Re: what would you pick?

Posted by Hal/WA on December 29, 2006 at 17:29:43 from (66.45.175.118):

In Reply to: what would you pick? posted by Tim Shultz on December 29, 2006 at 14:49:45:

If you want to build a "relatively" inexpensive hot rod, the Z car might be a good place to start. A Chevy small block fits fairly easily and is about the cheapest engine to rebuild out there. I would use an automatic transmission, partly because an auto is easier on the independant rear suspension components and also because it is easier than messing with clutch linkage or a hydraulic clutch. The rear end is stronger in a 280Z than the earlier ones, but a 240 or 260 rear might be OK unless you put too much tire on the ground or have too powerful an engine. The resulting car will be very quick and fast. But if your area has emission inspection, you should find out if the car itself is old enough to avoid inspection, which it probably could never pass.

Rebuilding the Datsun 6 cylinder should be very straight forward, and I would expect mechanical parts to be fairly easy to get. The early 240Z had carbs that worked better and were much easier to tune than the ones on a 260Z, which were a PITA. I think all 280Z's were fuel injected, but that is really taxing my memory banks. I would guess that a bad automatic transmission would be expensive to rebuild and that putting in a rebuilt Chevy V8 would be cheaper than rebuilding a stock Datsun 6.

A friend of mine had a 240Z when they were new. It was fairly fast and handled like a true sports car. But no competition to the Corvettes, at least in performance! My friend drove his Z to college for a couple of years and then claimed that he sold it for more than a thousand dollars more than he originally paid for it. They were really nice cars, but most only had 2 seats, which could be a real disadvantage if you need to haul more than one passenger. It was not fun to ride very far in the rear cargo area!

Rust is the enemy with any old vehicle. Both the Z car and the Charger are of unibody construction, so all of the structure has to be there and be in good shape. My guess is that there are more sheet metal parts available for the Charger than the Z, but I haven't really researched either.

The Charger could have originally come with almost any Chrysler engine. I don't think I have ever seen a slant 6 in one that new, but lots of them had 318's. But virtually any Chrysler engine will fit with factory parts. And the Chrysler engines are very easy to find, and while not as cheap to rebuild as a Chevy small block, they are not expensive to build. The bigger engines will put out lots of horsepower. Those cars accellerated very well, but handled only OK as compared with modern cars. If you decide on the Charger, I recommend Mopar Action magazine--in my opinion, the best of that group.

The Charger was a very large car that was fairly heavy and my experience with the B bodies was that they didn't get very good mileage, even with a stock 318. But they did look neat and if fixed up nice are selling for incredible prices, at least for the muscle cars.

Good luck, both cars sound like great projects. But watch out for extensive rust--it could give you more headaches than you ever want to deal with!

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