Finally going to make my old Z not look like a beater

charleswrivers

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Well, after more money I’d care to admit put into the “go” for my old Z over the 6 or 7 years I’ve have it... I finally have an appt to get it repainted. Have a set of good condition stock rims I might slap on with new rubber or keep these imperfect late-350z rims and stick some Indy 500s on them. I guess it’s about time it doesn’t look like a beater. I think I’ve given up on the idea of the new 300z/400z... but if I change my mind, might as well enjoy it a lot the last bit of time I have it and it look really good for a sale down the road.



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charleswrivers

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it is nice to see a non beat up/junked 300zx. :):thumbsup:
I've replaced most of the leather bits on the inside that needed to be done. I kept with the 6.5" speakers after ripping the failed BOSE stuff out and just threw in a little amp under the passenger seat... and other than the AEM Truboost in a single pod on the A-pillar and
a single-din modern HU in place of the cassette deck
... the inside looks stock.

I'm leaning towards putting the stock wheels back on. When I got the car it had BOVs in place of it recircs and hesitated badly to build boost between shifts and I sourced and reinstalled recircs. The car does have hardpipes in place of the rubber hoses... Stillen exhaust that still follows the quad exhaust style... I did have dual pop charged with dedicated MAF sensors on each side and a Selin translator to send the signal back to the ECU. Little bit better brakes. Intercoolers I think I'll try to have in this weekend before it goes in for painting I've had sitting on a shelf for maybe a year. Lots of other not-visible mods... but I tried hard to keep it looking as it did when it was new. I thought about doing a last-couple year JDM-style front fascia... but I figured it was close enough to perfect in '94 it might as well as it was.

I've long given up on a 26 year old sportscar to being as straight-line fast... at least off-the-line... as modern muscle/sports cars made from this past decade. Perhaps if I went with wide rear rims/tires w/good rubber and ditched the old Consult-talking pre-OBD2 setup to some modern stand alone thing that I could add traction control to keep the thing from spinning forever. Once it's at highway speeds, it's plenty fast enough. I've had 2 Z31 turbos and this is my 2nd Z32 turbo... and I expect my last one. NOS parts have been drying up for awhile and they're so old/rare they're pretty much out of the junkyards so it's getting more and more challenging to get parts. I've kind of decided based on my desire to max out my retirement options these last few years I'm in the navy that I'll probably just stick with this thing and drive it a bit more (I think I've done 10k miles in 6-7 years) rather than sinking $40-50k in a new Z. 350z/370z never grew on me and, while I'm a little excited about a new Z... this was the one that I lusted after and got the Z31s early on because they were much cheaper to buy/maintain and had their own appeal. My feelings on cars in general has cooled over the years... but I do still like the old car.
 

saz468

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Since I could remember my older brother had a lot of cars he never kept them for a long time fix them up use it for a little while and sell them for another one the two he held on the most time 1986 mustang GT ( first brand new car) and 1994 Honda delsol which he still has both today
but at one time he had a datsun 260z a 75 or 76 I don’t remember which year
 
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charleswrivers

charleswrivers

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Since I could remember my older brother had a lot of cars he never kept them for a long time fix them up use it for a little while and sell them for another one the two he held on the most time 1986 mustang GT ( first brand new car) and 1994 Honda delsol which he still has both today
but at one time he had a datsun 260z a 75 or 76 I don’t remember which year
I buy cheaper new/used cars and swap them out like clockwork about every 3 years. The Civic is at 2.5 years old and have gotten the itch... even though there's nothing wrong with it... it does everything I want and I know it's financially is a poor choice. I think, though I'm not decided that I may try to play responsible for these last few years I'm in the navy to really pump up my retirement nest egg... since my earnings will be well higher than they ever were and just hold my standard of living where I've tried to keep it for nearly 10 years. A $40-50k new Z car and keeping middle-sized loans on $20-25k cars when the Si is going to be paid for soon isn't really holding to that higher goal.

This old Z still has well less money in it than a new base 370z would have cost... though it's around Civic money now. I'm sure whatever the new Z will be will be faster and better handling. I guess one of my big issues was this old 300zx was the best Nissan had to offer at the time in the US. The GTR is well established as the best now and the Z plays second fiddle. Things like turbos and HICAS AWS that this car has is missing from 350z/370zs... and there's just something about the old Z32s that the Z33/Z34s lack in my eyes. I did have a '77 280z for about a year I thought about putting a 280zx turbo setup on... or doing a small block V8 swap to... but when then 300zx came along I got it passed to a friend who still has it and has made in into a pretty good car from the rough condition it was in when I had it.

Then again... I could change my mind tomorrow. Or be dead. Just got to keep that balance of enjoying today while being ready for tomorrow.
 


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That 300zx looks fantastic, man! Might have taken a lot of work to pull it off, but I commend you, it looks good as new.
 
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charleswrivers

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Pulled the front end off... I couldn’t get any NOS recirc valves so I had them modify the existing BOVs to be recircs by welding OEM fittings on. (sigh) I should have just bought a new set of aftermarket ones. They kinda did a crappy job of welding them years back. I did pull off the front bumper to do a round of boost leak checks and add some 2 part epoxy to the old recircs. They’ll come out one of these days for some new ones. Found a half dozen small leaks and one big one from hoses. Fixed a few spots on the recircs.

Leak down is pretty much from the crappy cap I gerry-rigged on the opposite side and a little from the recirc themselves but beats the immediate depressurization it had been. I probably do this every year or two and, well, it was time.

Fun fact: A stock 300zx has 23 feet of intake tract from filter to intake manifold. Mine has the extra filter and MAF to split the banks out.

I did have a nice surprise. A figured I had the stock intercoolers and they’re actually Stillens... so I’ve got a spare set of Z1s if these ever give up. The stickers had plastic ends... these are aluminum so they’ll probably last longer than the rest of the car

Honda Civic 10th gen Finally going to make my old Z not look like a beater 8D5BEBF9-8DA8-44EF-9992-C2D6695AADAD
Honda Civic 10th gen Finally going to make my old Z not look like a beater E9E0DDC6-CAA6-4A3D-A805-82AEFB0841E3


One thing I didn’t understand too well was setting up the wastegates on these cars and when I got the turbos that are in the car now, I didn’t push the car too hard past a couple boost presets. After I moved from VA to GA 5 or so years ago... I started playing around and realized they’re not preloaded enough. The springs are at about 6-7#... so my max boost I can get is about double that at high duty cycles on my EBC. I need to get these wastegates adjusted and balanced to around 10#. I think I’d get a little quicker spool and be able to exceed the 14-15# I’m at for closer to 18-ish. I sent a message to a shop down in Jacksonville to see if they can do it this past week but hadn’t gotten a reply yet.... and one of these days I’ll try and make it to the Atlanta area where Z1 motorsports is and let them tune it. It’s the closest place I know of that can do the EPROM tuning on these old cars. It may have to all wait until I make it to Z1 and I pay them to adjust then dyno tune. Not many people want to bother with these cars.
 
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charleswrivers

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Dropped on this morning... back in a week or so! New tires to follow hopefully before August comes to a close. I'll post some less-ugly pictures eventually. It was still on it's original paint. I'm not paying for a crazy resto... just touching up a couple dings and getting the seams on the bottom that got bent when folks put a jack under the not-jack-points straightened and painted and a side mirror tightened.

Y'know... it was hard to find a place to paint when it wasn't an insurance claim for collision damage and not either 1) MAACO or 2) Resto-job for $5k or more. This place was $1800. I had another car painted by a similar small-time place 20 years back that had been painting cars for decades and spent $1000 at the time and he did a great job. Fingers crossed for a better-than-MAACO job at least. There were 2-3 other shops in town but they only do collision repair and touchups/blending. They wouldn't touch this car... which I thought was kind of odd.
 
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charleswrivers

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Got her back. She’s looking pretty sharp again.
Honda Civic 10th gen Finally going to make my old Z not look like a beater 2B29627F-22DD-4A1E-BFF5-2D8DBCF9A956
Honda Civic 10th gen Finally going to make my old Z not look like a beater EAA33065-196A-4121-9D27-4A237FFEE3C3

Honda Civic 10th gen Finally going to make my old Z not look like a beater FF2E9495-F655-4A1E-A50F-E23AB9E66352

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Honda Civic 10th gen Finally going to make my old Z not look like a beater A5AC13C8-7CFA-4F0A-B5EB-2BF0351C5404

Pretty ok for a $1500 paint job. Fella put a lot of TLC in getting some dings smoothed out and making a few panel adjustments that I’ll make a few tweaks myself when the weather cools off. At 26 years old, it’s probably the best the car has looked since the 90s.
 
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charleswrivers

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Took her out for a spin... I’d done some more sealing and tweaking before it went to get painted and opened up up. Spun through 2nd until I touched around 70 mph in a 85-90F evening. If it was a cooler day... it’d be almost too exciting. ? Tires are next.

AVSA in our modern cars is a wonderful thing. Makes me ponder chucking all the old engine management stuff and going with something from this century.
 


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The car looks awesome! I've always loved the Z32 and still kinda want one. But if I come home with another car my head will be on the chopping block ?
 
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charleswrivers

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Hope you cleaned those filters while you had the bumper off. They looked pretty dirty in the pics.
They were actually cleaned recently... though they’re a little old. The Stillen filters kind of have this gray look about them where, even after oiling the media looks kind of dark. I decided to get another matching Stillen filter when I split out the intakes and added the translator and second MAF sensor. It’d if probably looked better to have just replaced it with a newer pair of something else but given it has some other Stillen stuff in it... I kept it. Easy to clean w/the bumper on though... they’re accessible through the nose panel.

She’s no show car under the hood. Shaved intake for easy injector replacements. Spliced in new connectors on all the coil packs and on the crank angle sensor. Vacuum line city. It’s a busy mess under the hood. ?
 
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charleswrivers

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The car looks awesome! I've always loved the Z32 and still kinda want one. But if I come home with another car my head will be on the chopping block ?
Yeah. I sort of want to check out the new Z when it comes out. And I want a C8 Vette. Aaaand... I likely won’t get either one. Might show up to the Nissan dealer in the Z32 and see if they’ll let me take a 300z/400z/Z35 l/whatever-they’ll-call-it for a spin. If they borrow the VR30DDTT from Infinity in its 400 hp guise with all the modern traction wizardry new cars have... the old 300zx might finally be soundly whipped by a stock new Z.
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