daddz

Carl, Had a great time meeting and speaking to everyone in person! Great to see your Z in person on both days...the Saturday afternoon was fun since the lawn was basically empty and the fog was starting to roll in for supper. Sunday morning was a completely different experience..ran out of battery for the camera and just plain exhausted from information overload. There were so many cars and stories to collect. Within minutes of walking onto the green I was standing within two feet of Bob Tullius and listening to one of his great stories involving a dog with teeth and of course race cars!

Thanks for the great pics. I just started a new federal job and was not able to attend. Just think in a few months those stalls where the cars were parked will be filled with some awesome machinery when the 2008 Rolex 24 gets underway at the end of January.

Here is a pic from two + years ago at the Rolex 24 at Daytona which is sort of fitting given that it's the site for this years ZCCA convention. A sort of two for the price of one as standing next to me is my father--the fellow repsonsible for getting me into this Z car craziness. I'll have to find the pic from 1978 when his 280Z was a brand new car. While my father's original 1978 280Z has long since been written off by the insurance company he still has an identical maroon 1977 Datsun 280Z. BTW, anyone from here plan on attending the Rolex 24 at Daytona in January 2008?

Very nice work. The Hayashi mesh wheels look great on the 240Z. Nice early production as well. Mine is an 08/70 with chassis number 08323 so they are pretty close in age.

I am sad to say that I have decided to sell my '81 280ZX. The good news is that she will hopefully end up in a good home and remain in good hands. I would love to keep her but I have amassed ten cars and with a new career beginning in a couple of weeks I will definitely not have much free time and rather than let her sit for months at a time I have decided to put her up for sale. If anyone is interested I can deliver the car in the Washington, D.C. area or in Port Saint Lucie, Florida as I will be in Florida until the 10th of September. Here is the link: http://www.classiczcars.com/classifieds/showproduct.php?product=2151&cat=1 In my signature line I have alot of pictures at my photobucket site. In addition I have to get going on the 240Z project and manage to find the time to part out the 86.1 300ZX hardtop as I have a friend that just wants the bodyshell so that he can consolidate his Turbo Z31 parts into a good rust free shell. In the meantime I can transfer all of my good parts into the 86.2 300ZX hardtop.

I am not sure what you mean by "the motor was much weaker"; in the original VQ35 the power was listed at 287hp and 274lb/ft of torque. The revised VQ35 was quoted at 300hp and 260lb/ft of torque. I would much rather have the increased torque than horsepower that can only be accessed north of 5000rpm. The VQ35HR produces 306hp and 268lb/ft of torque. Given the fact that the newer 350Z's have picked up what amounts to be a full time passenger of 150lbs. I would much rather be relegated to my '03 base model. The Z32TT had 300hp and 283lb/ft of torque and if you have never driven this animal it is very different in its power delivery. Both cars (350Z and 300ZXTT) will get to 60mph fairly quickly and they will march right up to 150mph without too much trouble. I had the chance to drive a Z32TT from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. and it was very competent car and being that it was a 1996 model it was very healthy when I dorve it and I think it only had about 30k on it. The power delivery of the stock twin turbo is very subdued. You can sense the turbo lag and once you get north of 80mph it is on tap at an instant. The 350Z which was driven back to back as it was the chase vehicle is more accessible in my opinion. In order to access the power just tip the throttle and away you go. I don't much care for the electronic throttle as there is no mechanical cable connecting the accelerator pedal to the throttle body. I can sense a very slight delay. It depends upon what you like. I have also driven a friend's Z31 Turbo and it has been modified so heavily it no longer drives anything like a stock model. It has been through the 1/4 mile in under 12 seconds and it is a hairy beast. If you like the power delivery of a Turbo then his car is the way to go. At a certain point the car explodes with acceleration (about 3500rpm) and at that point you almost cannot shift fast enough to keep the power delivery coming. His car also runs out of steam mostly due to the ignition system. His engine is not done making power at 7500rpm's. If he had a better ignition system that VG30ET would keep making power north of 8000rpm's.

Before anymore bad information gets circulated lets look at what the GVWR or Gross Vehicle Weight Rating is and why just looking at some doorjamb will give you bad information: "is the maximum allowable total weight of a road vehicle or trailer that is loaded, including the weight of the vehicle itself plus fuel, passengers, cargo, and trailer tongue weight" and in addition: "Gross weight is often confused with curb weight, which represents the weight of the vehicle with no passengers or cargo. The difference between gross weight and curb weight is the total passenger and cargo weight capacity of the vehicle. For example, a pickup truck with a curb weight of 2000 pounds might have a cargo capacity of 3000 pounds, meaning it can have a gross weight of 5000 pounds when fully loaded" Unless you go and have your car weighed you will have to rely on published numbers of Curb Weight by the manufacturers or in period road tests. Having said all of that the 1978 280Z was listed at 2780lbs. by Car & Driver in one its road tests. In 1979 the 280ZX in Standard or Deluxe trim (manual windows, no power steering, and so on much like my '81 280ZX with its R180 3.54:1 rear end installed by the factory) would have weighed about 45lbs. more in the Car & Driver road test from that time.

Good call Fred. I was just looking at the quoted weights for the '03 through '06 350Z's in various trim levels and what I could not believe is that my '03 base model was quoted as 3188lbs. and the '06 equivalent was listed at a bit over 3300lbs. I knew my 350Z was a heavy pig but where is the extra weight coming from? BTW, some of these automotive journalists thirty years ago would not have liked the 240Z either because it was Japanese and now that it is considered a "classic" all subsequent Z cars don't mean anything.

Here's my youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/daddsun and this is one I recently discovered from when I was quite a bit younger and back when I had a much higher tolerance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhC0231FRA8