300ZX Alignment

[undercoverdjay]

So I'm picking up this car on Thursday and the seller sent me some pictures of any imperfections of the car. He sent me these pics and Im sort of concerned. Z32's usually have some pretty tight lines, is there really any adjustment to the panel or lights? The front panel is a wings west panel according to the seller. Any ideas?

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a305/RPS1392/Z32/P1000432.jpg
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a305/RPS1392/Z32/P1000429.jpg
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a305/RPS1392/Z32/P1000437.jpg
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a305/RPS1392/Z32/P1000441.jpg

I just emailed the seller and essentially, he's an incredibly busy guy and he drops his car off at a local shop to be fixed all the time. I asked if he could please take the car to this shop and have these pulled an aligned for me and I'll split the cost with him.

Im flying to FL from NY to pick this car up and paying $10,500 for it.

The car has a 30k mile motor swap done from a JDM clip
Tuned ECU
Boosting at 14.5 psi
Lowering springs
SMZ aero

All the rest is stock

So far the seller has been awesome in helping me out. I put $5,000 down and he mailed me the title so I could register the car here and drive it back legally. Seller is cool about answering my questions. Also he had a complete tune up done to the car on my behalf because of the long drive. So all in all, I trust the guy.

[Eric240sx1990]

are those aftermarket "hid" style headlights? If so they could be some cheap ebay knockoff. Ive bought a few pairs of those type of lights from ebay for several different cars, most of them had to be adjusted some how to fit right. The weatherstripping on the pass. side looks like its coming off.

And on that front panel.. i think you could probably put some shims on the bottom to make it flush...

usually with cheaper aftermarket parts, unless they are OEM pieces, they tend to have small gaps in some places. But ya, just have the seller take it to the shop to see if they cant straighten everyhting thing up with shims and stuff, doesnt seem like there should be much labor cost for that one.

[wootwoot]

I would not pay 10.5 for that..

[projectRDM]

It's been wrecked. The headlights should not fit that poorly.

[undercoverdjay]

Yeah, I called the shop thats worked on the car for several years and apparently it was taken off the road before the guy I'm buying it from got it. Im trying to weight out my options here. I found another 91 Z32 TT for 8,000 and it's also closer to me. 88,000 miles and totally stock.

The car pictured above is perfectly sound mechanically, as well as tuned and set at 14.5 psi. So if I want to get this car into the same condition cosmetically and mechanically, it may cost me more than the price difference between the two.

I may still get this FL car if he works with me either on the price, or has the damage fixed before I get there.

This sucks......:(

[dwadia]

I had two 300zx tt's. One of them had some relatively minor issues with panel alignment, although it was more with the side edges of the front bumper than with the headlights and nose panel. I don't like how that one in the picture looks. I wouldn't consider buying it unless i saw it in person, removed the nose panel and maybe bumper, and looked around to see what else may be damaged. As you probably know, the Z has a VERY tight engine bay so i'm thinking some other things worse than headlights may be out of alignment.

For the price you're paying, i think you could get a much nicer Z... i sold mine for that and it had quite a bit of mods. Maybe it's too late and you already found something, but go onto www.twinturbo.net - not only do they have good classifieds, but the community on that site is great and you will find an answer to most any technical question you can post. And just my 2 cents, but i would rather get an 88k original-mile car if i knew its ownership and maintainence history than a JDM swap about which i know nothing. Unless you start doing some crazy stuff to those engines or have someone work on them who is careless (or unfamiliar with them), the Z's are super-reliable. So i'd avoid swaps unless you really know about the engine and the shop that did it.

Good luck, i know you're going to love the Z!

[dwadia]

I forgot to mention, you may know this but 14.5-15 psi is the limit of boost that should be run on a Z with stock injectors. I don't know if that guy ALWAYS ran 14.5 or if he sometimes ran it higher, but you'll want to avoid any car that was frequently run above 15psi on stock injectors. My personal feeling is run 14 and you can bounce it off the rev limiter without worrying. 15 is questionable.

[undercoverdjay]

Spoke to the seller, the local shop is going to fix it with no problem, free of charge to me :)

[undercoverdjay]

I totally missed the post about the boost limit. The stock ECU is tuned to boost to, and limit to, 14.5psi. Im sure stock injectors will max out after that. The place that tuned the car has been working with Z cars for 15 years now, so I'm confident they did a good job. The shop owner who built the car rattled my ear off for a good hour about it.

[dwadia]

Well, it sounds like you have done your research and have everything under control. I'm sure it will work out well for you :)

I'd still recommend getting on twinturbo.net (if you haven't already, which you may well have done) just to check out the site. That site is to Z's what zilvia.net is to 240's... plus there tends to be less negative and critical postings, especially in the technical section.

Good luck!

[RightWheelDrive]

I would go with the low mile stock Z for sure. Is that even a clean title? The mods on that are not even worth it. I would also recommend going to twinturbo.net.