[240Z TwinTurbo]

Got a new toy from the same friend that sold me his 2009 GTR. I'll be posting some updates about the progress of the car, but it is a very clean and restored 260Z from about 20 years ago with no rust. Paint is still in great shape, although it needs a paint correction. Engine is forged rods and pistons with a set of cams and tuned with an old school Electromotive TechGT. Car dynoed [email protected] on 93 pump, but running less boost now due to traction issues due to the tires also being 20 years old. Car was retrofitted with RaceLogic traction control and even has AC. More details to come, but for now some pics!

 

[GTRHOLIC]

Congrats James.. car looks stunning and unique for sure, must be fun to drive 😍

Happy to see these cars go to the right people!

 

[Gdzilla_]

That is nostalgic in every sense of the word. Congrats !!

Happy Motoring indeed…

 

[240Z TwinTurbo]

Thanks for the kind words and I view this as an investment in my family because I'm going to pass my cars down to my kids so they can be enjoyed for another generation. Although the car was clean and straight there are some things that need attention so I will be making relatively minor changes, which I will document here.

The car was running a set of Lexus coils, but they started to die so the owner temporarily put back the DFU (coil packs) that Electromotive is famous for and mounted it to the top of the engine. With the TechGT you can't alter dwell because it is designed to run maximum spark energy to the supplied DFUs, which is based on 8ms. Most COP's will be at saturation with 8ms so I decided to just use the DFUs and this required that a find a place to mount them and fabricate a mount. I didn't want to drill any holes so I found a spot that had 3 factory holes with M6x1 threads and made an aluminum mount.

The next step was to prime and apply some black wrinkle paint and attach the DFU's to the mount. The wires are just temporary and were thrown on there by the previous owner to get the car running due to the Lexus coils dying. I've ordered a custom set of Magnecor KV85 black wires that I hope to get before Christmas.

 

[Prune]

Really nice dude. I will be following this for sure. Please keep us updated.

 

[240Z TwinTurbo]

Thanks! I usually don't do exterior mods because like to focus on the engine setup, but for some reason this car has me motivated to make some changes. The car came with some chrome plated plastic mirrors so I opted for a more traditional retro look and went with the Scott Drake Bullet mirrors from a 65-68 Mustang. I ordered just the driver's side initially, but I really like how it looks so I ordered the passenger side.

Old Mirror

New Bullet Mirror: It is temporarily held on with screws, but I ordered some stainless nut serts so I can properly attach this to the door.

 

[240Z TwinTurbo]

I had a chance to properly install the mirrors today using stainless nutserts, which are M5x0.8. You can see the car had a few mirror options over the past 48 years and the holes I'm using are the front and rear, which have to be drilled 7mm for the nutsert.

I put a little bit of Threebond on the underside of the lip to keep it water tight.

Using the tool from Harbor Freight the nutsert is easily attached to the door.

You can see in the pic below the nutsert lip is bigger than the seal so the seal won't sit flush with the door causing leaks.

Using a step bit I enlarged hole in the seal to allow the nutsert flange to recess into the seal surface so i can sit flush with the door.

The mirrors come with the bolt holes angled, which is puzzling considering it comes with both screws and machine screws.

I had to drill the hole slightly larger for the M5 bolt, but you can see the angle of the drill. Once I drilled it out I just straightened the drill to where it was normal to the mounting surface so the hole was straight through to interface the nutserts.

Hard to tell, but using a ball end grinder I created a new seat for the tapered head on the bolt. This took some time since the original seat based based on an angled screw.

Nothing like making your own custom bolt heads by spinning the screws in a drill while you remove material with an angle grinder and cutoff wheel.

The finished bolts! Not too pretty from the sides, but look the same from the top. I should have called Greggs Customs.

 

[240Z TwinTurbo]

Installed and ready to go! I used thread sealant to seal the nutsert threads and clear silicone around the head of the machine screw.

 

[Wicked]

Like always, nicely done!!

 

[240Z TwinTurbo]

Like always, nicely done!!

Thanks! More pics to come later today of the recent changes. Greggs Customs is showing the 260Z some Titanium love.

 

[240Z TwinTurbo]

The next thing to address was the strut tops were hitting the frame for the hood. These camber plates can be mounted both above and below the strut top, but due to the excessive length of threads on the top of the shock it caused clearance issues. Below is how the camber plates were setup when I got the car and no matter how you mount them you have to remove a portion of the top of the strut tower to allow for camber adjustments.

When you move the camber plate to the underside of the strut tower I needed to make a top plate so it has a nice finish. After a few hours in CAD I was able to get a perfect drawing of the top plate.

Next order of business was to have the local Metal Supermarket cut these for me, which was $30 for 4 of them. I needed some spares that I could use while I have the others painted to match the car. I ordered some "350Z Daytona Blue" spray paint and clear from Automotive Touchup so that should arrive in the next 10 days as it is custom made to order. Below is the camber plate moved below the strut tower with a nice unpainted top plate to sandwich in place.

Despite gaining about 1/4" of additional clearance, the shock top is still slightly touching the hood frame. I took some measurements and sent them to Greggs Customs to machine a pair of 1/4" thick Titanium washers to slide on to the top of the shock before attaching it to the camber plate. This will reduce the amount of threads sticking through the hole by 1/4" and that should give me all the clearance I need.

 

[240Z TwinTurbo]

Next up was to rework the turbo to intercooler pipe for several reasons. I want the BOV right before the throttle body and I want to run a larger filter that more matches the flow of this old school 35r. Below is the how the setup looked when purchased.

Here is the pipe that I took off the car.

Because it used a straight coupler off the turbo this reduced how far forward the filter could be place. I ordered a 3" to 2.5" 45deg coupler and made a very simple pipe that gained a lot of clearance. Below is the new turbo to intercooler pipe.

The new turbo inlet is finished, but is currently baking in the over after doing a black wrinkle finish. I'll post some pictures later, but I now run a huge filter with a 6" velocity stack.

 

[Elie335]

Wow not sure how i missed this thread

Congrats james, you deserve it

 

[240Z TwinTurbo]

^Thanks!

Got the new intake setup on the car, although the filter is actually a used piece from my EVO. Put some play-doh on top of the filter and shut the hood to check the clearance and it's about 1/4". I also used the video on my phone and positioned the phone in the engine bay so I could see that it wasn't touching. Last thing I need is to start rubbing paint on the underside of the hood.

 

[240Z TwinTurbo]

The dirty K&N filter was bugging me and Green Filters will no longer make custom filters with custom colors so I ordered this filter off of Ebay for $23 shipped and it seems to be very good quality and it's blue.

The next modification was to rework the intercooler pipe to the intake manifold. I ordered a 30deg coupler for off the intercooler so it would not rub on the bracket mounted to the fender well as the previous pipe did. I also moved the BOV to this pipe so it is located just before the throttle bodies.

Next was to move the cruise control module out from under the inspection panel to make room for the coolant overflow bottle. Below you can see that I moved the cruise control module to just behind the strut tower and then mounted the overflow tank under the inspection panel using some stainless nutserts.

The overflow bottle's new home and I have the 5/16" heater hose arriving today to connect to the radiator.

 

[240Z TwinTurbo]

Not much of an update, but I made some custom length spark plug wires to clean up that rat's nest that was there. Gonna send the valve covers off week after next to Greggs Customs to match the Daytona Blue paint.

 

[240Z TwinTurbo]

I never thought I would be so excited about hooking up a heater hose between the expansion tank and radiator. I even purchased new clamps for the job!

Started prepping the valve cover for powdercoating, which required that I remove the metal plate emblem. A lot of heat and some prying and it was removed.

 

[240Z TwinTurbo]

Hard to tell which one is dirtier, but both need a bath. Electric Blue vs 350Z Daytona Blue!

 

[gtrbillet]

The Z looks tiny. Take one with the GT-R parked next to them. Next you need a Bayside Blue R34.....and powder coat Evo wheels gold to match Z....

 

[240Z TwinTurbo]

A few steps forward and a few steps back. The heat exchanger under the dash started leaking so I pulled a portion of the dash out to get access. After pressure testing the core I can only assume it leaked due to a loose hose clamp. However, now that I took all that stuff off i might as well upgrade the shifter and the factory gauges to the ones made by SpeedHut.

I received the Titanium spacers from Greggs Customs so I could lower the shock threads ~0.250". I also ordered new bump stops, but turns out they sent me 15mm bump stops vs the 22mm I requested. That means I have to pull the driver's side shock again, which is not exactly fun as I wanted to add the bump stop and spacer at the same time.

Below is a picture of the unpainted strut tower cover as well as the Titanium spacer. When you drop the shock the spacer simply lets ~0.250" less threads stick out the top of the camber plate.

The next image is the painted strut top cover and you can see the amount of threads sticking out are now ~0.250" less.