duowing

$249 for a MLS kameari gasket from MSA. Probably another bit for shipping. I'm thinking I may just go with a stock head gasket for now. In time get a kameari or the copper for when I eventually down the line decide to have the bottom end done or something.

I didn't even see that 2.0mm metal gasket. Wouldn't that end up lowering my compression slightly more?

NismoPick

^^^ Forget the 2mm... been out of stock for about a year & no one knows when they'll have more. I would go copper. I don't know which is "better" but I know copper is better than stock.

Just get a drill press, a sheet of copper, and make your own.

duowing

Hmm I'm searching through HybridZ right now. I would go with that copper gasket from zccjdm, I'm still not sure though. I'm trying to see if anyone has mentioned anything about them or if there are any other suppliers of a copper headgasket.

Oh, I see that zccjdm.com site has the kameari head gasket in stock. They have it for $260. Ok that makes sense. I thought it was just their own custom gasket. Now the copper gasket, I'm reading sounds like you can't just pop it on then torque, you either need a special dressing according to zccjdm.com or I saw on hybridZ where you heat the gasket until it's soft and then attach it to the head, wait an hour, then torque it?

I'm almost thinking of going with the .8 mm kameari since it looks like I could get it quickly.

Is there any reason why you guys go like the 1 or 2mm gaskets? Or was it just that they were cheaper?

snwbrderphat540

well thinner HG will probably be more robust and wont lower the compression like the the thicker one. the thicker one though might seal and "squish" better. idk really. id say go with copper but if you dont mind spending 260 for a really amazing HG and you KNOW you wont need to pull the head for several years then go for it.

duowing

Well I'm still waiting on my flywheel. Tomorrow I'm going to go pickup my head. I think I've got just about everything now. I ordered more parts last night. Some injector o-rings, a walbro 255lph inline fuel pump, a new starter, a new clutch slave cylinder and hydraulic clutch line, fuel filter, and I think that's about it. I was debating getting new master clutch and brake cylinders, but I figured I'll wait and see. I was about to order some Mustang SVO injectors, but I figure I'll hold off until I've got the car going. Make sure the car is all in time and running well, then I'll get the larger injectors and work on tuning them in via Nistune.

Nismo I forget if you have a different flywheel or not? I was reading on HybridZ and apparently you need shorter bolts or something with the Fidanza? I guess the flywheel is thinner than the stock one so the longer bolts will hit and bottom out. I'm trying to remember if this was the same or similar problem that you and JeffP encountered?

duowing

Well we got my 280Z up on the lift today. It's in pretty good shape. Nothing is rusted through and everything is fairly clean. Just the surface pans are surface rusted as I thought. The passenger pan is a little warped, must have been jacked up improperly at some point. Frame rails are in really good shape. Found out the previous owner installed stainless braided brake lines all around. Time to start disassembly of this car here shortly.

NismoPick

I still have a stock 240mm flywheel w/ Centerforce Dual Friction clutch. It sits lower into the flywheel & hits the bolt heads, so I had to shave them down. If you do end up needing shorter bolts, hit up NAPA or a nut / bolt wearhouse. Just make sure you get the same (or higher) hardness.

EDIT... I know HeatRave R was running a Fidanza... he might have more insight (though I don't know if he installed it himself).

snwbrderphat540

what about head gasket? i seriously hope if y our going through all this trouble you get at the very least the copper one....

duowing

I was reading through HybridZ again. I found the threads I was looking for and it just appears that the fidanza has a shallower hole or something and the bolt doesn't go all the way through to the ring gear. So they have a tendency to bottom out, so people were basically suggesting to get shorter bolts. It just ends up being the fact that alot of people on HybridZ end up turning it into a bigger issue than it actually is. I got some shorter bolts of the highest class I could get in a few sizes so I should be good.

duowing

Bought my head today, it's pretty and polished up, but I was looking it over and I noticed there's like a couple of little gouges around the number 4 head mating surface. I'm not sure if this will affect anything or if I should call the guy up and see if I can trade him for the regular non-polished P90 he had.

NismoPick

Wow! That's gorgeous (minus the gouges). What's the purpose of polishing the bottom of the head?

I would show it to a machine shop & ask them what they think.

snwbrderphat540

second ^^^^ worst comes to worst, have them mill it real fast. probably wont cost much. if your going with an MLS HG or any metal based one i would be save and get those fixed since the material wont really swell into that area to fill it. its pretty shallow, might only be one pass till its good. plus you don't know how long those heads have been sitting anyways, so i would be it milled no matter what head i bought.

duowing

No idea why you'd polish the bottom, I'll take some pics of the overall head, but it looks really nice. The mechanic that's helping me with this said it might need to be milled a little, but he said he didn't think it was too bad and that we can make it work.

snwbrderphat540

just mill it! that way you'll know first hand that its perfectly straight and will seal fine. hell, i wonder if polishing it might even be bad for making a tight seal. just go get it milled, probably 40 bucks tops to get it done.

duowing

I'm definitely going too. It's still good as it saves me a bunch of time.

snwbrderphat540

and what headgasket did you decide on? it best be a performance one to compliment the new head and ARP studs or i'll come to ohio and pimp smack you!

duowing

Gonna go with an MLS.

Anyway I was doing some work on my 280Z more. Pulled the seats out, ripped up the rest of the old carpet, removed the EFI harness, disconnected all the wiring from the engine, started removing the fuel rail, pulled up that front valence or whatever it's called. That panel that sits in between the hood and the windshield, and I lucked out as that's in pretty good shape with a little bit of surface rust.

Anyway the EFI harness was super easy to pull out. Now the one thing I'm curious about is the Fuel Pump Relay. I see that the fuel pump relay was part of the EFI harness on the 280Z, where it looks like it's separate on the 280ZX. It looks like from that HybridZ thread that you cut the FPR plug off the 280Z harness and wire it into the 280ZX harness?

snwbrderphat540

you can.... but i would just hook it to a ignition switch signal so it just turns on once the key is turned to the ON position. thats what i did. much better way to do it.

duowing

I do like having the 5-second prime, and the fact that it will shut off the pump when the car stalls. I went and cut out the relay from my 280ZXT as well so I'll look at these diagrams and just figure out the best way to run it.

Oh, I just looked at that diagram from the wannabreZ write up and it looks like they just use the 280ZXT relay. I'll just have to change it so that it does like you said, just put the power to an ignition switched wire, and then just run the ground to the ECU instead and hook the rest up like regular. Well that looks pretty easy. Then I still keep the relay for it, the 5 second prime, and the ecu will shut the pump off if the car stalls.

duowing

AWESOME! I got my parts from MSA today. So I was thinking, nice now I can go get ready and start taking my motor apart and putting the new timing chain, tensioner, etc in. Open up the package, have the fuel pump block off plate, gasket, the radiator hoses, the water inlet gasket, and no timing chain kit. I called up MSA right away and they said they need to investigate this and then call me back...

Still haven't gotten my flywheel yet either. Hopefully that will show up soon. I was told it was supposedly shipped earlier this week. I think they even said it was shipping from Fidanza...which is located in Perry, Ohio. Not even an hour away.

Well I'll get back to getting the wiring harness ready to go. Anyway my wiring from the Fuel Pump Relay on my 83 harness is different than what the guy has on his 82 supplement on HybridZ. Although that one diagram has all the correct wires that my 83 has. So apparently the 82 and 83 harnesses are slightly different. Looking this over I see how easy though it really is to wire up the turbo motor.

NismoPick

pft... freaking MSA.

snwbrderphat540

if its not even an hour away why did you just drive to them? if theres a huge company like that within an hour driving distance i wouldn't waste my money with shipping. like AMS for my DSM. also, i found a ZXT in upper wisconsin for 800... if he will take 500 cash i gotsta try and pick that biznatch up! its a 5spd to. speaking of which, if its a 5spd coupe, using the T5 cross member driveshaft from that car it should fit up in the S30 right? or might i have to change diff flanges?

duowing

I didn't know that Fidanza was an hour away until the other day when I was browsing their site. So it was too late to just be able to drive out there. I think there was something you had to change to put the T5 in the S30. I don't remember what. I thought it was something about the trans mounts. Maybe you could just swap the diff from the 5-speed ZX into the S30 as well?

MSA called me back saying they were sorry for the mistake and were sending out the timing kit priority mail.

By the way, what color do you guys think I should paint my block. I know snw said a low gloss black is usually good as it doesn't show dirt as much, but still lets you find oil leaks. The color of the car is eventually going to be a darker blue sorta purplish similar to Austin Hoke's blue 240Z.

snwbrderphat540

then avoid blue. lol, i HATE when blocks match the car.... its sooo weird. orange is cool but also very american, same with red. you could just clean it up really good and try to make it look like a clean aluminum tone or something, not quite silver but not quite grey. but it does get dirty easily. if your going to paint the engine bay black though you can get away with a black block if you accent it with a different colored oil pan and a clean head and nicely done VC

hoov100

finally got an intake for the z, a 5" filter wont clear the hood by a long shot, so I'm gonna run two tubes to the air box to front of the car and put some big *** cone filters on it which should free up some space.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...3AIT&viewitem=