Z.

Got a mate who might be interested in the rb26.. how much are you after for it?

Thanks for the info Marc! I might hit you up for some help when I get around to installing it if you don't mind?

Well You've definitely got me interested! Especially because I can get one so cheap and this is a budget build so I think I'll give this a crack and see how it goes. Cheers Thanks man! if the rb30 cas looks like it's too hard to bodge up I'll go suss a zxt dizzy off Lindsay.

I didnt realise the na zx also had a cas although that does make sense because it needs something for its stock ecu. Yeah I have seen a few people running the turbo dizzy to get the better CAS. Just not suite how easy it is to find one of these but I'll keep my eyes open. Cheers Gav and Zedman Thanks for the info Jason. I'm curious how you put the rb30 cas on the dizzy shaft? Was it hard to do? I can get a rb30 cas easy and I would preferably like to be able to run a wasted spark ignition system so a cas with a home mark would be preferable

Just looking for some advice on what to use as a trigger (eg crank angle sensor) for an aftermarket ecu on my '79 NA zx? I've heard you don't need to install anything and can apparently run it off the stock NA dizzy.. any downsides to doing this? How to do I do this? This is for a budget build so I was looking at the much debated megasquirts system but I am open to any other options if anyone has any suggestions. Preferably trying to get it below 1k for the ecu install. Advice/suggestion much appreciated. Cheers gents.

Thanks for all the offers guys! Got a box and pedal sorted now. Big thanks to Jason (dat2kman) for helping me out with a box! One step closer to being on the road!

I found 2 z31's at a wreckers in Melbourne (Imlachs Wreckers on Centre rd in Clayton) if anyone is wanting to go grab anything off them. It's a bring your own tools and pick it yourself wreckers which makes it cheaper than other wreckers so worthwhile a look. One was a turbo model, both had front and rear brakes calipers, both were auto, both had r200 open diffs and half shafts, both still had the engines sitting in them.

Sorry Wayne I only just saw your post. Thanks heaps for the offer but I think I've got a pedal sorted for it now. Cheers for the help guys!

That sounds good to me thanks Jason! Any idea on what pricing I would be looking at for the box shipped? I'll shoot you a pm

Just after a manual gearbox to put on my 280zx if anyone has anything. I already have a bellhousing if someone just has the box the want to sell. If anyone also has a clutch pedal from a 280zx as well that would be great! Let me know what you have, cheers!

Cool could you upload/pm me pic please?

Chasing an aftermarket fuel rail for my L28 to help clean up the engine bay a little. If anyone has anything they no longer want, please throw up what you have and how much you would like for it. Would go to a good home!

Thanks Gav, I ended up just linking through photobucket but I'll have a crack at attaching a photo again soon and let you know. Cheers

Thanks for the help guys. finally got around to it and got it off last night.. it ended up being that the tabs which are supposed to stop the shaft spinning had pulled through and were in fact letting the shaft spin. Don't know how I didn't see that the first time!

Thanks PB! Yeah I wondered if that might be the case. Ah well I'll just have to sit the engine on a tire out of the car for the trip. Can't wait to get it back to Melbourne so I can work on it at night/weekends again

Just planning how I'm going to take the Z back to Melbourne after I finish painting it this week.. I was just going to sit the engine back in for the trip and take it out when I get there so I can put the wiring in first as well as put the transmission on out of the car because it's so much easier. But just thinking will the two engine mounts hold the engine by themselves or do I need the transmission mount on as well to hold the engine. Anyone know if the engine mounts without the transmission mount will hold the engine?

Thanks man! Yeah I like just having a crack at something and seeing where it leads me. Don't think I've screwed up too much yet! Cheers Gav! I wanted to use the old L-series, bit of nostalgia about them as well as they sound pretty mean when they're tricked up a little.

Next I moved on to the bonnet where I found rust had eaten through the front right corner and a section in the front middle. Again I took the whole thing back to bare metal. Then welded in some patches where the rust had caused havoc. (I have put the bonnet in primer and undercoat and I'll shoot up some pictures soon) This is where the project currently sits but I will be heading back up to Mildura this week to finish painting the car and then put her on a trailer and bring it back to Melbourne as my new address has a garage . Stay tuned, more to come...

I then started on the engine and stripped all the crap of it so I could start rebuilding it. I pulled the head off and gave it a good degreasing followed by cleaning all the carbon out of the combustion chamber. I then began relapping all the valves, you can see a nice relapped port in the last picture. I then cleaned the crap out of the rocker cover and repainted it. With that done I pulled down the block a checked all the bearing tolerances, I was lucky that they the block was actually in really good condition. I then replaced the gaskgets and seals, put new piston rings, painted the block and sump and torqued everything back up. Unfortunately I was a bit lax with the photo for this process but you can see the finished product below. The brass welsh plugs on the blue block don't look too bad if I don't say so myself!

In the meantime I resprayed the entire underside of the car in fresh black stone guard and painted up the remaining suspension components as well as the fuel tank. Put the front and rear suspension back along with new ball joints and bushes. There's just something about black suspension components and red rubber bushes... so pretty.

Shot over to Adelaide on the weekend to pick up some rims from a bloke selling some genuine Watanabes :) . I was after 14's with large offset to fill the flares. Preferably 10.5's for the rear and 8's for the front, however these were only 7's on the front. But for the price and everything else being so close to what I wanted I jumped on them! The bloke was even nice enough to trial them on for me on a friends 280zx before I came to get them... This is what I'm planning to paint them up like.

Thanks mate

Next I moved on to the block out plate for where the old rear bumper sat. As I'm new to body work I just kind of dived in and started cutting pieces to fit and tacking them on. You can see the beginnings in the pictures below as well as a section I cut out on the left side of the rear which was cactus. Bending up all the bits of metal and trying to get all the angle right was a fair steep learning curve for a beginner but I think I did alright. I did get one section suck in a little on me after I tacked it all. But only slightly so I could fix it with some high fill later. Here's the panels fully welded in. I just spot welded it little bits at a time working my way around to prevent too much heat from transferring to the metal. In the pictures the lower corners hadn't been bent up yet and look like they hang too low but I have since fixed that. As I wanted to go the bolt on flare look with some fat rims on the rear I set about cutting out the rear flare sections. Which you could see from earlier pictures were cactus anyway and all bent up covered in bog. Once they were cut I put slits in the inner guard and bent them up behind the quarter panel to re-weld back on later. You can also see what happen when I stupidly left the rear section unpainted for a day in the humid Mildura weather. Better clean the surface rust back and put some cheap paint over it to protect it!

On to some rust repairs! While I was still in Melbourne I had found a zcar member (dave280zx) who had a shell he didn't mind me hacking up to try and fix the holes in my rear quarter under the window. Thanks Dave! Although the one I scavanged still needed work, it was much better condition then mine so I thought what the hell. Hindsight says I probably should have waited for a perfect panel so I could just put it straight in. But I knew this was a common issue and I hadn't found much else. So I bent up a few sections to weld in to the rusted through parts of the donor panel. Not a bad job for a first timer I thought! The finished product has a piece welded in to the three rusted through parts Unfortunately I don't have any pictures on my phone of the panel welded in but I will get some when I next work on the car! I have also made up a panel for the swiss cheese that was under the windscreen section I found earlier and a patch for the old antenna hole. But I'll upload pictures for these later too.

As the car was originally an auto and I wanted a manual, I had picked up a gearbox out of an s13 for $100 which supposedly had a busted bearing that whirred at high speed. As well as an L series bell housing for it to do a manual conversion from a 71c box like a lot of blokes seem to do. Below you can see a few pictures of me meticulously pulling it down to rebuild it. I quickly discovered that it was not a bearing causing the issue but one of the c shaped selector forks which had snapped off a small portion of the end. I'm fairly certain the guy would have known the grinding sound that would of made was not a bearing but hey $100 that's what you get. I decided to put this aside and see if I could get another box from a cheap wreckers I know in Melbourne to save trying to weld it back together. A spare box never goes astray anyway.