TC rods forward to get more castor. The issue with the way the rod is designed is that there is no way to do this without threading the rod and using nuts to change the pivot point on the rod and push the control arm forwards. This puts a threaded rod in bending and because threads are stress points, with continued bending up/down as the suspension moves you will snap the rod. This is what happened to me. You then also run into the issue with binding the eccentric bushes on the control arm because you will be forcing the mounting point on the control arm to be unaligned with the cross member and thus push against the 'square' bush. That's really why you need rose joints, to allow free movement forwards and backwards of the control arm, even as it moves through its range of movement up and down the castor will change and there will be stresses binding up the eccentric bush. If you need something to look original, Stuart Wilkins in sydney has a custom tc rod that is made of a much thicker steel rod that is safe to thread. It is the same dimensions as standard, just a thicker rod so it looks standard and also complies for the offroad rallies in South Africa, I'm sure you'd get away with it in your class. You still get stuck with the issue of binding the eccentric bush on the control arm and also you need to modify the control arm where the TC rod mounts so that it doesn't bind there either as you try and push the control arm forward. As for the wishlist: it looks identical to mine!! Tom.

Hey Roger, I hate to bring a downer on this, but there is very little you can do to standard suspension in terms of camber, and even less in terms of castor, without making modifications that weaken the components and can cause failure. I learnt the hard way and was lucky not to have totalled my car when a TC rod snapped at 200kph on full brakes because I threaded it in an attempt to get castor adjustment. Camber is a tab easier, you can re-drill the cross member and move the pivot point and you can also get a set of adjustable mounting bolts, but you still only get sort of 1.5 degrees neg camber. If you're really interested in adjustability, your best bet is to go with rose-jointed suspension products. Techno Toy Tuning have a great range of products with rose joints that is all heavily over-engineered and fully adjustable to suit your needs. And for what it costs to get new aftermarket suspension from the US with the dollar at the moment, you'll only just be out of pocket compared to sourcing new original suspension bits, cleaning them up and replacing ball joints and then modifying them. Ultimately it's up to you, but I would steer clear of altering original components as it can seriously effect the integrity of the components and at the end of the day, there is nothing more precious to anybody than themselves, don't put your life at risk.

Well, I've been at it again. The zed is still not at the panel beaters and in desperate need of some fun I hit a hillclimb in the mirage on the weekend. Same mate came along in his prelude and did really well taking out the Time Keepers award for most improved driver! Another mate also bought an Evo 7 2 days prior and brought it along for a fang. Highlight of the day for me: Someone catching a photo of me going sideways in the fwd!

Just popped over the road and had a look at it, decided to pick it up. Not a bad little book, value for $12.95 but certainly not worth anywhere near the $69.95 asking price, more like $20! Overall, I'm happy with the purchase, I like the personal take on it with the author comparing the cars to lots of other cars of the era he has had personal experience with, adds a nice touch. It's a book you could put together yourself in about 2 days of copy and paste off the net, but not a bad read for an hour or so.

I'm running a pretty mild cam, 2800cc L28, but 45mm Webers with a 4.4 diff. Usual course of events with the diff is requirement to rev to 4000+ between gear changes just to make the car actually move above a snails pace on the road. 18L/100km On the race track it's 80L/100km

Usually you'd have larger rears than front considering it's a rwd car, not to mention there is more clearance in the rear.... ZG flares I believe are usually 9" front, 9.5" rear, so more like a 245 front, 265 rear.

Try Martin at TuneRight, he's a mobile mechanic with a stash of zeds, not to mention he's WA too so if he has it it'll be nice and close and you can fit it right away!! http://www.yellowpages.com.au/wa/canning-vale-pte-boxes/tune-right-13560856-listing.html

LOL!! For that sort of requirements you're looking at a lot more than that!

I don't know for sure, but suspect Rev's zed sold for around 23k, so that would put a stroker motor at least more than that. As said above, most people still don't put that sort of value on these old cars, regardless of cost/time to build. Personally, I think your car is worth what your asking, 35, however, what it is worth and what you will get for it are 2 totally different numbers. Unfortunately I think you might be stuck in the 'in-between' range, where the car is not as original and is not heavily modified, therefore leaving you in this kind of gray area where you have the trouble of finding someone to buy what was your dream, but may not be theirs. Plenty of people want original show cars, plenty want fully modified track cars and turbo motor conversions, not many want another person's car... If you get what I mean. At 35k, if you already own a zed you can pretty much build your own dream car, without sacrificing what you want for what is installed in someone else's car. This is precisely why I am building my own car rather than doing a body swap, even if it would be 5k+ cheaper, because I have my idea of what I want and couldn't/won't find it in another car. As such I'd say your stuck at a value somewhere near body restoration plus motor, with no value to the package. Say 20ish for the resto and 5ish for the motor and you're floating around the $25,000 - $30,000 range. Don't take my word as gospel, this is just my thoughts, but if you haven't sold and have little interest at 35 you're clearly not getting exposure and/or too expensive. At the end of the day, if you don't really need the money, don't really want to sell and if it'll be easy enough to re-register at a later date, stick it away, get shannons 'lay-up' insurance (about $10/month insurance against fire/theft for parked cars) and forget about it, it certainly isn't likely to go down in value.

Hey neRok, Unfortunately parts for these things are getting harder to come buy, especially in tiny perth. AllZParts in Sydney has plenty of stock, this website is good, the WA Z Register email list can be very resourceful, Plenty of american sites selling bits. Rare Spares will sometimes even have some of the stuff you are looking for. You really need to be resourceful where you're looking and jump on stuff you see. If it'sin the Quokka, you might get a few hours to a day to grab whatever you need before it's gone. Depending on how many second hand parts you're looking for your own parts car might be an idea. If you need just bits and pieces, like I said, WA Z Register can be good, otherwise Martin Falconer ( TuneRight ) is a mobile mechanic but does a LOT of zed's and has usually about 6-7 cars at his place at once. He scraps them and salvvages all the bits which he sells for reasonable money. His phone number can be found by googling TuneRight.

Looking good! Not a lot of 240/260's on cruises around perth, but the 300zx club runs open 'Z' cruises, check out the WA section of this forum. Otherwise, come along and say hi at any of the regularity events (www.wascc.com.au and or www.vasccwa.com.au)and you'll see some real nice cars. The annual Z Day is also good (www.wazregister.com) and also quite a few guys allegedly get out to the Triumph Sports Owners Association (TSOA) speed events and motorkhana's, you should get along, everyone is really nice and very helpful/knowledgeable! Tom.

The gearbox is a direct bolt-up As for the interior, I'm not quite sure how that will work.... You have both cars on site right? Get out a tape measure and see how the width goes, it could be an interesting conversion! Will you be going fuel injection with the motor or keeping it carbureted? EFI will require an ECU, so the 280zx wiring might be a good swap??? Someone else might be able to comment here. As for carbies, the engine would be a direct swap, but perhaps some SU's or triples instead of a holley!! I'm always interested in interesting swaps, but to me putting a 280zx interior in to a 260 would be a bit of a step backward, but whatever floats your boat. Just as an FYI, the 240/260/280Z are all the same, more-or-less, the 280zx is a new model with a lot of new parts so I'm not sure how it would go for parts to swap into the 260, but probably not well. You may find you're best off (easier, cheaper) just nicking the motor from the 280zx and selling the rest of the car and getting another 260z 2+2 for a parts car.

I'm not sure what the grade of oil is to be honest, the mechanic looks after it but I think it's a 20-50. I'll confirm but perhaps a 10-40 would be better? I'll check up but that seems the most likely to me. The worm gear and the shaft were both new less than a year ago and are now busted. I'll also check all the gaskets and that the front cover is true. Both the worm gear and the shaft are steel, I have heard of the brass parts but both are steel, so not an issue of one item being harder than the other and so chewing the soft metal out. The gears aren't slipping, they're wearing each other out, much like they are badly alligned. I never considered alignment because it's not adjustable (I'd assumed) and that's why I think it might be oil pressure, but I'll have to check out alignment now.

And it was carried away today

Haha, not at all Scoota! I'll look in to this mod write-up some more then, cause I haven't but my mate said he didn't want to do it if he could avoid it cause it didn't cancel. If it can be made to self-cancel then that would be good, however for now I'll go with an original switch if available and the toggle-switch as a backup.

Thanks Alan, I'll wait to hear from Stivva about what's happening. Scoota, I am aware of the toggle switch mod but it's a friends zed that's broken and I thought it would make a nice gift if I could track down one, cause he doesn't really like the idea of the toggle switch and it not self canceling.

Hey Peter, thanks for summing that up and putting detailed results, not just "i think this was better". Numbers are always better than guesses. As for the ram length depending on the manifold, the reading I did says that the length of importance is the total length from the inlet valve to where the ram tube starts to curve, that entire section determines the length of the intake and thus the harmonics. So, if you have a long manifold and a short ram tube, then you would need a long ram tube on a short manifold to get the same total length from the inlet valve to where the ram tube starts to curve. Given I have a long manifold, I would like to try the shorter tubes, but I think I'll just get sock filters and leave it at that for now, I don't have free dyno access to work out the differences between changes. Another thing of note, is that you get a greater impact with a long tube than a short. So, the torgue gain at lower revs is higher than the torque you gain at higher revs. Also leans me towards just keeping the long ram tubes.

Yeah, it's not a huge difference, but certainly worth looking at if you can get them cheap. OK, so next question would be what air cleaners?! I have the K&N's but these are no good with my ram tubes, so I'd need smaller ram tubes. The other option would be sock filters. The big thing with my car is it still sneezes a bit sometimes out the carbies when it's cold so I don't want to set filters on fire or burn big holes in them everytime I start the car, so something a little resilient would be good. What would be your recommendation there Peter, keep the K&N's or go with something like a sock filter, and then what brand? Should you oil them or not (I'm thinking oiling will kill performance, but increase filter life)? To be honest, I'm thinking keep the K&N's and go with like a 25mm ram tube. The manifold on the zed is super long and the long ram tubes almost hit the strut tower, much like Scoota's pics there and I wouldn't mind some more top end in the car, it falls off pretty steeply at around 6500rpm, but that is likely just the cam restricting things.

Hmm, thanks Peter. So, short of just changing the oil, is there anything I can do to the oil pump to drop the pressure a bit? Is the oil pressure adjustable at all on a standard mechanical oil pump?

Well I don't know, that's why I'm asking before I buy anything Why exactly would they be too short, what effect does the length of the tube have on the air flow? LIke I said, physically I can't imagine it has any effect but how much drag there is on the air, which is a function of the shape of the curved section, not so much the total overall length. **EDIT** Well, I've done a bit of looking around and it seems there is a whole art to intact tuning, much the same as exhaust tuning! On a very basic level, long intake = low rpm torque, short intake = high rpm torque..... That is a gross simplification, but works much the same as exhaust header and collector lengths. I have a very long carbie manifold on the car, so I think what I will do is try and get some 45mm long (square) ram tubes with an eliptical inlet shape and switch over to running sock filters. The K&N filter was burn't from a few backfires and needed replacing anyways, so no huge cost there, I just need to find some decent and cheap velocity stacks....

Cheers Scoota! Unfortunately, they are about the same length as I have at the moment, so probably no good for me. I'll keep an eye on his eBay postings, maybe he'llpost something more like 30mm Another quick question, do the tubes slot into the weber at all? I've found some that do, some that don't and now I'm confused.....