Series 1 Update

[CDL1542 12]

It's been a while since I've posted back on the forum but I wanted to check back in and show some progress of my 11/70 240z. I bought the car about 3 years ago and have done quite a bit of work on it since. I wanted to build a mostly period correct Japanese influenced race car for street use. It's in it's final stages now and I know it might not be some of the purists cup of tea but I know some of you may enjoy it and some of the rare bits and pieces I've compiled together. A lot of time, effort, money and blood and sweat has gone into it so far.

This is how the car started, a mostly stock series 1 car with dealer option seat covers and wheels, blown out struts, unreliably dangerous brakes that probably hadn't been touched since 1970 and a tired L24. Still a beauty but needed quite a bit of work.

 

Not a bad place to begin, but over the past 3 years I've slowly transformed it into what I thought the car should have been from the start. Not all of the pictures reflect the current status of the car but I'll post some more when I can. Interior is complete with Competition Bucket seats, T3 harness bar mount with a quick release extinguisher, Watanabe Falcon Steering wheel, Skyline shift knob, new door panels, Z embroidered carpet, rally clock, and some other bits and pieces including a radio delete panel with an AFR gauge cutoff switch and some switches. Also have a competition mirror in there and some other neat bits like a works bell QR.

 

 

 

Exterior has gotten a refresh. I chose to keep the number rounds and get rid of the other vinyl that was on there. Straightened the black line along the door as well. Went with flares, a 432 spoiler, air dam and external oil cooler. Wheels are staggered 16x9.5 255/55/r16 rear and a 16x9 225/50/r16 on T3 coilover suspension. Brakes are totally redone with the silvermine stage 3 front and silvermine stage 4 rear (toyota 4 piston and mustang gt) with classictube stainless brake lines, 280z booster and wilwood 1" with wilwood proportioning valve. (ride height is a little high to help get a jack under the air dam. I also went with the zstory exhaust with the over under 432 style exhaust. Went with fender mirrors and note the sport corner sticker and other little bits and pieces!

 

As for the engine, I swapped in a 3.1L stroker with some datsun competition mikuni phh44's. SK intake manifold with OER linkages, Zstory exhaust, Datsun spirit heat shield, JDM big Nissan Valve cover, mishimoto radiator and a bunch of other goodies both performance and dress up. Again, pictures are a little old but give you a good idea.

 

Car's almost done and back on the road after quite a long time, but will get some better and more updated pictures when it is. Here's a side project of mine at the moment for "the next car": Competition 44's on a FET manifold paired with a Kakimoto 3100 cover and technical garage Ti stacks with some OER linkages.

[JSM 211]

Nice!  Someone has been spending money over the last 3 years!

[rturbo 930 73]

I like everything but the flares. I hate to say it, but they look like they're not mounted right. Given how clean the car was before I think it would have been better to just leave those off.

Where'd you get the rear view mirror?

[CDL1542 12]

7 minutes ago, rturbo 930 said:

I like everything but the flares. I hate to say it, but they look like they're not mounted right. Given how clean the car was before I think it would have been better to just leave those off.

Where'd you get the rear view mirror?

Flares were never a plan for the car. I went through a set of wheels before this that were just a little too wide and a little too big that rubbed and hit the fender and cracked it good so I decided to go with flares. Since that first set of wheels I'm on a different wider and bigger set now. I have the front end of the car jacked up just a bit high to get a jack under the air dam easily but can lower it down a bit for a closer fit with the front and rear ones. It's on coilovers but has room to go lower. Being in and out of the garage, I have it at a height where I can work on it and get a jack under easily.

 

Mirror is from yahoo japan like most of the rare bits and pieces!

Edited December 14, 2017 by CDL1542
Mirror

[Jaymanbikes 152]

Awesome work!! I love the look of the competition seats. I have seen some in Asia that would cost approx 1k. Would you mind sharing your source for the seats? I’ve never actually sat in one of them so I wonder how they feel and how my frame would fit into them. I have factory seats with new foam and they are really uncomfortable as they are so hard.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

 

[grannyknot 1,826 2 Vehicles]

Beautiful, lots of goodies.  You can keep the nose of the car lowered if you turn the wheels full R or L, there is usually enough room to slide the jack in the gap between the tire and the air dam. That must have hurt to cut into good metal for those fender flares, it's a great look and I have thought about it many times but just can't bring myself to do it, no going back.

This is stunning, I'll bet that took some patience and a few dollars to assemble, well done.

[Patcon 1,928]

My favorite part is the glove box...

[moelk 323]

I need a harness bar like that. Does it mount in the existing holes behind the panels?

And that mirror has been tempting me for awhile. Is it of good quality? I know it's quite expensive.

[esmit208 88]

12 hours ago, CDL1542 said:

Flares were never a plan for the car. I went through a set of wheels before this that were just a little too wide and a little too big that rubbed and hit the fender and cracked it good so I decided to go with flares. Since that first set of wheels I'm on a different wider and bigger set now. I have the front end of the car jacked up just a bit high to get a jack under the air dam easily but can lower it down a bit for a closer fit with the front and rear ones. It's on coilovers but has room to go lower. Being in and out of the garage, I have it at a height where I can work on it and get a jack under easily.

 

Mirror is from yahoo japan like most of the rare bits and pieces!

Not a big flare person either. The performance goodies are nice though. I just prefer the wheels to be underneath the car. I had to learn that lesson the hard way also with the first set of tires I installed. Nice job though. What does it sound like?

[gundee 214 1 Vehicles]

Not a fan of these bolt on plastic flares or their design. All the ones I see look as though they were made for a different car

and a person screwed them on to a 240Z. Also, I too could never cut my fenders.

I like all your other work. I see a lot of money there for sure.

[esmit208 88]

30 minutes ago, Lumens said:

Not a fan of these bolt on plastic flares or their design. All the ones I see look as though they were made for a different car

and a person screwed them on to a 240Z. Also, I too could never cut my fenders.

I like all your other work. I see a lot of money there for sure.

I would probably like them more if they were at least %75 less area and made to look smooth and contoured to the rest of the car. Not knocking them but aesthetically........not a big fan

[CDL1542 12]

14 hours ago, Jaymanbikes said:

Awesome work!! I love the look of the competition seats. I have seen some in Asia that would cost approx 1k. Would you mind sharing your source for the seats? I’ve never actually sat in one of them so I wonder how they feel and how my frame would fit into them. I have factory seats with new foam and they are really uncomfortable as they are so hard.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

 

The competition seats are the ones that Kameari produced a while back. I would advise to stay away from the cheap ones just because they're a safety issue. These ones weren't too cheap but they're prety small. If you have greater than a 36 pant size you're out of luck. As far as comfort goes, for bucket seats they're nice and I like them but the high sides make it difficult to get in and out of the car without a quick release on the steering wheel.

5 hours ago, grannyknot said:

Beautiful, lots of goodies.  You can keep the nose of the car lowered if you turn the wheels full R or L, there is usually enough room to slide the jack in the gap between the tire and the air dam. That must have hurt to cut into good metal for those fender flares, it's a great look and I have thought about it many times but just can't bring myself to do it, no going back.

This is stunning, I'll bet that took some patience and a few dollars to assemble, well done.

That's a good call, will have to try that with the jack. Should help make things a bit easier.

4 hours ago, Patcon said:

My favorite part is the glove box...

I have to confess that while I've been looking for a signed one for 3 years I haven't had any luck. It's a vinyl sticker someone had made up. I do have a few things signed by Mr. K like his book and a couple diecast 1:43 cars though.

3 hours ago, moelk said:

I need a harness bar like that. Does it mount in the existing holes behind the panels?

And that mirror has been tempting me for awhile. Is it of good quality? I know it's quite expensive.

The harness bar mounts to the existing holes above the quarter window where the seat belt mount is as well as on the floor where the stock seat belt anchors. I have nothing but good things to say about technotoytuning products. All of their stuff is top notch.

2 hours ago, esmit208 said:

Not a big flare person either. The performance goodies are nice though. I just prefer the wheels to be underneath the car. I had to learn that lesson the hard way also with the first set of tires I installed. Nice job though. What does it sound like?

I'll get an updated clip for you when I get my carbs back. Just had the set on the car restored and rebuilt. 

1 hour ago, Lumens said:

Not a fan of these bolt on plastic flares or their design. All the ones I see look as though they were made for a different car

and a person screwed them on to a 240Z. Also, I too could never cut my fenders.

I like all your other work. I see a lot of money there for sure.

To each his own. The flares are actually fiberglass and they're ZG flares commonly found on gnose fairlady z's. Ride height is a little high for ease of work and I had to cut the fenders after breaking one open but hey, not trying to convince you to cut your fenders. Check out this fnose fairlady z.

 

 

48 minutes ago, esmit208 said:

I would probably like them more if they were at least %75 less area and made to look smooth and contoured to the rest of the car. Not knocking them but aesthetically........not a big fan

The coil overs are a little high because I've been working on the car. Angle of the pictures is a little low too but I'll have to drop it down and take some new pictures. I have a set of Marugen ZG wide style flares that I was thinking about having painted and putting on. They extend downwards a little more and would tuck the wheels in a little but we'll see.

[Mark Maras 1,121]

Curious how one cracks a fender unless it's fiberglass or worse Bondo. 

[CDL1542 12]

3 minutes ago, Mark Maras said:

Curious how one cracks a fender unless it's fiberglass or worse Bondo. 

My first set of watanabe wheels were 16x8 rears on 225/45 and I had to use spacers for positive offset. Combine that with them sticking out past the fender, blown struts and NJ potholes on a cold day(very very big pothole) and you get a wheel hitting the fender pretty hard with nothing to push it back. I should have known better but it happened. Cut the fenders back for flares and welded them shut since.

[rturbo 930 73]

With regards to styling, I could go either way on the flares, but execution is critical if you want them to look good. Many don't. Part of it is the quality of the flare. The one sold by MSA, Classic Datsun, etc., are all a copy of a copy of a copy etc., and the exact fitment and shape of the original has been lost. The result is a poor product. To my knowledge, the best ZG flare available is made by Marugen Shokai in Japan. They are direct copies of the original, and are said to fit very well by those on these boards who have bought them. The other part of it is the installation. In this particular case, it looks as thought the rear flares should be rotated slightly toward the ground using the front of the flare by the dogleg as the pivot point of the rotation. If you look at the close up shot of the rear wheel and flare, you can see that the gap at about the 2 o clock position is much larger than anywhere on the forward half of the flare. This may be partly to do with the flare itself as well. On the Gnose Z example posted above, the flare shape is uniform, and the gap is pretty even all the way around.

Regarding ride height, I have the same problem getting a jack under my E30, but I just roll it onto some 2x4s before I work on it.

Not trying to knock your car or your work, CDL, but I think the overall finished product would benefit greatly if you improved the fitment of the flares.

Edited December 14, 2017 by rturbo 930

[JSM 211]

Flares are dead sexy when done right.  I think once you lower it, it will look better.

Edited December 15, 2017 by JSM