“Buy low/sell high” is a great rule for practically any business venture. If you can do both, you’re well on your way to profitability. If you can regularly achieve at least one of these, you still have a good shot. Even more so if it’s a 300ZX sporting a 6.0 Chevy LS V8.
In all the buying and selling of cars I’ve done, I know that the “sell high” part is never guaranteed. Cars selling over their value can happen, but it takes time. You have to wait for the right buyer to come along. There is a used car dealer not far from where I live who over-prices his inventory and waits, and waits, and waits. I know he has had an early 70s F-150 on his lot for two years now.
I don’t like to keep cars very long. I like to price them just at or even a tiny bit under market value, and then allow the buyer to talk me down just a little more. So for me, the only part of the “buy low/sell high” construct I can control is the “buy low” portion. Accordingly, when I’m looking for a car I often sort by price. There is a lot of junk on the low end, but occasionally you can find a gem.
A 1994 Nissan 300ZX was a gem I found. These 1990-1996 cars were internally named Z32. The classified ad said “not running” and the owner ran a used car lot about an hour and a half from my house. He told me there was water in the oil and his mechanic suspected a head gasket. I made an appointment to look at it after verifying that it was a two-seater. In my opinion the 2+2 models had terrible proportions. The older Z31 2+2s were even worse.
I picked up a car trailer from U-Haul and made the drive. I figured the sight of trailer could move the price down, but the distance I drove could move the price up. How would he know how far I drove? He and I were in different telephone area codes, and he probably knew that if he paid attention to his caller ID.
Except for the engine, the car was actually in nice shape. There was only one modification, the wheels were upsized, aftermarket ones. Other than that the car was stock. The leather on the driver’s seat was badly cracked, but otherwise the interior was very nice. The paint was probably less than ten years old and was nice too. There were no dents, and no rust – because Florida. It was a T-topped N/A V6 with a slushbox.
The seller and I went back-and-forth on price for a minute or two. He even threw out the line: “I’ve had a ton of calls on this one.” My standard reply is always “Well, where is everybody?” We eventually compromised and he even procured a portable electric winch from somewhere to help motivate the car on to the trailer. I had that little Nissan in my garage by lunchtime.
Over the next few weeks I pulled the engine and trans and made a tiny bit of money back from the scrap metal guy. I picked up a Nissan five-speed manual at a junkyard. I also gathered the other necessary parts for the conversion like a clutch pedal, shifter, clutch master cylinder etc. etc.
I already had a Chevrolet gen III 6.0 V8 sitting in my garage, so that went in. My son started calling it the 600ZX. I found a company in New Jersey that sells a unique flywheel and adapter plate for mating a Chevy LS1 to a Nissan gearbox. The factory DOHC V6 actually took up more room side-to-side than the GM LS engine did. The room front-to-rear was a tight fit though.
My big task was fabricating a set of headers and exhaust for it. I began as a rookie on the MIG, by the time the job was done I felt like a journeyman welder. But there was a bright spot: these cars had IRS in the back with a fixed differential, so that made running the rear part of the exhaust much easier.
These 300Zs had a screwy double-sump gas tank that sat over the driveshaft, with a little computer that told the pumps when to move fuel around. Unfortunately, I had to learn all about that. The C5 and C6 Corvettes had a similar setup. Speaking of Corvettes, the rumor was that Chevy engineers carefully dissected a 300ZX when they were developing their car. The twin-turbo version of this Nissan was world-class when it debuted.
When finished, my car was super-fun to drive. 400 foot pounds of torque and as much horsepower in a 3,100 pound car is a rush. The acceleration was like a commercial jet rushing down the runway for takeoff. I drove it daily for a little while, but like everything else, I grew tired of it.
I had a feeling I could “sell high” and I did. My little 600ZX is cruising the streets of Miami now. At least that was the area code of the guy who called about it. When he came, he was pulling an empty flat trailer, so I knew he was serious.
“the rumor was that Chevy engineers carefully dissected a 300ZX when they were developing their car”
There is a lot of actual fact in those rumours. There are 2-3 SAE papers depicting the development of the C5 where they mention the cars used as benchmark to set the program’s targets. If you have the coin and the time, spend ~$70 and read the 3 of them.
These are beautiful. One of the guys in the company has one that he has slowly modified from N/A into a TT track monster. Love your LS1 swap, but… where’s the pics?
I’ve got a few.
Here is another:
Is that a carburetor?
Yes, some sort of Holley w/ what it looks like a MSD ignition box
I can remember as a kid growing up in the 1970’s, a couple of guys who had installed SBCs in their 240Zs and 280Zs. Nothing new under the sun and all that…
I had seen a similar swap done with the previous generation 300ZX about 25 years ago. We got the beast in trade on a Supra or a MR2 turbo. IIRC (and I can’t swear to it any longer), it was a carbed SBC with an automatic behind it. I only ever drove it once and while it was zippy, it was seriously overshadowed by another trade in we received.
*THAT* was a road legal, but fully-prepared SCCA-track ready Camaro 1LE. Every clown in the dealership wanted to take it for a “spin”. But finally, the manager had enough of half the crew missing for 30 minutes at a time and vowed to fire anyone caught in the car after that. Even the porters had to have permission to move the car.
And yes, we would like to see pix of this.
Pretty cool swap. So much nicer than a resident curmudgeon around here who would tell us that any swap would cost a minimum of $10K.
Ahhhhh, LS GOODNESS!
I bought a 2006 GMC Savana 3500 van precisely for that 6.0, an LQ4 in my case. It moves that 5500-lb behemoth quite well.
When it finds its way into something over 2000 lbs lighter…that will truly be fun.
Great story, though you make the swap sound easy and for most of us it would not be ? I find this generation of ZX to be interesting. On the one hand, very common, at least in their day, and at some point just blending into the automotive background. On the other hand, strikingly simple and elegant in a way that no other Japanese sports car ever was, except for maybe the even more common early Miatas. And, especially in twin-turbo form, pretty cool mechanically as well. I think these may even eclipse in the original Z in desirability at some point in the future.
The nonchalant, cavalier tone of the piece struck me, as well, not only stuffing GM motivation into a modern Nissan, but also switching an automatic to a manual. Neither task sounds like one for the vast majority of the proletariat and/or faint of heart. Plenty of people start such endeavors, but a significantly smaller number bring them to successful completion.
Proof positive the LS swap is always the right answer, I would have never thought it would fit in this engine bay, it’s tight enough with the V6 in every dimension.
I never realized the 2+2 and two sweater bodystyles were still a thing with the 300zx, for the longest time I just thought I’d see one in a good or bad light, but the difference in lengths between configurations is it. Very subtle though, I had to google to see the differences
The easiest way to tell is by looking at the location of the fuel filler door.
I actually think the 2+2 looks better. The two-seater looks kind of pudgy.
Agreed, sort of the reverse of its predecessor, the 280ZX 2+2, that didn’t look as good as the 2-seater version.
In real life is the other way around. The 2 seater looks heaps better.
Nothing wrong with the piece at all. I have numerous friends/aquaintences who have done this swap.
Online search shows info and videos to do it yourself.
I have to give you guys credit for having the time and talent to modify cars like the 300 ZX. The 300 ZX was technologically advanced for its time. At a Nissan media event we got all the brochures and technical info detailing the engineering highlights of the model. Truly remarkable for an automobile developed in the late eighties.
In recent years the 300 ZX has become collectable. Good luck finding one one that’s original.
I can’t understand why anyone would swap a masterpiece Nissan engine for an American made power plant. What made these cars so reliable and technically perfect is the fact that they weren’t plagued with any American made components.
300ZX’s of this era are now very rare and very old. So many of these cars were put through the ringer when they became used cars and sold to younger drivers who destroyed them. They did, however, hold up way better than the junk Fox body Mustangs and the poor quality GM F bodies.
I think 300ZX’s of that era are what defines picture perfect styling inside and out; they’re mechanical and engineering masterpieces. It’s also cars like these that will become the future of a new generation of auto collectors.
More power, more parts support, cheaper prices, more options for starters.
V8 exhaust note as a bonus.
More room around the engine. Mostly.
There’s not many cars that aren’t improved by a well executed LS conversion.
I take a lot of crap for advocating SBC or LSx swaps into other cars, but there’s a logic behind it.
The engines are really pretty small & low, fairly lightweight (the aluminum ones are lighter yet) and in their stock packages produce a lot of power. Also, plentiful here, too.
In the US, there are a number of vendors and specialists who will supply parts to install a Chevy motor into about any kind of car you can imagine.
The question is will the future new generation be as finicky about numbers matching unbroken seals as the cork sniffers of today’s collector car world? Personally these cars are right in my wheelhouse, throw in the FD RX7 and A80 Supra while we’re on the subject, and while I’m not a fan at all of most of the aesthetic blights these cars have been riddled with over the years, well done mechanical mods and the like certainly don’t hurt, even if that means an engine swap.
I get the numbers matching attitude more on classics because of the vast variety of options and colors, the distinctions from short production cycles, and even the old world mechanical charm of every little component. Full on pro touring restomods all seem to be the same execution, taking away the variety. Cars like this Nissan are like cars today though, Nissan made the 300ZX forever (10 years) there were few options and few changes over the lifecycle. They look great and have dynamics as good as anything made today though, so if a car is “enhanced” to be better, it’s simply better, and it’s more interesting. As more of a domestic fan myself(for the sake of civility I’ll ignore the slight against the almighty Foxbody!) I’d rather have a nice 87-93 Mustang LX with an IRS swap, Coyote swap(or even LSx swap) with all the usual chassis upgrades than a numbers matching factory LX 5.0.
80-90s cars are going to be much more like the 20s-30s hot rod market than 50s-70s Muscle Car market.
Good call Matt. As with anything, even hot rods, it is more ‘responsible’ to take an already modified car to hot-rod rather than an original, untouched survivor.
Specifically in this case the Z32 is known to have maintenance challenges particularly in turbo form due to tight packaging and heat – an LS would be a good way to get the performance without a couple of heat generators (turbos). The RX7 is in a similar boat due to rotary engine shortcomings.
And it would hard to do anything to the twin-turbo’d 300ZX that would make it any harder to work on! Methinks that a normally-aspirated LS swap would be an improvement in this respect.