DJZ's 280ZX

[DJZ]

New injectors are in, car starts and runs which is good.

Power steering reservoir mounted, you can see the blow off valve in there too


Front brakes on


Oil cooler mounting tabs


Oil cooler mounted - top only so far


Trying to fix the broken front bumper mounts with some aluminium with fibreglass over it, we'll see if it holds together

[DJZ]

Well it now moves under it's own power.

Clutch feels a little funny, it's engages right off the floor. Will have to have a look at the adjustment and give it another bleed.

Exhaust is hitting on the chassis rail, I thought the v band would be enough to keep it in place but it's not, it keeps creeping over so I'll have to put another mount in there somewhere, probably a solid mount to the block or gearbox before the flexi.

Other than that it seems to be okay, I need to put the guards, bonnet and front kit back on, I still have to make up some mounting brackets for the kit as the mounts are a lot lower than where they should be. I'll book it in for tuning on Monday for a fortnight away and try and sort out a wheel alignment over the next week or so.

There's still heaps to tidy up but it's looking good to hopefully be legal by the end of the year.

[classicdat]

Well done, great to hear it's rolling, Bring on the summer.
Was getting a bit excited you were getting tuning done tomorrow and would be all go for the weekend to come to Kaikoura!

[Blazing Bullet]

I want this car eating honda's by time attack day

Good to see my power steering gear became useful! It acutally looks quite tidy in there too. Hope it doesnt turn to goo under the crazy heat that the turbo will generate

[DJZ]

Car is booked in for tuning on the 5th, I have a feeling I'm not going to be able to get it legal this year, that leaves me less than 2 weeks to get it certed before everybody closes up for the year.

Exhaust is leaking around the v band on the back of the turbo, I should have really bought the other side of the v band and a clamp when I bought the turbo. I'll replace the clamp and see if it gets any better. I've made up a "mount" for the exhaust off the block, this keeps it off the chassis rail and stopped all the knocking.

Bonnet doesn't clear the tops of the mounts on the intercooler, I had a feeling that might happen so I'll just chop them down a bit. It also looks like the oil feed for the turbo is going to hit on part of the bonnet around the vent, I think I could just chop it out and it'd be fine but I don't really want to cut up my goodish black bonnet so I'll dig my slightly rooted turbo bonnet out and try and fix that up. I have just bought a mold to make fibreglass bonnets but I won't have time to learn how to make one in time.



Front kit feels a lot better with the extra fibreglass in there. I've slotted the bumper mounting brackets so they have heaps of adjustment now. I need to make up a couple of plates to mount the bumper onto, I'll try and get that done tomorrow so the body will be pretty much back together.

I drove the car far enough forward to get to the left hand back corner so I put the last coilover in, figured out a better way of doing it which is what I should have done on the other side before making a mess of it.

[DJZ]

Took it outside today for the first time in approx 10 months. Spent most of the rest of the day trying to get it to idle and run a bit better. Bonnet, guards and front kit are back on so the car is 100% back together.

Figured out that just like the L series when I had the throttle bodies on that that it has low and very erratic vacuum. Originally it was jumping very erratically between 0 and 5InHg, I connected up both ends of the vacuum log and took the PCV valve out and put a fitting in there and tee'd them all together and managed to get it reading between 0 and 10. Engine revs a lot better now and I had it just touching on the rev limited when set at 4000rpm.

I'll bring in the vacuum log that I was using on the L28 tomorrow and hook that up. The throttle bodies on the RB don't have individual fittings so I'll have to figure out a way of hooking everything up. Might talk to NZEfi as well and see if they normally have problems with RB26s and vacuum signals.

[DJZ]

Gearbox out and back in today to try and fix an oil leak, thought it was the rear main seal, looks like it was actually leaking out of the bolts that hold the sump onto the rear main seal holder, two of them needed to be shorter than the rest which I didn't realise, hopefully it's all good now. Also removed the filler bung from the gearbox which I forgot to do before I put it in, when I tried to get it out with the box in the car it was impossible. We ended up rooting it so I'll have to have a dig around at home and see if I can find a spare.

Gavin got the new bands for my wheels on Friday so hopefully I'll get them back before this coming Friday.

I got some aluminium pipe to make a reasonable size vacuum canister out of, should have that finished tomorrow. This will make the vacuum signal more stable.

Bought a fuel pressure gauge to see what was going on with the adjustable regulator, it was turned up about .5 bar higher than factory so I wound it back down.

Have been thinking about getting adjustable cam gears and a turbo beanie before it goes on the dyno but I don't think I'll have time to put the cam gears on, I've got quite a list of things I need to finish off before Saturday.

Mate drilled the downpipe and welded on O2 sensor bung on for me while I was mucking around with the gearbox.

Outside for a little bit while we swapped the cars around.

[Bartman]

Getting really close now!

[DJZ]

Yeah man, hopefully get it certed in January then it's skids on.

[DJZ]

So after a very late night last night and an early morning today the car is down at NZEFI waiting to be tuned on Monday.

I managed to get the gauges in last night, they look pretty good. Got most of the interior back in as well apart from the passengers seat and trim.

Hopefully everything works out alright, after making a vacuum canister I still wasn't able to get a decent vacuum signal, it might get better during tuning when it actually starts running correctly.

Wheels are finished and should be on the way back now, I bought some new bolts from the States so I'll have to wait for them to turn up before I can put them back together.