Datsun280z's Datsun 280z

[Datsun280z]

Attempted to make the engine look a bit tidier. 

 

Sent a few bits out to be re-plated, still waiting a some stuff to come back.

 

 

 

Painted block and a few other bits 

 

 

Removed sump, stripped and painted then threw back on

 

 

With motor looking a bit better time for it to get back in the car

 

 

Replaced some small stuff like leaky oil pressure sender and exhaust studs as old ones were shot. Still waiting on a few parts to reassemble the carbs.

 

 

Mounted fan on radiator. Still need to get piping to plumb it in.

 

 

Trial fit the rangi strut brace I hacked together and it looks to clear everything ok

 

Start on wiring this week.

[Datsun280z]

Bit more progress

 

Last few bits back from electroplaters so could finally put the carbs back together and bolt them back on.

 

 

Radiator mounted for the last time hopefully and water hard lines done.

 

 

 

 

Because of my new home made strut brace I had an issue with my old fuel line setup not clearing. So had to get all crazy with AN fittings to make it work, yep its totally ridiculous but only way I could make it clear brace and throttle linkage gear.

 

 

Shes pretty tight..

 

 

Catch tank mounted and plumbed

 

 

Coil up front

 

 

As it sits now, pretty much all the mechanical stuff now done

 

 

 

Wiring nightmare now begins...

[Datsun280z]

Started making some headway on the wiring. The original loom was in a pretty messy state due to years of people cutting and splicing not to mention my car having had a LHD to RHD conversion along the way. I have cut away as much of the old redundant fuel injection wiring as possible.

 

Front end done. Replaced a few of the old connectors and tried to route as neat as I can. All wiring now runs through the guard as wanted to try and keep the engine bay clean. 

 

 

 

Engine bits finished. New 2G cable running to battery in the back of the car

 

 

 

 

Through firewall

 

 

I managed to score some sweet sealed 12V battery's from Craig260 to replace my old dead one, chur bo! These things are nice and small which is cool. One should do the trick but am going to use two.

 

 

Knocked up these guys to mount them

 

 

Decided to mount behind the rear seats, they just squeeze in there.

 

[Datsun280z]

[Datsun280z]

So this happened...

 

 

 

SSR Formula Mesh, 16 x 9 -14 and 16 x 9.5 -16

 

Wasn't looking for wheels but opportunity came up. They will get a bit of a tidy and centres will be painted gun metal. Have to sort tyres for them now.

[Datsun280z]

Started giving the SSRs a tidy up.They had a bit of curbing on the lips and the clear coat had pitting in places. Should have sent them off to a polisher but thought i would have a crack at doing it myself. 

 

Split the centers and barrels

 

 

Stripped off the old clear coat with rubber stripping disc. Then jacked up the back of the datsun and used as a poor mans polishing wheel. Bolt on wheel, throw in 3rd at idle and work your way through sandpaper grades.

 

 

Stripped back the flaking paint of the centers and resprayed gunmetal. Also repainted all the cap screws black.

 

 

All done and bolted back together

 

 

Came out Ok for a rangi home job. Tyres going on this week fingers crossed.

[Datsun280z]

[Datsun280z]

SSRs...

[Datsun280z]

Been doing a few small things

Made up a rear strut brace out of an old R33 one.

Car had been struggling to stay cool when in slow moving traffic this summer with the alloy radiator I had fitted so upgraded to a bigger one and added double fans. Seems to have done the trick.

I have been using a Carter fuel pump I scored from my parts sponsor Craig but it has been dying a noisey painful death. Not only did it scream when operating but it was struggling to make the required pressure. Looked at different options and decided to give a kiwi company Fuel Flow a go. Their pump seemed to match the specs I need, is well priced and is made in NZ so worth a shot. The pump runs nice and quiet and is easy to mount. Good bunch to deal with too...

Here it is compared to the old Carter

Mounted to pump bracket

Will do some driving tomorrow to see how it goes...

[Datsun280z]

Time to solve my fueling issues once and for all (hopefully)

 

So my experiments with the Fuel Flow pumps was an epic fail, even rocking two of them wouldn't do the trick. Did what I should have done from the start and got another tried and true Carter pump. Ordered the black "competition" version as it is meant to flow the most. To my surprise it is actually not that loud which is a bonus.

 

 

Swapped out the dead head style regulator I was using as I wanted to switch to a return line setup as I think I was getting some vapor lock issues also.

 

 

Here you can see the return line off the last carb. Also hooked up a fuel pressure gauge so I can see what is happening while driving.

 

 

So far things are looking good, getting rock solid pressure throughout the rev range now so fingers crossed problem is solved..

 

[Datsun280z]

So a problem that some people have with triple Mikunis is a slight lean spot or 'stutter' when you stab on the gas. My car has always had this same issue so wanted to try and get rid of it if possible. It is more noticeable when the car is hot and has been idling in traffic for a while. After doing some reading it sounds like it is caused by fuel in the accelerator pumps boiling and thus not providing enough fuel when you initially hit the gas. Lots of people fit heat shields under the carbs to keep them a bit cooler so I thought Id give it a go too.

 

Made up an alloy shield which while hopefully helping with keeping heat off the carbs will also have the added bonus of stopping any fuel leaks from dripping onto the hot extractors.

 

 

My 44s also came with additional cooling blocks attached to the accelerator pumps (Thanks to Mike for pointing out what these things actually were). Apparently they were used in racing applications back in the day? I figure if I have them might as well use them right. 

 

 

I took a fuel feed from the in and out of the fuel rail and plumed in the cooling blocks. Yes there is way too much AN fitting action going on, I think I might make a proper fuel rail up to get rid of some of it...

 

 

Here you can see the fuel line under each carb linking the circuit together.

 

 

Everything back together with heat shield added.

 

 

Happy to say it looks to have completely resolved the lean spot on initial throttle stab. If anything now the wide-band is showing things are a bit rich but that's something I can possibly tune out with some jet changes. Car no longer stumbles when you first hit the gas so I am claiming a win...

[Datsun280z]

So have not driven the car at all over winter due to doing stupid stuff like building a new house and moving etc. But one bonus is built a decent shed to fill with cars...

 

 

 

 

Have lots of small things to do to the car over summer. New jets for the triples to test, LSD to go in etc. One small thing I have done is convert my speedo.

Being as my car is originally from the the USA it had a MPH speedo which was a bit of a pain in the ass. I found a guy in Sweden who had designed his own re-pro KMPH face plates and had done a small production run so bought one to give a try.

 

 

The quality is not to bad so I stripped down my old speedo and swapped over the faces. I now have a KMPH version so all good.

 

 

I also swapped out the old clock in the dash as it has never worked. I found an oil temp gauge with a similar look to the stock gauges.

 

 

LSD install next on the list.

[Datsun280z]

So I managed to score a z31 CLSD R200 with a NISMO center by a lucky fluke earlier this year. As far as I am aware it has a 3.7 ratio.

 

Ripped out the old 3.3 (I was told, will open and confirm) open wheeler. Only thing that needs swapping over is the front drive shaft flange as the Z31 one is different. Cool thing about this swap is the S30 stub axles plug straight into the Z31 CLSD center so it is a really easy conversion. 

 

 

And the uni half shafts as they were looking pretty blue and shit. I actually have a set of Z31 CV half shafts I want to install to get rid of the uni's but I still have to suss out some adapters for that job so uni's stay for now.

 

 

I dont know what state the new CLSD is in but looked pretty tidy inside from what I can tell so best just to throw it in and see what happens

 

 

Gave the diff and half shafts a tidy up 

 

 

Threw it all back in with some new oil and job done. Went out for test drive and nothing blew up, it is not overly noisy at all and seems to lock up OK. I tried to do a mandatory sweet skid but only succeeded in skidding up my shit house clutch so that is now on the list to get replaced stat.

 

[Datsun280z]

Getting a few small jobs done over winter.

 

Wanted to build a new front diff mount as the Datsun factory setup is a pretty crap design that allows the diff nose to lift under load. I had hacked a factory mount up and doweled it (essentially making it sold mount) but that was not overly ideal so had another crack at it. Thanks to Mike for the idea on this style.

 

Cut up the factory mount and built a jig to keep diff aligned. Welded in steel tube that fits a poly bush I had floating around.

 

 

All mounted up. Holds the diff nice and solid with no lifting issues and also makes diff easier to remove as just slide out the main bolt.

 

 

Next job was the exhaust. The car came with a nasty old press bent 2" system that I have always wanted to get rid of. It hung way low and looked shit. Decided to go with a 2.5 inch system which is way overkill for my engine but what the hell.

 

Hoist makes this job 1 billion times easier than trying to do under the car.

 

 

I wanted it tucked up as to the body as possible. The system that came with the car only had 2 hanging points and was one piece so wobbled like crazy and was a mission to get on and off. New system is to have multiple hanging points and be 3 piece to make removal easier. The headers I stole from Craig had a reducer taking the outlet pipe from 2.5 to 2 inch so I simply cut off the reducer and added a 2.5 inch flange to match the rest of the system.

 

Started with a small straight through stainless rear muffler and added a angled tip that looked OK. The rear muffler has 3 mounting points so it is nice and solid. 

 

 

Then worked my way forward, trying to keep the piping as close to the body as possible

 

 

 

Went with a basic straight through resonator mid system. Once happy with the layout I added flanges so that I can take out the middle section of exhaust to gain access to diff etc. Then cleaned up and painted, knowing it will burn off 30 seconds after starting the car.

 

 

Came out OK and sounds better than the old one so I am calling it a win

 

 

 

[Datsun280z]

Summer is mint