Hey team! I've been lurking the forum for the last couple of weeks and this will officially be my first post. My import 1989 300ZX TT is being delivered this afternoon and I am so excited, the first time I saw this car on the auction house website I knew I wanted to be responsible for getting this thing back to its former glory. It is truly a barn find condition Z, complete with a healthy coating of dirt, moss and a sprinkle of mould. This is what I do know, someone loved it a lot in its past life, and it has sat around for a LONG time since then! (and it does run) This is my initial plan for it: Clean, compression, oils, fuel, filters, 100k service. If there's anything else I should be looking at or doing from the get-go please let me know, this is a project I'll personally be working on so would love to hear your wisdom of things to look out for/ swap/ upgrade. If you have any questions feel free to ask, you'll be seeing me around here a lot mor ein the near future.
Welcome JB, The car looks straight from what I can see, the previous owner changed a few things, brakes radiator, possible under plenum cleanup. The car looks like its been sitting unstarted for a very long time, I'd drain the fuel Tank before starting, two bungs with easy access, also pull the fuel pump solenoid then crank the engine to get the new oil circulating. The programs Datascan or Conzult allow you to see real time engine data, either of these programs are imo invaluable.
Thanks for the info, it was delivered yesterday and I can confirm it runs smoothly and all the electrical seem to work as well. Mods I have discovered so far are the Stop Tech Brake Kit, D2 Racing Coilovers, Magnaflow Exhaust, It has an ECU called a Wolf V550 (anyone know anything about this) I didn't know about the radiator but that seems like a healthy upgrade, what makes you think under the plenum has been altered? My first steps are still clean, new fuel is a great shout, then the fluids and filters. If you see anything else or know of any essentials I should do, I'm all ears.
what makes you think under the plenum has been altered? One of the things owners do is get rid of the under plenum water hoses, they make removing the plenum a pain in the arse, and serve no purpose in our climate, they act like a heater in colder climates, making starting in freezing conditions easier. I can't be sure but It looks like the previous owner did you a favor, you'll find out when you go to remove the plenum, and you will be doing that at some stage.
Love that, I hope they have. I've been looking at some of the PCV and EGR deletes and they look like a real pain.
Imo its a waste of time and effort to delete or reroute the pvc's, its there to do a job and its good at it. The egr delete is worthwhile doing, and it can be done with the engine in place, and you can get blanking kits for the maniflod and plenum that screw straight in. The plenum has to be removed to do the egr delete.
___________________________________________________________ A good scrub, and it should come up nice. What does the interior look like? I would also remove the battery and take out the battery craddle, kill the rust with a suitable rust convertor and repaint. You could also consider fitting a Lipo battery in place of the SLA. No acid the rust the battery craddle and chassis rail. I ran a Wolf V550 in my Zed for about 5 years; maybe longer. Back in the days, Wolf were seen to be a good ECU however the software never got updated to support the newer math models used in Motec, Haltech and Link. Wolf software used cells populated with time (mS) for the fuel table and lacked using feedback from O2's and knock sensors. They were difficult to setup ignition, start and idle when cold and often left you with an idle that hunted until the engine was pulled into gear. I doubt whether you will find many tuners that can tune a Wolf these days and unfortunately you can no longer download the PC software. I should have a copy if it somewhere if you need it. I now run a Haltech but did look into Link. I found Haltech's PC software a little aesier to get my head around. I think you might find that Link ECUs are a little cheaper though. The conversion of the ECU loom was quite easy to go from Wolf to Haltech only requiring repoistioning about a dozen wires and the best part about it was when I built the tune, I tuned the key, it started, ran and idled ok b4 any tweaks. Good luck.
Thanks for the heads up on the battery, unfortunately that’s the only thing I’ve spent money on and I bought a Century. I will check for rust underneath it though! Good to hear the Wolf was at least a known brand in the past, I’ll assume the previous owner set it up for its current build and give it a good go before playing around too much. An updated ECU is definitely happening but probably a littler further down the line, purely financial decision. I’d love a hatch and I’m half to hear the switch shouldn’t be too difficult. Appreciate the input, I’m all ears from the experts
Robbie McQueen owned and was the technical guy at Wolf EMS. A brilliant dude but he wound up the business a few year ago so there really is no support any more for Wolf ECU's. Your car looks to be an auto as I can't see a clutch master cylinder. I'm assuming the Wolf ECU was fitted as a pluggin conversion. When I went through the process of fitting a Wolf V550, I junked the TCU , PSCU, FPCU and Cruise control box. I junked most of the factory looms and made my own. Things to keep in mind, your OEM ECU provided stimulas to the cruise control, variable assist power steering and auto amongst other things. While the Wolf can control an auto, its doesn't do it very well and most likely you will not have operational cruise, variable speed power assist steering and most of your dash instruments won't be working correctly. These are typical limitations when fitted a Wolf ECU (for that matter any after market ECU), all areas that I had to fix over time with the Wolf. It would be a good idea to give the car a thorough electrical check over and identify the things that don't work and then put together a fix me list. I like Lipo's because they are smaller, lighter and have a higher OC voltage (13.3 - 13.5V) than a typical SLA (12.5 - 12.8V). That little bit more voltage can help start an engine that has a thirst for power when cranking. They don't gas either, but they do averlanch. (BMS cuts m off to protect the sucker)
