fatones

I scored mine for $350 in a junkyard. The body was in great condition only dent was in the pass side dogleg. That has already been cut out and replaced from my donor car. Since I've brought it home last Thanksgiving I have put almost 5000 into suspension, sandblasting, paint, tools and a 82 L28 Turbo engine. I still have about three thousand dollars worth of parts to get to make it driveable again. Hopefully I will at least be able to drive it around the block in a few weeks. Very frustrating investing all that money into something that you've never driven.

Wish I had that when I chose the paint for my car. Nice

I just finished removing the undercoating on my 240. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. First I used a torch and a two inch scraper to get through the undercoating. Then I bought a suction blaster made by campbell hausefield to bring it down to bare metal. For media I just used a five gallon bucket filed with 30 grit silica from home depot. Five bucks for a 100 pound bag. It only cost me about 80 bucks for the job. I also used a quality respirator since the dust is supposed to be very bad for you. Looks pretty good when you put the POR-15 back on to seal it. Fatones

Thanks 2many for the confirmation. I wanted to make sure that they didn't have to be a certain way before I started to get rough with the suspension components. From what I've been reading the urethane kit can be a beast to install. Laters Fatones

Sorry put this in the wrong place. Was supposed to go to the suspension thread.:stupid: I'm going to bed now! have a good one.

Hi everyone, This is a really stupid question that I have. Which way do the control arms go on the car? I stripped my Z to the shell and am now in the process of sand blasting, painting, and finally putting everything back on. While I was installing the new urethane bushings I noticed that the control arms had a swept back look to them. So I looked on my parts car and it looked like they sweep back to the rear of the car. So I installed the control arms and bolted the strut/spring assembly to the frame. The problem I run into is the tension rod looks like it doesn't line up correctly with the control arm. So I was just wondering if I have the control arms installed backwards? Yes I checked the bushings and the thicker one is on the rear side. Also I checked the MSA book and it seems that they have the left/right listed as different part numbers. So am I totally goofy for noticing this or what? Thanks for your input! Fatones

Zmefly is correct. If you have a 3 inch Mandrel bent exhaust it will help the turbo spool up faster since there will be less back pressure. When you boost your engine you have to take on a whole new concept for making power. If I were going to a turbo engine in the future, I'd save my money for the engine swap and all the goodies. Otherwise you'd be throwing your money at something that wouldn't help you out later on. Laters Fatones

I just had my whole car done by a guy that uses plastic media and glass beads. The plastic media was used for the outer skin and thinner metal since the platic is less prone to warping the metal. Also another thing he told me was the plastic media removed undercoating much better than the glass beads. I thought he was crazy until he demonstrated this in his shop. The glass beads seemed to deflect off of the rubber while the plastic penetrated and took it right off. For the areas like the door jams and firewall he used the glass beads to etch the metal. Then all I had to do was wipe the surface down and shoot it with DP90LF epoxy primer. For the skin I just used my DA with 80 grit to get the primer to stick. I am hooked on sand blasting, it's so much easier! Fatones

I just ordered a suspension kit from TEP a couple of weeks ago. Everything worked out great. They definately have some nice performance upgrades. The only dissapointing thing was the package didn't arrive soon enough. All was forgotten the day UPS finally arrived! The engine overhaul kit they offer is definately a great setup. Get that kit with the proper machine work and you'll be smokin. I was going to go that route before I got a great deal on a 82 turbo. Good luck

I was reading about pros and cons of forged pistons, and it said that to run a forged piston you must allow for the expansion of the piston as the engine warms up to operating temperature. So this means a larger piston to cylinder clearance that initially will wear on the cylinder more since it will take a little while for operating tolerences to expand to normal. Does anybody know the life expectancy of a forged piston engine versus a cast piston engine? I'm sure it will be less, but I've never heard exactly what to expect. Also anyone ever see hypereutic pistons for a Z? Thanks Fatones

I ordered the kit from TEP yesterday, and they said it should be here next week. If it's any good or not only time will tell. I still have to build the rest of the car before I finally get to drive it. Yeah as far as upgrades to a street car this is about all the upgrading that I'll do. I'll save the camber plates and coil overs for the full out race cars. All of that adjustment isn't going to get me to work any quicker. After I put it all together I'll post a review on how it fit together. Hopefully I don't have the horror story of "I had to modify the springs to get them to fit". Thanks everyone for your replies. Fatones

Hi Frank, No this kit is listed as a street suspension upgrade. It includes lowering springs, Tokico inserts, urethane bushings and the thick sway bars. I've been reading the forum, and nobody has mentioned anything about tep. I think I'm going to give it a try and see how everything turns out. Thanks for your input, TIM

Has anyone ever heard of a company called Top end performance out in Hollywood? They offer a complete suspension kit for under a grand that includes: springs, bushings, swaybars and the strut inserts. They said that it drastically improves handling over stock, but if it's junk I would prefer to go elsewhere to get my suspension components. So if anyone has any comments good or bad about them please give me a heads up on your experience with TEP. Thanks TIM http://www.racetep.com/