I currently own a '79 280zx that's in pretty good condition w/ no mods as of yet. Right now I have it parked because I am doing some minor work on it, since I don't drive it in the winter. I was wondering if anybody has some advice or tips on getting more power out the stock engine. Success stories perhaps? I was originally considering doing an engine swap, but after doing some research on it I feel that it would be too much work and time consuming. I would appreciate any feedback.

The basics are here:

http://www.geocities.com/zgarage2001/z.html

A lot of this is aimed at 240Z's (with carbs), but if you ignore the carb sections and keep your injection, all the rest is still applicable.

I have a 1972 numbers matching 240Z, I'd like to keep it that way. However, the previous owner put in a Motorsport Auto 5 speed, a 4.11 R180, and some other minor mods, so what I want to do is a "resto-mod". Essentially, I want to keep it as original as possible (same engine, etc.).

I see that Rebello has a nice 2.7L increased stroke motor using your original 240Z block to keep the numbers matching. I suspect that this will run $3000+, which is more than I'd like to spend.

Bryan Little's Z Car Garage is an awesome site and clearly shows that a backyard mechanic can extract some nice HP with little $$. My Z has 148,000 miles on it, so I want to do a rebuild, but I would like a little more power. I know milling the head has magical powers on a Z, but does anyone else know of other tricks I could do while maintaining the original block/head combo?

Rich