Picked up a Datsun 280Z

I'm curious - do LeMons rules allow a front airdam or spook on these? Really makes a difference if it's legal...

So registration for NJ is due March 19th. Guess we should try and fix the Datsun. We wanted to cut out the bent section of frame but I don’t think we would have it race ready in time. After talking over our options it turns out one of our team mates has a friend that works at a body shop with a frame machine. For a few cases of beer he was willing to toss it on the rack and see what happens.

To give you an idea of how messed up the car is let’s compare the good and bad side. Staring straight up at the front of the car things are not looking good. The passenger side is pushed back a fair amount.

Here is the driver’s side frame rail. As you can see everything is nice and straight.

Passenger side? Not so much. There is a decent gap between the straight edge and the strut rod mount. I’m still amazed we were able to align the car and put 200+ laps on it like that.

To pull things back the way they were we removed the passenger suspension and got the rack in place.

Surprisingly we were able to get the frame close to where it should be. It’s still off ever so slightly but way better than it was. Once the car was back on the ground toe was off 3 inches.

Plan now is to reinforce the bent section and replace all the tie rods. Hopefully that’s easy enough since I submitted our registration for NJ.

The green ones are the best!

It looks right at home on the race track.

Ouch, poor frame. Glad you were able to pull it out straight though.

Haven't seen a frame machine before, it looks simpler than I imagined it would. Are you just mashing strengthening channels over the now-unbent section?

Its kinda of a weird spot. The bottom rail has already been repaired once but I'm going to channel that section up to the strut rod mount. Above the mount is where it ties into the front rail and its kinda crusty there on the outside. Plan is to cut out any rot then plate that section.

Mine was rotten in that same spot. The shapes involved there are fairly simple to refab, you should be able to rework that nicely.

Looks like your having fun with that Z!

Next race is in 2 weeks. Since the last update we dropped all the front suspension to fix a few things. Wheelbase was still off about a 1/4" due to the frame damage. Since the frame was pushed back the front cross member was moved back as well. Solution was to slot the holes in the bolt then side the cross member back forward.

I also cut out the rot around the frame. Turns out nothing structural was rotted and was just the part where the unibody joints the inner fender. That was cut out, reinforced inside of the unibody, patched up the outside, then welded a piece of L channel over where it bent. I also patched up the big rot hole under the battery. Its not pretty and it sucks trying to clean and weld to rusty metal but whatever.

While the cross member was out we modified it again to have adjustable camber. The control arm holes were slotted and we used camber bolts from a Ford F150 since they are the right size and width. The washers use to adjust camber were too big on one side so we cut them down. We don't need the full range of adjustment anyway. If we cared more we could have reshaped the cam or trimmed and rewelded the motor mount.

Next step was to try and get the cross member back in the car. With the motor mounts still a little tweaked we had to persuade it forward that last 1/4 inch after slotting the holes.

With Pat was working on the front I decided to slot the rear strut towers. Not sure how much camber we ended up with out back its it looks more. We'll have to measure to make sure its not too much compared to the front.

We also had to patch more rust around the drivers front swaybar mount since it was starting to rip away form the car. Welding metal to the Z after every race has become standard practice.

Good as new! Car is loaded up and we are leaving for NJ tomorrow.

Good luck! You still got my cell, right? I am less than an hour from the track if you need another tow vehicle or emergency help with whatever...

You're probably packing more tools than I own, but...

In reply to tb:

Yes I do. Glad we know someone in the area. We are bringing less spare parts this race since we are limited on space but hopefully nothing goes wrong...

^^^ Famous last words!

I'm always happy to help any way I can. It looks like rain on Fri and Sat; thunderstorms can be intense around here this time of year so pack appropriately.

Any news on New Jersey shenanigans?

I'm exhausted and will post a more formal update tomorrow. Short version is we didn't suck as much as previous events and had a great time. If you are on facebook you can follow long on our misadventures here: facebook.com/NuthinButAZThang

We had a great time done in NJ and came in 39th out of 124 cars. Car held together for the most part and didn't give us too much trouble. Our pit stops are getting better but we need to get faster. We are wasting 10 minutes per stop every 1-1.5 hours. Getting the drivers in and out of the car and belted in is taking up the most time. Our pull down belts are a pain to adjust and sometimes fall under the seat. Also we can only use 7-10 gallons of fuel before we get fuel starvation. There are other teams with 22 gallons cells going for 4 hours before needing to stop. Getting a cell is now on our list of upgrades.

Even with the new camber bolts we can't get more then 2 degrees on the drivers side. Control arm holes might need to be slotted more or the crossmember moved over to the passenger side when reinstalling it. Still the felt great considering the crash last year.

Only a few minor issues came up. First was in the middle of Saturday when our driver Pat radioed in and said "I have no left turn!" We had no idea what to expect but when he got to the pit we saw the rear passenger tire was completely flat. Something put a good size hole in the tire the size of my finger. We changed both rear tires since our spare wheels were different offsets, splashed some more gas in the car, and sent Pat back out.

Later in the day Dave went to start his second stint and on his first lap put the car in the dirt at the end of turn one. He recovered quickly and went to the penalty box before it was called in. After a brief talking to he as back on track. Funny thing was we didn't know he went off and the penalty box was a few bays behind us and we never saw him come in. After racing was done Saturday we checked the car over and found the alignment was slight off. Toe was 3/4" in and camber was off on one front wheel. We set everything back to where we had it and called it good.

Sunday after noon I had a black flag for passing under yellow but after a brief talking to was sent on my way.

Dave also came in for a black flag later in the for what he though was putting 4 off but instead they flagged us for our fender flapping around. The drivers fender and rocker are rotted out and we tried to reattached them before. Well our fix failed and the fender started to flap around again. Few sheet metal screws later and we were back on track.

That's pretty much it. Jeff did have a close call during one of his stints where a car spun in front of him then backed onto the track. fortunately he was able to avoid it.

After this race our tires are pretty much done. Plan is to upgrade to 15's for the next race. Also there is a clunk coming from the rear and both rear wheel bearing are junk. Bearings will get fixed when we swap to rear disc brakes. Drums have been ok we keep having to adjust them and the brake feel has been inconstant. Oh and we should probably replace the muffler.

Random pictures from that weekend.

While the body damage adds some character to the Datsun I feel bad about how beat up it looks.

With a little effort (ignore the sledge hammer) the new fender and hood line up pretty good. Still needs a little more before I can bolt them on for good.

Now I need to decided which color paint from Tractor Supply I'm going to use.

New fender looks great! My green 240 was the same color reddish orange front valence.

New color needs to be M.F. Gray because MotherBerkeleying gray.

I say two tone

You can never go wrong with green. Everyone loves green.

Surprised they didn't call J. D. Green "Trademark Non-Infringing Green."

I really like the MF Gray too. I may use that for my interior color, if you don't mind me stealing it for my project. If you do, I'm not really sorry, but sorry.

I think Oliver Green is the way to go.

New wheels and tires showed up. The slotted mags look cool but they are a pain to install especially in a hurry due to the lug nuts. 15's also give us a much better tire selection.

One of the oranges would look right on it.

I like those wheels

Not sure if any other aero is in the plans for later on but these rear diffusers seem pretty cool.

Rear diffuser

Rear diffuser is cool. Maybe I'll try to make a homemade one later on. For now I might try and add a front air dam I have kicking around.

Over the weekend I started prepping the car for paint. Replacement sheet metal pieces are terrible and have a lot of rust but I sanded off what I could and will paint over the rest.

New fender has actually been patched twice already and could use a third if I cared.

Passenger door had a new door skin install at some point but it had a rust hole again plus a few dents.

The car itself has several rot holes that needed to be filled. I removed any loose rot and filled them with fiberglass bondo. That's as far as i got because it rained the next day. Plan it to sand that down, apply a skim coat of filler, then sand that into a Datsun shape with a DA sander and call it good. Not looking for it to be perfect because the car could get hit on the first lap out next race.

That fender needs some metal welded so we won't get black flagged again because its flapping around.