Z32 Harts TT restomod build thread

Okie-dokie!

First up, can someone suggest a good image hosting site so that I can post up images that stick around? Thanks in advance!

Secondly, as an update to what's happening with the Z. After having the positive news on the compression test, my mechanic and I came up with a plan to move forward with the car. Knowing that I wanted to perform the major service as priority one, I figured that it would be worthwhile ticking some items off of my wishlist whilst the car was off of the road. I decided to move forward with the manual conversion and a breather mod style build using standard turbos and e85. In my case, this is going to include the following:

Link G4x Plug and Play ECU with MAP, Boost sensor/control, traction control, antilag and launch control (workshop supply)

E85 flex fuel sensor and tune (workshop supply)

1000cc new style side feed injectors (workshop supply)

Deatschwerks fuel pump (workshop supply)

Major service (workshop supply components)

Manual conversion (trying to lock down conversion parts currently)

New RHD engine harness from Wiring Specialities, including updates injector plugs, knock sensor harness and grounding harness - purchased and currently in the build stage.

Veilside 3"cat-back (Arrived in Aust last Friday, ready for domestic shipping)

3" Test pipes to be made on site by my workshop

AMS 3" dump from standard turbos (ordered from Z1)

Z1 Motorsports 2.5" Intercooler pipe kit with Z1 Motorsports sidemount intercoolers (ordered from Z1)

Full BDE replacement motor mounts with low profile brackets (ordered from Z1)

Nismo trans mount (ordered from Z1)

Full PCV replacement kit (ordered from Z1)

New OEM TT oil pan (ordered from Z1)

Old style injector to new style injector mount kit (ordered from Z1)

EGR elimination kit (ordered from Z1)

Whilst that is happening we are looking at the normal deletes, replacement of all leaking gaskets (currently rear main and power steering pump), replacing all fuel lines and flushing the radiator system.

If there is any money leftover in the works budget I will be getting a set of MCA Reds put on with the Veilside Andrews and some RE-71RS. At this stage I can't see the car being back until the end of January, as I am being held up by the manual conversion kit (one I missed out on, one fell through). I'm looking forward to the results though and will keep the thread updated as it goes along.

I will also have a few OEM cosmetic resto parts coming in too, to keep that side of the build rolling!

 

Sounding very awesome Harts!

I received the same notification about my exhaust too during the week.

I use imagur for my image hosting.

What's the situation with the wiring specialties harness with regard to fitting it up? Are you going engine out for the turbo work and fitting the harness then?

Also what steered you towards the G4 over Nistune?

 

Thanks for the imagur suggestion, I'll have a look.

Yes, engine is coming out, we made that decision to make it easier for all of the work, to make sure we could get everywhere and do everything I wanted to do easily.

The reason why I have gone for a new harness is that pretty much every problem I have had with this car so far has been an electrical issue, bar the radiator fan clutch, more specifically an engine harness issue. Obviously I read a fair bit about the Z pre-purchase and this is public knowledge, so I can absolutely confirm the brittle engine bay harness was my Zeds Achilles heel. It took a little bit of consideration, but I decided it wasn't worth doing anything to the car unless I started with a fresh harness.

Likewise, with the ECU, the Z32 control system is a complicated and aging beast and I wanted to start with a clean slate with the full ECU. Using the Link will also give me traction control and other doodads to bring the 300zx into the modern world, which was attractive. Overall, replacing the ECU vs. Chipping it fell more into line with starting fresh with the electrical system, hopefully it buys me 30 years of trouble free running!

 

Have bought just about everything I need now, it took me a little while to decide which way I was going to go with the manual conversion.

Originally I was going to buy a secondhand conversion from @rob260, but I was a bit slow and missed out on it. Then I lined one up via the Facebook page, but that fell through when the owner of the conversion had one of the gears develop a whine in his new, manual Z. Having that happened made me consider what I wanted from my own conversion, and reliability was right up there, as with the rest of the works.

This arvo I went ahead and purchased a new 1998+ gearbox from Rob. It's going to be matched up to a Z1 short shifter. I am grabbing the second hand pedals and manual bracket from the guy that needed the box from his conversion, but everything else for the conversion will be new from Z1 or RGS and has been ordered... now just to play the waiting game!

I don't think I have much more to organise now really, unless an issue pops up! I'm hoping most of the gear comes in before Christmas to help with getting the car back some time early in January.

 

Loving how this build is escalating! looking forward to seeing all the fruit arrive and go in

 

@MintZ32 It's getting exciting, but 8 have to be patient now so I'll hold off getting to worked up.

I got a notification from Wiring Specialities letting me know that my loom has shipped, so that is good news!

@rob260 what issues did you have with the Z1 short shifter?

 

Be sure to notify Z1 that you have a rhd vehicle, otherwise you'll get a shifter that bends to the left.
Got one in my zed, no issues yet.

 

What @rob260 is saying about short shifters is true in respect to fulcrums etc and the law of moments however there are actually more factors involved. In effect what a proper short shifter should actually be doing is raising the fulcrum point higher in order to reduce the throw between shifts as opposed to simply reducing the height of the gear knob.

I haven't looked at how the Z1 short shifter works, but looking back on early engineering theory one way to negate some of the negatives associated would be to add mass to the area the applied force occurs to assist overcoming the resistance of the gearbox (F1 x d1 = F2 x d2) where f = force and d = distance at either end of the lever to the fulcrum.

Think of two people on a see saw who weigh the same vs two people who are vastly different weights and the net result.

Obviously it's not going to be practical to measure the force required to engage each gear, but what you could do is look into something like a weighted shift knob to go with the short shift kit and see if it helps

 

Well said, I agree. A short throw shifter with a standard shift knob is terrible. This is the reason why heavy gear knobs are available. I purchased a gear knob that weighs over 600 grams, the difference it makes to the short throw shifter is huge, every gear falls in with little effort.
Ps. Be sure to purchase a shifter with roller bearings, and not one that has bushes.

 

Why are gear knobs weighted?
Why aren't they made of foam?
Lol

 

Cool, good to hear two sides of the same story. I appreciate the input, for sure. I can say this for certain, if it feels shit to me I will most definitely bin it, that is for certain.

At this stage I am not racing or dragging the car, but I may well in the future. I will most definitely report back with my experiences as it goes... I wonder how I will feel about it!

Let me see what the make up of it is, bushing or roller bearing... It's a roller bearing. When I bought it on the weekend, I bought the RHD model, fear not!

I will play with the gear knob weight, out of interest. I believe the Tomei one will be very light, a heavy one will contrast well. @rob260 the 1988+ spec boxes have improved syncros, no? That should fix a bit of that particular concern, or are the later model box syncros still average? I'm not an unessecary car abuser, so I'm not super concerned about breaking a box... especially not a brand spanking one.

 

Hi Rob, I don't want to come across the wrong way, and am only sharing my perspective here. However, I fail to see how shifting the fulcrum point of a lever affects a synchro. A synchronizer is simply matching the revolutions of the input shaft to the output shaft.

The only way I can imagine a short shifter can affect this is if it enables the user to shift faster than the synchro can match the revolution speed of both rotational masses. Or if the operator somehow miss-shifts (user error)

As an engineer I see the fulcrum shift point and synchro as two seperate and discrete functions, however happy to be proven wrong...

 

I just had an epiphany. I was running an FS5R30A pull type tranny in my Stagea build from a 94 GT-R. That had well over 350rwkW (with the front shaft dropped) running through it and I never had an issue, so if the RS5R30A is the same/similar I think I will be ok. I'm not the "slam it into gear" type . I'll report back on my findings with the Z1 though.

Does anyone have any recommendations for drive shafts? Stock or one piece etc?

 

I think if your budget can handle it, going to a single piece tail shaft is probably better for both strength and balancing. I have the factory two piece and one of the first things I did was replace the centre bearing to eliminate a vibration occurring between 60-80km/h.

I recently spoke to another local Z32 owner to mentioned he did his as-well, however he still had a vibration so had to get his tail shaft rebalanced. A single shaft is also a little more straight forward to balance if needed.

 

https://shaftmasters.com/index.html, On a recommendation from a member here, I brought a one piece aluminum core filled shaft from these guys. Its a quality bit of kit, no vibration right from the get go, and it arrived within 2 weeks, probably take longer now.