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I thought this was impressive. The 'Main Street America' car show sponsored by the Corvette Owners Club of San Diego was held last weekend at Sea Port Village. Probably close to 300 cars there. Taking first place in the 60-70's modified class was this 240Z. Yes, he was in the same group as the Vette's, Camaro's and Mustangs. Incredible. I had my roadster at this show about 5 years ago and it was pretty much ignored as it is primarily an American car show. Nice to see the Z's getting some attention. Pics below are from cars final build at Miguel's shop, paint by Miguel of course.

My restoration is finally finished. Now sitting in the show room at Robert's Automotive in Springfield, Illinois. 1981 280ZX Grand Luxury Edition, Manufactured September 1980. I drove it off the car lot on January 12, 1981. Features: Engine rebuild, original paint, original carpet and seats, re-upolstered interior and headliner, re-plated cadmium engine parts and restored wheels. I haven't driven it for almost 24 years. Original miles 25,536 and I have all documentation to back that up. I paid the ultimate price for NOT driving it - an entire engine rebuild. Everything works except the status display in the center of the instrument cluster. (See photo) Need to figure how to trouble shoot the status display. Needless to say I'm excited. I will be able to take it home before the end of next week. Still needs to have the air conditioning system re-charged.

I don't know Cliff, that's going to make you sound... respectable. Do you think you can pull it off?

@kats Yes Please. I can offer payment for your troubles to have the film digitized. I think the Z Community would be better for this! You are such a great researcher and source of information! BIG THANKS!

Heavy on the idiot... id·i·ot sa·vant noun a person who has a mental or learning disability but is extremely gifted in a particular way, such as the performing of feats of memory or calculation.

I am a bad boy. Have not updated this thread for far too long. Shame shame. I'm nearing the end of the voyage. It has been frought with problems, big surprise, but the car is now running well enough to get it to my friends shop for a dyno tune next week. Plan on taking it to Vancouver for their All Japanese show on the 25th. You'll have to be satisfied with a few pictures for now.

Hello all!! As some will remember, I was working on a drop in replacement ECU for our Z's & had to take a hiatus when my daughter was born. This week she started kindergarten (my how time flies when you have young ones underfoot). Last month I began un-mothballing the project and gearing up to finish. Apologies of course for the delay, but rest assured I haven't forgot about this. The status when I paused was this: 1 - The prototype board came up nicely and I was driving my car around using 100% stock L-Jet components (save for the HellFire ECU of course)....poorly tuned at best & no enrichment code was in place which caused some stumbling when I floored it. This was expected & I didn't care, I was all smiles that it worked as well as it did. 2 - The primary GUI functionality is present, but has a *LOT* of debug screens and added test buttons here and there. It's quite cluttered as I continue to test/debug, but will be getting cleaned up as I progress. The GUI does look good and I'm mostly happy with the interface. Still quite a bit of legwork to make this clean and presentable. The communication with the ECU has been rock solid & realtime data is sent continuously to the pc to see while the engine is running. Firmware update via the Laptop needs to be finished. 3 - 20 ECU boards are assembled & just need programming to production firmware. 4 - Sensors (Primarily the pain the arse AFM) still need to be calibrated & the tables loaded with qualified data. Currently I have data that is *close* but can be better. I built a flow bench to calibrate the AFMS. I have about 20 or so AFMs from various years to play with. It will be interesting to see how they have aged. I'm guessing poorly. 🙂 The flowbench still needs some attention & will be the first on the list to work on. 5 - I need to qualify/test the stock injectors to characterize their average opening time and flow rates. I have some stock numbers in the tables now that work, but they can be improved. 6 - Various tuning tables need to be added, (acceleration, cold start, other enrichments) 7 - Then I need to tune it of course to the stock engine. I have one bone stock 77 engine and another that is bone stock plus the addition of a mild cam. I have a wideband O2 on the engine that I will use to assist with tuning. I keep wanting to build a dyno as well, but sanity so far has kept me from running down that rabbit hole. It feels good to be back on the project & I'm excited to make some headway. I'll post some progress pics on the flowbench and AFM results when they are available, and feel free to pester, prod, poke, or ask questions about the project. Len Here's a link to the last thread:

Waking up and older thread, but I wanted to say thanks guys! I really appreciate the kind words. I had some SERIOUS health issues that came to a head shortly after the 2011 convention and have been gaining steam since. The story of the coins is this, I asked Karen Roeder to design a logo that would work on a banner and a coin. I gave her minimal requests, and she knocked everything out of the park! I had 350 gold plated and engraved coins made for three Uses, 1) As a thank you and to show my appreciation for my local crew(coins 1-20) the next set was as part of the award for the Car Show,and the last set was made up with the model name of the cars(S30, 240Z 260Z, 280Z S130, 280ZX, Z31 300Z, Z32, 300zx...) to sell in the auction. I had extras after the convention, and I started selling off my 35 years of collected NOS parts, I thought, why not share them with enthusiasts, so when someone bought something indicative of a proper restoration I put one in the package...if I sold something oversees, I put one in the package...I still have a few left, and I have been considering what to replace them with as I ramp up to selling off the last of my parts, and a few surprise pieces... I kept 3 coins for me #1 and I had one made with HLS30, and one with Z32C for me. Yes, I am ZconSavannah GA on Facebook, and will be posting more here in the coming months!

Surely you're kidding?

Hi Blue , the mono color 240Z picture was given from Mr. Yoshida when I met him and interviewed him . The picture is a big , like 200mm x 300mm . And the other pictures are printed from a set of slide film maintenance of Datsun 240Z which I bought a long time ago . In this case , is this a set of slide film belonged to Nissan , or an individual who owns it ? Anyway I have more 6 reels of film which are still in the wrapping . If someone want to see it and I maybe open them and print by a photo shop . Kats

Ok I am really starting to believe I did in fact jump the gun on my motor, I went through everything while it was apart and all I could find is a small leak on the exhaust valves for 5 & 6, just like you said @Mark Maras. I did a quick lapping on them and it stopped the leak. I then cleaned the head up and put it all back together. It now runs great and the oil pressure is right where it should be. Nothing wrong with the carbs as well so if in fact it just decided to run really rich for a while I have no idea what caused it.

It's an art to be able to apply bondo so thick. He was probably a pastry chef in another life. That car is going to be quite a few kilos lighter when you a finished. Car is looking good and coming along nicely.

Beautiful car, extremely well done. Congrats - now, drive the damn thing and get some long past due enjoyment out of it.

Only 77-78 windows work. The entire window, regulator and guide tracks are different for these years than earlier ones. I have a couple of spares if worst comes to worst if you can't find any closer.

Hemmings Article SCARAB - - https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2019/08/16/scarab-reunion-creator-brian-morrow-reunited-with-the-first-scarab-a-car-he-sold-to-save-his-company/?refer=news&utm_source=edaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2019-08-16 Carl B.

So the old Z sent the vettes home? Great. I have been waiting on this day for 40 years.

I will do if Blue promises he doesn’t forget where he picks up those pictures 😁 It must be cheap to digitized . I love both , and I need both to enjoy my life . Z was first I fell in love. But now I can’t figure which comes first. Kats

I can't help but wonder whether this situation would respond better to big heat and big torque. As in, welding a nut onto the top of the stud and then putting a wrench on it. IIRC, @grannyknottalked about this in another thread a couple of years ago when the topic was extracting a snapped-off manifold stud out of the cylinder head. Something about the merits of using an oxyacetylene torch rather than a MIG? The difference here is that we have a large-diameter stud (bolt shank) that's seized inside a cast-iron engine block (vs. a small-diameter stud seized inside an aluminum head). Whereas it's the galvanic action of dissimilar materials that typically creates problems with steel fasteners getting stuck in alloy castings, for a head bolt it's steel-in-iron so I would think that the causes for the locked threads would be simple air (oxygen)-generated corrosion (unless the block has a micro-crack and coolant (water) has leached into the stud threads -- but let's not talk about that). In my (limited) experience of removing cylinder heads from high-mileage L24's, the head bolts take a lot of torque to break free and some of them really pop when they give way. Looking at the threads after the bolts came out, they appeared 'sooty' but not really crusty-rusty. I think that part of the problem with these head bolts getting stuck in the block is that they were installed at the factory without any lubrication so as to get accurate torque readings during tightening. Having said all that, I will repeat another story that I wrote about previously. In my area of the world (on the fringes of a 7-million pop. Canadian city), I discovered a contractor who provides the new-car retail industry with specialist services for extracting frozen fasteners from customer cars. That's all he does. He told me that there a certain model years for certain higher-end car brands where a key fastener (e.g. suspension mount) is chronically frozen, hard to get at, and often snaps off during attempted removal. That's where he makes his money. I hired him to get the snapped-off studs out of my Z's cylinder head (still mounted on the engine, in the car) and it was one of the best $120 I ever spent. He came to my house, rolled a tool caddy out of his truck, sized things up, and had the job done (without using any heat) in 10 minutes tops. Cheating? Maybe. Depends on your threshold for potentially-painful outcomes. You might consider looking for a comparable specialist in your area. The service managers at your local Benz, BMW, Audi and Volvo dealers might be able to help you find one.

Yellow tape on NOS front turn/parking light sub harness. PIX 2 From left-NOS fuse link for early 240, NOS late 240 fuse link and finally the Banzai Motorworks reproduction

So after seeing what happened to my cam oiler tube, and talking to another Z owner who had the same problem with major results. The front tube fell out and got caught in the timing chain. Trashed the bottom gear and of course bent a bunch of valves. So I decided to try to come up with a way to stop the tubes from fall down into the lower engine if they failed and am trying this to see it helps.

Well someone in 2017 did a pretty well designed study on 10 of these new fangled high ZDDP oils intended for old classic cars such as ours. I know we have discussed this in the past, don't remember if we referenced this study before. My apologies if so. Results were surprising to the author. Hopefully it will shed light on the current "hype" on this topic and perhaps result in fewer scarred cams and rockers around these parts. https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=!AHKKfKJ3E11RU1E&cid=FD59A041A3808BD5&id=FD59A041A3808BD5!1416&parId=FD59A041A3808BD5!207&o=OneUp Note: This contribution originally posted by a well known Z owner, Chickenman, on the510realm. http://www.the510realm.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=31832

Rebuilt engines need the zddp protection more if anything. Older engines I think may have a degree protection from work hardening.

Thanks for the input. It does have the ability to datalog. I haven't done that, yet. I still need to change the fuel filter. I can't remember if I changed it when I did the bumper swap. If I didn't, it's been on there a while. Then I can do the datalogging. After that, I can send the info off to Affordable Fuel Injection for a different map.

What a great shot. I've never forgotten the first time I walked through a full size bamboo grove in Japan. That noise in the wind. Extraordinary! I like your 'Kari' plate too.

A very unusual problem but you found it. Good work and it should help others who rebuild their carbs. For heat issues in hot regions, I read that some people took thermos bottles of cold water to pour on the fuel pump back in the 1970's

I'm also working on car #503 right now. This car is in absolutely amazing condition. It's is the most original rust-free car I've seen and I've worked on hundreds of them. Unfortunately, it had a repaint many years ago that is not holding up so I'm getting the car ready to go to paint. This car is in such original condition, except for some hoses and hose clamps, I thought I would post it in case someone was restoring one and needs to see any original details. I'd be glad to post any pictures. This car even has the original water pump.

Yes, it's an amazing car. Here's a couple of photos of the jack that you asked for.

A fellow on FB (Mark Shep) just posted a quick article about how he replace his choke cable sheath and core wire. He showed poictures of what he had done and he gave us the URL of the company he found that supplied the wire and sheath. Just had a quick look, seems that have quite a bit of inventory. Should be useful to use in the future. http://www.controlcables.com/ He measured the stock sheath and told them what he needed and they set him up, so we don't have specific part numbers but now we have another vendor to somehow remember.

Looks like I got lucky. After cleaning many electrical connections, along with fiddling with vacuum hose line connections, i have got the car running pretty good. over the last three days, ive put a few hours of driving around the neighborhood and cant get it to die. Still experiencing a slight skip under heavy heavy acceleration, but i am glad it is much better than it was. Now its time to pack up and head to college, returning to the project over winter break. thank you all for the help

I agree. My COP rail is the third version and the orientation of the plugs for the connectors was a consideration. In the end, I still feel there is quite a bit of room though.

I installed the barrel clips on the posts of my metal B pillar emblems and push them on without adhesive. They went in great. Then I put the barrel clips on the posts for the rear hatch and hood emblems. They went on just as easily although I had to press them in a bit harder. They were plastic. No adhesives. I haven't installed the front fender emblems yet but I don't expect any problems regardless of outdoor weather conditions.

The one in 503 was the original. Brad used it as the reference for the reproductions he had made. Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk

What is torn up about it? Do you think the cap won't fit correctly? If it's solid in the hole, the clip fits the cap on the inside. The outside of the yoke can be pretty ugly with no ill effect. It's the inside surface that really matters. I think that Terrapin Z might have some but he is in Washington state. Pretty sure that the R200 halfshaft parts will work fine also, doesn't need to be from an R180. @Terrapin Z

All 280s were 75 and 76 it appeared. I have the same sloped rear area on my 77. I narrowly escaped heat exhaustion and a snake bite. Did get from the 2 40z a horn button, gas cap, rear tail light valances and license plate light. I couldn’t take the heat anymore and didn’t have water like an idiot. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quite possibly the best in the WORLD!!

Don't call me Shirley! Sorry, I tried to resist. But it's hot here and I'm not making good decisions. Dennis

Damn- id have my 10mm working overtime

LOL. Cliff in a library? This is what I picture:

Here is the detail , this figure is for the Fairlady series but also it is applicable for the cars which use same part numbers on the coil springs . I can’t find this type of figure in the books of export models , do you see it in some where? Kats

Now that it is back together, I was warming up the engine to see if any tune adjustments were needed. After I got out the timing light and a few tools I figure that should be warm enough. I start to check carb balance and I say to myself, doesn't seem hot enough yet. Why is it taking so long? I look inside and the temp gauge reads 1/2 so Its good. As it turns out the ceramic coated headers really do contain a lot of the heat. Very noticeable compared to the old cast iron set up. Pleased to know that.

I have to commend your initiative in just diving in and taking action. Obviously you know a lot about how things work. I've found myself well down a path I wondered about taking before. If it happens again at least you'll know what it's not. Maybe.

There should be a thin metal sleeve on the plastic post on the back of the emblem, take the sleeves off the post and insert them into the holes then install the emblem into those sleeves. You can also use double stick trim tape.

I like the fuel pressure transducer. Great safety addition. BTW, I have been appropriately chastized and have updated my thread. Thanks for reminding me.

Here's a few more photos of the car it's going to the body shop tomorrow.

It's been 20+ years since I had my bumpers chromed, but the place is still in business and does much chrome work for the hot rod guys. They seem to know what car folks expect. You will want to run a die down the bumper mounting bolts to clean up the threads or you will have trouble tightening the nuts, ask me how I know. https://www.ogdenchrome.com/ They did the bumpers, grill and all other chrome on my wife's truck too.

I guess I assumed that he performed the head 'rebuild' work without removing it from the block. If not, it would indeed be hard to understand how the broken bolt wasn't spotted the first time the head was off. Of course, there's always the possibility that it was spotted (and ignored) -- or that it was broken during re-assembly (and ignored) -- and that's why the car burned 2 quarts of oil in 100 miles. For the time being, though. let's give youztheclue the benefit of the doubt and assume that the bolt was broken by someone else.

I remember when you made that fuel rail @siteunseen. Neat job.

Hey guys update on my engine, so I found out that when my engine is rebuilt, instead of the 153624 order on the dizzy cap my mechanic did backed it up with 5 on 1and has a different timing I don't know how did he position the oil pump drive shaft tang during the rebuild. That's is why I can't ever make it run with the OE set up. Was just wondering what drive shaft tang position it was in before. The mistake I made when I pulled my oil pump. Should've pulled the dizzy first and marked the tang hold it with vice grip. Well atleast I learned something.

Sorry, tried to grab a few of your items. Opened the hood and about 3 seconds later a large snake crawled out from under the car. Scared the crap out of me. I abandoned that car for the day. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk