Picked up a Datsun 280Z

Finished up the cage with the exception of the door bars. I left them off for now so its easier to get in the car for autocross. Since i was in a rush to get it done for the next autocross i zip tied the harness back in to the dash bar. zip tied the gauges in, and pop riveted the fender patch on. The day before it fired back up so I went to get gas a give it a quick shake down. Halfway to the station i notice the drivers side caliper was lazy. Car likes to pull to the right when braking and along with the occasional wheel lock up. When i got home i tried cleaning up the rust calipers but no luck plus no stores in the area had any rebuilt ones. Oh well this should make autocross interesting.

Next morning I got up early and made the 1.5 hour drive without any issues. Dave and Jeff brought the Turbo Jeep so it looked like we were going to have an interesting day. Turns out I was right. First run in the Jeep it gets black flagged for being over the sound limit and for leaking coolant. We try to drop boost in hopes to make it a little more quiet only to have the wastegate not open on the second run and pop the head gasket. Now Dave and Jeff are stuck quad driving the Datsun.

Things didn't go smoothly for the Datsun either. First the stock suspension with old 500 treadware tires made for horrible handling. I actually spun it on the 3 cone. then on our second run we get black flagged for leaking fuel on the course. Turns out the metal gas cap didn't lock tight so we "adjusted" it by smashing it against the jeep trailer till it sealed better. We adjusted tire pressure in hoped of taming the violent over steer and head back out. Later that morning the car shuts off on Dave mid run. No sound from the fuel pump so after checking fuses and connectors we found a relay ground and become disconnected. Fixed that during lunch and the car fired up but was running rough. Messed with some connections and found corrosion on the #5 injector. We much have bumped it while working on other stuff and now it had a poor contact.

Scraped the injector terminal clean just as out lunch break was ending and lined up for the next round. Only other issue we had during the afternoon was our new battery tie down snapped in corner #3 and sprinkled some parts on the course. Few dozen sip ties later and we were back racing. luckily the trip to the bar after and ride home were uneventful. Anyway here are some pics from that day.

Very sideways going through the box

Pat and I laughing about how poorly it handles.

Thanks to Chang Ho Kim and Jesus Mendez for the photos.

Next autocross is Aug 16th. Since the handling and tires were both terrible we needed to do something about those before the next event. For tires we ordered 195/60/14 Falken Azenis and we're running the rusty steel wheels to save money. For suspension we ordered Stagg shocks and Vogtland springs which drop the car 1.2" and the rates are 194 front 230 rears. Might not seem like much but that's twice as stiff at stock. We decided against sectioning the struts and making a budget coil over setup since that would be a bigger budget hit by chump rules. Then today I bought an Addco 1" front swaybar on Ebay for $25. Hopefully I'll have time to get this all installed.

Alright, another update. Stagg shows #552205 listed for the front and #552204 for the rear. Also their website lists the same part numbers for the 240Z-280Z. As listed the rears are too short by 3" and the front shocks are too long.

Based on the part numbers on the boxed and on the shocks this is how they should go. 2 top shocks are front and 2 bottoms are rear.

Now if I switch them around the Stagg 552204 fit the front perfect. It came with a large and a small gland nut in the box and the larger one fit. The 552205 is still 2” short for the rear and only came with a small gland nut that doesn’t fit the front or the back. Pic of the shocks swapped around.

I ended up making a 2” spacer and reusing the old gland nuts to install all the shocks. Not thrilled I had to make them fit but it makes me question if they are even the right shock or valving for my car. So far no luck contacing the vendor or manufacturer.

I haven’t gotten the car back on the ground but here are some pic of the springs installed.

Great build.......way to stick with it........

Thanks!

While I'm waiting for new bump stops, strut rod bushings and calipers to show up I started some rust repair. The back passenger window had a pretty good rot hole and some rust bubbles. I cut out all the rust and drilled out any pin holes. Surprisingly the metal around the pin holes was still solid though some holes had to be drilled bigger then others. I actually have a whole patch panel for this section but the metal is so thin it warps way too easy and I didn't want to deal with that.

I placed a copper welding spoon under the holes to make them easier to fill. Also you can see some pin hole on the left to get an idea of what they looked like before I drilled them.

I did a few tack welds per hole to since the metal is thin and I didn't want to burn though or warp anything.

Patched the top, filled the holes, and started grinding down the welds.

Next I added a light coat of fiberglass. I sanded that down, added some filler, then sanded that down. Didn't take any more pictures at this point since things were getting messy.

Got the car back together just in time for the next autocross. New springs, struts, bigger front sway bar, and Falken Azenis made a huge difference. The general consensus is “hey, it doesn’t suck!” Instead of being dead last we were now mid pack. Next step is to do something about camber.

While searching for a spare set of wheels for next season, I came across a guy cleaning out a storage unit full of Z parts. He didn’t have a full list of everything but there is a L24 with .020 flat tops pistons and o-ringed block, E31 head, complete L28 engine with 76k miles, few transmission, 2 sets of wheels, and various sheet metal and bumpers. It will be great to have a bunch of spare parts for when we do Chump or Lemons.

Cool! Did you buy the whole storage unit?

Yes, guy said if I wanted the wheels I have to buy everything. I'm heading down next Wed to pick up everything for $500. Think I'm going to need a bigger truck.

In reply to PseudoSport:

Nice stash...maybe you can sell trade what you don't need to clear up some space

Wow, $500 is a sweet deal!

Spent the winter picking though the storage unit parts. A lot of it was damaged or had missing pieces but there was still some useful stuff mixed in. I sold off the exhaust system and the header with smog ports but that’s it so far. Still not exactly sure what I have but if you are looking for some Z parts let me know.

As for my car, almost all 8 feet of snow has melted and I can start working on it again. Fired it up for the first time in months which only took a couple tries. Last season I only got to prime 1/3 of the roll cage because it got cold early and I lost my window to paint. Now I need to clean up the surface rust that formed and finish painting inside. Also I’d like to run a set of slotted wheels I picked up. 1 wheel is very corroded and needs to be sand blasted but I’m tempted to give them a quick clean and plasidip them all black to match. First autocross of the season is 4/25 which I should be ready for unless I overcomplicate something.

Nice! Glad to see you still have it! Those slotted wheels always look great.

Thanks, the slots are only 14’s which doesn’t give us a good tires selection for Chump Car but whatever. They look cool!

For some reason the car looks decent in this picture. In person its way worse with the riveted on lower fender patch, rusted and dented door, rot hole in rear quarter, new rocker in primer, side window fiberglass patch, and dog leg patch that lines up poorly with welds that and not ground down. To make things worse I have an orange hatch, silver driver’s door, yellow and green passenger door, and white fenders and hood going on. Yes I realize it’s going to be a $500 race car but I’d like it to look somewhat presentable.

In the storage unit were some fiberglass fenders, cowl hood, and front bumper. Originally I was going to sell these off to make money but they are a little beat up. Instead of fixing the rust and dents on my current sheet metal it would be faster to prep these and just run them. I’m going to remove the rived on flares until we get a wider set of tires. That way they don’t get trashed in the meantime.

There was also a set of Interpart louvers which I think is my favorite thing I found in the unit. They don’t have any hardware but I’m going to find a way to mount them.

While bored at work I start looking for cheap automotive paint. I could do Rustoleum or tractor paint but for a little more I found NewEgg.com was offering free shipping on TCP Global restoration shop paint. I splurged and ordered up a gallon kit of British Racing Green urethane for $99. Enamel is cheaper but I’ve only worked with urethane before and when mixed makes 1.25 gallons of material.

Pretty sweet that you're getting stuck into the bodywork now. Fantastic way to go down a rabbit hole and never come back up, but you can't argue with the results.

Managed to get the car ready in time autocross last Saturday with some help form Harkins. We both dual drove the car and didn’t have any issues. While is not really competitive in its class I was going back and forth all day against my friend Pat and his Omni GLS. I had him most of the morning till last run beat be by .17. Same thing in the afternoon till he beat me by .15 but it was a lot of fun having the cars so close. Dave and Jeff were co-driving their old e30 challenge car and were running 7-8 seconds faster then both of us.

I love the color and wheels. Looks like a proper sports car.

Registration for a Lemons race in Aug is coming up soon. Originally I thought we were going to race Chump and my plan was to make the car look nice. Not sure what I’m going to do now since the car needs a “concept”. The better the concept the better chance we have of getting accepted to the race, right? Think there is a way I can spin a crappy but shiny 280Z into an interesting story that gets us in? Only thing I could think of is maybe trying to make it look like a James Bond car.

Autocrossing the Datsun again next Saturday. I haven’t really worked on anything else because I’m afraid I won’t get the car back together in time. I really need to finish the door bars and patch the rest of the rust holes. After that stuff is done I think I’m going to redrill the lower control arm holes to try and get some more camber in the front. Here is an action shot from last month.

Best team name we have come up with so far is “Ain’t Nothin but a Z Thang”. Still don’t have a theme but the louvers are going on and I started cleaning up the slotted mags. I blasted off all the corrosion and messed around with some leftover paint. I order another set of 14” tires but I need to pick a color before I mount them. I’m tempted to buy a can of dark bronze to see how it looks. Yeah I know there are more important things to do but this was a nice change of pace.

Relatively flat faced wheel without a bunch of design junk, so I say order the platinum dip wheel kit in whatever color your thinking. Spray it, run it and see if you like it, then peel off and paint or powdercoat.

My vote is a dark gold.

I'm diggin the dark gray. What if you left it that color and polished just the rim?

Last autocross was… interesting. in the morning thing were going well until I realized there was a bee’s nest in the driver’s door jam. Somehow they stayed there for the hour ride to the course then hung on for 3 autocross runs. While waiting to do my 4th run I noticed them flying in and out of the fender. With the door open I could see the small nest and there was only 2 on there at the time so I grabbed a stick and it out then waited till it was my turn before jumping in and heading back out.

In the afternoon it started to rain. By my second run it was down pouring and the course looked like a lake. The windows are now bolt in so I couldn’t put them up between runs. Also there are a few big rust holes on the passenger floor and firewall. If felt like someone was waving a pressure washer around inside the car while racing. As you can guess that was a little distracting but the car felt awesome in the rain. The skinny 14” tires cut through the water and had a surprising amount of grip.

With all the rain there was a lot of flooding on the way home. I drove around one flooded part the best I could but the passenger side still filled up with 2” of water. Then a wave from an SUV that went around me splashed up and though the fire wall and soaked the ignition modular and fuse box. The Datsun didn’t like that and took a 10 minute time out on the side of the road. It would crank, fire up then ignition would immediately cut out. Finally it started making spark again in spurts and I was able to creep along till things dried out more and went back to normal. Patching the passenger rust just moved up on my to do list.

Spent all last weekend fixing rust. Besides the holes on the passenger side the unibody was in bad shape too. Someone had patched it before with scrapes of metal and some booger welds from a stick welder. Decided it was not worth trying to save so I cut it all out. Even with our limited tools Dave formed a new section of unibody which fit great. Firewall was a pain since there was a bunch of holes plus it ties into the unibody and inner wheel well under the battery plus the heater box and wiring were in the way. Since the goal is to pass tech and not restore the car I used flat metal to patch everything and flux core wire. For a quick but functional repair I think it came out pretty good. Still need to finish some welds then seam seal it to make it water tight.

In other news our lemons registration was accepted. We’ll be racing at Thompson Speedway in CT Aug 8-9 and our team is called “Nuthin’ but a Z Thang”

Finished up a few more welds then cleaned, seam sealed, and bedlined the passenger side so everything stops rusting. Now that there isn’t a huge hole I can tell that the windsheld leaks in the corner and something down by the heater box when it rains.

With the floor patched I moved onto notching the door bars. I made a some rough measurements then started notching. This actually went pretty smooth and the notches came out great. Hard to tell in the picture since there was no one to hold the bars together.

Those damn bees made your firewall rust out!

I'm a youngun', what's that round brake-booster-looking thing on the passenger side dash supposed to be? Is that the backside of the blower motor?