Well I sold my Subaru recently and now have some extra money spend. This is just going to be a mild build, nothing to crazy, that one is planned about five years from now when my daughter is in school. So for now the mods will be simple, but will also be for the future build. What I plan on doing is:

Repair Engine Bay Rust
Fix Exhaust
Fix Clunk when I shift
Retune Motor
Clean Motor
Clean Engine Bay
Restore Interior
Upgrade Brakes
New Wheels/Tires
Coilovers
BRE Style Front Lip
BRE Style Spoiler

A bit longer then I thought, but oh well it will be money well spent.

Here is a few pictures of the car as it was the day I brought it home. No current pictures as it dead cold outside and its in my garage. Oh yeah, if anyone wants the wheels and tires on it now, they are currently for sale.

thats a good looking Z

Pete Brock is supposed to begin producing BRE spoilers again, you could have the real deal! although I don't see it on his site yet

Very nice! I am looking forward to see lots of pictures and updates.

Let's get going on this build!

gmac708 wrote: Let's get going on this build!

The purchasing starts today


Any suggestions on what spring rates to get for my Ground Control coil overs? I plan on buying them once my current wheels are sold.

I run 440lb fronts and 350lb rear, strictly a race car, with 17X12 wheels and low profile tires, if you run smaller wheels you can get away with more spring rate, and if you like to drive ont eh street you can get away with less, a lot of road racers run 250/225 lb springs

glacier985 wrote:Any suggestions on what spring rates to get for my Ground Control coil overs? I plan on buying them once my current wheels are sold.

I have 225 on all four corners. The ride is a good all around setting for street/track for me. It also does not beat you to death on the interstate while driving to the track. I am happy with it the way it is. If you are not going to really track it, I would go with something softer. Talk it over with the guys at Ground Controls. They asked me all sorts of things like wheel size, HP, rearend, street or strip or both, weight. They are the real experts, they know their stuff.

Been doing some purchasing, in a couple weeks my spoiler and front air dam from MSA will be on their way. The air dam is back ordered 1-2 weeks currently, not that it matters since its winter. I sold my wheels and tires on Friday so I started buying suspension parts. Since I won't be doing a ton of track racing and I'm not the richest person. I went with tokico blues for my struts, Toyota MR2 for the front and 240z fronts for the rears. I hope that's right, I had a hard time finding an answer. I will be calling ground control on Monday to talk with them about spring rates before ordering. Sorry for no pictures, it wouldn't be to interesting anyway, its just at 240z without wheels at the moment.

Oh yeah and on the subject of being cheap, I would love to be able to buy the real Hayashi Racing street wheels, but at $620 a wheel I just can't afford it right now. I was going to go with Diamonds, but just kept second guessing myself. After lots of thinking I plan to go with the Rota Shakotan. I hate buying knockoffs, but my wife would kill me if I spent $2500 on wheels.

generally people either run 240z shocks all around or the run the mr2 shocks all around, the mr2 cartridges are shorter so you'll need to either section the strut housing or a spacer which if placed on top lilits travel or placed below raises the free length, meaning a jacked up front or spring hop

I got my info from here, just instead of going with the Illumina I went with the cheaper Blues.

http://www.betamotorsports.com/benchrac ... oning.html

so you do plan to section the housings, I could have sworn that all of the cartridges were MR2 fitment but looks like it's S30 front inserts in the rear and AW11 rears in the front, here is a little write up on sectioning I did a few years ago
strut-sectioning-101-t237090.html

Yea its a bit confusing, but I came across that article and it straightened everything out for me. The BZ3099 are the MR2 rears (for the front) and the BZ3015 are the 240z fronts (for the rear). And yes I do plan on sectioning the struts, I was a metal fabricator while I was in college so its right up my alley. On another note, I purchased my coilovers today. I left it up to ground control to decide on my spring rates. I gave them all my information and what I plan to do with the car.

GC recommended 440's all the way around for my car, which I tried but I couldn't hold straight line acceleration, I do run wide tires with a lot of camber and found that the 350 rears really helped me keep the tires s sticking and not spinning

It was somewhat warm yesterday so I was able to clean up some things and my garage and snap a few pictures of the car in its current condition. Its up on jackstands/blocks, ignore the wheels on it, one is there is measure backspace and the other because I have no where else to put it.




Here is the exhaust, at its lowest point it was one inch off the ground when I had wheels on the car. This will be fixed by doing some modifications to both the exhaust and the exhaust header.



Also got some pictures of the interior, I don't have much to do to fix it up. Just some cleaning, replacing some parts and getting floor mats. Oh and did I mention the car came with a brand new in the box MSA sectional carpet kit? Shift knob will be replaced with the original one that I do have.








Seats were recently recovered so they are staying.




And finally the l28 engine that will be getting a tune up and be cleaned along with the engine bay.



Now I need my parts to get here and for it to warm up a bit (above 40 degrees works for me)

Got parts and of course I had to test fit them, pictures are terrible, but I tried. First off my BRE style spoiler from MSA. I really love the love of it and plan on putting the Datsun emblem from the hatch on it. Oddly the emblem was shaved from the hatch by a previous owner and stored in the glove box.





Next I finagled the BRE style front air dam on to the car just to get an idea of how it will look. I have now idea how I am going to mount it at the moment, since unlike the spoiler it came with no bolts or bolt holes.




And finally got my rear wheel and tire combo done, still need to get the fronts so I can start driving her again. I had to cheap out on the wheels because I just couldn't bring myself to spend $600 on a single wheel. As much I would love the real Hayashi streets, my wife would kill me if I got them. So instead I bought some Rotas . They are Shakotans, 15x9 0 offset running on 225/50r15 Falken Zeix ZE-512 and I have a finger width of clearance between the tire and stock spring perch.

Very clean Z.

I look forward to your updates.

Bad news, when buying a 240z, be sure to look under both the back and front off the carpet. I only looked at the front. Well this weekend I found some rust that was fixed with caulking underneath the back of carpet just in front of the seat bracket, The caulking made it hard to notice under the car. It just kind of blended in with the undercoating. So I now have a 2012 winter project, but its not what I wanted. New floor fans and frames and since I'm repairing them I might go ahead and fix any other rust I encounter. So yeah pretty pissed at myself right now I feel like I just payed about 1k to much for this car.

.....actually it pays to look at everything that isn't glass or rubber, these cars rust! the pans like to rust above the rails and where they meet the toe boards, also have a look at the toe boards and then they rust int he back where the next sheet metal brake is, hatch lip, rails above the sway bar mount, rails above the tc rod mount, inner fender where the strut tower overlaps, core support, battery tray, rockers, doglegs, lower front fenders, inner fender extensions behind the headlamp buckets, upper frame rails behind the fender, spare tire well, next to the fuel door, inside lower rear rockers, they rust just about everywhere

Yea I checked in all the usual places or at least I thought. I found some rust (engine bay and pass side rocker panel) and was able to talk the price down because of it. However I thought everything else was rust free after looking at it. It sucks, but I can't do anything else but shut up and fix it.

Nice looks good so far keep it up!

Got my new shoes on about a month ago, just now finally posting pictures. I unfortunately have dug into an old Honda SL70 that I have and its currently taking all of my free time. Although it would be nice to get rid of that huge front wheel gap now that I finally have my welder.

Nice, looking good! Whats next?

Looks good I love the color. Are you still going to put the front and rear spoiler on?

gmac708 wrote:Looks good I love the color. Are you still going to put the front and rear spoiler on?

Yep still going to put them on. The front spoiler will be first, but I just need a good weekend to figure out how to get it mounted since it came without instructions.

Sunday I tried to replace my AC clutch bearing on my DD Altima and ran into an issue with the bearing from Autozone being about 10mm to big. So I decided why not start working on the z's suspension. And well I did, everything came apart real easy, only had a tiny screw break and an issue getting the strut out. Also found out why my brakes sucked so bad, the rotors are like a mirror I can see my reflection in them. I'll be getting them turned and sanding the brake pads. Just a couple pictures to show that I did actually do some work. I expect to work on the exhaust and front air dam this weekend.

Just a quick little update, with a few questions about my suspension.

First off I got one side done, now its time to paint and then back on the car so I can work on the other side.




Now I have a few questions, first I am using the stock top strut mount. Well the original front struts have a flat side in them and the replacement ones I ordered (MR2's) do not. And since I am not using camber plates, I am having an issue with the strut not fitting in the mount. So should I just drill the whole out of the mount?


And do I still need this bearing? It goes in the bottom of the strut mount.


And finally GC instructions say to use these washers on the front. Is it okay that they don't quite fit right?

Wow does time seem to fly, it only took two weeks, but I've got one strut done. Some searching helped me figure out how to put the coilover together with the stock strut insulator. Here some eye candy to some my progress. No work on the exhaust or air dam yet

Looking real good
I'm gad you got the top part figured out. Did you use the bearing on top for it to pivot?

I like

gmac708 wrote:Looking real good
I'm gad you got the top part figured out. Did you use the bearing on top for it to pivot?

Yes, I found a few different ways to use the stock mount. What I had to do was drill out the stock hole. First I used a dremel to change it from a D-hole to a circle, then I drilled it out with a 9/16 bit. That allowed the MR2 insert to fit into the insulator. As for the assembly I put the spring on the collar, then the spring top, the two washer and the bearing (which was repacked with new grease) and bolted it all together.


Now its time to repack my wheel bearings and put the brake/hub back on. Then put the wheel back on so I can get the other side done. Oh and the exhaust, front air dam, spoiler, ......