Michael's Resto-Mod Show Stopper 76' 280z

Michael originally purchased this vehicle from his aunt, who was the original long-time owner of the vehicle. It had been sitting for a few years, and he saw good roots in a vehicle that just needed a little bit of love, and some personal accents to set this car apart from the rest.

Mr. Johnson has been a loyal customer of ours for the better part of a couple of years now, including is in several phases of this build, which in his last visit has finally reached it’s pinnacle. We have been involved with this vehicle for so long, that we have seen most of it’s major changes, and actually done 2 photo-shoots now, partnering with Colby at Zeon Photos to really highlight the work and attention to detail Mr. Johnson has employed with this build.

Mr. Johnson had the body completely re-worked with fresh paint, a beautiful British Racing Green with a metallic spin on it, the standard MSA Type 1 air dam without the brake vents, an MSA BRE style wing, and then had the interior completely re-done in leather and retro-checker cladding. He finished the exterior off with a custom set of Forgiato Curva wheels.

Next was the mechanical aspect of the build, he originally brought it to us post-body and interior work, and had us iron out a host of driveability and electrical issues, as well as convert this factory 4-speed car to a 5-speed. At the time, we had a lot of ZX 5-speed cores in house, so we pulled one off the shelf and did a complete rebuild for him, and swapped it in. Later on, the next phase of electricals included a set of Dapper LED headlamps, and ironing out some of the other electrical gremlins that accompany an almost 50 year old classic car.

Once we got all of the electrical sorted, the next stage was an upgraded Wilwood 1” Master cylinder, a set of new KYB strut cartridges w/ new strut mounts, and a set of Apex Engineered adjustable lower control arms to get all of the suspension angles correct. We even had Ohm at Apex find a close match powdercoat to his paint so it flowed with the overall apperance of the vehicle.

The final stage of the build was going to be an engine pull-out and complete re-seal down to the head gasket. The head gasket had been seeping engine oil for as long as we have been maintaining the vehicle, and it was finally time to address it. Our original plan was to do a complete re-seal, and replace all wear parts, but as with old L-series engines, there is always a slight risk of broken head bolts. Unfortunately our fears became reality, with 2 broken head bolts, we were basically dead in the water, pending a complete tear down for machining, and a subsequent engine rebuild. We found SEVERE pitting on the cylinder head as well, likely from sitting for so long, accompanied by the lack of maintenance that a vehicle sitting will cause. We attempted to re-weld the cylinder head and machine it, but ultimately the original N42 cylinder head was not salvage-able. We had a few good N47 cylinder heads in stock, so we opted to rebuild one of those, and install it on the engine. We topped the engine build off with a ProtunerZ Intake manifold, and a 3-2 Longtube header.

Initially we sought to adapt the ProtunerZ intake manifold for use with the factory EFI system, but unfortunately due to the lack of adjustability of 50 year old electronics, this ended up being a rabbit hole that neither us, nor the customer wanted to explore, and after our best attempts and keeping the costs economical, we opted to convert to one of our Plug and Play Megasquirt 2 kits to alleviate the lack of tunability the factory EFI system holds.

While some people may have successfully adapted the factory EFI to work with the ProtunerZ intake, as professionals, we feel that it was doing a disservice to our client, and would pose future risks for other driveability concerns, and overall unhappy feelings towards the amount of investment made into this vehicle, so in the interest of delivering a top-notch build, we felt it was best for our client to go with a tuneable stand-alone ECU setup. After some tuning and driving, during the engine break-in, the previously repaired fuel tank became an issue once again. When this tank was previously repaired, S30world had not opened it’s business yet, but now was a different story. The final piece of the build would be a brand new fuel tank from S30World, to completely eliminate any potential break-downs or headaches in the future.

Mr. Johnson really paid a great attention to detail with this build, and it truly shows. We are absolutely honored to have been selected to participate in this build, and be included at the level that we were, and this will be yet another build that we are extremely proud of at GRW.

ENGINE SPECS

EXTERIOR/INTERIOR SPECS

  • Custom Forgiato Curva 19” Wheels

  • MSA Type 1 Air Dam w/o Brake Ducts

  • MSA BRE Style Rear Wing

  • Completely Restored Leather Interior w/ Retro-Checkered Cladding

  • Full set of Speedhut S30 Livery Gauges

  • Nardi Woodgrain Steering Wheel

  • ZCD Wood Grain 5-Speed Shift Knob

  • Low Profile Stealth Subwoofer/Amp Combo Box

  • Dapper LED Headlamp Kit

  • KYB OE Replacement Strut Inserts

  • ZCD Billet Rear Strut Mount Kit

  • Apex Engineered Adjustable Rear Lower Control Arm Kit

Christopher Miller