"Mechanix Menace": An LS7-motivated, chopped and heavily modified 1973 Datsun 240Z

[chevyz240]

This thread describes what has taken up a lot of my free time (on and off) for more than 30!!!! years, my Datsun 240 Z. The relationship with the car is really of the love/hate type! Well, for better or worse, here's some documentation of what you can do if you really are a freak, like me!

I initially had this build thread at CarDomain, beginning in 2004. All those old posts have been copied over to Pro-Touring. So, while the posting date is new, a lot of it happened a long time ago. I will of course continue updating the project here.

Note: Some of the pictures are clickable for higher resolution.

I've owned the car since 1988. I ran it in stock condition in the summer of -89. After a few years, I put it on the street again with a Chevy 350 and a Muncie M21. The engine has been dynoed to 410 hp.

If you're interested in all the details of the car, please keep on reading! I am going to update my page continuously, so please check back. Questions and comments are welcome!



This is one of the first stumbling attempts in Photoshop!





This is how the photo looked before doctoring it. As you can see, the Torque Thrusts are placed in front of the car, and I've put boards under the car to simulate the ride height I'm hopefully going to be able to attain, with quite a few mods to the suspension and floor pan.





Here you can see the status of the car as of October 2004, when I started the Car Domain build thead. The car is seeing daylight for the first time in two and a half years!

P1010001liten by ChevyZ240



Follow along to see the development of the car since I bought it on 12/20/88!





This is what I brought home a few days before Christmas! The car was imported from California the summer before, by the guy that I bought it from. It had a 260 Z motor in it. It had almost no rust, except for the floor pan, that had been repaired terribly. I guess that the dried-out weather-stripping made the car leak in a lot of water that collected on the floor.





After some work during the winter, this is what the car looked like in the summer of -89. Back then it was my everyday car. It ran OK, and I and a friend went on a road trip to Paris, France. I also made a lap on the Nürburgring Nordschleife!