This is my 260z. It has a 5.0L that was stroked to 347 c.i. first by Cotte's machine shop in Bowdoinham, Maine and later had to be rebuilt by Magnum Machine in Virginia Beach, Virginia because my dumb ass hooked the lines on the remote oil filter backwards and burnt up the bearings and melted a piston. It is equipped with a GT-40 intake and F303 cam. The heads are stock for now, but hopefully that will change this summer when I can afford a set of Roush 180's. A Center Force clutch disc and pressure plate engages a World Class T-5 trans which turns a '77 280z R200 differential with welded spider gears via a Mustang driveshaft that was shortened by an old man named Will Allen in Bath,Maine that does all kinds of driveshaft work in an old shed in his backyard.

It didn't always look this good. I purchased the car in April 02 in the salt contaminated state of Maine. There was a great deal of rust everywhere. By "everywhere", I mean both rocker panels, both front fenders, leading edge of the hood, both lower rear quarter panels, and the upper rear quarter panels at the bottom corners of the hatchback lid.

It still had the original 2.6 liter. Which is about 150 pounds heavier and about 250 horsepower shy of my goal. So it found its way into a local junkyard.

The car was then dismantled. With the engine and transmission removed, all wiring and brakelines were stripped from the car so that the sand blasting could begin.

Once the rusted areas were cut out and replaced, POR-15 was used as undercoating. It was also used in the engine compartment and the Tie-coat primer had to be used to interlink the primer and the POR-15 in areas that would be primed and painted. Martin Senyor Marine Epoxy primer was used to coat all bare metal on the body of the car as well as the engine compartment.
The first engine mount that was purchased caused the engine to sit too high for the hood to close and I didn't want to use a cowl induction scoop because I don't care for the looks of a cowl induction scoop on this body style.
This was the engine just as it had came back from the machine shop. It is a '86 Mustang GT Block bored .030 over and clearanced for the longer stroke of the crank. The stroker kit came from PAW with Probe forged pistons and chromoly rings. It also includes a Milodon Hi-volume oil pump, Ford Racing windage tray, true roller timing chain and as mentioned earlier a Ford Racing F303 cam/lifters.
The revised engine mount that you can see in this picture lowered the engine enough to close the stock hood. Also you can see the unfinished, modded steering column that was needed to clear the headers. Moving the steering column caused problems with the oil filter location which resulted in a remote oil filter that I hooked up backwards and ruined a good engine. Note to self: NEVER make that mistake again!
I had to add a piece of pipe on the end of a set of Dynomax block hugger headers to gain clearance to move the engine aft so it would drop behind the crossmember. The headers are close to the tension rod mounts but it does clear.
This was the final trial fit. Time to bend all new brake lines and fuel lines. 3/16" lines were plumbed from the master cylinder to a Jeg's line lock to aid in burnouts and a Wilwood proportion valve was plumbed in line with the rear brakes. The brake kit purchased from www.modern-motorsports.com uses toyota 4-runner rotors/calipers on the front and 300zx rotors/240sx calipers on the rear.

The engine and engine bay was painted.

After the paint had cured, the engine was installed.
Along with the steering column.
I ran across this drawing on www.hybridz.org by someone named "DON" and decided to use this concept to make my hydraulic clutch set up. It isn't perfect, but it does the job.

Because the '77 R200 Diff was an open type and sure to break, a command decision was made to weld the spider gears together. In hopes that it would last longer, and because it makes the car wild and crazy.

After 16 months the car was finally mobile again!

Instead of paying some monkey in a muffler shop to build the exhaust, I cut and welded 2-1/2" pipe from the header flanges to the Flowmaster Y-pipe. I didn't have time to do the same for the 3" tailpipe from the Y-pipe to the 3" 2 chamber Flowmaster muffler, so I had a muffler shop in Virginia Beach bend the tailpipe and hang the muffler. I will eventually make my own tail pipe.


This picture shows the clearance between the balancer and the steering rack.
Then it was ready for the initial start up.
Using a Mallory fuel pressure regulator and Russell twist lock hose I plumbed the two output ports of the regulator into each of the Mallory Fuel Rails.
These are just pictures as it is getting closer to paint.

17 x 7 Konig Imagine wheels ordered from Motor Sports Auto came with Yokohama tires already mounted.
Here the engine sits ready to run in Virginia Beach on Thanksgiving Weekend 2004.
These pictures, as well as the first one, was taken from the window of a friends '00 Formula Firebird which has posted a 12.001 @ 118 mph quarter mile E.T. He may be quicker, but he may never be as cool as me. As a matter of fact, after seeing how cool my SBF DaTSUN was, that he so naively named "5.SLO", he returned home and the following Monday bought a ZO6 Vette . KEEP trying Miss 12 second Firebird Dude.