The rebuild of my Z.

looks good man, great job

Thanks. I got a vid of how it is now. Lots of chatter and noise because they sent some faulty lifters with the rebuilt heads. Couldn't hoon because its a neighborhood. Looks faster than it is, I got up to 50mph here without going over 4500rpm. But no more idle issues or anything like that. Not gonna be any lopey idles either, I set the idle to 1100rpm.

Not much going on with this board anymore eh? Well I gotta prep this thread for this years mods. Definitely going with a short shifter this year. The stalk is shortened but the throws are still ridiculously long. Fortunately it has the same trans as S13/S14/Silvia/180SX/240SX and those shifters are easy to find and cheap. Looking at a cowl hood to fit the new manifold and possibly some better seats too. So far its holding up well. Still running strong but losing little bits of coolant since I hooked up the heater core. Not looking to replace that so probably will bypass it again come warm weather. Fingers crossed they didnt send me a warped head, but considering it came with some bad lifters... Anyway, even the paint has held up perfectly. If anyone is interested, I'll be updating bits and pieces in the next couple months. Just a FYI.

sounds good... there are still a few people creeping around on here...

it gets slow like this every winter... can't wait to see more progress on her..

I enjoy your progress, keep us posted. It is slow around here in the winter though.

This will be awesome when you get it done. Loved the exhaust - sounded sweet!

Thanks guys. Sounds a lot better now, since those vids were basically right after I bolted it all back together. Little odds and ends make a difference. Short shifter is in the mail. Thinking maybe going for larger sway bars. Then again, I've destroyed one battery from cornering forces, so maybe I should get an Optima before I do more handling stuff. This snow sucks.

agreed... the snow does suck...

Shifter is in. My cat was not impressed.

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I've gotta be careful with this thing now. It finally built the carbon rings at the top of piston travel back up so the compression is back to where it should be. I can tell because if I give it full throttle in 1st or 2nd over 4k rpms, it breaks loose the rear. Fun tho. Tomorrow I'll install this shifter thing and see how it does.

that's awesome man! keep up the good work

yeah the build is nice and detailed... keep it up... hopefully she co-operates with you

Install of the shifter was... complicated and required some metal fabrication, but fits like a glove now. Only problem is the old bushing on the bottom that fit into the transmission kinda shattered into a million bits (being plastic and 30-ish yrs old) and the one that came with the kit is too small. But its a 2$ part if I can ever make it to a dealership. So for now it has the smaller one on and its a bit wobbly, but working.

Small update: Heater core bypassed. No longer losing water. Wing removed from the back (time for a year or so without it). When I get the shifter cup bushing in, I'll try to clean it up a bit and take some current pics.

So what you all think of these ideas:

Gloss clear coat of paint? (sick of people asking why its not painted, thinking its primer)
Some better seats? Current ones are all ripped up and saggy, and cannot hold people in at all with the cornering force of that thing.
Larger sway bars worth it? Maybe with a strut brace?
Gotta pick a new shift knob for the shifter and the steering wheel is massively faded, so, do I go blue with the seats/wheel/knob (seeing as how the engine is part red part blue) or just keep it all red?

I think they are all good ideas... the clear coat paint will make it pop... and anything you can do to increase the performance is always a good idea... if the colors inside are mostly red that's what i'd stick with if it is a mixture then it's up to you... lol...

Tygur wrote:

Small update: Heater core bypassed. No longer losing water. Wing removed from the back (time for a year or so without it). When I get the shifter cup bushing in, I'll try to clean it up a bit and take some current pics.

So what you all think of these ideas:

Gloss clear coat of paint? (sick of people asking why its not painted, thinking its primer)
Some better seats? Current ones are all ripped up and saggy, and cannot hold people in at all with the cornering force of that thing.
Larger sway bars worth it? Maybe with a strut brace?
Gotta pick a new shift knob for the shifter and the steering wheel is massively faded, so, do I go blue with the seats/wheel/knob (seeing as how the engine is part red part blue) or just keep it all red?

larger sway bars are always a plus with the tower brace... btw Andysautosport.com has some decent looking seats with sliders for less than $300

Haha yeah thanks for the input guys, I just always wanted a blue highlighted interior for some reason but all the parts fell into place for red. The steering wheel I got for dirt cheap from a friend, the gauges were already orange-ish red, and the previous owner always wanted red on black.

I went ahead and got a shift knob (matches the car fully, with black, chrome and red on it) that was more than I would have liked to pay for a shifter. Hopefully the leather doesn't come off this one, but it was 4x the price of the old one and I'm betting a lot better quality. Should be in tomorrow. Had to ring up the Nissan dealer and they have the lil plastic cup for the shift linkage coming in, so all coming together now.

I'm really digging the idea of sway bars, but I don't know if a strut brace would actually fit with this intake manifold. I seem to remember someone else doing the intake swap and getting it to fit by drilling an extra couple holes and turning it around but I can't find it anymore.

Sidenote: After researching seats, found that the brackets are crazy pricey, the car isn't really wide enough to fit many seats and I'd rather not get into it. So Got some nice new seat covers, gonna yank out the seats and stitch the new covers on. Also got a new steering wheel, its a bit ricey but I like it. Old one was faded waay too pink for my liking. Most people don't see the interior anyway so what looks good for me is all thats needed.

Shifter and knob in with the parts I needed from Nissan dealer. Shifts are razor precise and there is absolutely zero slop in it. Gotta get the rest of the stuff done and then its time for cosmetic surgery as 90% of the interior is faded or in miserable shape. Heres a shot of the new shifter. Nissan claimed they couldn't get the top rubber boot (which is only for sound insulation) so I had to put the maimed one back in but theres a new dust seal boot under it. I like the way the shifter looks so instead of a big bulky boot, I'll probably put in a sized flat piece of some sort of fabric at the base like a plate made out of cloth. Also check out the steering wheel! Yuck!

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Looks like this year its going to be mostly cosmetic. Still need some technical things done, and the sway bars will come eventually. For now I have some other odds and ends to patch the interior back up and make it match, so when warm weather rolls around, I'll really get working on it. So full interior renovation with shifter, pedals, handbrake, steering wheel, seats and others, and a clear gloss on the outside. Also have some switches coming in (relay for the ecu because it still loses its memory after I turn the car off, and wiper switch because intermittent doesn't work and its making me angry). The new pedals are MOMO drill-to-install (my feet slide off the stock ones and the cheapy covers fall off). And black panels to replace the ones that are still dirt brown.

Busy day. Got a clear coat on, not a good one, I'm awful at cosmetic things, but not enough $ to get it done somewhere professional.

But the focus was on the interior. I set up camp. Extension cord running a small heater in the footwell, some lights and a little radio and locked myself in the car like that for about 5 hours working away. The results:

New steering wheel on, and centered correctly (finally, it was always just slightly pointing left), with a custom Z emblem for horn button

Replaced wiper switch behind the wheel, only to find the TCU which controls those among many other things took a dump and is more a PITA to change than changing heads was so I'll just leave that alone for now. They still work, just not intermittent.

Short shifter fully on with new shift knob, both weighted, feels amazing. Also made a custom shift boot from a sheet of cloth.

Re-done some faded colors on things, new ash tray to replace the chipped one

New seat covers sewn on thanks to my wonderful wife

Repaired center console hinge

Temporary repair on broken dash bezel

Handbrake cover, looks a little odd but its growing on me and feels better with my large hands

CUPHOLDERS now a permanent part of dash!

Little compass/clock/air temp setup

Window switch bezels fixed

Brown parts are now graphite instead

Bits of cleanup

Hid wires that were not hidden yet

Probably more that I forgot

On the way next are a custom fabricated aluminum plate, black with silver lettering that says "300ZX" to go in the place where the old brown plastic one was, and some classic Nissan patches to stitch onto the headrests, pics when those get done. Tomorrow will likely be exterior finish, with clear coat touch-ups, sanding, buffing, waxing etc. Don't expect a miracle, it will probably look like garbage lol, but its the best I can do.

Still working on the exterior, but inside is done:

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Lookin good!

tkromer wrote:

Lookin good!

agreed, looks great man!

Starting to gloss it. Needs sanding and more coats. This is the sorta in-between stage.

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Noticed I was still losing water but I found the culprit. One of the hoses on the heater core bypass had a hole in it, like someone drove a nail through it, right in the middle of the hose

Went to check up on the TPS, which for this car only has 2 states: idle, and on the gas. I'm using an adjustment screw on the throttle body to adjust idle speed since the idle control has been removed. Thought I had adjusted TPS correctly, but since it has a cover riveted to it, I drilled it open to double check and I was way off. Had to adjust it all the way out because of the throttle body setting. Result: it idles at 800rpm now instead of 1100. And you can very much hear the cams, sounds a lot like a lopey V8 at idle now. Interesting.

So next up is a new hose. Functionality over cosmetics. 30yr old vehicles that were not taken care of are a pain haha.