Datsun 280Z -77 - Build thread

AliK

Vehicle Dating Officer
Staff member
Club Member
Amazing work Peter! This is going to be one very sweet car!

BTW - what exhaust manifold is that? It looks beefy!!
 

Turn & Burn

Club Member
The motor looks great, exciting times ahead. What starter motor have you got?, I see there is a small adaptor ring cable tied in one shot? It’s spec motor to my build I would guess and I’m just wondering how a stock starter motor will deal with the compression, hopefully I’ll find out soon.
 

SacCyclone

Club Member
Great progress yesterday:

First I took of the prop shaft and mounted it into the gearbox. Bolted it on again. It was a tight fit to reach the bolts...
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Then, header installation
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And when I mounted the ITBs I striped two pin bolts! They were just a little bit too short. So I changed all of them where the thick washer is in place.
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Vice grip to the rescue:
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So off it all went again, and then an hour later it looked like this:

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Then I did the new ECU loom in front of the TV while my wife was watching something
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Yup, "Big Little Lies" my wife watches that too and I work on my Zed projects.
Keeps me sane and drama free.
Mike
 

peter_s

Club Member
The motor looks great, exciting times ahead. What starter motor have you got?, I see there is a small adaptor ring cable tied in one shot? It’s spec motor to my build I would guess and I’m just wondering how a stock starter motor will deal with the compression, hopefully I’ll find out soon.
Good eye! It's not the stock starter motor. I'll take a photo, just mounted it, and I can't tell what the model is.

Yup, "Big Little Lies" my wife watches that too and I work on my Zed projects.
Keeps me sane and drama free.
Mike
Ha! Great eye
 

peter_s

Club Member
I've had a break from the car for two weeks. The weather here has been fantastic, and I wanted to spend all my time with the kids, swimming in the ocean etc.

So now back at it.

Had a custom 3 inch stainless built yesterday. Great value, and fantastic quality. He even managed to fit a huge resonator in the tunnel, which is going to help a lot.

Used my trusty trailer

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peter_s

Club Member
Coming on nicely.

Love the trailer, wish I had one of those.
Thank you Ian!

Yeah, that trailer really helps. Having an enclosed one is very comfortable, especially in our climate (which is similar to the UK one in terms of rain).
 

peter_s

Club Member
I've not been much in the garage due to the holidays and great weather. Spend time with the family, but the Datsun urge is getting itself known.

Took the M2 to an Autocross this weekend as a car related break. It did incredibly well. Thought it would be too heavy to be enjoyably, but this car is outstanding. Such a nice package straight from the factory. Turns in really well, and has tons of grip.

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Had some issues with the threads on several holes on the Jenvey intakes. They were not opened up enough. It's got a tapered 1/8" NPT thread, so I had to go in and enlarge several holes with a tap. Took a lot of time before I solved it.
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Here comes some clever Datsun Spirit solutions. The vacum is balanced with a tube between all cylinders before being sent to the MAP sensor. Everything gets mounted out of sight on the underside of the head shield. Even the MAP sensor gets hidden away. In the end I got rid of that because my ECU Master has a MAP built in.

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Things left to do before startup:
Mount oil cooler
Change clutch and brake cylinders
More wiring
Fuel system
 

peter_s

Club Member
No time for excuses now, the car is scheduled for dyno and mapping on the 30th of September.

The shop will finish up the small things like oil cooler mounting etc...

I'll do as much as I can in the meantime, but I needed to set a deadline to get it done!
 

jonbills

Membership Secretary
Site Administrator
No time for excuses now, the car is scheduled for dyno and mapping on the 30th of September.

The shop will finish up the small things like oil cooler mounting etc...

I'll do as much as I can in the meantime, but I needed to set a deadline to get it done!
I'm sure you'll get there. Funnily enough, mine is going on the dyno on 30th too.
 

peter_s

Club Member
big day tomorrow?
More for you than for me I think :D

There are some things that needs to be done that will take a day or two. But hopefully this week!

So this is what's left that I haven't had time to do:
Oil cooler mount
Change fuel pump (it's really hard on jack stands...)
Plug in the electronics (I've wired up everything so the shop can put the pins on the cables)
 
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