[cuz68]

Looks great Fred, Thanks for the up date. Randy

[fbrown]

I took the car to a muffler shop today. Decided I didn't want to install the exhaust system myself. My wagon is getting old, full throttle just barely pulled the Lemans up the driveway.

First time the car has seen the sun in five years.

Some photos of the car in sun light.














Ready for exhaust system. The shop didn't finish today. Since I have to keep the trailer another day, I might try to get an alignment tomorrow. Provided the muffler shop finishes the work early enough.

[Greg Reid]

Fred, all your hard work shows. It really looks straight and the paint also looks very nice! I'll bet it got some attention out there.

PS- I've never seen a gas tank like that. What's the story?

[fbrown]

Fred, all your hard work shows. It really looks straight and the paint also looks very nice! I'll bet it got some attention out there.

Thanks, I could only manage to tow at 30 mph (45 mph speed limit 4 lanes) and people in the other lane were slowing down to get a good look.

PS- I've never seen a gas tank like that. What's the story?

The tank is a Rick's EFI tank. It's stainless steel and very expensive but is considered one of the best for EFI conversions.

[amcmike]

Originally Posted by fbrown

I think you have an exhaust leak there.

Car looks great. I've been following this build since the beginning. Can't wait to see it on the road!

[fbrown]

I think you have an exhaust leak there.

Well I think I got the exhaust leak fixed.









I didn't get the car loaded on the trailer until 3:30 PM and it was too late for me the get a alignment today. Will have to wait a few days for the alignment, since it got real busy at work.

A few embarrassing moments, ran out of gas while unloading the car at the muffler shop. Only had a quart or so and with the steep angle coming off the trailer it ran out. I had to add another gallon to keep the pickup covered. Actually ran out of gas again while loading the car.

I have a few things to sort out. Check engine light came on. P0171 and P0173. These are codes for lean bank 1 and 2. I think I know what the problem is. I failed to connect the PVC breather line. It's hidden well and I only noticed it a few months ago, but failed to hook it up. This would supply extra air to the engine and would lean it out. This line should be connected after the MAF.



I have a transmission line leak. Was able to find the leak while car was on lift at the muffler shop.

Of course there is still a lot of little things to deal with. A few big one too, still have to repaint the hood and bumper.

I'm getting there. I hope to have the car on the road this summer.

[fbrown]

Time for some updates.

Got the car aligned. Goodyear was the only place near by and they were not so good. They spent 5 hours with the alignment and never got it right. They were unable to center the steering wheel and weren't able to adjust to the alignment specs I provided. They did however get it good enough so I can drive the car. Renting a trailer and towing gets old, especially when my tow vehicle has seen better days. The steering wheel was 30 degrees off. I removed and centered the steering wheel to align the wheel.... The alignment guy should have been able to correct this by adjusting the tie-rod ends.

I got the car tagged a few days later. Tag office told me I had to bring the car to the police station (in the same complex) and have a VIN number/plate inspection. VIN inspections are required on older cars that have never be registered in GA. My maiden voyage was a trip to the police station and back, about 12 miles. Uneventful trip but kind of nerve racking, since the most the car had been driven was to load and unload from a trailer.

I have since driven the car another 8 miles.

I obtained a copy of HP tuners so I can set the speedometer to read correctly. Changed rear end from 3.5 to 3.42 and the diameter of the tires I installed was slightly different from my original guess.

I have some PCM tuning issues to deal with. The car seems to be very rich, emitting a fine black smoke. Speartech used a E67 PCM and a base tune from a 2007 Trailblazer as the starting point. Tables appear to have been moved from a 2008 Corvette tune with the exception of the MAF. The MAF was to be from a 2005-2006 GTO, but the table values in my current tune don't match the figures for the GTO. They also don't match the values for a Corvette. I also think the O2 tables are wrong. The values in the E67 don't seem to match the stock tune of what my o2 sensors are listed for. The E67 PCM was used instead of a E38 (Standard use for Corvette) so I could have cruise control, The E67 handles the cruise control in several truck applications. With the E38 cruise control appears is handled by the BCM. I may need the help of a PRO to handle these issues.

A couple of videos of the car. Light throttle Data logging said max of 32% throttle in this one.

Video 1 56 MB file size

38% throttle during wheel spin. BTW my carpet is so thick I can only reach 78% of full throttle before the petal hits the carpet. Something else to fix.

Video 2 36 MB file size

Major things remaining. Purchase and install AC and repaint hood.

I'm getting close to completion.

However . . . . . the girl friend now wants me to restore her car. She's had her 1982 Nissan 280zx since new. The car hasn't been cranked for about 15 years. A head gasket failed and hydro locked the engine. Although repaired, it never ran right or was reliable afterwords. Car has about 182K miles. Shortly this car will be taking up residence in my basement.

A lot of rust repair to do.









I'll probably start a restoration thread in a Z forum in the next couple of weeks. I provide a link in case some of you want to follow the 280zx restoration. This will be a stock restoration or as stock as I can keep it. No LS engine swap for this project.

[fbrown]

More comments, the camera was sliding around a lot in video #1. I just set the camera on the dash.

Although the car sounds fast, it is reasonably fast, the butt dyno thinks I'm down about 150-200 HP from where I should be. I need to get a couple of hundred miles on the car and resolve some of the PCM table issues before I dyno the car. My 2006 GTO was considerably quicker and much heavier. I think I'm only putting down around 220-240 RWHP right now.

[cuz68]

Looks great Fred, Thank you for the update. Randy

[Greg Reid]

Interesting posts Fred. I wasn't able to view the videos, just some type of encrypted looking gobbly-goop.
You know, I have one of those Z-cars. Mine is an '80 model and I drive it daily to work. They DO tend to rust. I'll be looking forward to your resto of that one. Might inspire me to do the little bit of rust repair needed on mine. Mainly above the windshield.

[amcmike]

Just sayin'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGyL615C2Lg

[Greg Reid]

Now that's crazy...lol

[Blued and Painted]

Nice pass. Congrats! Now you need one of those sinister flat black paint jobs.

[Greg Reid]

By the way Fred, when you get around to that Z car, I found a pretty good forum over at www.zcar.com I'm not very active but I've gotten some good info and advice lurking around over there and it's pretty friendly.

[fbrown]

I'm probably going to put the restoration on http://www.zdriver.com/forums/280zx-s130-forums-77/ which is the only site I've found dedicated to the 280zx. Carol's car also has rust at the top of roof, bottom the doors, hood, rocker panel, rear hatch, a few spots on the quarters, front valence (also badly dented), and it remains to be seen what I find when I take the car apart. The car is pretty far gone but has great sentimental value to Carol. I'm surprised at the lack of restoration parts for the 280zx, parts are hard to find and expensive when you do. Door seals are nearly $1000. I estimate I will spend around $2000 for all of the weather stripping. I guess I have been spoiled by the easy availability of restoration parts for mid 60's GM cars.




Not much you can do but replace weather stripping this far gone.

[Greg Reid]

I was lucky with mine...actually, I was shocked at the lack of rust. Also, weather seals are still in great shape, new struts and shocks by previous owner, great interior and good running engine and good drive train.
As for rust, I have that same spot on the roof as you show but worse. Other than that, the front lip of the hood is the only significant rust on the car. I actually found a complete 80~82 model at a junkyard here and the hood was perfect...rustwise....but it was lying on the ground and people had been walking on it. Dented beyond repair.

[Greg Reid]

One more reference to the Z and I'll let it go... Fred, considering the cost of restoration vs. the very low value of these cars...have you considered talking her into replacing it? They are pretty cheap.
Ran across this driver on ebay for the cost of weatherstripping alone... That's about what I paid for my daily driver also...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Datsun-Z-Ser...20206#ht_0wt_0

[fbrown]

Discussions about the Z are welcome. In Carol's case the value of the car after it's restored is irreverent. She never intends to sell the car. While the Ebay car would be a much cleaner car to start with, she only wants her car, not another one. I tried to convince her to sell the car 20 years ago with no luck. The car has great sentimental value to her, having owned it since it was new. It was her only car from 1982 to 1997. She was then forced to replace the 280ZX as her daily driver because it because unreliable after hydro locking. Fortunately it locked while cranking, but never ran the same after being repaired. She has said for years, if she ever won the lottery she would get her 280ZX restored. Of all the cars she has owned, the 280ZX is her favorite. Unfortunately the last several years of sitting under a cover have not been kind to the car. Five years ago it didn't look like it would be hard to restore, now it needs a lot. I'm not real sure if the cover actually helps.

After seeing my Lemans nearly complete, she wants her car restored to show room new or better. She wants the same quality paint job as I did on the LeMans. BTW the last paint job on the 280ZX was a basic Maaco enamel paint job.

So now I get to restore her car before I start on my next project, my 68 Eldorado will have to wait a while longer. Her car shouldn't take too long, maybe 6 months to a year. Her car looks to be an interesting project.

My budget looks like around 4-5K for the body work, paint and interior. It looks like a mixture of NOS and reproduction weather stripping will run around $1200 for the whole car, not the 2K I originally guessed. What I don't know is how much I will spend on the power train. She needs either a new long block or a complete rebuilding of the current engine. The transmission will almost certainly need rebuilding (original and never rebuilt). After sitting for 15 years, I don't even know if the engine will turn over. I don't know much about Nissan engines, but I guess I'm about to learn. Budget for engine and trans, guessing 3K.

Of course the budget is subject to change after I take the car apart. The current budget is based on the 200+ pictures I took of the car a couple of weeks ago.

I agree that another car would be cheaper to restore, but Carol would never accept that. For instance if a tree fell on her car and destroyed it, she would not want to replace it with another 280ZX.

[fbrown]

Now with all the talk about the 280ZX lets give the 68 Lemans some time. I'm going to refer to it a 68 GTO moving forward, since after all, it was converted to look like a 68 GTO.

I feel like the last 1% of the build takes 90% of the time.

A Partial list of remaining things to do.

Screw ups. I went to install the windshield wiper motor and found that the motor hit where I ran the fuel line up the firewall. This sucks big time since it will be hard to make and install another fuel line with the car all put together.

I hope to repaint the hood and bumper this month. I decided to make a priority of getting an alignment and getting the car tagged, so I didn't paint the hood last month.

I'm talking to Vintage Air tomorrow about ordering an AC unit.

Install Vintage Air unit.

Cornering light bezels rechroming won't be complete until September.

Adjust brake proportioning Valve . I need a few more miles before testing the brakes at their limits.

Need to order seat belts and shoulder belts. Planning on ordering deluxe style OEM belts. Decided that 68 OEM style belts would hold me in the seat better since you can adjust them tight. I considered a 3 point modern style, but it suffers from not holding you in the seat unless breaking. Don't want to go flying out of the seat when cornering.

I need to write a program to read the PCM temp and display it on the temperature gauge. I have a Arduino single board controller and OBD2 interface for completing this task.

The Corvette alternator does not control the GEN light. I can either build a small board to activate the GEN light on low voltage (<12.3) or I could program the Arduino board to do this function. I like the small purpose built board better. If I keep adding functions to the Arduino board, it will become a BCM.

Since the steering column does not have a switch to activate the cornering lights, I need to write programming in the Arduino board to control the cornering lights.

PCM needs to be tuned. I should probably have 500 miles on the car before I do any dyno tuning.

Cruise control does not work. Need to troubleshoot .

Fabricate a blank panel in location where the AC control panel was. The bottom portion will contain the vintage air controls. The upper will have the MIL display, Blinking car alarm LED, switch to reset trip meter.

Trunk weather strip leaks, need to look into this.

Console is not fully mounted. Figure I need to remove it to install vintage air, so pointless to bolt everything down.

Actually I think this is all of what remains. The list is getting smaller.

[Aus Goat]

Frank its been awhile on a update of the 68 GTO .
I know I would like to see pictures of the finished car in all her glory from the front to the back. Even another drive video

Craig