Hello, I'm new to this forum but not in the Z scene... I've always wanted to buy a Z, but here where I live they 're very rare, and it's almost impossible to find one in good-descent condition. I've been looking through car ads and found one 20 minutes from my place, a 90' model with 53k original miles. It has upgraded t28 turbos, full exhaust, intake, fmic and AEM ems. Engine has never been opened. The interior is also in excellent condition, he replaced all stock trim with black leather. The car was also resprayed two years ago. He's asking for 9k euros(sounds pretty much, but again, here in Cyprus these cars are very rare). I'm going tomorrow morning to have a look on the car, what should I check or ask the seller? Any common issues with this early model? Thanks in advance.

 

Any input anyone?

 

As long as the body is good I'd take it, I looked for ever to find one in decent shape... My interior looked great, but it had been garages so long there were mice nests near the abs!

 

T28 turbos (if they are what I suspect them to be) are a BIG no-no. Find out if he had the stock turbos rebuilt with T28 wheels, or if they are true T28s (for example, JWT Sport 600s). If it's the former, look elsewhere.

And FMICs are generally performance degrading modifications on the Z32.

Given then FMIC and the [likely] horribly inefficient turbos, I'd simply look elsewhere - the guy who owned that car clearly didn't know **** about modifying the Z32. But of course, it's easy for me to find Z32s in my area. If they're as rare as you make them seem, you need to do some research on the mods that were installed to determine what the car is worth to you.

 

The turbos are some kind of "hybrid", he didn't upgrade the stock ones, he bought a brand new pair from a website and installed them 3-5k miles ago, he showed me the receipt but I forgot the brand/type. As for the fmic, here in Cyprus there are summer temperatures well above 40-42 degrees Celsius, a pair of smic wouldn't be sufficient with that small air vent. And believe me, this guy really knows cars. He seems to took really good care of the Z and modified it very carefully, not to be a beast but to last long. Unfortunately yes, z32s are very rare here, there are only 3 for sale in my city including this one. The other is a 92" bone stock TT with much higher mileage and he asks 14k euros and the last one is a NA with faided paint and he asks for 11k

 

You're not listening to me, so chances are, you think you know better. Please ask some of the people on this forum if that's wise.

And think about what you just said. "It gets so hot here that I want a HUGE CHUNK OF ALUMINUM BLOCKING MY RADIATOR."

Furthermore, if you search the forum a bit, you'll find a writeup I did that discusses how SMICs are MORE EFFICIENT THAN FMICs on a 300ZX. More efficient means that they lower the intake temperatures more.

And T28 hybrids are EXACTLY the turbos I'm talking about. Horribly inefficient. The guy THINKS he knows what he's talking about - he doesn't. Search TwinTurbo.NET for "T28" if you want testimony and evidence supporting this statement. I'll get you started:
http://twinturbo.net/net/viewmsg.asp...&msg_id=839668


Notice the lag vs peak output. They spooled slower than ANY other turbo in the comparison! And MOST of the turbos are MUCH larger (GT2530s, in Garrett terminology, are actually called GT2860RS). Unimpressive in every sense of the word because the wheel is too large for the housing.

If you want to be an idiot, keep arguing with me about how you think this car is well-modded. Think rationally, and then we'll have something to talk about.

 

well I thank you! My z has the sport 5's... Looks like it's upgrade time! Maybe holset hx35's? My ranger 4 banger had o e and it makEs 407rwhp on 30psi! Maybe twins would go 750?

 

Sport 500s are fantastic stock replacement turbos. Of all aftermarket turbos, they spool the fastest, and you can do well over 400rwhp with them.

 

I'm not trying to argue, I just want to make a good buy that's why i'm here asking opinions. I called the guy and asked him to remind me the kind of turbos he installed. There are jim wolf technology, and the "hybrid" thing about them is that they can put out some pretty good numbers for a street car, without the big turbo lag of other brands. He said that they spool up nearly as fast as the stock ones. I felt that when I took the car for a ride, the turbos kicked in at 3.4-4krpm max.

Now about the FMIC. The setup does not interfere with each other(fmic-radiator). He installed an aftermarket radiator that's shorter than the stock one, but much thicker. So to put it simply, from top to bottom, the fmic begins where the radiator ends. There's nothing blocking air flow to either one of them.

If you still think that the car would benefit more from smic's, I can get the stillen or greddy kit (only ones available here) and replace them.

 

Sounds like he has Sport 600s and is trying to impress you by saying they're something else (Sport 600s are T28s that use bored out stock housings to increase efficiency). Sport 600s aren't bad.

And I have never heard of a front mount setup like you're describing (and I've been in this community for nearly 10 years now) - pics please. I think he simply has a FMIC, and I can still give more reasons why an FMIC is a horrible idea on a Z32... starting with the crossflow nature of the intake plenum. As the VG30DETT is designed (as two inline 3 cylinders with a common crankshaft), the power stroke from one bank feeds the intake stroke for the other bank. If you cross the air across the front of the car (like with a front mount intercooler), you negate this design, which decreases the overall efficiency of the engine. People who know what they're doing use SMICs (or TDM Works FMICs, which retain this design by being, basically, two SMICs welded together).