Hi All,

 

I mentioned in various previous posts that I would start a thread about my new and first 300zx. I’ve copy and pasted an introduction that I posted in the newbie section a while back (with some updates) so you can get an overview of the car;

 

Almost two months ago at the spur of the moment I went and bought a lovely Jap spec blue 300zx TT Manual LWB with 98k miles.

 

An over view of the cars spec is;

- 390bhp tuned by ProTuner

- stock turbos and internals

- 800cc injectors, selin twin maf conversion

- Kakimoto mid and rear section exhausts

- aftermarket turbo elbows, downpipes, front pipes etc.

- 98 spec fairly new manual gearbox

- K Sport big front brakes, stock rears

- Veilside Andrews racing split rim wheels in gunmetal grey

- two tone grey/black leather seats, hicas lock out, fairly new polybushed rear end and BC Racing shocks. List goes on but that's some key bits from memory.

- 98k miles

- Has been very well maintained with a lever arch of service history from the previous owners.

 

I've got plenty of plans consisting of refreshing the car including modernising where possible to create an OEM+ look (no cheap chav bits don't worry).

 

The Zed was booked into the bodyshop 23rd March but sadly due to the coronavirus lockdown, these works are now postponed. The works were to fit;

 

- 99 spec front bumper

- Respray to bonnet, both front arches to get rid of peeling lacquer, drivers door, rear bumper and getting rid of surface rust to around rear lights/boot

- Replace side indicators with genuine Nismo clear indicators as existing clears ones seals have fallen apart

- Fit new trims that were missing between boot and rear lights

 

I’ll have all this done as soon as the lockdown is over and the bodyshop is back open.

 

I’ve got on the to do list the following;

 

- Source a 2nd hand AC compressor and get it reconditioned and then installed as the previous item exploded under the last owners ownership

- Full leather retrim as existing leather is cracking up/poor quality.

- Get a double din music system trim kit so I can fit a nice double din screen unit with modern features such as bluetooth etc. and also change all speakers

- Paint the stock rear Z32 brakes in black to match the K Sport fronts

- Sills need re-doing as they have rusted in areas from where its been jacked up in the wrong location!! Paint has obviously been damaged and flaked off leaving the bare metal to rust so will get this sorted

- Fit Michellin PS4 tyres when the current tyres have worn out

- Probably go for more power in about a years time maybe but for now coming from a 2 tonne 270bhp 4x4, 390bhp is more than enough to make me giggle.

 

I’ll start a new post with what I’ve done so far with photos of course!

 

Pics of the car when I bought it;

 

 

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Thanks for the updates Naz it going to be a well sorted Z when you have finished with her and Jim will do his dark magic keeping that engine oil tight and running sweet. ?

As always mate you are treating the car very well indeed.

Are Protuner the go to guys these days for Zeds?   I had heard some bad stories in the past but maybe things have changed now.

They are going to look something else Raja when we get those on !

Honestly can’t wait to have some decent anchors on all 4 corners! They will definitely look the business too [emoji41]


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As always mate you are treating the car very well indeed.
Are Protuner the go to guys these days for Zeds?   I had heard some bad stories in the past but maybe things have changed now.

Cheers mate and oh that’s interesting. Yes they’re definitely the go to guys nowadays and importantly they’re PowerZed approved and recommended! They sorted out cars which turbonoz messed up like Bigh’s grey widebody. They’ve got raving reviews throughout the Jap car community, so relieved to have found a top notch tuner tbh.


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16 hours ago, Dazsw said:

As always mate you are treating the car very well indeed.

Are Protuner the go to guys these days for Zeds?   I had heard some bad stories in the past but maybe things have changed now.

Are you confusing Greg with somebody else ?  I have scoured the internet and never found anything bad about Pro Tuner.The only thing bad you will hear is he is picky ,So if a car is in poor state or badly cobbled together he will refuse to tune it,Which is a good thing right ?

The callipers were fully masked to all the important parts, sanded throughout and given multiple coats of gloss black paint. They were cured with the aid of a hair dryer/heat gun and the green house! Once satisfied the paint was cured sufficiently, some new Akebono stickers, followed by a very high temperature gloss clear coat was applied. These needed heating to 93c to fully cure.

The downfall of this little project was the masking around the pistons - currently there’s an area around the pistons with the old paint visible, as I was so paranoid when cutting the tape during masking with the Stanley knife, that I’d cut the dust seals. This won’t be visible when behind the wheels so not too concerned! The front callipers had the red powder coat on the mating surfaces, so assume this will be removed before install - these were masked to ensure no paint entered the threads.

Overall very happy and cannot wait to have a great set of anchors on all 4 sides!

Hopefully have these on soon with photos to follow [emoji41].


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20 minutes ago, naz27 said:

The downfall of this little project was the masking around the pistons - currently there’s an area around the pistons with the old paint visible, as I was so paranoid when cutting the tape during masking with the Stanley knife, that I’d cut the dust seals.

The pads will cover up that when installed.

Yep aware of that thanks - point was more just knowing it wasn’t a perfect job. Oh well, the visible bits look good and should be a durable finish so happy overall.


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looking good!

I picked her up July 1st with the new brakes, replacement RPS clutch and rebuilt SZ flywheel. The alignment, although done by the local tyre shop who are supposedly decent, Jim found to be way off and aligned it all properly. Now all sorted and driving like a dream. Everything’s now coming together very well. 

With the 10mm spacers on the front now effectively making them ET15’s, the stance is super aggressive. I do now get the occasional arch rubbing when going over bad bumps, but other than that, all good. 

500 miles of running in have passed so far, taking it easy, and feel there’s another couple hundred miles left until the clutch/flywheel are properly bedded in. Trying to drive her as much as possible in this nice weather, on evenings after work and on weekends. 

A couple of photos of the Powerzed magic works in progress... 

The next step is the Link G4X ECU in late August, which should resolve the intermittent running issues, and I will then have a perfect running Zed hoorah! Hopefully some extra HP to boot too! 
 

Updates will follow once the new ECU is in ?. 

These photos show off the stance a little better ?. The rears are looking a little skinny now in comparison, so may have to get wider ones soon. Good thing JR’s are cheap and relatively easy to get ahold of. 

Looking great as usual Naz and you will get a slight rubbing of the inner plastic arch on a heavy bump but thats normal. I have 25mm spacers on the front to make the wheel fill the arch better.

Nice tyres!

2 hours ago, Gaz 300 said:

Looking great as usual Naz and you will get a slight rubbing of the inner plastic arch on a heavy bump but thats normal. I have 25mm spacers on the front to make the wheel fill the arch better.

Thanks Gaz, first time I’ve had a car this low! Half expected it to happen though so all good. What offset are your wheels then? Yours certainly do fill the arches very nicely indeed. 

Lowering the car and correcting the front camber by increasing the length of the upper control arm also changes the caster and has the effect of moving

the wheel forward (the upper control arm is at 45 degrees or so with respect to the lower control arm). This can result in the tyre rubbing against the plastic

liner on full lock.

 

4 hours ago, naz27 said:

Thanks Gaz, first time I’ve had a car this low! Half expected it to happen though so all good. What offset are your wheels then? Yours certainly do fill the arches very nicely indeed. 

Offset not known Naz  the spacers were on when I had the oem wheels on and they stayed on for my new alloys. The suspension is Nissan oem.

14 hours ago, AndrewG said:

Lowering the car and correcting the front camber by increasing the length of the upper control arm also changes the caster and has the effect of moving

the wheel forward (the upper control arm is at 45 degrees or so with respect to the lower control arm). This can result in the tyre rubbing against the plastic

liner on full lock.

 

Interesting, thanks for the informative response as always Andrew. I expected it to rub on full lock as well but it doesn't which was surprising - only on bad speed bumps so not overly concerned for the time being. I will have to look up how to set up the rear now as I will probably get wider rear wheels to even it out. Currently 18x8.5 ET25 (+10 spacer so ET15) fronts and 18x9.5 ET25 rears. I've seen people run really wide wheels on the rears, but don't really want to rub the metal rear arches and ruin paint etc. The plastic front arch liners being scraped I can stomach, but not metal! 

For reference my cars about the same ride height as yours, touch lower at the back I recon. 
My Set up is;

Front 18x8j et 20 with 225/40r18

Rear 18x9j et 20 with 265/35r18

The front is fine, it will occasionally scrub the liner, especially if there’s more than me in the car. The rear I’ve had nightmares with and I’ve had to roll the arches and tuck the tabs to get them to fit. If they were 10mm less aggressive I wouldn’t of had half the problem. 

For reference it’s 630mm from the floor to the arch centre (highest point) on all four corners of mine.

As a side note, be aware that the bodies on z32s are not quite as straight as you might expect, most of my fitment issue surrounded one rear arch being tighter than the other by a few mm. This is a common issue with many 90s Nissans it would appear.

23 hours ago, naz27 said:

I picked her up July 1st with the new brakes, replacement RPS clutch and rebuilt SZ flywheel. The alignment, although done by the local tyre shop who are supposedly decent, Jim found to be way off and aligned it all properly. Now all sorted and driving like a dream. Everything’s now coming together very well. 

With the 10mm spacers on the front now effectively making them ET15’s, the stance is super aggressive. I do now get the occasional arch rubbing when going over bad bumps, but other than that, all good. 

500 miles of running in have passed so far, taking it easy, and feel there’s another couple hundred miles left until the clutch/flywheel are properly bedded in. Trying to drive her as much as possible in this nice weather, on evenings after work and on weekends. 

Hi Rajah,

I am so glad everything is good and you are happy with it all,I can still remember how happy you were when we tried a wheel on Andy,s car and Viola !!! It cleared the Akebono,s.They look so good and the stance it has ?

On 24/07/2021 at 10:34, Stephen said:

For reference it’s 630mm from the floor to the arch centre (highest point) on all four corners of mine.

As a side note, be aware that the bodies on z32s are not quite as straight as you might expect, most of my fitment issue surrounded one rear arch being tighter than the other by a few mm. This is a common issue with many 90s Nissans it would appear.

Very useful info here, thanks for this. I mistakenly wrote ET25's for the rear - I actually have ET35's and also handily have some of those crap 5mm slip on spacers the last owner had in his spare parts box, so will test fit with that and see how it looks. That'll make it ET30, which may avoid the need for the arch rolling drama you've had to deal with. Fingers crossed it looks decent. Tyres I forgot to mention - I have 245's front and 275's rear. 

21 hours ago, jimmer said:

Hi Rajah,

I am so glad everything is good and you are happy with it all,I can still remember how happy you were when we tried a wheel on Andy,s car and Viola !!! It cleared the Akebono,s.They look so good and the stance it has ?

Haha I thought there was no chance they'd fit, so was over the moon when they did. Thanks again for pulling the long shifts and turning it all around in the few days you had, especially with the unexpected parts issues!!