I love writing stories about killer cars that were acquired for ridiculously low prices. I mean shoot, there are quite a few decent motorcycles and even some scooters that you can’t even buy for less than 2G’s. Not that you’d want to buy a scooter anyway, you’d be better off buying a used Segway from EBay. Somehow in my mind, you’d be less of pussy on a Segway than a scooter because at least with a Segway you’d be standing.
Anyway, I digress. My man Quoc Pham and his Dad bought this ’71, 240Z for exactly $1500 about 5 years ago off a friend of the family. Although at the time Quoc couldn’t drive standard, he wasted no time learning how and within a couple of weeks he was cruising around in this classic and making heads turn. It didn’t take him much longer to decide to put some wheels and rubber on and to re-paint his Z with the matching bright stock yellow you see before you. While the car was in the shop for paint, he went ahead and shaved the antenna mount, door moldings and took care of some other body work just too fine tune the aesthetics of his ride. “At that point, I really only had a daily beater that looked good” he joked. “So I figured I’d start working on making the car ride and perform a little better.”
“I started with replacing the suspension and lowering the car an inch” Quoc told me. “After that, I did the exhaust and shortly after that is when I decided to go all the way and do the first motor swap.” So he went ahead and dropped in a stock L24 with triple carbs and immediately gained about 50 HP. Quoc also replaced the tranny with a nice 5 speed. Soon after he blew that gear box and the car sat for a couple of months with he decided what to do next.
“After I blew the transmission I probably made the worst decision that a college student can make. I took all of my savings and bought an RB25 motor and committed to a real build.” Ha. Yah, I’m sure the guys at Harvard were choked about that decision. Us.not so much. “I figured I’d do it right and went to work on pretty much everything. It took me almost 2 years to do everything with a little help from my friends.” (It’s worth noting at this point that Quoc’s Mom repainted the engine bay for him.) That’s why we love featuring these kinds of builds. It’s all about friends and family. Not big corporations and bottomless budgets.
“As it stands right now, I’m making about 350 to the crank.” Not bad for a car that weighs about as much as me after Thanksgiving. “In the future, I might drop a RB26 into it just because.” Either way, this Z should be inspiration to just how cool taking the plunge and doing a full motor swap project or in this case projects can be.
Shout Outs:
– Mom, Dad and my girl Theresa for understanding. – Alex V, Matt B and Cliff P for their help with the builds. – www.motorsportauto.com – www.japaneseclassiccarshow.com
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