DJZ's 280ZX

[DJZ]

What gearbox are you running? Did you need to massage / cut trans tunnel at all?

RB25DET box, and yup, I had to remove the "ears" in the tunnel.

[DJZ]

Had an idea that it might be the other bonnet spring that's making the bonnet do odd things so I popped it off tonight and now the bonnet sits flat.

Only problem is now there's nothing to hold the bonnet up, there's no provisions for the factory bonnet stay mount, I'll talk to the composites guys at work tomorrow and see what they think, I don't think gluing the mount onto the bonnet will last so I might have to bond a bit of ali with threads in it into the bonnet and glass over it, or come up with something else like some pneumatic bonnet stays.

Also connected the windscreen washer bottle back up and did some more wiring for the air fuel ratio gauge. I've booked it in for a warrant on Friday so fingers crossed it passes.

[DJZ]

Got a warrant for this yesterday thanks to Damon, tail lights were doing some weird things which I need to look at, other than that and Damon noticing an oil leak from the turbo oil drain it's all good.

It's running pretty hot and actually stopped on the way home, the ECU has some protection stuff in there for water temp and air temp which retards the timing heaps, I ended up having to hard wire the fans to run all the time while sitting on the side of Cranford Street. I need to have a look at the logs and see if it was the air temp or water temp that made it stop.

I've got four things to do:
Lower the temp that the fans come on in the ECU
Try and make up an air box for the filter as it's sucking in really hot engine bay air or put the inlet through the inner guard
Put some shrouding from the front bumper to the radiator support to direct the air better
Heat wrap the downpipe

[DJZ]

For some reason the fan on temp was set at 92 in the computer, I might have either forgotten to adjust it or I thought it was an 88 degree thermostat which it's not, I've lowered it to 85 and went for a big cruise with James to go look at a Z31 parts car and it sat pretty much on half way on the gauge the whole time, the fans were running most of the time I think, might tweak it up just a little bit. James has lent me an inverter that goes into the cigarette lighter so I can run the laptop on long drives for logging.

Heat wrapping the down pipe is going to be a pain as it's one piece basically to the diff now, I've ordered a v band and will put that in front of the flexi.

Had a look at making an air box and asked for some opinions from the 280ZX drivers Facebook page, most of them were recommending to put the filter out through the inner guard to behind the front kit, I think for the moment I'm still just going to run an airbox and if that doesn't work better I'll get more drastic. I'm going to have to cut holes in the inner guard to let some air through as where the factory pipe went to the stock airbox is totally filled with intercooler piping. I might make a 4.5" hole in the guard and then make up a piece to go in it with smaller holes, that way if I decide to actually put the filter out through the guard it'll be easier.

[DJZ]

Pulled the top windscreen chrome piece off last night to seal up the water leaks, not sure why I put it off for so long, it only took 5 minutes to get it off. The chrome was glued on in a couple of spots so popped off pretty easily. I can't see anything obvious that would make it leak but if I blow air from the inside out I can feel it in a couple of spots so I'll put some more goo on it and hope for the best.

There is some rust there which I was expecting, it's like they put a thin layer of bog on the vertical part and that's separated. I put some rust killer on it and will give it a quick spray before I put the chrome back on.

I briefly thought about taking the windscreen out but decided against that pretty quickly, when I get it repainted I'll worry about that.

Also recalibrated the wideband so that should be all good for next time I drive it. Looking at the logs from last time it thought it was running 15% rich across the board so it'll be interesting to see if that's correct or not. The only things I can think of that might cause it were I didn't have an air filter on it on the dyno and it only had a short exhaust but 15% seems like a lot.

[gingofthesouth]

You're a talented bugger aren't ya?
Just caught up on the thread. New WoF. Mean!
That facility you have looks so good too!
For the centre stay, my intercooler has a bridge from support to the base of where the bonnet latch is and that works damn well.

[DJZ]

Bought some 2nd hand but near new Nismo GTR engine mounts, the ones on the car I think are from the Z31 RB20DET engine that I bought, they've only done 63ks but feel quite loose, the Nismo ones are very stiff but still some sort of rubber. Hopefully they fit!

[DJZ]

Took one of the original engine mounts off to see what the GTR ones were like, the thickness is the same but the locating dowel is in a slightly different place, I didn't have time to sort it out at the moment as I was trying to take it to the Rakaia cruise so I ended up putting the original back on.

Didn't end up taking it to the cruise as the adhesive I thought I had for putting the chrome back on had gone off and I couldn't get any more until this morning. I wanted to buy the proper Sikaflex stuff but I only needed about 10cm worth and it was $40 odd bucks for a caulking gun tube and would have just gone off so I got another brand which was $19, and will probably still go off, I couldn't see any smaller quantities of it.

I'm driving myself to work for the next couple of weeks as my car pool buddy is away so I'm planning on taking the Z out as much as I can, until I run out of money for gas. Should be able to get some really good logging and tidy up the tune quite a bit.

[DJZ]

Drove the car out to work again today, it went pretty well. Windscreen chrome hasn't fallen off yet.

I took 15% fuel out on the way to work and also put the fan temp up by 2 degrees, it ran fine the whole way there. I did a little bit of playing with the fuel map during my breaks and also adjusted the suspension damping too. Took it for a couple of laps around the track and it was going pretty good, I still need to get the log off the computer for the drive home and have a look over that.

I really need to do a few things to make it more comfortable, the fan barely does anything and it gets really hot in the interior, also need to sort out the drivers seat, the padding isn't very good and it's not very nice to sit in for such long drives.

[DJZ]

Noticed one of my headlights is cracked, the road works on the way out to work are really terrible. The parts car came with some Hella semi sealed units so I'll probably swap both of those in at some stage.

The dash/tail light problem is still there, I need to get the car out of the garage so I can have a look under the dash, I think it's probably just a loose ground.

Found my other spare headlight buckets too, I was beginning to think I had heaps of one side, the previous repair jobs on both buckets has cracked and looks really terrible so I'll get some paint matched up and repaint the right guard and another pair of buckets.

Still working on replacement seats too, just not sure which way I want to go. I'll sell the RX7 seats I've got as I just don't think they're going to work, I'm keeping an eye out for the Nismo seat that I want but might just end up with a Recaro in there.