can anyone give direction.

i just bought a 1983 280zx and want to know where the best place to start adding on horse power and acceleration is. anyone that can help would be appreciated. especially what nissan parts are best to get.

i just bought a 1983 280zx and want to know where the best place to start adding on horse power and acceleration is. anyone that can help would be appreciated. especially what nissan parts are best to get.


Best place to start would be in the right forum. This is the car modelling forum. All of our horsepower is in plastic, not iron...:icon16:

First before you start any building up of a 280ZX you will want to take the engine apart to check all of the internals. But its a L28, which means its a 2.8 LITER, inline 6 cyclinder engine.

Common work on those is bolting on a turbo, and beefing up the rods. Some people with more money than sense, swap out the L28 for a RB26DETT, and stroke it out.

But the L28 is a solid enough engine... start with the standard stuff first..
Exhaust, intake, camshaft.

Not sure who all does parts for the old S130 chassis. Try Victoria British, and some of the sites listed in one of the stickies posts.

turbo gives more cheap hp but if you dont want turbo lag you can put on su carbs and manifold and gain hp. If adding a cam you cant take full advantage of the cam on the restrictive fuel injection stock manifold. In other words hp is created in the head of the engine. If you want to keep it injected and add a hot cam, to get all the benefit of that cam you will need to get a custom log style intake manifold. Dont waste time tearing down the engine if its running good. If its knocking or smoking or tapping or such, thats when you tear it down. The l28 is tough and long lasting.
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