xxKenta

Hello everyone on ZDriver! My Name is Kenta, and I'd like to introduce myself to the wonderful people on this forum. I recently bought my first Z and my first car as well. She's a beautiful '84 Turbo Coupe that I managed to get with 48k original miles. Bone stock except for the radio put in and the recently replaced air intake filter. Oh, and I repainted the... valve... rocker... intake cover thingy? Whatever ! I plan on keeping this classic.. well classic! I'm keeping the stock airbox to swap back on if need be, and don't plan on making any other changes unless I decided to redo the suspension with some tokico adjustable shocks and progressive springs or something. No coil-overs or racing mods. Anyway. Just wanted to acquaint myself with you all, and show you what I think is the cleanest Z on the east coast . Nice to meet you all!

OH, also, would anyone be willing to appraise my car? Just give me a ballpark figure from the iphone quality photos I have. Thank you!

Kenta's 300ZX - Album on Imgur - photo album

rogerz

beautiful car great find. here is my general advice to new z31 people:

Get your battery load tested. Be sure you have clean, tight corrosion free terminals on both ends of your battery cables. Be sure the ground (negative) cable goes to a bolt into the frame before going to the starter. grounding through the starter is not a reliable connection. Z's don't like low voltage. causes the electronics to act funny. it is possible to have enough amps to crank but not enough voltage to run the electronics. If you have one size fit all cheapo clamp on terminals they are a problem waiting to happen. Usually on a rainy night around Oh Dark Thirty.

Clean the connectors for the maf or afm, ecu and tps. Deoxit by CAIG is probably the best connector cleaner on the market. spray with CorrosionX after cleaning and before putting together this will help prevent any further corrosion. DON'T USE DIELECTRIC GREASE.

Replace outer tie rod ends, and ball joints. replace the bushings with poly (don't forget to lube them as directed unless you like squeaky things). New shocks. Get new boots for power steering. all those things will make you think you are driving a different car. doing them piece meal is a waste you won't see a great improvement until you do the complete job. You need to get the car realigned after messing with the front. Have your tires in good shape and rebalance. Rear bushings nice too but more work and you won't notice as great an improvement. Rear shocks also because if the fronts are gone so are the rears. if car squats when you jump on the gas the rears are gone. If you have the electro adjustable shocks they are DEFINITELY GONE.

If you are doing a turbo car shocks (electro adjust I think may be only on the turbos) then you need the adapter plates to fit modern shocks to the car in the rear. Easiest way is find an n/a at the junkyard and take the mounting plates. They may be available thru NAPA (listed) but I had the n/a plates.

Defender405

Very pretty car, you are probably right about it being one of the cleanest around. I'm a big fan of keeping cars like this stock, it would be a shame to take something that was so well kept for 30 years and modify the hell out of it. The problem with appraising a car like yours is that it is almost too nice to fit in the regular grading scale. Any car in the top 10% of condition is valued differently from a standard example because it would be nearly impossible to replace with a like unit. If I were going to throw a ballpark number on it, I would say it the $9500.00 to $12,500.00 range. Obviously I'm in the Midwest and you are East Coast so values could be slightly different regionally. Any way you cut it that looks like a sweet car and a great find. Enjoy driving her and keep her to the same standards that the previous owner did.

rogerz

defender might be a leetle high on that price. you can buy a nice z32 TT for around that. it aint no ferrari and it is 30 years old.

Defender405

I think that I'm in the ballpark price wise, though I am relying on the miles plus the mediocre pictures and his description of "cleanest on the East Coast" to make my assessment. What I have found in buying/selling old cars is that usually someone is looking for a vintage or body style rather than a model series. In my experience (and when I was looking personally) someone hunting for a Z31 would be comparing to similar vintage RX-7s or Toyota Supra cars, or even IROC Z-28 or C4 Vettes, rather than a Z32. Really nice mid 1980s versions of those cars are bringing $10-15K and top notch versions are somewhat higher. Hell, even mediocre examples are bringing $4-6K if they are running and complete. I have seen good condition Z32 cars with DETT engines between $7.5-10K and those have 90-110K miles.
No, these aren't Porsche 911s or anything like that and their value probably won't spike into the stratosphere but they are getting pretty hard to come by in good shape. Up here in the rust belt you seldom see any of the 1980s Japanese sports cars because they all rusted to junk 15 years ago. Just because something is rare doesn't make it valuable, I understand that, but uncommon models in good shape will bring fair money and should continue to appreciate as long as they don't get fragged out. As RogerZ pointed out these are 26-32 years old now and they aren't making any more of them.