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Eh, I don't know that I would say it feels good on the budget part ? It's a slippery slope building at this level and then you get to a certain point where you just can't cut corners. I don't intend to ever build a car to this level again to be honest. Too much time, effort and money. I tend to like to build a car I can either break even or make money on. This will have little to no chance of either. But I do enjoy the build and part of me is getting bummed out that it's getting close to being done because it has been such an amazing journey.

Now clearly I have nothing to say about lifetime of the repair. That will be seen. I have another aluminum rad from my 510 that was damaged by galvanic action. I had the electric fans grounded to the rad body, which I assumed lead to the problem. I think we discussed this before. A small portion of the bottom tank right beside the base of a few fins, like 2 inches long, 1/4 wide now leaks right through the fabric of the aluminum. You could put some water in, pressure it up with air and watch the water seep through the “solid” tank. Pretty cool if it weren’t so sad. Didn’t know how to repair that before, but now I do. Coat it with a thin film of this stuff. As with most things, if you are brave enough to try this, the repair area must be surgically clean before application. Their instructions to lightly sandblast is a great way to accomplish this. At the very least degrease then scrub with a stainless steel brush.

I think you have the first production month of the 1978 model year. 8/77 began the 1978 model. That being said I think Datsun still changed stuff in the middle of a production year. Example is the 77 production year (mine is 11/76 and it has a sloped rear deck. Some 77’s came with flat rear decks depending on the production month. See link below. https://jdm-car-parts.com/blogs/news/vin-verification-of-us-datsun-240z-260z-280z-280zx Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think i had my body shop supply create a custom mix. It looked perfect to the MSA seat covers I bought. I’ll see if I can find a partial can left, it might have the formula. I’m a huge fan of butterscotch interior on dark green cars, but when I did this pure white with blue interior it was love at first sight.

I've read the primaries on some were too large killing low end torque. Here's one I remember. https://www.zdriver.com/forums/240z-280zxt-s30-s130-tech-tips-275/headers-explained-part-1-a-17672/

Well, Peter Brock is an engineer and you argue with an engineer at your own peril. So if he says don’t do one without the other, you should listen. Pic of my front BRE for fun... it’s glassed to the valance. I have the original design rear, also glassed on.

I am having some issues with my weed wacker monofilament replacement rope, it must be binding up during retraction as it will jam up on about the last 8" or so. If I pull on it you can feel slack taken up and then is works, but not very handy. IIRC I ended up trying some pretty thick monofilament (.15 iirc) after having fails with thinner stuff. I just found on amazon some 12.5 smooth antenna rope for sale. its for power antennas so I hope it works better than weed wacker stuff (too flexible I think). Pricey at 40$ for 5 feet but that's ok if I don't have to go thru this again. I searched this thread hoping to find the correct length of the factory original but could not find it. If anyone has that handy please let me know. The antenna rope is due her in about 10 days, I will report on it when I get it.

Thanks man, my son and I went for a ride up to evergreen last night. The car rode so nice. I can't believe how good it sounds. It is like a sowing machine. It always had a pop on decel a clacking clackity from the top end. It is real smooth now and the exhaust is very strong and steady at idle. I am glad the distributor took a dump. It was worth it to have Jeff at Winter Racing/ Rallye Sport tune it. I want to give one more plug for the guy because he has helped me a bunch getting the car sorted. He is a very helpful, old school guy who has a small shop and is really good with Datsun motors. I hope to drive it without incident while stockpiling parts for a glass out repaint, dash swap, clock repair, and gauge refurb. So far I have a windshield, heater core, replacement temp/ oil gauge, and am on the list at vintage dashes. Thanks again for the help. I will be back in touch when I repaint and redo the dash. Bill

If you browse the parts catalog - http://www.carpartsmanual.com/datsun/Z-1969-1978 you'll see quite a few references to parts with effective dates of YY08, generally consistent with model year changes. Of course you'll also find any number of other effective dates as Nissan's continuous improvement process did not restrict parts updates to model years. A good example is the introduction of the 260Z with most of its changes from a 240Z effective with month 08. So... your car is likely correctly titled as a 78 due to its month 08 birthday. When buying parts its always a good idea to check the catalog to get the correct version for your build date.

When I first bought my orange 240 it ran like poo poo. Could not figure it out for the life of me. There was a black wire loose on the original points dizzy. Got that secured and it came back from the dead. Then I went to the ZX electronic distributor. Zero problems and runs better in my opinion. Cost $150 for the distributor and lower amp coil, bigger cap and button. One of the top 5 upgrades to me.

Quite the blast from the past! I've just copy/pasted the Comp header test results into the link above from the original HybridZ thread. The stock cam of the L24 did not pair well with the long-primary Comp header--it's really the length that matters for tuning, width is sized to minimize pumping losses vs weight/package/cost. Not to mention that the header was run with dual pipes with no merge collector. It wasn't the most scientific experiment because I didn't isolate just the header but it gives folks an idea of what these changes caused and why. That car was sold before more engine work was done. My current 260Z runs an L28 with the MSA 6-1 header. The header came with the car along with an MSA 2.5" premium exhaust. I had it modified for an additional resonator and "the quietest muffler you have" which ended up being a Walker Quiet-Flow. I wanted to hear all the induction noises, uninterrupted by a loud exhaust. I've since converted some Z friends who wanted to quiet their car down, to the same muffler. Here's a dyno run on poorly-tuned carbs.

Yeah, looks a little dark, but thats from a computer screen. Datsun, kind of like VW, they didnt expect for these cars to be around 50 years later.

Believe it or not, the company that manufactured the Datsun Competition Header is still around and the owner Marty Schneider is a friend. I can vouch for the quality too. I have the Datsun Comp headers on my Z and his 914 headers on my 914. Marty told me he can still build them. MSDS in the LA area...

Thanks, Jeff! I am going back over to work on it Sunday. We are trying to get the masters on, wiper motor in, pedal assembly in and the heater core so the dash can go back in. Next month it will go up to MD so that Freed engineering can build the custom one off Titanium Octopus header and full exhaust. It will be work of art and sound similar to a sport bike/F1. Ti has such a unique and exotic sound in addition to looking beautiful and saving weight. It's about time to install the Infiniti M30 rear R200 VSLD 3.91 diff along with the new S14 240sx CV axles I ordered some time in the next week. Here is the S13 240sx slim brake booster which was powdercoated, the new brake master cylinder, the freshly plated hood hardware and coolant connecting pipe as well as the freshly powdercoated coilover top plates. The green clashed with the look of the car so I had them done gunmetal. The place in Sweden has finished 5 of the 6 carbon kevlar velocity stacks so they should be on the way soon too. It's coming into the final stretch now.

no problem..maybe I stirred the pot by finding the old post lol...thanks

Cool Ill get em shipped out tomorrow. I thought the buyer of the other set was you when it sold, so maybe someone else was reading the thread here. Thanks!

Got the car back from Jeff at Rallye Sport in Westminster. It was the wiring in the distributor. While it was there he adjusted the valves, timing, dwell, ect.. It is running much better that I could have adjusted it. It was the way to go bringing it to a guy who has the touch. He has been working on these motors for a 45 years and it is running super smooth. He is a very good guy. I am very happy. Thanks again for helping me with the information. Bill

+1 on @siteunseen comments about the MSA header and Premium Exhaust package. Excellent fitment on the header, no issues when the intake manifolds are bolted up.