A long story, but a fun one...
Way back in late 2006, I found a very rough 1985 Turbo 300zx, and bought it for $300. Actually, I had found it two years earlier, with a for sale sign, but decided it was too rough, and since it was an automatic, it was of no interest. Then a year after that, an acquaintance (now my best friend) told me about a red turbo 300zx for sale, and again, I said no once he said it was an automatic. After seeing it the third time over the course of two years, I decided I wanted it. Funny, as I didn't know it was the same car until I had owned it for quite a while. Here are some pics of bringing it home:
It didn't run, and needed the entire fuel system to be replaced. The last time it was registered was 1999, and that still stands, as I have never had it running well enough to register either. I did have a mechanic replace the fuel system (Tank and all!) and install a new timing belt. I wasn't mechanically savvy back then.
Anyway, I did some mild modifications to the car back then (As an idiotic teenager, so they are VERY poorly done) but never really got it running well enough to be road worthy. (I even found the original build thread, but all the pics are broken: http://z31performance.com/showthread...f-the-300-z31t" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ) Then in 2008 I bought a 1968 Datsun Roadster 1600, lost interest in Zs, and sold all of them but the Turbo. (I had 3 z31s at the age of 18...) The Z then sat in front of the house from 2008 until now, only being started occasionally and driven around the block. In the entire time I've owned it, I have put less than 1k miles on it!
I did buff it and clean it up back then, and got it looking half-way decent:
Well, time is a cruel mistress, and now it is back to looking the way it did when I bought it, if not much worse. Red paint hates the sun, let me tell you!
Maturity has made me slightly smarter than I was then, and it has finally dawned on me that having a car I don't use is kinda silly. Coincidentally, my current daily driver is on it's last legs. It is a '92 Accord with about 260k on the odo, and it needs a lot of work. This gave me a "crazy" idea... Why not use a car I already have to replace my daily instead of buying a new one? Duh. The Z has only 110k on the clock! Now I've began the work of dragging my car out of the grave, and on the path to being roadworthy.
I don't have much to show, but I usually document everything in photos, so look for that, as this is the new build tread! Much to come, even though I tend to move slowly on projects. For now, Here is what it looks like now, sitting in the garage next to my buddies 4wd Civic. (The same buddy that told me about this car way back in the day!)
I replaced the pesky little temp sensor behind the timing belt, rewired my electric fans (I had them wired to a switch before, with no relay. Uhg. Now they are wired to a thermostat, and a relay so they come on when the engine gets to the temp I like, and shut off when the key is turned off. Much better!), fixed two vacuum leaks, and installed a nice Pioneer radio with bluetooth that I had laying around. It runs much better now, although it needs a lot of work before I can safely put it on the road... including re-doing pretty much everything I ever touched on the car before.
