Shawn MacAnanny

iTrader: (12)

A friend of mine's brother in law offered me an almost mint 1978 Datsun 280 2+2 for $1500, 5 speed, runs great and i am going to buy it. I have been reading up and i definately want to put an LS1 of some sort in it, but i have also been toying with the idea of using a vette chasis/suspension under it. The C5s wheelbase is 4 inches longer, and 6 inches wider. I know it would be ALOT of work but the Civette project gave me the idea.

Anyway how direct is just the LS1/4l60e or T56 swap? Anyone done the suspension?

Pop N Wood

iTrader: (1)

I put one in a 240Z. Can be a very straightforward swap. It is pretty common, there are multiple kits and good aftermarket support available.

Jaguars that runs sells a conversion manual for the first gen SBC. Still lots of good info for the LS motors. They also sell shorty headers and a radiator for the LS swap

http://www.jagsthatrun.com/

John's cars in Dallas sells a bolt in kit. Says you can do an LS swap in 20 hours. It is a very good kit, althought get the headers from JTR.

http://www.brokenkitty.com/zcar/zcar.htm

Here is a web site dedicated to Z car swaps. Lots of good information, but the moderators are a bunch of *** clowns.

http://forums.hybridz.org/

You are going to have trouble with the wheel base on the vette swap. There are guys on the hybridz site who have done what you want, but it was a lot of work and probably of questionable performance benefit. The cars are lite and can be made to handle with plenty of aftermarket parts available.

That 280 would be a good starting platform, although the 2+2 is a bit of bummer.

Shawn MacAnanny

iTrader: (12)

Wow thanks man! I'm pretty sure it's a 2+2 ive seen it and its super clean but i didnt know they came in 2 and 2+2 so i didnt pay much attention to it. When i saw it, it wasnt really for sale so i didnt look into it too much. The swap looks pretty straight forward. I'm gonna drive it around for a couple months with the engine and transmission that's in it to see if there are any other problems. I think a 6.0L or so (since its not much heavier than an iron 5.3L and a T56 would work fine with it.

I havent read too much into it but what are you doing with the stock 280 diferentials and axels to strengthen them?

SUPERBOOST

iTrader: (11)

The rearends are suprisingly strong.I had a friend that put a pretty hot smallblock in a 280z with a turbo 350 that ran countless street race's and ran at the dragstrip doing mid to low sevens in the 1/8 and never broke it.They work very well with street tires and leave like they were kicked in the ***.If you really ask them to hook with slicks then you will break them,but you'd be amazed how good they leave with street tires. A v8 can sit so far back in the very long engine compartment that they have a great weight bias.It's one of the greatest low cost platforms out there as long as you don' get carried away and turn it into a high dollar swap.If I were you I woul'd do an ls1 though,with an aluminum motor you could end up a good bit lighter than a stock 280 with the weight moved quite a bit to the rear.You can just imagine what that will do.

Shawn MacAnanny

iTrader: (12)

Well thats good. I'm not too concerned with the extra 90lbs of the iron block. In my 68 i was but this is doing to be a daily driver for me.

Any idea what kind of fuel mileage ill see with this datsun and a 5 speed? I may wait to do the swap if the engine is good running, collect parts during the summer and such and hold on the swap until summer is over so i can drive it around.

Are the stock engines and transmisisons worth anything?

SUPERBOOST

iTrader: (11)

Practically all the rears in the 280's are 3.55's so that works out pretty good with an overdrive trans.You will be around 2700lbs give or take a little according to how you set it up,so that with an overdrive and not to bad of aerodynamics I dont see why you couldn't get close to 30mpg.An estimate of course.Especially if you do the smaller motor.Not a lot of call for the stock motor and trans but somone will want it.Might be a little easier to sell out of a running car so they can hear it run.Run it on the datsun sites.If you want to do some research on the conversions my favorite is hybridz.org. Tons of good info on the z car swaps there.I have a 280z I put a 87 buick grand national engine and trans in.Its not running yet though, I have a bad habit of starting too many projects at the same time.

Shawn MacAnanny

iTrader: (12)

Thanks ive been reading up on that site. Im considering keeping the stock motor for a little while and seeing what kind of MPG i get from it. From what im reading they are EFI 2.8L I6s and some people are getting 25mpg or so with them. Not a bad setup there. Im supposed to go get it sometime this week so ill figure out alot about it once i get it here im sure.

SUPERBOOST

iTrader: (11)

Thats not a bad plan,it's hard to find any kind of decent running car for that kind of money let alone a cool car like a 280z.I plan to keep the buick motor totally stock for a while till I get everything working like I want it and then turn it up later.The engine bay in these cars is huge for a small car.You can put about any thing in them you want,I've even seen one with a big block in it.It worked pretty good in spite of the obvious weight problem.

Shawn MacAnanny

iTrader: (12)

Here are some pics of it, its in great condition IMO. No rust other than surface rust, some bondo on the corner of the rockers im gonna grind out and see what the deal is there. Drove it about 60 miles home, trying to figure out why its running so rich and idling so poorly.

Pop N Wood

iTrader: (1)

Like superboost said, there are guys who have run in the 9's on near stock rear ends. More the exception than the rule. The U joint half shafts won't take much angularity, so if the rear suspension lets the car sqaut too much it will throw the half shafts.

The best thing you can do for the rears is some type of LSD. The R200's usually fail in the spider gears from one wheel peal. Then you can upgrade to CV half shafts. After that the weak point is the stub axles. There is a guy in Canada who makes some harded stub axles, for a price of course. The cars will take a straight axle pretty easily. Or you can upgrade to an R230 out of an infinity and have a near bullet prooof IRS rear. Stick with the R200 IMO.

Here, everything you want to know about Z car rear ends

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread...ight=r200+3.36


My car has some type of noise coming from the rear already. I may be upgrading to CV's shortly.

The cars have some common rust areas. about half way down the page on this site they describe what to look for.

http://www2.zhome.com:81/

The fuel injection systems on your car can be tricky to work on. Most guys seem to go to some type of aftermarket FI controller. Cheaper than getting the stock stuff to work. Z cars have sweet running motors. My carb'd 240 ran like a champ when I pulled the motor out. The whole cars are very reliable and still cheap and easy to work on.

SUPERBOOST

iTrader: (11)

Thats a great read on the z car rears pop n wood,I had not seen that thread.I am kind of leaning to a solid rear a little later.Obviously a lot more fab work but you could do it a lot cheaper and when your done its pretty much bullitproof.You can spend a lot of money in a hurry buying all the specialty parts.You can find 8.8's in 3.42 posi as low as $200.Im thinking about narrowing one of those and installing with a four link.One less thing to worry about then.

Pop N Wood

iTrader: (1)

if you search that site someone posted how easy it is to fit an 8.8 solid axle to a z car. If I remember correctly, they guy said 8.8's have one axle shorter than the other. All he needed to do was shorten the longer side to match the shorter side, then grab a stock axle, and it fit the wheel base. Should be in that site somewhere.

The stickys in the drivetrain section are pretty good reads also.