Can You Daily Drive a Datsun 280z? With Z Car Garage, Absolutely.

[Music] ready yeah one two here we go here we go go what's up guys lara chan here welcome to another episode of hoonigan autofocus we're focusing on datsun's today specifically we are at z car garage this is my buddy rob and he builds some of the best zs in the world this one is interesting in that there's so many different ways to build a z right but this one is as you mentioned before we started rolling it's kind of more the obtainable way to modernize these cars well sure i mean we all know that 240z 510s and the roadsters they're all disappearing but there's a lot of 280z left out there for a fair price and so trevor's car here is a perfect example of making a 280z canvas your own and taking a car that you can actually still buy still afford and then have money left over to do things to it and that's why i really like the 280z's they are definitely the most obtainable datsun right now so body wise the 240 and the 280 once you change out the front and rear bumpers it's pretty much the same thing absolutely yeah i mean definitely the 280z holds more weight right there's more things in it than a 240z but it's not outlandish it's not crazy and again it still has that shape that we all fell in love with right and again trevor's done the bumpers right he's done the rear spoiler and he's kind of already taken it away from regular 280z to what he wants it to be and also another thing is uh the 260z yes same body same thing correct but smaller bumpers than the 280 right 280 is when it goes to the big fat accordion style bumpers right where they had to have five mile an hour bumpers and uh the 280z started coming with electronic fuel injection that is correct 1975. absolutely and that's another thing it's a very friendly vintage car to own as long as everything is in good working order you could daily drive a 280z no problem okay because we know not only are the 240zs disappearing the problem is they're just so expensive now it's really crazy yeah people have discovered what we've known for a long time which is datsuns are the jam i just they're fantastic vintage sports cars and you're right like it's just i own a datsun shop and sometime someday i'm going to be priced out of my own marketplace right and that's a bummer and that's what's so cool about the 280z yeah because if you don't really care it doesn't really it doesn't really matter i mean there's really no difference um it looks great it performs amazing as we will see today sure um it's just heavier right but it's not like crazy heavy this car with trevor's weight in it is still under 3000 pounds it's just about 2 900 pounds where obviously your car is a lot less than that being a 240z but you'll see today that this car is still a performer where is the weight added to this well absolutely just again all the structure points on the inside of the car there's more dash electronics there's more everything right fuel injection i mean all those things add up over the course and then the chassis is a little bit beefier than the 240z chassis so essentially so in a way this potentially could even be better than the 240z a more modern uh or once you update it it's gonna just be a more modern version of the 240z that's how i feel about it i mean i think they're great and again that's the thing is that what makes dots and guys dots and guys is that we're resourceful and so if there are no 240zs in our price range well let's get the next best thing yeah because gone are the days where you can buy a 240z for three thousand dollars which is exactly how much i bought mine for sure you know and i know they're gone and uh for you i'm sure you've had ones for free absolutely i'm sure you've had ones for 500 yeah i know butters i think was like in the 3 000 range right i mean not running right but that's just the thing it's like the datsun 510 behind you right i bought that for 800 those days are over that one right there but again too right i mean that's the thing it's take cost out of the window take everything out of the window it's just the amount of marketplace with 240zs to choose from is less and less and less and the 280z's they're still cars like this car here is just a car that was sitting around in somebody's garage for years and years and years and now it's going to get new life right it's going to get new love right and this car isn't an expensive car right this one is a almost stock version it is all that's all that's different on this car is it has panel sports on it this car is completely stock 280z and it's kind of cool that it's here because you can now look here a camera wise and see okay that's how this car starts and this is trevor's take on it because it comes with these whatever accordion five mile per hour bumpers absolutely big bad mothers kind of like uh what were on the porsches that's correct yeah yeah because they couldn't it was still a lot of metal not as much plastic sure and they had the 240 but they wanted to update it for regulation so all they did was just add this instead of actually changing the car correct i mean again there are there's there's a ton of differences and i'm sure in the comments section we'll have lots of input right but it's just that's the thing it's like the 280z can be a great canvas for building your cool datsun and on top of that uh the hood is different a little bit just because it has these vents that is correct um what else i'm just looking at it i know i'll be honest i don't know too much about the 280s because i didn't i never really looked into that sure well again look i mean the taillight panel is obviously different right this finisher piece the big bumper in the back but essentially right let's go back to trevor's car it's like if you saw this you know if you're a datsun guy you know right away that's a 280z you know right away the taillight panel but right somebody else is just like wow look at that and z car yeah um i mean from the outside aesthetically speaking he's done things to modernize it right so it's like the bre style correct ducktail you have carbon fiber carbon fiber 240z style absolutely which i think it updates it quite a bit definitely um the front you got to love the headlight covers correct and so what kind of valence is or what you know i think that's the motorsport valance and i think he has the skiller piece down below on it and skillard is an aftermarket company makes a lot of really cool things for dachshunds this looks great yeah it looks fantastic yeah i love that it matches the line it follows the line all the way from the hood down to the carbon fiber bumper down to here yeah and the bumper piece it looks great yeah and again i like it and that's exactly why i wanted to talk about this car because you know trevor is a guy doesn't leave near us he lives in nevada and dropped his car off to get some z car garage love uh mirrors are cool too absolutely just kind of an updated look versus um those stock yeah the factory ones yep are a little it takes some to to like them sure too no no enjoy them right and i think this really updates that so um what about tell me about the wheels tires so this is kind of our standard issue we put this on pretty much all of the cars that we built here this is a 16x7 panasport and we are able with this offset to run a 225 5016 tire all the way around all of the 90 supercars ran 225 5016s and when i say all i mean there's a lot of cars a long time ago that ran that tire size which means there's all kinds of sticky tires left in that size and that's why it's our go-to and so this right now we're using the re71r because again trevor's gonna use this car as his release car his hey i had a long week at work i'm gonna get in my z car and get after it so he has our z car garage brakes he has our cv axles and then really exciting you just drove in butters the cd009 conversion using the six speed from the 350z game changer let's talk about that when we look at the interior can we check out the motor yeah and again there's nothing crazy here he's done an aftermarket fuel rail and he's put an adjustable fuel pressure regulator on it and then we did the header with the transmission conversion okay and again all 280z stuff it's got a coil radiator he's done his own little cold air intake setup this is 100 street legal everything is i guess other than for california right we have to have egr and since he lives in nevada he doesn't and so we deleted the egr system but other than that if he moved back to california or moved here we could very easily make this car smile compliant and then it's still running the factory ecu then it is yeah yeah again way too again wait till you see how nice this car drives and the fact that you don't have to be a you know full-blown vintage car person to have a 280z and enjoy it so it's interesting because most of these people will carburete it take all the electronics out and then essentially i guess make it a 240z but uh he decided to kind of keep all of this the way it is i'm sure it runs amazing it does it runs really really well and that was one of the things you know what's funny is trevor's story is he wanted a 240z and then realized he wasn't going to be able to afford to get the one he wanted so he started looking for two adz and he found this nice car in a phoenix it had 94 000 miles on it and he got a bunch of paperwork with it because again right whoever owned this car loved it and so there's even the window sticker all the service records and it was funny is that this car was actually purchased in his hometown in nevada oh so it's just kind of cool how dotsons go full circle let's uh let's talk about the interior you got it whoa this yeah nice car and so he had to do the dash and so he he did the dash in it and then it's got speed hut gauges and then we used his original shift knob and obviously it's got a six speed in it now but it looks factory which is really cool yeah the 280z has a much bigger opening here it does it looks it looks pretty similar absolutely there's just certain little things that make it different absolutely um there's like a stabilizer bar back here um it's got the nardi yeah it has a nice steering wheel so tell me about the transmission so this is kind of an interesting thing that i never realized existed um so you've been doing this swap for a while now yeah you know austin hoke uh from hope performance this is all his idea and his engineering and we cross paths with each other when i did a v8 z car conversion and he made a v8 conversion for uh z cars we did one in a 280. and so we were talking about the cd009 he's like well you know i put all this stuff together and i've sold some it's like cool well i want to check one out he's like well no one's got one together and i was like well send me one and then that's you know we put it into james stevens car we put in a couple of cars and so then finally you know his life kind of took off he's a family man and he has a full-time engineering gig and i said well i'd love to take over the hook performance six-speed conversion and so we did and so i purchased uh a run of them and i've installed all of them into cars so it works really really well and as you'll see today when we drive around it is a game changer because the thing is um the transmission i thought that this transmission came originally from the 350z right it does yeah i said this six-speed this six-speed comes from a 350z right is nissan's part number for it is cd009 and that's why we called it that swap right and then you can use a used one from junkyard you sure could the cool thing is you can buy it directly from nissan for this duty that's what we do just for the simple fact is we want to start with something new we don't want to you know the amount of money and effort it takes to do this you want to do it once and do it right and the cool thing about putting this gearbox behind anything is that it'll take it you know you drove in james's car you know 560 wheel horsepower and the transmission's like this ain't no thing right butter is like 275 horsepower ain't nothing but a thing and that that's what's so cool is that you're gonna do it once it's gonna work really well for you and then you're done with transmissions well there's just nothing better than a modern manual transmission no question because the transmission that came with this car is 40 years old same thing with butters exactly it wasn't made for the the kind of things that we're doing with it right and then so then you break it who's going to rebuild it there's only a few people left that can do it and where are you getting parts and that that's the thing that's why we do our brake kit on top of that the visceral feeling of shifting oh yeah it doesn't grind yeah there's just so many things about it and also the clutch i'm sure all of that it just wonderful changes the way the car drives so much yeah absolutely and then because you know all the gears now you can pick whatever rear differential you want to do so that you have a full combo right like butters is set up to go from zero to 100 miles an hour as quickly as you want but it's not meant to go 150 miles an hour because i don't want to go 150 miles an hour in my z car you know i want to get that rush that feeling i want to put together corners and always be in the power band and what's so exciting about this and the 280 is that the 280z engines don't rev as high as the 240z modified engines so it's just this big multiplication of torque like this thing is just a stump puller it just goes and goes and goes and keeps asking for more can we take a look at butters and maybe there's updated things yeah there sure is yeah butters is always in a state of renewal so the the story is that i came here to z car garage uh over a year ago and then within moments you handed me the keys to butters and i was driving this really hot rodded hopped up 240z and it was your this is your demo car like this is the one that you kind of sell your services i guess sure and again always testing right the biggest thing about z car garage is anything that we say works must work and that's the thing it's like when we did our brake testing right the brakes were on this car for a good six months before i ever even thought about offering it to anyone else and so we had done a few of the six speed conversions and there were some things about it was like ah maybe we should do this or do that and i was like you know honestly i really need to drive one every day so i can pick up on those little things that i might not love about it and that's exactly why we put the six speed into butter can we take a look at it absolutely so um it's interesting i did have a chance to drive this around a little bit and first gear is so short on this you know it's like it's almost just a gear to get you moving yeah and then second gear is when it really starts singing this car do you have to do anything to modify it so it sits properly you have to cut you know especially on a series one car you have to cut the the cross member or i guess you have to cut off some of the cross member pieces and move things around there's definitely some things that you're going to have to do to the body to get this transmission in there but worth it i mean if you're a purist and you don't want to touch your car then you probably don't want a six speed anyway but if you're looking to get you know the best combination of you know driving and and feel the transmission and all those other things the six speed is uh is a great swap plus there's nothing worse than if you're in the four speed and you're trying to keep up with normal flow of traffic nowadays oh my god you're gonna be at like 5000 rpm no agreed yeah and again this car is you know you said i gear my cars pretty short because we're trying to kind of get them to move out pretty quickly but the great thing about knowing all of your gear ratios you can pick whatever rear end you want this car has an r18411 with an os geek and uh limited slip same as trevor's car so then in sixth gear on the freeway cruising it's not terrible it's not terrible but it's certainly not at 2500 so it still buzzes but you know we can go for a buzz in this really quickly today and you can see the difference uh same thing with trevor's car and again i like it enough to where you know every one of the ones i think we have about i think we have about eight cars so far with the six-speed swap and it works really well we're digging it it's a really really nice backup for bitchin engines you know like you said right you know the you're using a 70s or 80s gearbox and the stock is like help help and this one is just like come on what fifth all right six let's grab it go yeah that's one of the things i first noticed when i got in here i couldn't believe how short the throw was from one you know all the way through the gear right sure yeah super again it's really hard to put it into words and that's exactly why butters is here right i think i could tell you all day like hey this six speed conversion is bitching and man our brakes are like nothing else but when you drive it that's when you understand all right all right here we go here we go 280z 1978 cd009 transmission cool can't follow that those directions you cannot yeah 78 and then it's got our definite transmission and then a 2 8 engine what makes it your diff what what what's is it a limited slip yeah we use the os geek in units in r180s and then we do all the bearings and seals we build them all in house joshua does them all and we just pick different gear ratios for different customers and so that's why we call it our div and the axles yeah so our cv axle conversion 100 bolt in works really really well smooth smooth driving in the back you don't get any vibration you could deliver whatever horsepower and torque you'd like is it uh like off of a 911 or what what is it i mean what did you did you have to adapt it from something yeah they're german cvs but they're all designed by the gentleman that helps us the cad models and prototypes he helped us design the whole piece and so all the components are machined by him and bolt indirectly so essentially along with the brakes you guys are legitimately fixing everything that's wrong with these cars i i wouldn't say wrong i wouldn't say wrong just updates yeah they just need to be updated for the modern world for the modern traffic highways i mean just less vibration and also the longevity correct and then again like two big honking u-joints well that was cool 50 years ago you know what i mean but that's not today today is like again all the oe manufacturers use cvs so are we oh hey this actually sounds pretty good yeah it has our exhaust system on it yeah what's really cool though it's just it's a z car yeah it sounds really good thanks it drives really nice too yeah it drives really nice hey i'm gonna go into fifth oh i bet you haven't done this in a 280 before man i'm in sixth gear i'm at 78 miles an hour at 3 500 rpm [Music] oh nice it does have a shift light that's your nose yeah that's cool yeah it's got lots of torque so we'll take a ride and go on to 101 and do our little test loop that sound as soon as you get on it is really good oh man you know it's funny because when you were driving i was thinking man this guy's crazy but actually it is pretty sworded it's very sorted it's really why don't you go into six and then downshift into four yeah god oh the brakes are just so good they're so incredible thank you oh my god it's funny that you just short shifted it because that's what's so much fun about the transmission is that the torque is just always there on demand hey i recognize that body style ahead yeah hi supra hello supra they look great in yellow not today not today toyota not today i love i i definitely like that inline six sound i think it sounds great oh it's funny the chick took a picture of us it sounds really good especially as soon as you get on it yeah it just has that really strong inline-six tone it sounds really good yeah and again nothing's fancy to this car right i mean it's got some really nice adjustable control arms but the springs and shocks it's not even on coilovers just has a nice set of sway bars like lowering springs and a nice shock i mean it's just great sometimes simple works really well in a z car it's actually fun to short shift it is yeah it's funny is i don't ever really wind butters out anymore because it's just always there and you're moving so fast by the time you get it that there's no real reason to ring its neck i'm honestly that's kind of the fun thing for me with these old cars when when you're driving them not that fast it's still feels like you're on the edge exactly yeah and i just love how you know it's the first time you're driving it and you're comfortable with the handling of it and the braking and the suspension yeah it feels really good i can't believe it doesn't have coilovers well thank you so much for letting me drive this thank you trevor thanks for letting us check it out and enjoy it yeah and thanks for letting us be a part of your story well i hope you i trevor i hope you enjoy it uh as much as we did because i definitely enjoy driving this thing what a cool car yeah super cool [Music] [Music] me [Applause] bye

Channel: Larry Chen

Views: 335,735

Keywords: Larry Chen, Larry Chen Photo, Larry Chen Photography, Larry Chen Speedhunters, Larry Chen Hoonigan, Hoonigan Autofocus, Z car, 280z, Nissan 280z, 240z, Datsun 260z, Fairlady Z, Z car garage, Datsun, Rob Fuller, Z cars, Nissan Z, 300zx, 300z, Datsun 510, Nissan Shop, Datsun shop, Vintage Sportscar, Vintage JDM, 280zx

Id: vIgNN9wZu4g

Length: 25min 3sec (1503 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021