vosadrian

Hi All, We have made a little progress since a year ago. We got the engine running in our parts car some time ago, and we have now got that engine installed with a manual gearbox in our yellow car. Also have brakes and clutch systems installed and working. We are working on the fuel system currently. Previously we got the engine running off a funnel into the mechanical pump. The electric fuel pump we had in our parts car did not seem to work. We removed it and tried to run it in isolation from a head of fuel on the inlet, and nothing came out. We got a generic pump from repco, and managed to get the fuel flowing to the engine with that. But at the moment we are not running it with the fuel pressure regulator that is with the stock fuel pump. A couple of questions: * Is it necessary to run the fuel pressurre regulator? What are the effects of running the electric pump unregulated up to the inlet of the mech pump? We have this now and did not get the engine started, but could be other reasons. We got the carbys full of fuel, but I am wonder if too higher pressure caused an issue. * Is it OK to just run a generic pump with similar flow and pressure output rating to standard? We were in a rush so grabbed something we could get without ordering a stock replacement. The next step is to run a carby kit through the carbs. We have the electricals working OK at the moment and can turn key the starter. We have ignition in the right place (it kicked over with some "Start ya ba$tard". Once we get some reliable fuel into it we should be running, and then need to get a cooling system working and alternator etc. Thanks!

@KatoKid.... I love your car. I refer to it in earlier posts above. Very much in a similar vein to what I am seeking. I am also a big fan of BMW 6s... and particularly the E36/46 M series engines. I would consider going that way myself, but finding the right bits to do it may be more difficult than an RB based equivalent.... and there is some niggling thing in my son and I that thinks the right thing to do is keep it in the Nissan/Datsun family. Also, I have a background in engine management and have worked on many Nissan engines. They are so easy to mix and match both OEM bits and aftermarket options, so you can get pretty creative and unique. The BMW would be more difficult without the stock ECU and associated sensors and throttles etc. But I think I would be more than happy to have a stock setup like you have working perfectly!

Some great discussion here. It seems the concensus is: Original is always of higher value Mild reversable mods to customise a car to your taste but can be reverted would not devalue a car and would give you more enjoyment of the car Resto-mod is probably more about the tastefulness of the mods and finding a buyer with similar tastes, but on average is lower value. In the right circumstances it may be equivalent value. As suggested above.... my son and I are not doing this for car value reasons. I was just curious what the market place was like now. We have a 2+2 that is partially restored in the direction of restomod. It makes sense for us to continue that way and it what we want anyway. It seems 2+2s are more plentiful and lower value with OK ones sub $50k. We probably plan to spend close to that to complete our restomod. We don't plan to sell it. My personal opinion is it is about the look/feel/sound to me. I prefer the look of a Z with a lower stance than standard and wheels to better fill the guards (with flares). I like the sound of the L series engine or a similar throaty inline 6 that suits the style of the car. I like the feel of some well sorted suspension and nice LSD with a drivetrain with a nice manual gearshift and enough very responsive power to keep up with a modern family sport wagon (0-100kph in 6-7 seconds). That is what I like. I've been spoiled with many powerful cars, and I just get dissappointed when I drive a sporty feeling car what does not feel to me like I am accelerating "briskly". My other cars do 0-100 in sub 4 seconds (ET in the 11s) and have great handling. I don't need our Z to do that. But I want it to keep up with a Commodore V6!! I realise for many the acceleration of a car like this is not the point, but I just find it frustrating driving a fast looking car that is slow. As much as I like a windy road, a significant proportion of my driving is on straighter roads with accelerations from rest to 80-100. I enjoy the shove in the back and rowing the gears with some nice sound.

I am totally with you @datsunrally. My quote was of the less car liking public who might think a Harley Davidson is loud and obnoxious, and an ICE driver might be conisdered part of a simialr crowd in 15 years when ICEs are rare. Of course a general public person not into cars would probably lump all loud vehicles that are loud in the same category regardless of whether they are nice or not so nice sounding. I think we have similar tastes. I like a wide variety of engine sounds... From Subaru 4s to Porsche NA 6s to flat plane V8s. Not a real fan of old school V8s myself. And I do prefer the sound to match to the car type... but most public have no idea what is matching? That GT-R sounds awesome and certainly suits the Z... Would love that sound.... but is the cheapest and most reliable way to get close to go RB ITB? I know an L series could be made to sound similar and have similar power.... but as someone with experience in EFI and electronic ignition, that is a must for me... and converting an L series to EFI and ITB will be a bigger effort than RB, and while RB30/25 hybrid with some ITBs is not going to break any power records, but should comfortably out power and rev reliably than an L for less $$$.

I prefer to think of it differently.... we will be like the bikey gang... with those loud obnoxious vehicles. The cool rebels!! But will be more embarrassed when it breaks down the EV with a flat battery? But that is probably just my wishful thinking! I do think EVs have a place in transport of the future. I think a lot of hurdles need to be cleared first... like how to actually make the electricity much cleaner than ICE... and Australia is far from good in this regard. But if we sort it all out and the price is right, I would be happy to use an EV for daily commuting etc. Just not for a recreational weekend fun car. But I am the wrong demographic. I own several nice ICE cars that are far from econoboxs. I typically buy a car based on how much fun I can have in it rather than how practical it is.

You could well be right! I have a different opinion (I am an electrical engineer who is quite anti recreational electric cars). I see a few classics with electric conversions and think it is the worst of both worlds. I am a bit of a Porsche man also, and some of the electric 911 electric conversions are sacrilige!! I can see an argument that original engine may be more valuable than modern upgrade, but I think that people will have an appreciation for the most overtly ICE sounding cars regardless of the origin of the car/engine. In time, most cars on the road will be silent engined. The cars that make any noise will stand out. The ones that make the most classical ICE sounds will stand out the most. In the case of the Z, it has a great sounding engine out of the box. But some other classic cars sound pretty ordinary. Either way, give me a classic (or any) car with an engine that sounds like a pre-hybrid era F1 engine sound!! It is nice for the sound to match the character of the original car of course... but if you can get that character and amp it up I think that will stand out in a era where most cars make no noise. And electric conversions will never change the fact that a later engine will sound similar and be faster than original even if not as fast as electric. Eventually of course, younger generations will have no idea what engine sound matches what car type... probably just loud and cool will be enough!

So it sounds like the value probably swings in favor of originality, but it may be getting pretty close as younger buyers enter the market. My car is a 260 2+2... so the least desirable S30. So it probably swings in favour or resto-mod being of higher value since most after originality would be looking for a 2 seater.

Oh... I should mention that I totally get the L series engine sound thing. For me, I would never consider a V8 S30, or a rotor, 4 cylinder. For me, I am not a long term S30 follower, but I consider the howling straight 6 the essence of the car. And I think the natural modern equivalent is a Nissan straight 6 RB series. Fitted with ITBs for that throaty carby sound, but amping up the power and sound levels with some extended RPM range. To me, I think you could have a car that sounded right for the era of the car, but sounded even better with 8-9000RPM redline, but had some power improvement due to twin cam heads etc. and had reliability associated with EFI. So I am saying that I consider tasteful mods as mods that maintain the sound and feel of the original car. But again, that is subjective, and some may love a LS powered S30!

Everyone sees things differently. For me, having an original spec matching numbers car is something that really only the owner can appreciate and others who like that sort of thing who have been made aware that is the case. Its not like you see it drivng down the street and know what it is. At a show and shine with an engine bay visible it would be more noticable. I can understand that people who are inclined to appreciate that would pay a lot for it. I am a bit the other way. I actually like the style of the S30, but like it most when modified a retro JDM way with some nice wheels and a low stance etc. If I can have that look with some modern reliabiliity and performance (and sound), even better. It is still rare because you can only achieve it with an S30 shell and the effort that goes into getting everything working well is often considerable more in time and $$ with mods. To me, it seems engines and gearboxes for S30s are not that valuable, and you could probably get a L series engine and gearbox for cheaper than most of the upgrade options. But that is me. I was just wondering what people here's perception of the general market currently. Would the example I mention above with the M3 drivetrain sell for more or less because of the drivetrain in current market? Or is it so close that it could swing either way depending on the active buyer at that moment, so we call it a draw.

Speaking of values.... it seems most on this forum are more interested in restoration to stock specification, but I note that some cars come out that are nicely restored to a modified state... like some tasteful mods of a late drivetrain, brake upgrades, suspension and some interior tech. Assuming this is done in a tasteful way, are these cars worth more/less/same as a original specification car of similar retoration quality. I realise this question has lots of variables depending on what drivetrain is fitted..... An RB30 engine is a lot cheaper than an M3 engine for instance. I note there is a nicely restored car on this forum with M3 drivetrain. If the same car had stock drivetrain, would it be worth more or less?

I got it worked out now. Thanks for that. We have a 76 2+2 we are trying to get running. It seems to have considerable emissions plumbing and much of it is perished from age, so it seems much more complex than the basics we need to get it running. I am hoping we can get it blue slipped with a lot of the emissions stuff removed. I guess it depends how much the blue slip guy knows about this stuff. We have the 3 fuel lines. I believe there is a feed line that goes up and back with outlets for the carbs and then back via the return line which has a restriction at the return outlet of a small hole. I presume that is to provide a little positive pressure. The 3rd line appears to be for the charcoal canister for evap emissions. So we can ignore that for the time being. With the flat tops on the engine, I was able to confirm fuel flow to each carb. We cranked the engine for some time, and then checked the plugs and they were dry. It seems that the carbs have something stopping fuel flow. We also got the engine running by spraying "start ya B&%&^" into the intake and could run it for 20-30 seconds which I would have though was enough to get the float chambers full etc. But the engine stopped as soon as we stopped spraying. I suspect something in the carbs has jammed in place from sitting around a couple decades and there is no fuel flow. We will try two things.... remove the flat tops and fit these British SUs and see if we can get it running on them. Also we will try dissassembling and cleaning the flat tops and see if we can get them working. Then we will use whichever works best I guess. Our plan is to get this engine into our yellow car for blue slip. We still need a lot of bits to do that. Can anyone give tips on where we might find the following bits: * Fuel tank..... this seems to be the big one. My son found one for sale interstate for $1200 that looked in good condition. Is that the going rate? * Gearbox.... we were thinking of using an early RB25/30 smaller gearbox... but we need a bell housing from a S30 manual to use that we believe. Does anyone know where there is a S30 manual gearbox... or just the bellhousing on a blown gearbox? The car we have is auto and we don't want auto, but I guess we could blue slip with auto. * Door internals. It seems doors for there are quite rare, as people are after them to repair rust. Is anyone aware of someone who did this, but had the bits leftover from inside the doors.... brackets for glass/regulators/rods for door latches etc.? I am sure there are people who got complete doors for rust repair but did not need the internals, so hoping we can find that. * Drivers side seat rails... not sure why we only got the passenger side?? There will be many other things we find as we go.... so that is just what we know currently. Cheers!!

Makes sense @gilltech. I think they will be good enough for what we want which is to get the car running initially for rego. Our intention is to swap to a later engine in time. We just need something to get it running OK. We got the carbys and manifold for $250, so hopefully we can recover that cost when we upgrade the engine. But it would have been nice if they were the earlier round tops that are well known and valuable.

Thanks for the info @1600dave! That is interesting. We assumed we were getting the earlier round tops. Are what we have any good? Did they come out on any version of S30? Or is this an aftermarket upgrade from flatops? I am familiar with carbs in that I drove cars with them early in my driving life, and I fiddled a bit with them and even put some rebuild kits through some. So I am familiar with choke. I am not familiar with the implementation in the S30. Is there any fuel system diagram with major components shown? I am trying to get my head around the plumbing of the system. There are several diaphragm looking things in our flat top setup. I initially though one was a fuel pressure regulator in the return line, but not so sure now. It sounds like the float system makes the system less dependant on fuel pressure than with fuel injection as the float system maintains a float level that probably effectively sets the pressure by the level. I notice that the hard return line has a restriction in it, so I assume that maintains a bit of positive pressure in the line from the mech fuel pump. Is the connection to the carb fuel inlet a one way connection? As in there is no fuel return line connection to the carb? And the float overflow, is that typically left vented to atmo pressure or to the charcoal canister? Cheers!

Thanks @gilltech! We have made some progress. Ignition system working, and I even got the car started spraying some "start ya B^&%&^" into the intake. Not that it was smooth sailing. It seems this engine has the shaft that drives the distributor fitted 180 degrees out of whack. So eventually I worked out it was firing spark in the wrong phase, and swapped leads around and it ran as long I sprayed in the intake. The mechanical fuel pump seems to be pumping fuel, as I removed the outled and pumped some fuel into a bottle. We are getting fuel pumped to the carbys, but there is no evidence of fuel making it from the carbies into the engine. We cranked it quite a long time and the plugs were dry. I am no expert on carby fuel systems. It seems the mech pump pumps fuel to the carbys, and then there is a fuel return line that goes back to the tank. There is a largish vacuum diaphragm on the pipe that joins the two intake manifolds. Is this a fuel pressure regulator. Is there any resource I can use for a detailed description of how the carbys work so I can try and debug them? Alternatively, we were lucky to grab a set of round top carbs from a local selling a set for a good price. They were apparently running an engine with no issue about 10 years ago, so maybe we swap to them. They seem simpler. The set we have has a block plate on where the vacuum diaphragm I mention above it and a few connection pipes blocked so I assume it has had some of the emissions stuff removed. Any assistance appreciated... even if it is just a link to another post with similar issues! Cheers!

Got it. Good luck with the 240z items. Give me a bell if you want to get rid of the 260z ones you have.