DJZ's 280ZX

[DJZ]

So I've had my 280ZX for about 7ish years now and it's been through a lot of development throughout that time, some things worked quite well, some things didn't work at all.

I decided recently it was time to pull the 320hp L28 out before I dump more money into it with little gain and start fresh with something a little bit newer.

So this:

Will be combined with this:

(the RB, not the Sigma)

Motor has a knock so will be pulled down first for inspection, hopefully it's not too rooted inside.

The car will also be receiving if I can afford it:

A T04Z turbo or GT3582R, still need to do more research

Stainless manifold

A new front mount (600x300) if I can get it to fit

Some new suspension & brakes, the plan is for S13 coilovers with the R33 front calipers I already have

Forgies plus cams maybe, depending on how much I have to spend fixing the motor

[DJZ]

I've collected a few parts already, I have a 200ZR sump and oil pickup, apparently the sump will need to be modded to clear the main bearing girdle or something like that, will have a look once it comes apart.

Also got an N1 oil pump and some ARP rod bolts.

[DJZ]

Motor turned up today, pulled the rocker covers off and the cams look fine. Turbos look/feel fine.

Pulled the sump off and no real suprise, number one rod bearing is rooted, oil pump drive is a bit worn, drive surface in the oil pump is worn. The two halves of the bearing were actually on top of each other = not good.

Sorry about the crappy pictures, didn't have a decent camera at hand.

Maybe I should have gone with VQ power?

[DJZ]

There are some pictures of the car in this album from the NZ Hondas track day

http://www.flickr.com/photos/56977529@N ... 588316764/

I don't think I mentioned that it looked like the motor had been apart before, there was heaps of red silicon sealant everywhere, oil pump, sump, rear main seal holder thing, on the threads for the oil pressure sensor, around the rocker covers etc when we rolled the motor over to take the sump off a suspicous looking washer fell out of the head, I thought hmm that looks like a head bolt washer. Pulled the head off today and some dick has put one of the headbolts back in without a washer on it and left the washer floating around in the head.

Looks like it's been run hot/low on oil, there are detonation marks on the pistons and head on cylinders 1, 2 & 3, those bores are also rooted.

Found some 1mm over 2nd hand JE forged pistons and some Tomei Poncams pretty cheap so I'll be buying those, getting the block bored and the head skimmed to try and get rid of the detonation marks, they are only on the quench pads by the looks of it so it should come up alright.

[DJZ]

Block is ready to be bored, head is completely stripped ready to be surfaced and I'll probably try a little porting as well. Where they mill cut in from the combustion chamber for the valve seats is a really rough transition so I'm going to smooth that out a bit.

Acquired this week:

Tomei type B Poncams

JE forged pistons

Linished & shotpeened factory rods

Factory fuel rail fitted with a Nismo adjustable FPR

RB26 crank fitted with a Jun oil pump drive, grub screwed, enlarged oil galleries

Got some new rings on the way from the States

And another complete inlet side minus injectors for my mate, he is planning on fitting an RB25 into his C110 with RB26 throttles, it'll be in the distant future though.

[DJZ]

Dropped the motor off today to get bored, took the crank down too to get polished & measured, the rod journals are 0.25 under according to the bearings that were in the rods but I don't know about the main journals.

I've done a bit of work on the head hopefully I haven't made it any worse, these aren't my pictures but you can see where the problems are

Got an OE Nissan full gasket set off Trademe for about $150 less than what Nissan sell them for, probably just going to run a standard head gasket for the moment.

I also got some R30 front lower arms and some S14 5 stud hubs and uprights, by the looks of it it won't be too hard to swap it to S13/14 coil overs and the R33 brakes that I've got. I can get some custom ball joints made that have the S14 taper on them and I can also get them made a bit longer so I won't need to use roll center adjusters.

[DJZ]

Had a bit of a look at the front suspension, don't think it'll be too hard. The R30 arms look pretty much the same length as the Z ones, I'll need to change the sway bar and radius rods as they mount in different places. R30 or R31 bits should work okay. The R30 arms look pretty flimsy so I might have to add some gussets or something in there.

Sold the original turbos, looks like I'll definitely be going single turbo, just have to decide which one.

Painted the rocker covers, coil cover and cambelt top cover and inlet plenum, any colour as long as it's black.

Finished porting/cleaning up the head, there are lots of little bits and pieces that people recommend doing so I've done pretty much all of those! Cleaning old gaskets off things is a real pain in the ass, the throttle body gaskets are rock hard, I tried everything to get them off nicely and ended up with a brass wire wheel on my die grinder and also a drill.

I need to pull the gearbox out and change the bellhousing over.

Bidding on some bigger injectors on Trademe, pretty sure I'll max out the 444cc GTR ones I was using in the L28.

I really want to get the motor back so I can start putting it together, the rings only just left the States on the 18th even thought I ordered them 7 or 8 days ago, got ripped $60US for shipping so they better be here pretty damn fast.

My mate and I parted out an '83 280ZX 2+2 ages ago that's why my car has rack & pinion power steering, I kept the brake booster & master cylinder out of it as well as I knew they'd come in handy one day. The booster is different, the mounting studs for the master cylinder are more like the later Nissans - side to side instead of top and bottom like the earlier Z's, so a later model master should bolt straight on, I'm keeping an eye out for a 1" Z32 master.

[DJZ]

Stupid earthquake has slowed things down a bit.

Got a few more bits and pieces on the way, a 44mm Tial wastegate and some 550cc RX7 injectors.

I bought and fitted some Tomei rocker cover baffles, I'm not really sure whether they are necessary but a lot of people recommend fitting them, the factory ones are just open at the front so if any oil gets in them it'll just go straight through the PCV valve and into the intake manifold by the looks of it.

Still trying to decide on a turbo, I'm leaning towards the larger side of things, maybe a GT4088R. The GT3582R looks alright but they have brought out the GTX3582Rs now that have billet compressor wheels, lots of people recommend the T04Z but then lots of people say they are old style wheels are inefficent, it's pretty hard to decide!

I've chopped up the 200ZR sump and I'm going to extend it, the "bowl" could be increased in size by probably 1 or 2 litres pretty easily.

The cheap Chinese manifolds are pretty interesting, the good ones are split between the front 3 and back 3 cylinders and could be made fully divided by fitting 2 wastegates, they vary heaps in price even though they all look exactly the same, the cheapest I found was $245 but he has no stock, next ones are $375 and $400.

Got my new intercooler and chopped it up hah it's quite large but once the end tanks are modified it should fit pretty damn well.

My rings turned up and the idiots sent the wrong ones, if anybody needs some rings to suit 87mm SR20DET JE pistons let me know.

Sold the front suspension so it's full steam ahead with the S14 setup.

[DJZ]

Alright, had a go at mocking up the S13 coilovers today.

Front looks like it's actually going to work out pretty well, need to modify the arms to take some other bushes, the factory R30 steel sleeved bushes are too wide, the arms are actually slightly too wide as well because of a lip that they have down the sides. I put a cut in the lip and bent it downwards just to see if they'd fit.

What I'm going to do is drill out the arm so I can put a piece of 38mm OD pipe in there, then I've found some Ford spring eye bushes that look like they'll fit. Need to open up the hole in the strut tower a bit more so I can actually adjust the camber!

This is how high the rear guard was sitting before I started. It only dropped by 2cm after fitting them at the settings they came at out of the box but it's much much stiffer. I had to drill a new hole in the strut top and slot one of the other holes a bit, need to tidy it up and fit some washers.

Almost impossible to find factory front bumper mounts, the 280ZXs usually came with big heavy shock absorbers due to the dumb laws in the States, thanks to Brnwgn.

This is a late model ZX booster, a later model master cylinder should bolt straight on, I'm looking for a 1" Z32 master.

I bought some 550cc RX7 injectors, still need to get some lower seals for them.

Tial wastegate, 44mm. I bought it off a dude on Trademe, never used with extra flanges for $100 less than they are new.

XS Power staino manifold, fully divided except for the wastegate, second hand off Trademe

Ordered my turbo today, should be here by the end of the week hopefully! Still waiting for my rings to show up.

[DJZ]

Got my chur-bro today, finally. It didn't come with the other half of the v band or clamp which is a bit of a bummer, hope one of the Trademe special ones will fit.

You can see the oil and water lines that I got off eBay, cheaper than buying only the oil feed line I had made up for the L28! Also got a drain flange and a nice stainless gasket.

Just noticed the manifold isn't tapped for studs, bummer. Not sure what to do I don't really want to run nuts and bolts and the holes are too big to tap now. Might have to weld bolts in from the underside?

[DJZ]

Talked to the certifier today, gave me the thumbs up to do the modifications that I wanted to do to the front arms so I gave them to HBI to start work on today.

What I need is another inner control arm bush, according to Trademe these cars have them:

Datsun 180B 9/72=77

Nissan Silvia S13 (180Sx) 84-97

Nissan Silvia S14 (200Sx) 10/96-00

Nissan Skyline R30 81-86

Nissan Skyline R31 87-90

Nissan Bluebird 910, Series 1,2,3 81-86

Nissan Cefiro A31 9/88 - 8/94

Nissan Gazelle S12 85-88

Nissan Gallelle S12 85-88 (For Rear IRS - Incl crush tubes.

Nissan Laurel C31 11/80-84

Nissan Bluebird R31 86-90

So if anybody has a spare one let me know, I actually only need the outer steel sleeve but will consider anything.

I got a new master cylinder, 1" bore from an S15 - bolted straight on to the later booster I'll just have to adjust the push rod thing by the looks of it. Pulled the old master & booster out and discovered the locknut on the clevis eye bit was loose, whoops. Also pulled out the engine bay wiring harness.

I've been keeping an eye on an RB25DET gearbox on Trademe and decided that I'd buy it. So if anybody wants a strong gearbox to put behind an L series my RB20DET FS5W71C box with L series bellhousing is for sale.

Also heard from the shop doing the RB, they've started work on it finally so I hope to have it back maybe next week or the week after, just have to order the rest of the bits to put it back together, bearings & timing bits etc

[DJZ]

Got a bit done during the weekend, got one more hole in the engine bay to weld up then I can start grinding them back. I'm trying to get it ready for painting the engine bay by the end of next weekend.

The RB block has been bored, I dropped the rest of the bits off the other day for them to assemble it.

I got an R31 front sway bar and radius rods, they look like they are going to work okay, the radius rods might be a little on the short side, it's a bit hard to tell with the front control arms. Hopefully they will be finished this week so I can get it rolling again.

I pulled out the front cross member, I had the axle stands under it so I thought I'd use another handy tool from my work.

So I need to pull the steering rack off the crossmember, give it a good clean and a little bit of paint and jam it back in.

I've found some new seats that I'm bidding on on Trademe, hopefully they'll look okay in it. I've some GTR front brake rotors on the way too.

[DJZ]

Not much progress this weekend, nothing infact.

Bought a lightweight flywheel, hasn't turned up yet, haven't decided what to do about a clutch yet. Also won the auction for the FD RX7 seats I was bidding on so I should get them later this week or next week.

I've been looking at gauges and trying to figure out what to do, what I really want is one of the Japanese after market 300k/10,000rpm clusters but they are out of production and impossible to find these days. Also with the RB25 gearbox they have an electronic speedo sensor so I'd have to swap by the sounds of it either to an R32 GTR speedo drive or to a Navara sensor I think.

So I'll probably look at replacing the gauges from some ones I've found on http://www.speedhut.com they are some pretty cool ones and also do GPS speedos so you don't need to have them connected to a sensor at all!

The problem that I've got is the holes in the standard Z cluster are quite large

So the gauges sit kind of funny in there, but it doesn't look too bad.

In other news I bought this this morning, these pics are a few years old and it is in a million pieces now.

[DJZ]

Picked up the new car today, this is what it looks like at present:

These are the wheels that are on it, can't find much info on them but they are made by Pismo? They are 14's.

Came with these ugly 280ZX wheels too, will get some tyres for them just to roll the cars around on

Got my new flywheel for the RB Z too, also some R32 GTR front brake rotors

This is what the engine bay looks like currently:

Took the crossmember out and gave it a clean, painted the radius rod mounts too

[DJZ]

Got a little bit more done:

Also got these bits, ARP heat stud kit, HKS oil cooler kit and some FD RX7 seats

Should be getting my motor back either tomorrow or early next week.

[DJZ]

Put a donk on it

Motor would be back together this weekend except for the fact that one of the valve spring seats is missing, not sure whether the guys that did the machine work have still got it or what. Hopefully I haven't doubled up on one of the valves, might pull them out again tomorrow to see.

[DJZ]

Found the missing spring seat, I had doubled one of them up. Went to Cockrams today and ordered an oil filter stud, $35 is a bit of a rip but better than dicking around trying to find a second hand one.

Installed the head today after I finished putting it back together then installed the cams. Started fitting the oil pump but it appears that I've misplaced the bolts for it, I'll try and find them tonight but I might just have to buy some new ones.

Tried the turbo on the manifold with the rocker covers on, it's pretty close but I think it should clear, not too sure how the turbo water lines are supposed to run, the thread on the adaptors that came with them is too big to screw into the block, I'll have to track down some that work.

[DJZ]

Got the motor sitting in the bay tonight.

Not much clearance here.

Not much clearance here either.

Too much clearance here.

Clearance here for the wastegate looks okay.

[DJZ]

So I took the motor out again today and attached the gearbox to it, spent ages putting it back into the car which is not very easy.

I put the timing belt on it properly while I was at it, I bought a power steering pump yesterday so I cleaned that up too.

The trans doesn't fit very well, I'm probably going to have to chop off the ears that are inside the tunnel to make it fit. Anybody know what the rules are on either making new mounts and welding them to the tunnel or bolting through the tunnel for mounting the trans?

This isn't my car but similar to what I'm thinking:

Remove these ears:

Do something similar to this:

[DJZ]

So I chopped the lip off one control arm, not really any better. Slotted the top hole in the strut to give the hub a bit more angle, not really any better.

Had a look at my mates S13 and the ball joint is really close to the outside of the control and the end of the control arm is really thin.

Something like this:

On the S13 there is about maybe 10 - 12mm between the rotor and control arm with the wheels straight, might cut a bit more off mine and see what it looks like.

Seeing as the R31 radius rods were too short I did a little research and came up with the idea to make something like this:

So I bought some of these:

Mounted them up to have a look and bolted to the top of the control arm they are on the wrong angle and point above the hole in the bush mount by maybe 15mm+. By the looks of it if I cut a hole in the control arm and slid the radius rods through the hole and then bolt them they'll come up in about the right place.