Restoring a 300ZX Twin Turbo

[Adam]

http://thegarage.jalopnik.com/heres-exa ... 1793172844

He bought a solid one with a maintenance history that had some recent drivability issues and did all the maintenance, plus other stuff while he was in there. Not surprisingly, the parts cost exceeds the purchase price by alot, showing that it doesn't really matter what the purchase price is on a 20+ year old car.

So was it worth it? Maybe. NADA has high retail at $13,035 for an A/C car. He is under that if you value his labor at ~$3.35/hr. If you got good at one of these cars, you could squeeze a profit out of doing this soft of job in a reasonable amount of time. That is if you could find someone willing to pay top dollar for a "restored" '90s Japanese super car. The right age group for these card is approaching a time in their lives when they could afford something like this (a restored dream car from their youth), so maybe that isn't that far-fetched. However, if you just wanted one of these and were willing to do the work yourself, spending ~$11.5k and lots of your time might not be a bad idea for what you would end up with.

Edit - changed the quote to a link

[kevm14]

Nice to see someone document that if for no other reason than educating the rest of us.

Then I immediately needed to be reminded how fast these were.

From here: http://www.caranddriver.com/comparisons ... ers-page-2

The lighter 300ZX Turbo is even quicker. It reaches 60 mph in just 5.0 seconds and flashes through the quarter-mile in 13.7 seconds at 102 mph. This car proved to be the fastest Z we've ever tested.

So for $12k you certainly aren't going to make a performance per dollar argument. Like all cars that aren't riding the Pareto front of optimum performance per dollar, the default reasons to buy the car are basically what you said- always wanted an XYZ, I can have one for $12k, and I have $12k. Doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

There is plenty to like about the 300ZX - I think they are cool. But with used C5 Z06s existing, if you are trying to buy as much performance for your dollar as you can, the 300ZX has nothing to offer. For that matter, for even less money, an LT1 Corvette will do basically the same thing as the 300ZX. I tried looking it up and the best I could find was Road and Track trapped 102 in 100 degree weather. So...probably faster in equal conditions. Point made.

This is also a bit of a buzzkill:

It doesn't look it, but it's a hefty car, weighing 3570 pounds—about 200 pounds more than a Corvette.

As I said, performance isn't the only thing going on - I would think the 300ZX would have better steering feel and shifter feel than a C4 and possibly the Z06. A bit of an aside: these 90s Japanese "super cars" were really just sporty GTs, more or less like the Corvette. The RX-7 gets a nod as a true sports car, for sure.

[kevm14]

Enter the complex and gorgeous, venomously fast Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo.

Blessed with 300 horsepower from the factory when the twin-turbo engine and manual transmission were checked on the options list, the car can still put modern sports car offerings to shame

I guess this is why I don't think I am being too harsh. Not sure what modern sports cars can't trap 102, except like a Miata or a Toyobaru 86. Neither of which are supposed to be fast.

It's no different than boomers remembering every 60s car as a drag strip slaying muscle car. Most weren't (I'm sure it seemed like it by the sad early 80s). And the fast ones were not as fast as you remember. So buy due to 90s reminiscence, don't try to say something as fast as an Accord V6 is some kind of magic performance vehicle.

[kevm14]

And this really bolsters my Corvette argument:

These automobiles do not fall into the reliable, happy-go-lucky category of Japanese cars you know so well. The timing belt, for example, needs to be changed every 60,000 miles or four years, whichever comes first. Let this slip and you’ll be shopping around for a new engine. Neglect is not something these cars will put up with.

So they weren't that fast (the Supra was pretty quick), not that reliable and have a high price for the performance you get (this also applies to the Supra). You'll never make a logical argument for buying one imo.

[kevm14]

Basically it would be like me going out and spending $10k on a clean lower mile Impala SS to relive some high school fantasy. Purely emotion. It won't matter how much I try to convince someone how significant the car was to me at the time.

[kevm14]

Jesus this sounds miserable.

When you open the hood on one of these cars, you begin to wonder how in the hell it was ever assembled at the factory. There is absolutely no room to work. If you need to replace the turbos on one of these, the easiest thing to do is pull the engine out of the car. No joking here, it makes life far simpler

I guess I'm just pissed that despite all of these sizable flaws these cars are still worth more than a same-era (and same performance) Corvette. I don't understand why. Lots of tech, expense, maintenance headache for parity with a pushrod-powered car. What it boils down to is most kids (especially on a coast) were lusting after these cars in the 90s and in their 30s have the means to finally obtain them. Inexplicably, he lives in Kansas (not sure if born/raised there).

[kevm14]

I haven't even finished yet but this reads like any 20 year old German car project. Suddenly doing an opti-spark on an LT1 of a same-era Corvette barely seems like an issue.

[Bob]

The 1990 Corvette was pre-opti, right?

[kevm14]

LT1 was for 1992. So yes.

All I was saying that for all the complaints of the LT1, that is nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to what you have to deal with on a Z32. The RX-7 is probably simpler but the engine is a weak point. The Supra is not really less complex than the Nissan from what I know, but is at least faster (and heavier). I don't know what kind of costs would be associated with bringing a Supra back to life. I doubt it would be cheap. And the 3000GT VR4 was probably the least reliable of the entire group. All of these cars has a different personality and a different thing they do well but I just don't see the appeal in owning one today, unless you absolutely must own one just to own it.

[Bob]

You're going to have to add a zero to the price the guy paid for this 300ZX to find a good Supra Turbo.

You have to think of these cars in the context of how boomers feel about 60s muscle cars. Are any of those cars actually good by modern standards or a good performance value? No, but people buy them because it takes them back to a time in their life that they want to remember. It's all about nostalgia. For a lot of car enthusiasts who went through their formative years in the 90s, myself included, these Japanese performance cars were what we dreamed about. This was largely the motivation behind my Integra Type R purchase. There's a list of cars a mile long that offer a better performance value than my ITR did, but none of them is a Championship White 1998 Integra Type R.