Bleach

Yes Motorsport Auto is the place to go. They have the largest selection. If you find a body kit anywhere else, be certain that Motorsport carries it too so you could of saved yourself some time and just looked at their catalog. I like Motorsport's own Euro II kit. That is the air dam I have on my car. They also sell matching side skirts and rear bumper cover to match. They have rear spoilers in various sizes and styles depending on what you want.

If you want sometimes wild like a riced out Honda's body kit, you'll have to buy the Euro II kit and then do your own custom fiberglass work. :-)

Here is the kit on another car. This is not my car.


You can see that the kit smooths out the lines around the bumpers and gets rid of the rubber. The fiberglass holds paint nicely. The style of this kit compliments the lines of the 280zx very well without being overdone. Another add-on that some people go with are headlight covers either clear or smoked.

Bleach

Go with the body kit. As for the front bumper, you take off the plastic grill, rubber bumper cover, lower sheetmetal valance and then add a fiberglass skin. I don't think that weighs more. In fact, it might even weigh a couple pounds less. The side skirts are just added weight. But probably 15 pounds at most for a pair. The rear skirt replaces the rubber cover, and it might weigh 3 or 4 pounds more than the rubber.

But, the covers give you an option to remove the large metal crash bumpers underneath and just have fiberglass bumpers. That will give you tremendous weight savings. Then your car will be about as safe in a wreck as a 240Z!

The body kit is very mild and flows nicely with the style of the car. I don't think it is ricey at all. A huge spoiler on the back could ruin the sleek appearance though, so go easy on a spoiler or go without like a lot of people do.

Bleach

Yes, the turbo head has the same closed chamber that the non-turbo does (which is very good) but the P90 turbo head also has square exhaust ports which are a higher flowing port than the non-turbo's round ports which conform to higher emissions standards or something. You can use several different parts from a turbo engine and modify them to work on your non turbo. But then again, why not just use the whole turbo engine? A stock turbo engine running at a very low boost will give you about as much power as a nicley modified n/a engine. (although the turbo is a little more complicated)

Here is a web page with very good info on n/a engine modifications.
http://www.geocities.com/zgarage2001/z.html

Bleach

I've only been working on cars for 6 years... same amount of time I have owned my 280ZX.

I got most of the information in my above post from the web site that I linked, in my above post.... and word of mouth over zcar.com forums, pictures on the internet, downloaded information into my brain during an alien abduction, and tearing apart my old 1975 280Z... you know. The usual places.

Bleach

The Motorsport catalog has about 5 or 6 styles of spoilers right? Well that's the largest selection you're going to get for a 20 year old Datsun. Sorry. If you want a better selection of spoilers, buy a new trendy car that's really slow and fuel efficent.

Bleach

OH, and right about the 280zx picture with fog lights it says "this is not my car"

but yes, it appears that the fog light holes are custom. My car has no fog lights.

Bleach

You know, that gap between you exhaust manifold and the head probably makes a lot of exhaust noise. Maybe that's why you engine is loud. The way to fix it is to remove the intake and exahust. You can just set the intake to the side while still keeping the wires attached. Then replace the intake/exhaust manifold gasket. Also, carefully remove all the exhaust studs in the head and buy new studs that are stronger. Use anti-seize on them when you put them back in. If stud is broken off, you'll need to use an easy-out to remove them.

Fredrik

I need a MSA body kit but I live in Sweden so it´s kind of expensive to ship and I have to pay about 35% VAT :-( I guess I´ll have to work hard for a while.