VG30E simple potential?

[AndrewKFM]

I have a 1987 300ZX Z31, non-turbo VG30E.

I was curious what I might plan to do to it? I understand the SOHC has it's limitations, and when I search for VG30E mod ideas, people usually suggest selling it and getting the T or TT.

Well, my goal isn't 100's of HP gains, but simply the best VG30E I can make without $1000 modifications, or absurd things like increasing displacement, etc. Things like a turbo or supercharger, headers, exhaust, etc. What all should I plan to put on before the block can handle it? And what kind of potential does it have? 200+ hp?


Thanks!

-Andrew

[evildky]

well lets see, n/a vg30e on a 1k budget......how do you feel about nitrous? it's the best bang for the buck without adding forced induction, for under $1k I'm sure you can find a turbo donor and swap everything over add a boost controller and an intercooler and you'll be around 300 whp which is about twice what you have now

pathfinder VG33E gives you 10% more displacement and a better flwoing intake plenum but only about 10 more hp, but add intake and exhaust mods along with tuming and you shoulod be able to get more power than the 3.0, hood clearance becomes and issue though

you could spend it all on engine work, custom forged pistosn will cost you areound $700 spend the rest on machine work and you could have a high compression engine making better numbers

$1k doesn't go very far on traditional parts these days, cone air filter, headers, cat back exhaust, reomulator and thats about the limit of your budget and you might gain 40 hp if you are lucky, the romulator or megasquirt is a great investment when trying to make power, they allow you to get the most out of what you've already got, and you'd be amazed what leaning the mix and advancing the timing curve can do for you

if you want to make big power fomr the VG N/A is can be done but it's nto gonna be cheap, you can make a lot of power cheap but it means adding a turbo, or you can make a lot of n/a power but it's gonna cost you

[AndrewKFM]

well lets see, n/a vg30e on a 1k budget......how do you feel about nitrous? it's the best bang for the buck without adding forced induction, for under $1k I'm sure you can find a turbo donor and swap everything over add a boost controller and an intercooler and you'll be around 300 whp which is about twice what you have now

pathfinder VG33E gives you 10% more displacement and a better flwoing intake plenum but only about 10 more hp, but add intake and exhaust mods along with tuming and you shoulod be able to get more power than the 3.0, hood clearance becomes and issue though

you could spend it all on engine work, custom forged pistosn will cost you areound $700 spend the rest on machine work and you could have a high compression engine making better numbers

$1k doesn't go very far on traditional parts these days, cone air filter, headers, cat back exhaust, reomulator and thats about the limit of your budget and you might gain 40 hp if you are lucky, the romulator or megasquirt is a great investment when trying to make power, they allow you to get the most out of what you've already got, and you'd be amazed what leaning the mix and advancing the timing curve can do for you

if you want to make big power fomr the VG N/A is can be done but it's nto gonna be cheap, you can make a lot of power cheap but it means adding a turbo, or you can make a lot of n/a power but it's gonna cost you

Hey, thanks for the reply!

Sorry if I was mis-understood. I don't mind spending well over $1000 on the car over time, but I want to avoid a modification that costs $1000 by itself for now. (Working on a college budget)

Asking on a few other forums as well, throwing a VG30ET turbo on it seems like it will be my first investment after finishing the timing belt business, interior controls and electronics, and a little body work.

I was given this link, and it looks promising to me:

http://www.redz31.net/pages/turbo.html

What do you think?

Thanks!

[evildky]

yup, he knows his stuff, I've read some of his other mods, I prefer to buy a single donor vehicle, my last was an 88 ZXT for $500, came wiht a CLSD, the beefy 5 speed, as well as all the necesarry goodies for a turbo conversion, you just gotta keep your eyes and ears open for deals, this particular car has rust issues and low compression

[Perrenial Badass]

There's actually quite a bit you can do to that car for $1000. I'd start with a turbo conversion, donor car is maybe $500.

The completely stripped out shell of your turbo parts car is worth about $100 at a scrapyard, cat is worth $137 if it's not all broke up inside, last set of wheels I scrapped (86NA) got me $70, electronically adjustable dampers are worth about $100 a pop on ebay if they work. Good black interior is worth about $300. 86-89 turbo wheels should sell pretty quick for $200, 87-89 front end can get killed by shipping but $200 isn't an unreasonable asking price in good shape. If you don't want to use them on your car, 87-89 turbo transmission, driveshaft, CLSD, sway bars, and springs can be worth about $750. 85-86 turbo rear (smoked) lights and bar are worth $120. 87-89 3rd brake light is worth $35 easy since they're in high demand in Japan. The stock spoilers will go for about $70 depending on the condition, 86s are the most common, the 84-85s are the most likely to be rotted out, and the 87-89s are the least common.

Point of the rant is that if you are smart, patient (and a bit lucky doesn't hurt) about it you can get the parts car and recoup your money. You'd need the space to part it out though, so otherwise the turbo conversion parts are worth about $400. Even with the turbo conversion already on the car, a VG33 would be nice to have so you can slowly rebuild it and swap it in. There's no hood clearance problems unless you use the VG33 upper intake.

What part of Lakeland are you from? I was under the impression that all the Z31 owners that weren't retarded out of their Zs were bought out by me and like 2 of my friends. And I see no mention of a V8 swap or mention of you previously owning a Z32, so I'm assuming you're someone new. I'm over here in Lake Alfred/Polk s***.

[AndrewKFM]

What part of Lakeland are you from? I was under the impression that all the Z31 owners that weren't retarded out of their Zs were bought out by me and like 2 of my friends. And I see no mention of a V8 swap or mention of you previously owning a Z32, so I'm assuming you're someone new. I'm over here in Lake Alfred/Polk s***.

I live just a little ways off of Kathleen Road. I'm about 25 miles from Lake Alfred, and 15 from Polk City.

Although I just now bought the car, I've always been a fan of Z's, particularly the Z31. Besides that, my buddy has a 350Z with no intention of modding, and I'd love to one day burn him out. That's just a very small side goal.

I heard the the father of the guy I bought the car from had quite a few more Z's. Perhaps he is somehow in your circle of friends? I bought it from a guy named J.R. off of Recker Highway.

So, you and your two friends . . . You restore Z's? Or just Z31's? Do you just buy them whenever you spot them?


Also, thanks for the info! I'll start snooping around for an old 300ZX turbo, maybe one not in so great of condition.

[evildky]

I said $1000 doesn't go far when buying traditional parts, the swap is far better bang for the buck, click on the link in my sig and read about my $2000 Z31

[Perrenial Badass]

DAHAHAHAHA!You bought that 87 from that JR ***hole huh? Figures that there wouldn't be a Z31 around here I haven't had my hands on.

Front row, third down. Quite a few of the parts on that car are from my 84T (silver, to the right of yours) and from that white 86 (to the left). When we got that car it had a rattlecanned powder blue interior with seats that made you have to look out the ttops to drive you sat so high. Plus the guy who owned it before overheated it, blew the headgasket, and proceeded to drive the f*** around for 2 weeks before it quit. We put a motor out of another white 87 parts car some chick smacked into a pole in it, and cleaned it up. To be quite honest we would have been better off to part the car out than fix it, but we didn't realize what an ***hole that blue paint would be until we were beyond the point of no return. Part of the reason we didn't fix the AC either, just got tired of "the turd".


But yea, I wouldn't say we "restore" the Zs per se, we buy cheap ones and fix them up or part them out, usually Z31s since people come find us and try to get us to buy those. (Your car was the result of a phone call, $200, and a tow dolly.) Getting pretty good at it too, we have got an 87 2+2 down to 760lbs. Then we either use the parts to fix up our cars, or sell the parts so that.... we can buy more Zs. It's a vicious cycle, but I've personally cut down to 3 Z cars.

JR's father Alvis is part owner of 3 Z31s with his brother Ronnie. The blue 86 2+2, red 86NA, and white 85NA. Ronnie also owns that white 86NA, used to own your 87NA along with Alvis and JR, has a red 86T that a retard from the gulf coast blew up the piston ring lands in, and he is also part owner of my 73 240Z. That never gets worked on. I personally own the grey 86T at the back of the second row in the picture, and a white 87NA2T that you probably haven't seen running around in forever (if ever), because it hasn't run around in forever. Another guy Cameron has a matte black craptastic colored 86 NA2T with a burgundy interior and a front end conversion, if you haven't seen him running around yet you will.Quite a few guys in Winter Haven with Zs. There's like 5 other people around Lakeland with Z31s; 3 of which I've worked on to some extent, one guy whom Ronnie sold the car to but whom we avoid because he is far beyond normal Polk County retard levels, and one guy who is going to be swapping in an LS1. I predict we will own these cars by years end, though I'd rather avoid the guy in the blue 89, and I'd lose the fight I'd have to get into with the owner of the Shiro.

So to answer your question, yea I know that guy. And it isn't so much that we buy them wherever we see them. More along the lines of "Ooh, we don't have one in that color with that trim package and that color interior for that year. Yet."

[AndrewKFM]

Hahahahah! This explodes my mind. An intelligent person out of this part of FL, that's actually in my network, on a small online forum.

Yea, JR told me the owner back blew the head gasket, but that it had a new motor with 90K on it. And I heard something about his dad owning a few more of them. Anything else I should be terrified of?

I hope it lives enough to be a bit of a project, whilst remaining my daily driver. I've really always wanted a 300ZX, so I hope to keep it alive for an unreasonably long time. As in replacing anything that goes wrong with it until it isn't even the same car.

Also, "the turd" is now called, "The Storm Trooper" or "Storm" for short. Hahaha.

I'm working off of a college budget, but I could definitely dish out a grand or less to get a parts car, salvage what I can for my car, part it, then scrap it. Hopefully this would actually start paying for itself, and doing a few every year wouldn't be unreasonable.

I'm moderately well-versed in automotive things, but I like to think I'm a really quick learner, and I have an unquenchable thirst to learn more. Just the very thought of entirely disassembling a 300ZX and cleaning the parts to sell almost gives me chills. In fact, I'm about to go at installing this in its entirety with a Haynes manual and absurd overconfidence: http://www.courtesyparts.com/bundle-60k ... _7652_7653&

Encountering you has genuinely obliterated my mind. I'm definitely not going to lose touch.

[Perrenial Badass]

It has rust in the floor. I can't remember if I've seen the rust in that particular car or not (I've seen my fair share of rusty Zs), I'd assume it's in the same area as my 86T's floor. I've got a rust hole outboard of where the rear suspension bolts up, that isn't of immediate structural concern to me. Then again my quarters and rockers are rotted out and I'm collecting replacement pieces anyway, so it'll get fixed one day. If memory serves, JR had it up on a lift and said the rust wasn't as bad as they may have feared. He was driving it around for a few days and it survived his driving so... Mechanically you shouldn't have to worry about much, though is it you that has the rear end making a noise? Engine ran like a top even in the smashed up 87 parts car, transmission felt alright, front dampers are new, brakes were fine last I saw.

Be careful with that budgeting. My 87 started out all stock like yours. Much better condition, but that doesn't matter at this point because the only thing left of the original car are a few bushings, the control arms, taillights, the actual body, and the differential. Now I've got $10,000 in the little f*** and it doesn't run because of $0.15 worth of wire somewhere.

Timing belt isn't difficult. It will take you much longer then you think it should the first time though. Who knows, you might not have to worry about any rusted up bolts in that particular engine bay. There was oil dripping from the hood. That's how retarded you have to be to drive a blown up Z around 2 weeks, keep putting oil in it but be unable to grasp the possibility that maybe going through 2 quarts of oil a day may be an indication of massive internal damage to the motor. Anyway, I would suggest upgrading the alternator and throwing an e-fan in there while you've got the front end apart on the thing. Makes it easier to work on that's for sure.

Google "Z Club of Polk County". I know it sounds like a unicorn with a hand grenade, but it really does exist!

[AndrewKFM]

2 quarts a day?! Hahahahaha, good 'ol Polk. Who does that?

Well, most of that is encouraging.

The few trips I've taken around the block (I haven't tagged and titled it yet) made no perceivable noise from the back, although it has a GReddy aftermarket exhaust according to JR (haven't check yet) so it could drown out a boat right now. Noise would need to be pretty deafening for me to hear it at the moment.

I think I'll have to wait on the fan and alternator for a little awhile. Next hunk of money I get goes to battery, timing belt kit, tag and title, and books for the school semester. After that, I'll have another wad come in from scholarships in September, and I'll be scouring junkyard and websites for any 300ZX I can get for less than $1000 to play with. If the first one I get is a turbo, I'll pull everything I want off of it, and part the rest out. I could be mistaken, but doesn't the turbo come with an e-fan? If I got one, I could just pull it. If the first Z I got isn't turbo, I'll just find one online. Assuming memory serves and the 87T does have an e-fan, will it's alternator be acceptable to serve as an upgrade for mine?

All this talk has me excited. I'm gonna head out and started getting at my timing belt!

[Perrenial Badass]

89-94 Maxima fans and the Maxima alternator are a good choice. Some efans are just too much for the stock alternator to deal with, mainly at night. Turbo Z31s have a fan, but it's not enough to cool the car by itself.

Somebody in Lakeland with a white 87 is supposedly trying to find us because he's trying to get a new differential. But yours has a GReddy exhaust he says?

[AndrewKFM]

Yeah, I'm jacking it up in the morning to start preparing for the timing belt change and I'll confirm it then. It's definitely high on my list of crap to fix, because the rumble is produces is a little ricey, and far too boastful for what the car can put out.

When I checked underneath the car for where I was going to jack, I was a little disappointed by some of the rust. Looks like it could be near being a problem. How ridiculous of a thought is is to do a frame swap? Obviously a massive undertaking, but possible without a shop?

Also, when it comes to buying Z's to part or use, but not drive, you don't tag or title it do you? Do you just hold on to the title without signing it until you're ready to scrap it, or what?

[Perrenial Badass]

As for rust repair, you don't really do a "frame swap". If it's like my 86 you can just cut a section of the floor out of a parts car and patch it in pretty much.

We don't bother putting the title in our name, and seeing as a parts car won't see the road we don't tag it. You will need to check on the local HOA to see what their rules are since they can become a pain if you don't have a garage to hide the parts Z in.

[AndrewKFM]

Sounds good. And I think I'd be ok with the HOA. I'm behind my garage, in a moderately well covered area.

Well, you've been unnecessarily helpful. I'll hit you up again sometime, I'm sure.

Thanks!

[Perrenial Badass]

Well, I'm heading out of town but I'll be back on the 5th, if it's giving you problems PM me and I'll come give you a hand with it. You're replacing the CHTS and CHTS subharness while you have the timing belt off right? Car ran good so it isn't bad, but it's a PITA to get to if it does go out on you so it's best to put up the $40 for parts (that's from Nissan) while you have the front of the motor apart. It's the sensor behind the driver's side cam gear.

[AndrewKFM]

Yea, I had originally planned on changing it as well. I forgot, but now I've made a note.

And thanks! I will hit you up if I get stuck . . . ever. I'm extending your offer to last for the remainder of the time that I own this 300ZX. Hahaha.

Seriously though, that gives me more confidence to dive into serious projects, so thanks a lot!

[AndrewKFM]

Also, speaking of the CHTS . . . maybe I'm just an idiot, but I can't find where to get one.

I googled for a few minutes, but all I came up with was one or two of them, and they weren't for the Z, nor did they include the subharness.

I even tried to search for it from a Nissan site, but no avail.

I'm sure someone will link me in a heartbeat, so I figured that would be more prudent then scouring the web for an hour.

[Perrenial Badass]

http://courtesyparts.com/
^Bookmark this. love this.