BusyBadger wrote:I always figured the 350Z would become the new 240SX, I just never figured it would take as long as it has. Acquisition price is low but maintenance and the consumables aren't cheap, notable tires.
Well, when you consider that this was the flagship Nissan back then in the US and that it was competing for consumer dollars against the Evo and STi, I don't think it's a surprise. Most good condition Z's are about 10k still. Heck, you can't find a decent Evo or STi for under 15k unless you're lucky.
Sometimes a project car is exactly what the doctor ordered! Post updates here when you can, some of us older folks aren't Instagram users (hell, I'm not even on FB!).
I'm a project car addict. I've always got at least two things I'm working on at a time.
Since my first post, I've made some progress.
Apparently some people don't think a Bose sound system is sufficient. The previous owner was one of those people. I can only suspect that shortly before his bank came and took their car back that he hastily yanked the stereo from the car. I deduced this from the gaping hole in the dash and cables strewn about the car. One of the first things I did was to eliminate the remnants of the "better" system.
Then I reinstalled an "inferior" head unit. I need to find a set of brackets as it's just tucked into the dash for now.
Next on the docket was to address the wheels. As previously mentioned, the Z came to me on Maxima wheels (late 5th gen I believe). I'm going to hazard a guess that there's a 5th gen Maxima rolling around somewhere on some sweet XXRs or something. What I can't figure out though, is the lug nut situation. There were several "Rays" aluminum lug nuts scattered amongst the wheel studs. Of course, I had to spend a few minutes forcefully removing aluminum threads from one of the rear wheel studs; but the big headache was when I got to the front wheels and each one had a 7-sided lug nut. That guy... Well, I ended up persuading 12-point 3/4" sockets onto those 7-sided nuts with a BFH and then zipped them off. Finally, I took the base model Z33 wheels I had on my S14 and moved them over to the Z. I won't be needing them anymore on my S14 anyway pretty soon.
Most recently, I swapped out the cloudy greenhouses that were posing as headlights. I purchased a set of Taiwanese headlights off ebay. They exceeded expectations in everyway. We'll see how they hold up long term, but I'm very happy with them so far. With the amount of time and effort I would've needed to put into the original headlights, I couldn't think of a good reason, not to spend $180 on them. As a bonus, all the lights came preinstalled with the exception of the HID bulbs.
The guy I bought the car from told me that he couldn't get the HID's to work despite swapping bulbs. A quick search found that the ballasts are sensitive to water on the Z especially when people remove/lose the fender lines. Since mine was missing the fender lines, I just assumed the ballasts were bad. I picked up a used set on ebay with igniters for $40. So $220 and a couple hours later, the Z looks about 25x better and I can drive it in the dark now.
There's more in store. Stay tuned.