72240z Posted February 6, 2013 Report Share Posted February 6, 2013 There a reason you hacked the whole corner out instead of just the rust? I mean why not at least drill out the tacks on the rad support? 1st project car I'm not raging on you. Its not the right way is all. 1 Quote Link to comment
Ben280 Posted February 7, 2013 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2013 There a reason you hacked the whole corner out instead of just the rust? I mean why not at least drill out the tacks on the rad support? 1st project car I'm not raging on you. Its not the right way is all. Well, since its the frame rail that was the problem, it was easier for me to use my angle grinder on the other side and follow the seam of where the frame and sheet metal meet. Thats why the bottom has such a goofy shape! It seemed easier to lop the corner off though, since the rust was so bad. And I have a donor piece to slot in. Photo of it welded up tonight. I didn't drill the spot welds on the rad support because I thought that cutting where I did would give me a better locator for when the piece was back in the correct spot. Although I guess the spot welds would have done a similar thing. I'm not planning to keep the rad support in its present form though, I have plans to replace it with some rectangle tubing and gussets, since its twisted up down low. I'm super new to the whole body repair thing though, any good resources on doing this kind of stuff? Just now seeing this thread for the first time! I don't know why I haven't seen it before. Love what you've done with it. How do you like the AZC coils? And how much lower do they go in the rear? I've always been curious about them. I was going to offer to buy your Brides, but I just noticed someone else already had dibs : / I still have one Bride left! the AZC Coils are amazing so far. Pretty firm (got mine with the 350lbs springs) but they handle pretty well. They go lots lower in the rear. If I wanted to section the strut tubes again, they would be insane, but as is, I think I could lower it enough to get solid rubbing! Quote Link to comment
72240z Posted February 7, 2013 Report Share Posted February 7, 2013 I see, if the rad support is going I guess it doesnt really matter. Idk any good resources like to see or read off the top of my head. Only know what I do from doing it in shops and on my own over time. In the future even if you plan to remove something after the fact its still better to chop at the cars natural seams. It makes it both easier to make/find a replacement and also easier to make sure its installed true. Making cuts at random places maybe easier on removal but def harder on replacement. Anyway keep on keeping on ;-)Good ideas with the wheel and petals. Quote Link to comment
Ben280 Posted March 13, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 13, 2013 Ok! Been a while since I updated, but not a whole lot has been happening! Got the car tidied up in preparation for the first race of the season on the first weekend of march. This included redoing the exhaust for the 3rd or 4th time. This round of changes included welding the merge collector onto the header, rather than using clamps, and attaching a V band clamp and flex section just after the header. Hopefully this allows enough flex for the whole system to not shake itself loose! Also got all my gauges hooked up and working, along with the 2 12" radiator fans. Should keep this baby cool! Oh yeah, the core support is finished and welded, along with a freshly painted bay! The only downside is that to maximize space, I moved the new core suport 1/2" closer to the nose. This interfered with the hood hinge, so bye-bye hood hinge! Strictly running pins now, and planning an upgrade to a fiberglass hood with aero catch style pins in the near (ish) future. Got it to the races and she did well. Managed to run quicker than a couple of miatas, but due to a new timing system and the resulting failures, I only got 3 time for 8 runs. I did manage to break a hood pin almost first thing though, and decided to run the whole day with no hood. She was running pretty well but started to fast idle at the end of the day. I think the issue may have been a sticky throttle cable. I lubed it and tightened everything down and now its back to normal. Running a Porsche Club event on Saturday which will be a good shake down event. The auto-x events are only a few miles from my house so if things go badly, its a cheap tow. In other exciting news, my car was featured on What Monsters Do. Pretty cool site. My room mate shot all the photos for it, and there are some good ones! http://whatmonstersdo.com/blog2/2013/03/04/quick-snap-bens-1977-datsun-280z/ Quote Link to comment
72240z Posted March 13, 2013 Report Share Posted March 13, 2013 Looking good, congrats on the feature. Running all day with no hood def hurt ya lol like a giant air scoop. Running N/A thats hurts even more. Imagine how much better you'll do with a hood on.See now what you meant about the core support. I would add gussets in there when you get a chance both to limit flexing and for safety sake. Quote Link to comment
Homeboyx Posted March 13, 2013 Report Share Posted March 13, 2013 Love it. This is what my s30 wants to be when it grows up. Quote Link to comment
Ben280 Posted March 14, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 14, 2013 Looking good, congrats on the feature. Running all day with no hood def hurt ya lol like a giant air scoop. Running N/A thats hurts even more. Imagine how much better you'll do with a hood on. See now what you meant about the core support. I would add gussets in there when you get a chance both to limit flexing and for safety sake. Thanks dude! Gussets are in the works, a friend is going to CNC some cool ones that I'll put in soon (ish!) And I assumed as much about the hood, hopefully I'll get some time back when I re-attach my hood! Although I felt a bit better about having the hood off so it could cool down fast between runs. Love it. This is what my s30 wants to be when it grows up. Thanks! I consider this one to be a grumpy teenager if anything, but I'm glad to be building a role model! Quote Link to comment
Ben280 Posted April 5, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2013 Car front has been quiet for a bit! Trying to focus more on driving it rather than ripping it apart all the time haha! I went to a Porsche club event a few weeks ago, and laid the datsun smackdown on a couple cool porches! no recorded times but they had the display out so we were all able to compare. I cut out all the stuff under the hood, so its just a skin now. Having quad hood pins make it pretty easy. I'm also thinking about getting a fiberglass hood with some aerocatch pins. Anybody got a good line on quality FG hoods? Also crushed one of the oil cooler brackets after nailing a cone straight amidships! Haven't had time to build a new bracket yet, but something will happen there soon. Quote Link to comment
unionmine Posted April 6, 2013 Report Share Posted April 6, 2013 Nice looking Z No frills the way it should be. Quote Link to comment
Ben280 Posted August 15, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 15, 2013 Bump from the depths of abandoned threads! Thought the ratsunverse deserved an update since a few cool things have happened recently! Between racing and moving into a new house, nothing MAJOR has happened. Lots of racing the car and making it work! The main difference that everyone will notice is the addition of perminant numbers and SCCA class letters (wrong but thats ok!) and a fresh new splitter! It does its job to prevent the understeer in faster corners and it looks sweet! two locator pins on the cross member and the quick release pin locks hold it on, as well as being bolted to the airdam and sharing the airdam quarter turn fasteners. It has to be taken on and off to move the car out of the driveway, but this solution is pretty nice. She REALLY doesn't do speed bumps now! Finally got rid of the drivers side window too! The window track got tweaked somehow and the window refused to go up. I think it had something to do as well with the lack of hardware holding the window on, but thats all in the past now! Door is totally gutted and the new lexan window will be joining the party shortly. More dzus fasteners in this cars future! I picked up a set of Avon slicks from a racing friend of mine and am planning to get a new set of bassetts to run them. the 15x11 and 15x10's are fun, but they incur a 100lbs weight penalty for the class I'm moving into and its easy enough to get new ones. The downside of running slicks is that i need more offset to clear everything. Sort of fine though because with the 15's I have tierod clearance issues up front. You can guess where this is going! MOAR FLARE!!!! Luckily I was only running standard ZG flares which gave me one more step before doing something stupid; the BAMF ZG flares from Z force! Double lucky a friend locally ordered a set back in april and didn't end up running them on his project car. A quick trade later and they are currently in primer, waiting for final paint tomorrow! The other problem with slicks is that you can't drive them on the street. A keen eye may have also realized that in the last two photos, the wheels don't look like bassetts, nor do they look like 15x10's! A keen eye is right, they are in fact 16x12 Gotti 75ba's! Got them for a ripping good deal. 16x11, 16x12 staggered. Offset is perfect in the rear, and spacers are needed up front. Just how much remains to be seen. Anyway, gold powdercoat center sections and polished lips are in the works! Quote Link to comment
Ben280 Posted August 15, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 15, 2013 Here are a few more photos to make up for neglecting you all for so long! :thumbup: 1 Quote Link to comment
Spoona_Jay21 Posted August 15, 2013 Report Share Posted August 15, 2013 ^^^ x100000000000000 Love this car, girlfriend laughed at me when i giggled like a little fucking school girl when i saw there was an update. as i have previously stated.... The Perfect 280Z lies on these 5 pages of Ratsun. 1 Quote Link to comment
Rustbucket Posted August 15, 2013 Report Share Posted August 15, 2013 This thing looks fucking cool, man. 1 Quote Link to comment
aintnobiscuit Posted August 15, 2013 Report Share Posted August 15, 2013 holy crap... thats one of the best Z's i've ever seen. 1 Quote Link to comment
Homeboyx Posted August 16, 2013 Report Share Posted August 16, 2013 *Homer drool* Can't wait to see it with the new shoes! Quote Link to comment
72240z Posted August 21, 2013 Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 Updates? :-)I'm like hater number one here but I love your z lol. Thats got to be saying something... 1 Quote Link to comment
Ben280 Posted August 24, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 24, 2013 Updates? :-) I'm like hater number one here but I love your z lol. Thats got to be saying something... I'll have to post photos tomorrow, but the door is finished up and the new flares are attached. I was surprised how close the new flares matched up to the old ones in terms of bolt spacing. The downside of the new flares is that now my wheels are super sunk and therefore LAME!!! Going to the NWZ show tomorrow so I'll be able to snag some good pics then up show off! My room mate decided to get a compression tester earlier this week and I pulled down some seriously meh numbers! 120-105-120-120-120-120! (teeny bit of rounding, but hey its an autozone gauge right!). Not the MOST confidence inspiring but oh well, she runs pretty good. Maybe ignorance was bliss! Quote Link to comment
Davidk Posted October 1, 2013 Report Share Posted October 1, 2013 More pics! Such a sweet looking Z, an inspiration to me. 1 Quote Link to comment
Ben280 Posted October 17, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2013 Hello Ratsun-ers! I'm sorry about lying to you about an update, truth is, I've been having too much fun racing the car to show you what I've been doing! I hope you can forgive me. Last auto-x event of the season was last weekend. Finished 2nd in class (SSM) behind a boosted Honda s2k, but beating a Porsche 911 and a Mazda FD rx-7! Also made a trip down to southern oregon for the SSCC fall enduro at the White City track. Very fun event. Anybody with even a slight interest in motorsport should take a trip down there for sure. Car is sitting in my garage now, and the list of winter projects is long! The wheels from a few posts back are at the powder coaters and will make an appearance here soon. Other planned upgrades for the winter months include R200 LSD rear end, and upgrading the ignition system. One recent "upgrade" was to loose some weight out of the doors. The 280 doors are monsters and after many years of abuse had developed many a rattle. I got fed up with it and since the car is a sunny day car only (re: leaky windshield seals) I done removed some bits. Removes about 35 lbs per side. I've got one plexi insert for the drives side, just need to get one made for the passenger now! More photos to come! Quote Link to comment
NewKid559 Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 Your engines relatively stock right? Quote Link to comment
Ben280 Posted October 21, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 yeah, stock ish. Mostly aesthetic stuff done under the hood. (For now!) Quote Link to comment
Ben280 Posted October 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 Ok a real update!! Been puttering away on some projects this week, mostly prepping a new rear end to go in. Bought a ATS 1.5 way diff in a s13 pumpkin that will bolt right in. Took a lot of reading to figure out exactly what I needed but the carrier section (and by extension LSD's) for the open diff s13 will bolt right up, and use stock 280z output shafts. Very slick! Carrier bolts were SUPER on there. Needed to have my friend stand on the pumpkin, and use a 4' cheater bar to get these things even close to loose! Was important to remember to loosen these bolts before pulling the LSD out, otherwise, you have no good way to hold onto the carrier to loosen the bolts. Getting the carrier out of the housing was a trick too. Didn't want to pry at it, so a ratchet strap filled in nicely! Shot of the whole mess! Going to use the ring and pinion gears from a 3.90 NA 280zx. Take a look at the back plate, this one is from the s13 Open diff. The VLSD s13 cover is deeper and has more fins. Decided that while everything is out I should try and make it look a little prettier. Spent some quality time with my wire wheel and got the housing and halfshafts cleaned up! In progress with the diff housing, looking good. Before: Middle (need to hit with some engine enamel): Next on the table is a mustache bar from the crew over at T3 that will accept the bolt pattern on the s13 diff cover. Hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on a VLSD diff cover, which holds a little bit more oil and has better cooling! Cooling is very important for the life of the LSD. 1 Quote Link to comment
Spoona_Jay21 Posted October 22, 2013 Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 As Previously stated, the PERFECT 280 lies here. Glad too see more progress on the beast! 1 Quote Link to comment
Ben280 Posted October 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 As Previously stated, the PERFECT 280 lies here. Glad too see more progress on the beast! Thanks dude! Racing was tons of fun, but I'm super excited to have the car in the garage and torn apart again! Quote Link to comment
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