What yellow Z said! It will save your stalk switch and make your lights brighter too.
I haven’t relayed mine (yet) - too many other jobs on - but I did swap in H4 led bulbs with an advertised 3000lm and wow!!! I can actually see the road at night! While a white (rather than yellow) light coming out of a classic car isn’t classic enough, for me it was a worthy sacrifice for seeing the road ahead and reducing the load on the alternator.
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See the difference just in day time!
On that note, I also replaced the rear lights with LEDs for the same reason. Next will be the dash lights.
You can also replace the indicator relay with one designed for LED lights and do those too. It’s a very satisfying job and reduces the alternator load.
Nice looking car there. Those tyres do look wide. And here is another perspective: mine was SUPER heavy parking and quite hard work at other times. Then I took the front axle apart and found that my ball joints and track rod ends were nearly completely seized. Again, a super easy job and it transformed the car. But you still realise that you need to pump at the gym for the steering muscles we’ve all lost over time. You also know when you find a hole in the road as the wheel tries to escape your grip!
Some other easy jobs:
A satisfying job / mod is to install the 280zx internally regulated 70A alternator.
Swap to electronic ignition, be it 280zx dizzy or 123 Ignition (I prefer the latter for a huge lot of reasons I won’t go into here). From the photos I think you already have the 280zx dizzy there (not a points dizzy). But it does look like you still have the ballast resistor. I understand they were a regular failing point, so you may wish to consider a 1.5ohm coil and by passing the ballast resistor.
Clean up the corrosion all electrical connectors staring with the fuse box.
Poly steering rack bushes improve steering feel. Add to that poly steering coupler (not the solid ones though).
Poly drop link bushes.
But having said that I didn’t like poly ARB bushes. There was just too much noise transference for my liking for the limited benefit on handling.
Some think the OE brakes are perfectly adequate, but I like many others went for the 4 pot Hilux calipers with vented discs on the front - I just like the way the car stops now and never fades when being a hooligan on a track or otherwise.
The brake fluid looks a little more orange than fresh, so you may wish to consider a flush with fresh Dot 4.
You can see the breather on the top of the valve cover has a filter. Which also implies that the crank case breather on the block is also venting directly to the atmosphere. Given the gunk I see in my catch tank, would recommend one of those rather than venting all that crud into your engine bay.
Now then, to be slightly controversial, while I LOVE the mating call emanating from those open trumpets, they are sucking in hot air (bad for power) and small creatures / dust etc (bad for engine longevity). Some have driven decades without issues, others like me aren’t brave enough and like cool air in the intake. Another thing to consider is that you get fuel “stand-off” most at the end of those trumpets sitting over a hot manifold - which can be a fire hazard. Your call, but my personal preference would be a “club airbox” and a cone filter at the front of the rad.
Every 11°c is costing you 2% torque. So imagine how much people spend on mechanical parts to gain 5-7% more - and you can have it almost free by taking cold air from the front of the car
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@toopy is your man on the 2by2 260Zs and can help you with the nuances that are different compared with the 2 seaters.
I’ve written too much already, probably with loads of auto-correct typos - sorry! Hope it helps a little.
