The first one I am posting about is my toy, my 1973 Datsun 240Z.
A little over a year and a half ago, I decided I didn't have enough projects in my life (too bad it's hard to imply sarcasim over the intarweebnetz), so I decided on finally finding and aquiring a project vehcile.
After some looking around and research, looking at various vehicles, all of which HAD to be RWD, sick of that FWD crap, I decided on finding a Datsun 240Z, would have settled for a 260, or 280, if I had to, but really wanted the 240, due to being earlier, obviously, but also less emmisions equipment needed. Just as a side note, I have no problem with emmisions equipment, I just didn't wnat to HAVE to spend the money on extra emmisions equipment that would just take up space, especially since the vehicle would be old enough that emmisions testing would not be required.
So I decided to keep an eye on teh market and planned to buy about 6 to 8 months later, but stumbled upon a 1973 240Z, that while looking rough on the outside is quite solid underneath. The car was located about 3700 Km from me, which worried me a little with actually getting the car home. A call to my uncle and we set up a flight for me to fly out to him, about 3300 kms from where I live, and closer to the car, to visit with him and family, and drive the rest of the way down to see the car.
So I make the trip, look at the car and KNOW this is the car for me. Agree to purchase it, and go home, unfortunatly I only was able to look at the car for a very short period of time, due to an impending storm comming in. Just as a reference, when we actually left Richland and got back on the highway, there was a snading truck on it's side in the center median of the highway. I realize that most Aussie's won't know what a sanding truck is, because there's hardly any snow in Austrailia, but it's used to cover the snow and ice with sand or salt, to provide traction for those that don't know, so this wasn't a good omen to start with. LOL
So I finally get the car shipped home, shipping was actually more than I paid for the car, but still had less into the car than buying one locally AND this one was solid. I could have flipped it immediatly and made money on the deal but decided that I would hang on to it.
To start with this is the car:
This was actually a few months after I had the car on the road, added the Spook after finding a decent deal on one. It came with those ugly wheels though.
A little more current, that is my girlfriend and myself in the picture:
You can see the 280ZX wheels in that picture, what you can't see is what is behind them:
Brakes!
Upgraded all 4 corners, which apparently I don't have any pictures uploaded of, but I'm sure you can imaging what the brakes look like. LOL
Rear from drum to disc, using 280ZX rotors and calipers, and Maxima caliper brackets, along with Toyota 4 piston front calipers and 280Z slotted rotors and hubs. I bought the brake upgrade from a local guy that upgraded again to even larger and completly aftermarket brakes. There are also stainless flex lines installed as well.
I've also changed the strut inserts to Tokico "Blues", which helped quite a bit over the worn factory pieces. LOL I also swapped out the torque arm bushings for some plastic and aluminium units. They seem ok.
Now for the good stuff.....
The car originally had carbs on it, which is no surprise, but they were aftermarket "upgrades", Weber Down draft units, that worked, which is surprising to me, since the car had not been registered in over 10 years previous to me getting it. The other thing I didn't like about it was the fact that it had a shifter that only went in two directions, forward and back, no side tro side movement, yes that's right an AUTOMATIC Z car!?! That was the first thing to change, I drove the car for a month and couldn't stand it anymore, so the swap was done, is just about a weekend.
From this:
And this:
To this:
And this:
I also installed a Center Force Dual Friction at the time:
Then got tired of the carbs, so I figured I'd do something about that...
What I started with:
I figured some extra air wouldn't hurt.
Exhaust, 3" turbo to tip, all fitted and TIG welded by myself.
Moroso Spiroflow muffler:
While I was working underneath I also upgraded the fuel pump, 255Lph:
The stock L-series EFI intake is quite an ugly duckling:
Smoothed it out:
Throttle body and adaptor. The Throttle Body is from a GM 3.4L 60degreeV6, and provided everything I needed, IAC, TPS, and cable hook up, I wanted to get rid of the shaft throttle. I also had a few kicking around.
This hurt, to cut a hole through the firewall:
Working on the wiring:
Harness about 95% complete:
ECM, in original "location":
It sat there for about 10 months, then got sick of looking at it, so I mounted it with some ABS plastic sheet that I can get through work:
Ahh, yes, passengers no longer need to worry about the ECM:
So I ended up with this:
I also added an optical VSS.
I started with a 280Z speedo, since it had the right design to trigger the Delco optical VSS.
I have verified that the speed reading to the ECM is accurate to within about 1 MPH as verified by a Tom Tom GPS navigation system. I need to work on a Km/h setting in my ADX. LOL I wish my speedo was as accurate, it reads low, on average about 8 MPH, but I deal with it. I should be able to just move the needle on teh shaft and have it closer in accuracy, through the sweep area that I care about.
I have since last year added DIS:
The reluctor wheel is a bit rusty because it is old and was used on an older conversion of mine with a gen1 60degreev6 block that used genIII heads and inatke, so I needed to make an external crank trigger for the DIS, I recycled parts of that set-up for this conversion.
Here is a video of the Datsun running the first day I got the DIS working
http://www.vimeo.com/14016010
Here are a couple pictures from last year at the track, I haven't been able to get back to the track this year, yet.
I ran a SEVERELY traction limited run of 14.7, I don't recall the MPH, 90 something. My 60' was a 2.7, so if I could get it to hook it would have been an easy 13 second pass.
I also discovered very recently that for sure my wastegate was not being controlled properly. The exhaust pressure pre-turbine was actually pushing the wastegate flapper open, so I have for not just added a spring, and it has cured the boost control problem I had.
The Delco-details:
ECM- 1227749 pulled from a 2.0L Turbo Sunbird
Code- $59, downloaded from code59.org. If anyone is interested my bin is posted on the site.
There are other details, like the battery tray, and other stuff that I didn't go into detail about, but this is long enough already.
The car is fun, almost too much fun, and I drive it quite often, usually as a daily driver for much of the year.
What do you think?
have seen some pictures on code 59 forum.
and i love the fact it doesn't look schmick, that just adds to the annoyance people have when you smoke them 
After some time narrowing down casting numbers I figured out that the engine came from a 1981 or '82 280ZX. It's actually what seems to be a pretty desireable combination of "F54" block an "P90" head.