Picked up a Datsun 280Z

yeah. blower motor.

nice work on the rot repair. i love slot mags

Lookin good.

Cool build, I'm a z guy too. Nice job on the rust repair and extra points for racing it too! As for your water leak, check and seal the seams where the body meets the cowl, especially on the cowl side of your fan inlet. I think you will find the source of your leak there.

Just found your post. I worked on a customers 1970 240z back in 1979. It had approx. 90K miles on it and already had significant rust - rockers, floors, big hole under battery box you name it. Back then all I had was oxy- acetylene to weld with but I was fairly good. This was on Island New York.

Good to see you have revived this car.

Thanks guys! The car is still pretty rusty but I'm glad its patched up and solid enough to keep enjoying it.

Here are some pictures from the last autocross I went to in the rain.

Lemons is coming up next weekend and we still have a lot to do. Last week I finished welding in the door bars.The passenger one is kind of low since I was looking at some older rules i had printed out and thought I only needed one bar. turns out I need 2 so I added another below he first one. If i went above it would have been harder to get stuff in and out of the car. Worse case i'll notch and weld in another at the track if they fail it.

While welding in the door bars I managed to lean against one with my left arm and get a nice 3" second degree burn. Following weekend I was so focused on not doing that again with my left arm that I brushed my right arm against a hot bar getting another 3" second degree burn. I'm an idiot. I need to stop welding in sort sleeve shirts and ideally get a welding jacket.

Next up is making a panel to hold the gauges, switches, fire suppression pull, and kill switch. I really wanted to use a street sign but my teammate found a thicker piece of aluminum.

After spending the last Sunday replacing the leaking rear wheel cylinders and installing Porterfield brake shoes, we decided to make the Datsun look more like a racecar.

New hub adapter and disconnect showed up. The wheel was already really close to me but with the new setup its a 1/2 closer which now makes my arms hit the sides of the seat. Its even worse for my teammate Pat who is taller then me. Solution? Flip the wheel which has 1.25 offset. It looks stupid but fits great now.

Everyone on my team was new to lemons and didn't know what to expect. We were nervous about tech inspection but ended up passing with ease. Only thing they paused on was how much room there was between our head and the top of the main hoop since we have some tall guys on the team.

For the BS inspection I had brought receipts showing the car was under $500 but Judge Phil didn't seem to care. He said it looks kinda cheaty, we don't have a theme, and they have never seen us before. We were placed in class "A" and were going to get BS laps too until he saw our bribe. My GF had etched some pint glasses with the lemons logo which Judge phil described as "Hella Sweet!" which I think is the California equivalent to "Wicked Awesome". We ended up with class A and zero BS laps which didn't really matter since this was our first time and we were going to suck regardless.

The Datsun did stick out without a theme or generally crappyness. Only extra we added was taping the entire wiring diagram to the hood of the car since the whole EFI harness is white wires.

Saturday we started racing and everything went pretty smoothly. We had 5 teammates and switched every 45 mins to an hour just so we all got some seat time. Our lap times were not bad but our pit stops were extremely slow and often. At the end of the day we were around 60th out of 100 cars. I'll go into Sunday later.

Nice. Your car looks great without a theme. I hate themes, it's racing not community theater.

hanging on for the sunday experience

We had the best "pit in" sign of all time.

Only minor incident on Saturday was a Mustang came flying up my left side on the straightaway in the in the dirt and added some more character to the driver's door and fender plus the car in front of me. Oh well, it at least gave us an idea for a theme and the door didn't match anyway.

Sunday we focused on trying to pit quicker which made a big difference and helped us climb up a few spots but ended up having a minor issue which set us back. Pat started Sunday and drove just over an hour till he was getting fuel cut in corners. With our stock tank we can only use half of it which is about 7 gallons till we need to refuel. We filled up and Dave jumped in for his stint. Few laps in he called in and asked if Pat heard the front wheel bearing making noise.

We had Dave stay out and finish his stint but by then end we could hear the bearing over the radio so he came into the garage. Harkins was up next so he got ready while we checked out what was making noise. Drivers side bearing was very loose and had a bunch of play. We tightened it 3 full turns and sent Harkins out.

He called in and said he can hear the bearing making noise but its not terrible so we told him to keep driving till it sounded really bad then come in. Surprisingly he finished his stint which included spinning out once (he also spun Saturday too) before coming into the garage.

We had 3 hours left and really didn't want to swap out the bearing. We got the car up and the wheel was all floppy again. Passenger side was getting a little loose too. It also didn't help that somewhere on track we lost the dust bearing cap for the drivers side. So we pulled the passenger side apart and it looked ok but the nut could still back off some even with the cotter pin. Solution was to hit the nut with hammer and chisel to make a lock nut.

Driver's side was in worse shape. Outer bearing looked fine but when we went to remove the inner it came out in pieces.

Well that explains why it was making noise. At least we had a spare set of bearings but were running out of time. In an effort to save time we quickly wiped out most of the metal filled grease till we could get a good look at the inner race. Surprisingly the race didn't look as bad as we expected. It didn't look great either but we slapped a new bearing and put everything else back together. Our solution for the missing dust cap was to pack in some extra grease and run a wheel on that side which still had a center cap. With everything back together we send Jeff out next and he called in and said everything was fine.

Bearing cost us 40 minutes and we dropped 3 places but Jeff managed to gain that back and after my last stint we finished 48 over all! I think we did pretty good considering the car was unproven and 4 out of 5 teammates have never been on track.

As for the car the most shocking thing was the brakes were our favorite thing about it. Before the race pads and fixing the rear drums we hated the brakes. They never had much bite and would sometimes pull or lock. The front has solid rotors with aluminum rear drums so we we not excepting much from them. On track we could out brake most cars with no fade and the only time they felt spongy was the first lap after a pit stop. More power would be nice but I'd like to add camber first since we are wearing the outside of out tires.

Biggest thing we need to improve is ourselves if we want to go faster. Our pit stops were painfully slow and the bad bearing didn't help. Looking at the results if we cut our pit times down to 6-7 minutes and didn't have to work on the car we could have been mid 20's. That's a big difference. Car needs some improvements too but i don't want to change too much. Anyway here are some more pictures.

We we not able to get the louvers installed on the car. Well I did try Firday night while drunk but didn't think they would last so we turned them into a pit sign.

Even though the Datsun is beat up it still looks great on track and I'd hate to ruin it with a theme.

Forget where I stole this pic from.

I agree with Jimbob: themes are stupid. Car looks great!

The only theme idea that came to mind was two face. I'd finish the body work on the passenger side and repaint it to make it look perfect. Driers side would be left rusty, dented, and with the orange door. Then when its parked in out pit we would have a car cover which we would cut in half down the middle and glue magnets to so we could cover only the nice side. He would allow me to have one nice side to look at and park towards my neighbors house.

I also would like to paint it up like a hotwheels car but I'm afraid it would look too nice and not get into races. I don't care what class it gets put in or if we get BS laps.

That is a good looking Z! And a theme would ruin it. Just keep it semi-ratty and roll with it.

Lemons aftermath.

After having a blast racing at Thompson, we signed up to do NHMS in Oct. The Datsun did perform well but there are a few things we need to fix before racing again. The brakes felt great but there is nothing left of the front pads and there are signs that they were getting too hot.

This is after 365 laps / 620 miles of racing. For $82 race pads I can't complain.

I'd like to upgrade to vented rotors but don't really have the extra time or money. Instead we are going to try out the Porterfield R4-E endurance race pads for the 280Z instead of the normal race R4's. Hopefully installing brake ducts will also extend pad life along with help keeping our bearings cool.

Rear shoes looked almost new. I adjusted them per the FSM but they liked to lock up instantly on a quick trip around the neighborhood. Before the race we backed off the shoes a lot but it might of been too much since they were not doing much. Hopefully we can find the sweet spot and make it so the fronts are not doing all the work.

Next up is the front suspension. Our 40 year old lower control arm bushings were trashed after the race. I have some fancy camber bushings that were in the storage unit of parts I bought but then I found a set of open box poly bushings on Amazon for $4.80 shipped with Prime. I went with the poly since they were cheap and I can only get maybe 1/2 a degree of camber out of the adjustable bushings.

I still wanted to do something about camber but cheaty suspension parts are expensive. Since most of the front end was already apart I pulled the crossmember to see how much I can move the lower control arm hole.

With the crossmember removed I knocked out the washers that were tacked in place on the inside. Few Datsun websites mentioned moving the hole up to reduce bumpsteer and out for negative camber. Some people even slot the hole out and use a adjustable ford F150 camber bolts. I wanted to see how far I can go so I removed the outer tie rods and measured how long the treads were.

I wanted to move the hole about 3/4" and get -1.5 degrees of camber but that would be pushing it. Rumor is 280ZX outer tie rods are longer then stock so I ordered some today and will find out.

Measured the 280ZX tie rods and they are almost 1/2" longer which is enough to make me feel better. Down side is the 280Z uses a left and right tie rod since they are threaded different where the 280zx are both the same.

The 280zx will thread onto the drivers side no problem but to use it on the passenger side I need to swap the inner tie rod. Fortunately I have another rack I can snag the tie rod off of.

Greased everything up and bolted it back together.

Now that the rack is all set I knocked out the washers on the inside and had Dave measure and drill the new control armholes holes.

I drilled the holes larger once I found a 14mm drill bit then test fit the arms. I need to tack in new inner washers but right now arm fits too tight. Might trim the bushing or hammer the metal back on the crossmember. I also noticed that the arm almost hits on the inside so I might touch up the arm lightly with a grinder just in case.

Nice work.

i tried the vented rotor/toyota caliper setup the other day and my 14" wheels rub the caliper, just barely. something to consider, not sure what size stuff you're running. i intend to keep my wheels, so the brakes stay on the shelf until i decide bigger wheels.

In reply to patgizz:

I looked into the vented rotor/toyota caliper setup but wasn't sure if they would fit with my 14" wheels. Once both sets of tires are done we are going to upgrade to 15" wheels next season and look into different brake options. I'd like to see if I can adapt 300zx vented rotors with aluminum 4 piston calipers to save weight but will mostly likely go with the toyota setup.

Do you need any Z parts for your build? I have a bunch of random stuff kicking around.

In reply to PseudoSport:

Any of the 4 piston calipers will require 15" wheels. The extra stopping power is worth it however. Makes a big difference.

More progress. Clearanced the control arms and installed them.

They now had plenty of room between the crossmember so i started bolting everything else back on. I was worried that the strut rod wouldn't fit or bind but if i pulled it forward lightly it lined up ok and move freely. I did add a washer to space the rod forward more more in hopes of correcting caster.

What I forgot to account for was the swaybar endlink needed to me moved too. I didn't take any pictures but i drilled a new hole and welded on some washers.

With the struts back in and a jack under the control arm I took a quick measurements with a digital angle finder and get anywhere between .5-1.5 degrees of negative camber. Hopefully once i get the car back on the ground and have a more accurate gauge I'll have a better idea.

My teammate ordered Porterfeild R4-E pads so once they show up I can get the hubs and brakes back on. We're hoping the R4-E's hold up better then the normal R4's race pads.

With the front almost complete I turned my attention to the transmission. It didn't want to shift smoothly into 4th and when I drained the fluid there was a lot of metal that came out with it. I also felt the clutch slip a few times the last race so that getting replaced too. Once I got the clutch out it looked like it had been done recently but was very shinny. Might scuff it up and keep it as a backup.

The 4 speed was added to the stack of transmission in my basement a 5 speed is waiting to go in. I've never tested the new trans but since it came with the group of parts i bought, I'm hoping that because someone hung onto it for a while it must be good. I'll find out soon enough.

Got the front end back together and found out I accidentally stanced the car. Crappy pictures but there is almost 5 degrees of camber. This was also a week before the race.

Luckily I still had those adjustable lower control arm bushings. I installed those and was able to get camber to around 2.5-3 degrees.

Anyway skipping a head we made it to NHMS for lemons and passed tech without issue. This time we ended up in class "B" without and BS laps. On Saturday we started in the lower 30 for position. Dave was driving and said the car felt good and managed to climb up to 18 place over all and 4 in B class. We did drop down into the 20's when Dave and Jeff pitted for fuel. I was driving third and things we still going well till I came around the last corner and everyone was stopped on the main straight. I must have missed a yellow flag and the last corner is blocked by the wall and fence. Cars in front of me skidded to a stop but wasn't able to stop in time and I made contact with a Buick. Luckily no one was hurt but it was completely my fault. Buick only suffered a flat tire.

Drivers wheel is straight. The frame was pushed a few inches over and we bent the strut housing, steering knuckle, inner tie rod, and lower ball joint. Car looked like it was all done.

We were planing on loading it up and heading home but figured we try to find some chains and see if we could pull it back into shape with some trucks. While asking around I came across someone with a ramp truck and a winch. With a few trucks holding it in place the winch was able to pull back the frame most of the way.

With the frame pulled back we made a few calls and were able to source some of the suspension pieces we needed. Our friend Gavin was nice enough to pull them off his autocross car and bring them to us. By the end of the night things were looking better and we were able to set toe to zero. Looks like we might be able to Race Sunday after all.

FYI glass is stronger then rusty Datsun sheet metal.

Next morning it was raining and we would be sending Dave out in the questionable Datsun. Passenger wheel base was an inch shorter then it use to be and we had no idea how it was going to handle.

After a few laps we asked Dave how it was doing and he replied "it handles better then you would think". One it dried out Jeff beat his previous days best time by almost 2 seconds and Pat was running about the same times. I was still nervous from the previous day and took it easy turning laps that were 5 seconds slower then the other guys. Even with that I still managed to spin the car once but fortunately no damage. I was just having an off weekend. Still as a team we managed to turn 225 laps on Sunday with anymore problems.

So the 2015 lemons season is over for us. Off season is going to be busy since we need to replace the front frame rail before our next race in NJ in May. I'm confident we can get the car back to better then it was before plus make some more upgrades along the way.

Glad you are going to save it. Would hate to see a Z get trashed.

I really enjoyed reading about your Lemons exploits. I hope the car gets fixed up and returns next season. Thanks for sharing.

Oh, it's getting fixed.

Since the subframe was mostly patched up anyway, I'm pretty sure a few more patches to straighten it out a bit won't hurt!

Found a 1972 240Z parts car a few weeks ago. Plan was to cut out the front frame rail but I'd feel bad ruining another Z. It does run, drive and stop but its not really great at doing any one of those things. The floors and rails are bad and there has been some body work done in the past. Its had both rear wheel arches replaced and was painted red instead of the original orange. The front sheet metal isn't that great so I might borrow those at least. I really need to go over it and see how bad the car really is. It also came with a bunch of spare parts including another 240z engine and everything to swap in a 4 speed.