DJZ's 280ZX

[DJZ]

Got the okay from the certifier to chop off the ears in the tunnel and make up a new mount as per the pics above.

Needs to be minimum 50x5mm steel, 8mm 8.8 grade bolts or 10mm if I only use two, with plates on inside the cabin. Have to pull the motor and box out again tomorrow so I've got enough room to chop them off.

Been trying to decide what to do about wheels, I don't really want to buy new ones but the current ones don't really fit on the back and now on the front they sit really far in. I was thinking about these:

They are very common looking drifty type wheels but reasonably cheap for 18x9.5s & 18x10s, but that means I'll need to buy new tyres too.

[DJZ]

So I bolted the engine mounts tight onto the block as they were a little loose as I didn't have the right bolts and now the mount on the LHS doesn't really line up. Did a bit of research on the interwebs and a few people were saying to use R31/VL mounts as they are a direct fit and the motor will just slot in, the Z31 mounts were supposed to work for S30s but I couldn't find much info for what people have used for S130s.

So I bought some VL mounts, the LHS on is exactly the same as the Z31 mount and the RHS mount is about 40mm longer which makes things even worse. Have pretty much decided to use the LHS mount as is and cut 50 or 60mm out of the RHS mount, this will mean I can tilt the motor over a bit more towards the drivers side, which will give me quite a bit more clearance for the turbo and also around the clutch master cylinder.

Haven't really made much progress on anything else, need to get the mounts sorted first. I bought a 4" 45 degree bend for the inlet to the turbo and bought some fittings and stuff for the turbo water feed/return. The kit I bought had the wrong fitting to go into the block and one of the lines was too short, so I bought some more line and a weld on fitting to weld onto the radiator inlet pipe. Got misc other bits and pieces, new oil and fuel filters and some 3" silicon joiners.

Took apart the oil cooler setup and cleaned out all the lines and the cooler itself, most of it is in pretty good nick except for one fitting. Ended up ordering the wrong fitting to screw into the block from Nissan so the correct one is coming from Japan.

Also ordered my new gauges which should be here hopefully next week.

[DJZ]

Modified the VL right hand side engine mount, motor is sitting at a pretty good angle now. I'm going to get the guys next door at HBI to weld it up for me.

This gives me more clearance here

And also here, where it mattered the most

Need to weld that bit onto here for the water return from the turbo

[DJZ]

Gauges showed up today, look pretty sweet.

[DJZ]

Gave the sump to Rob at Racefab yesterday to do, it's going to have 4 trapdoors and wings now.

I bought some 75x75 SHS to do the radius rod mounts with, should be able to get them mostly done this weekend. Need to get the guys next door to spin up some big washer/locators for me.

Have been trying to figure out a way of mounting the gauges, I'm going to need to buy a 4" hole saw I think, the closest chassis punch that was have at work is slightly too big so the gauges are a little bit loose, need to make up some rings about 10mm wide then screw/glue them to the inside of the cluster to mount the gauges to.

Finally got the right oil filter stud from Cockrams, bought some lower injector seals too, can finally install the injectors and mount the oil cooler now.

In other news, Green Hornet is not a good movie.

Got the first radius rod bracket made up today, looks like it's going to work pretty well. I had to chop the cup for the bush off the factory mount but that's no biggie. Haven't got everything bolted up tight yet as I need to get some more nuts and bolts.

Mocked up the rack end and lengthened tie rod end, I might get some rack end spacers not for extra lock but to help with the thread problem too.

This is how the motor is sitting at the moment, I've got to get the top radiator outlet welded up before I can finish the water line for the turbo.

This is how the finished engine mount came out.

[DJZ]

Finally got some steel today to start the gearbox mount with. I was planning on using some 75x6 that we had sitting at work but it was just too wide to fit in the flat part of the tunnel and I wasn't so keen on chopping 25mm off a meter plus long piece of steel so I ended up with 6 meters of 50x5 flat bar, pretty cheap - thanks Steel & Tube!

I need to either chop up the old gearbox crossmember which I'm not too keen on as I can probably sell it, find a different type of mount or find some 40mm RHS or SHS.

Sump is done, I haven't picked it up yet, I'll do that tomorrow. It better be good because it was mighty expensive due to a lot of pissing around as he's never done a rear bowl RB sump before. I gave him the radiator outlet pipe to weld the A/N fitting on for me so that should be done too.

I need to get the exhaust manifold flange machined flat, it looks pretty warped. Still have to figure out how I'm going to bolt the turbo to it as well. Might have to look into sizes of helicoils.

[DJZ]

The finished sump, 4 trap doors, one really long pickup and space ship looking wings.

Rob @ Racefab welded this up for me too, I need to get a 45 degree fitting for it to put it a bit closer to the top cover.

Zac finished up my intercooler, looks & fits perfect. Need to make up some mounts for it now.

The beginnings of my very very industrial looking gearbox mount, the RHS is a light hanging bracket that I found at work hah, hopefully it's thick/strong enough for the certifier.

10 ton 150mm stroke rams, base plates and top plates, 4 of these should lift my car pretty easily hah.

Found out something interesting today, I finally got the back end of the car jacked up and removed the original driveshaft, it looks like the front half of the R33 driveshaft is the perfect length. All I need to do is change the flange on the diff which hopefully the S14 diff that I have at home will have the right one on it!

[DJZ]

Gearbox is now mounted. Once I pull the gearbox/engine out again I have a couple of bits to tidy up on it then paint it. I need to cut out a notch in it for the exhaust and weld in a gusset on the right hand side. I also need to tidy up where the engine gearbox mounts were in the tunnel, I hacked them off with the grinder and need to flatten them off or drill out the spot welds.

I swapped the input flange over on the diff, pretty much a straight swap except for having to cut about 3 or 4mm off the dust shield on the new flange. I've dummied up the driveshaft, the spline is about half engaged so I think it'll be alright. The driveshaft & flange actually use bigger bolts compared to the original Z stuff which is another bonus.

So tomorrow nights mission is to pull the engine and gearbox out again and do the rest of the stuff that needs to be done to it before it goes in for the final time:

Install the sump

Block up the original rear turbo water return

Fit the clutch

Try and mount the powersteering lines, it'll be a lot easier to do with the motor out

I bought another rack end and tie rod end on the weekend, went to install them last night and the rack end was different to the first one. The new TRW one is about 30mm longer which is a lot better than the Silverline one that I had, only problem is I've welded nuts on to the tie rod ends to lengthen the internal thread, now I'm probably going to run out of adjustment the opposite way. Might have to buy another pair of tie rod ends. I fitted my awesome "drift" rack end spacers, haven't noticed much difference in the lock except for the wheel will now hit on the radius rod, I still need to adjust the lock stoppers on the control arms.

Once I get the rack end sorted I should be able to roll/steer the car around on it's new suspension for the first time, I need to get it out of the spot that it's in so that I can fit the left rear coil over, it's too tight to do it where it's parked currently.

Still haven't really decided what to do about a clutch, I can't find a reasonably priced twin plate. The single plate that was on the L28 was working okay but I have a feeling it's probably not going to hold up to what the RB is capable of. I was thinking of getting a bigger single plate, a Z32 250mm clutch should fit on my flywheel.

[DJZ]

I've been trying to get my shit sorted and make some progress on this thing. I missed out on a twin plate clutch on Trademe but it got a bit expensive for me.

Today I bought a barb for the turbo oil return, a brake line tee and some o rings for my oil cooler adaptor. Tomorrow I need to try and track down a brake liner joiner, I got one today but it doesn't have the conical seats in the bottom which makes it useless. Also tracked down pretty much all the other bits for the motor, I got an RB25 crank pulley so the non hicas power steering pump lines up now, also got a Z32 crank angle sensor after I slightly rooted the original RB one trying to change the bearings, also got a power steering pulley and the front cam belt guide. I made up a clutch line as well which turned out pretty good. I've installed the rack ends, boots and tie rod ends so the steering setup is pretty much done, it will need adjustment as one tie rod end was adjusted out further than the other with the wheels pointing straight.

I've had the spacers made up for the exhaust manifold, looks like they are going to work alright. Zac is going to tack the staino bolts on to it for me once I've sorted out where the wastegate needs to go so I can get him to do the wastegate flange at the same time.

The sump turned into a bit of a mission, when I gave it to him he said he had an RB26 block to mock it up on, turns out he didn't have the crank girdle and when I tried to fit it to my block the sump was hitting on it, it would have been an absolute mission to modify the sump so I ended up modifying the girdle by cutting around 4mm off the top of it on both sides at the rear as it was raised compared to the rest of the girdle, also 75% of the bolt holes don't line up with the 26 block so I've had to drill/grind them to get it to fit.

This weekend I'm going to finish off the motor/clutch/gearbox and the brake lines around the engine bay then refit the motor hopefully for the last time. My companies director is down here next week and my car is down at work (which it shouldn't be) so I'm not going to get much done over the next week, my plan is to get it running by the weekend after next and drivable the weekend after that. Whether that is an achievable goal I'm not sure but I'll try!

[DJZ]

Not related to the Z but I made up a new fuel rail for the R30.

Custom drill press

Fitted up one side of the car with the brake calipers and now the wheel hits on the caliper, I've been looking at some wheels they are 17x9 +20 so I took one of the spacers off the back of the car and used some washers to try and replicate what it'd look like.

Intercooler and oil cooler are going to sit about here:

Motor back in the hole

Still need to do something about the wastegate position & downpipe clearance

Cut down staino bolts for the turbo

[DJZ]

Progress has been reasonably slow recently, slower than I'd like.

Yesterday and today I spent ages mucking around with my engine mounts, after I put the sump on and dropped the motor back into the car I released that the sump was sitting on the steering rack/rack mounts. I spaced up the right hand side about 7mm under the mount and 5mm on top, and the left hand mount 5mm under and on top. I also ground down the side of the left hand rack mount slightly.

The motor and gearbox are all bolted in tight now, finally. I installed the driveshaft today as well, also I cut off the lock stopper off the control arm and moved it about 40mm towards the ball joint so the stopper on the knuckle actually hits on it now, yay.

I've mostly finished the engine bay wiring, I chopped out a few more bits and pieces, the head light sensor thing for the display on the dash and some other stuff. I need to get some more split loom tubing before I can reinstall it.

I started on the engine wiring, just waiting for some more braided cable sleeving to show up. The correct injector plugs also showed up, should be able to finish the wiring this week.

Still need to get some more oil cooler hose and mount the remote filter mount, also need to mount the intercooler and the oil cooler itself too. Have to buy an oil catch can, the list of things I have to buy is slowly dwindling which is good.

The guy with the wheels that I wanted to buy is still being a dick so I'm not sure what to do there, don't want to spend too much on new wheels or new wheels and tyres. Might just have to get some new spacers for the front and keep my current wheels for the moment, I'll probably have to buy new spacers for the back too as the ones I've got aren't technically legal.

Engine wiring loom, in the loops from the top:

Spare auxillary inputs and outputs, the blue wires are the ignitor wires and boost controller wiring

Computer grounds to engine block

On the left is the wiring to inside the cabin for the tach, boost controller switch etc

On the right is the actual engine wiring, 90% of the wiring runs down the left hand side of the motor which is good. I should be able to keep it reasonably tidy.

Injector plugs, new temp sensor with a normal Bosch plug on it and not the silly oval one that it came with factory.

Engine bay wiring loom, still trying to figure out how to run it, need to get some more split loom tubing.

Had to modify the radiator slightly, the intercooler is a very tight fit.

Gear stick will need to be cut down a bit I think, looks like it's going to be massive long even when the centre console is back in. This is good 'cause I'll cut it down and weld an M8 bolt/stud in the hole so I can use the gear knob that I've used ever since I bought this car. It originally came off the first two seater that I owned and parted out.

Don't think I've mentioned it before but I've got this other slightly problem to fix too.

[DJZ]

Managed to finally get it started tonight, only left it running for about 60 seconds but at least it ran!

Originally I was trying to get it running using the "R34" base map in the Link, using the timing light on it it looked like the timing was way way out so I swapped to the CAS from the R30, still didn't have any luck with that so I swapped to the RB20DET 440CC injector map. Set everything else up again this morning and tried again, still no luck. I originally though it was too lean so I richened it up a bit, turns out it was too rich so I just made it worse hah. Two injectors looked like they weren't working, did the old tap the battery charger straight on it them + brake clean + air gun and managed to get them both clicking again.

So, reduced the injector timing as far as I could then had to lean out the fuel table quite a bit too, got it running and managed to lose probably 1.5L of my brand new oil through a broken hose on the oil pressure gauge that I didn't notice earlier, opps! Amazing how much oil can come out of such a small hole in a short space of time.

It goes so now the new thing to do is finish the cooling system so I can run it for longer.

[DJZ]

Quick little video of it running.

It sounds like a tractor 'cause the exhaust is only tacked together atm.

[DJZ]

Got some new wheels, finally

Yeah, nah.

After weeks and weeks of looking and dealing with dickheads I finally have some BBS LMs. Plan at the moment is to take all the centres out and move them to the inside of the rims, put the 9" wide back wheels on the front with 20mm spacers, have the fronts machined off the 7.5" front wheels and have new outers made converting them to 3 piece and somewhere around 10" to 10.5" wide. I should end up with about 3" inches of dish I think. Turn around is 4 - 6 weeks. I'm tossing up whether to repaint the centres, I'll have to try them as is and see if I like it, I was thinking maybe a gun metal type colour or maybe just black.

I think within the next couple of weeks I'll have it tuned and by the time the wheels are finished I should be ready to roll it in for cert. The cooling system is now all hooked up and filled with water, no leaks which is good! Exhaust system is finished apart from the wastegate pipe, I can't be assed doing this myself so I'm going to get Uniweld in Sockburn to do it, they've been very helpful, cheap and fast doing other bits and pieces for me so far.

The left hand lower control arm has been modified to match the right and the suspension is all bolted in tight now, I still have to put the brakes on and finish off the radius rod for the left hand side.

The intercooler needs to have some tabs welded on to the bottom of it, after that's done it'll be ready to be bolted it. The list of things I need to get done is getting smaller and smaller.

[DJZ]

Wheels showed up today so I quickly pulled two of them apart and moved the centres then tried them on the car.

They don't actually look too bad with 25mm spacers from and rear.

7.5"s on the front, 9"s on the back with spacers

Would prefer this much dish on the front

Rather than this

9"s on the front showing how much they stick out with 25mm spacers, tread is well within the guards and would be even more if I swap the 235s onto the 9"s instead of the 255s.

[DJZ]

Had a bit of a play with one of the 7.5"s on the back with no spacer

That line is a piece of wire with a wheel spacer attached to act as a plumb bob, measuring between that and the mounting face on the front of the wheel is about 95mm, that's 4" of dish I can get away with. Measuring from that front mounting face to the back of the wheel is approx 180mm, so 180 + 100 = 280/25.4 = 11" wide rear wheels. And there is actually still room for about another 1/2" before the inside of the wheel hits the control arm.

[DJZ]

Sent the wheels away yesterday and Gavin got them today, he's told me that he has a set of 5" bands in stock which would make the wheels 11" wide (12" overall). These would be pretty sweet but will stick out 1" from the guards, if I move the centres back to the front of the wheel they'll stick out approx 10mm but I run the risk of the wheel hitting the control arm.

I've asked him what the price difference will be between getting the 5" ones and getting 4" ones made up. Might just end up buying both and keep the 5"s for another day.

Intercooler is pretty much mounted and the intercooler piping is done. The power steering is all hooked up and seems to be working. Suspension is 95% done, I need to drill out the holes in the control arm for the radius rod which I forgot about, might mean having to remove the arm again which is a bit of a pain.

I've been having a bit of trouble with the motor running rich and very oddly at idle, had a bit of a play with it after work today and I think some of the injectors are dodgy/leaking. If you unplug number 3 then motor revs slightly higher and sounds better than with it plugged in. I'm keeping an eye out for some better/newer injectors.

[DJZ]

I managed to buy a set of 2nd hand Sard 720cc injectors for $450 with an RB fuel rail. I'll be putting the RX7 ones back on Trademe as is I think. If anybody here is interested in them let me know, two of them are probably dead but might come right with a clean.

Wheels are 2 - 3 weeks away from being finished, I've gone with 10" wide, the 5" bands just weren't going to work.

Mate bought a tig welder so I've been playing with that a bit, I've welded some brackets onto the intercooler for the oil cooler mount, I think I'm going to mount the power steering cooler off to one side behind the front bumper. I went to put the bumper on yesterday and found that the mounts have nearly broken off it so my mate is giving me a fibreglass repair kit and I'll put some strips of aluminium in there to try and strengthen it up a bit, running over my bumper if they broke off would make me pretty angry.

Drilled the two radius rod mount bolt holes in the control arm with a right angle drill, I'm going to get some cap screws to mount them with as the bolt heads are just a bit too big to get a socket on nicely.

New injectors are in, car starts and runs which is good.

Power steering reservoir mounted, you can see the blow off valve in there too

Front brakes on

Oil cooler mounting tabs

Oil cooler mounted - top only so far

Trying to fix the broken front bumper mounts with some aluminium with fibreglass over it, we'll see if it holds together

[DJZ]

Well it now moves under it's own power.

Clutch feels a little funny, it's engages right off the floor. Will have to have a look at the adjustment and give it another bleed.

Exhaust is hitting on the chassis rail, I thought the v band would be enough to keep it in place but it's not, it keeps creeping over so I'll have to put another mount in there somewhere, probably a solid mount to the block or gearbox before the flexi.

Other than that it seems to be okay, I need to put the guards, bonnet and front kit back on, I still have to make up some mounting brackets for the kit as the mounts are a lot lower than where they should be. I'll book it in for tuning on Monday for a fortnight away and try and sort out a wheel alignment over the next week or so.

There's still heaps to tidy up but it's looking good to hopefully be legal by the end of the year.

[DJZ]

Car is booked in for tuning on the 5th, I have a feeling I'm not going to be able to get it legal this year, that leaves me less than 2 weeks to get it certed before everybody closes up for the year.

Exhaust is leaking around the v band on the back of the turbo, I should have really bought the other side of the v band and a clamp when I bought the turbo. I'll replace the clamp and see if it gets any better. I've made up a "mount" for the exhaust off the block, this keeps it off the chassis rail and stopped all the knocking.

Bonnet doesn't clear the tops of the mounts on the intercooler, I had a feeling that might happen so I'll just chop them down a bit. It also looks like the oil feed for the turbo is going to hit on part of the bonnet around the vent, I think I could just chop it out and it'd be fine but I don't really want to cut up my goodish black bonnet so I'll dig my slightly rooted turbo bonnet out and try and fix that up. I have just bought a mold to make fibreglass bonnets but I won't have time to learn how to make one in time.

Front kit feels a lot better with the extra fibreglass in there. I've slotted the bumper mounting brackets so they have heaps of adjustment now. I need to make up a couple of plates to mount the bumper onto, I'll try and get that done tomorrow so the body will be pretty much back together.

I drove the car far enough forward to get to the left hand back corner so I put the last coilover in, figured out a better way of doing it which is what I should have done on the other side before making a mess of it.