Gary’s 1978 Datsun 280Z featuring a GM LS3/6-speed drivetrain is for sale. This S30 has been with Z Car Garage since 2007 where it received a bare-metal restoration and performance development to its current form.
Fantastic fit/finish with chassis upgrades like our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes, Z Car Garage CV Axles and full suspension with 17″ Panasport C8 wheels transformed this Z. The interior features Recaro Specialist leather seats, A/C, power steering, power windows and more. Turn-key, ready to enjoy. See more details below and serious inquiries only please contact rob@zcargarage.com
A full feature documenting the restoration and upgrades with more photos and video can be viewed HERE
Interior
A complete dash restoration was performed with full HVAC/ducting and A/C refurbishment:
Recaro Specialist seats in leather are our favorite upgrade to the S30 interior. Gary enjoys modern creature comforts like Bluetooth, back-up camera, power steering and full sound system:
Suspension
The chassis was treated to a full suspension rebuild with new parts, bushings, Ground Control coil-overs (Koni struts with our spring rates) and ST sway bars front and rear:
Z Car Garage Big-Brakes
Not to be confused with our current Z Car Garage Big-Brakes (for small wheels), this Big-Brake kit was our initial setup from over a decade ago. This 328mm sized kit requires 17″ diameter wheels and the massive ST-42 calipers are finished in bright red.
A few more detail shots of the Big-Brakes, they really pop behind the black Panasport wheels:
Panasport Wheels
Gary also got a set of our custom Panasport Racing C8 wheels. These 3 piece, 17×8 wheels allowed fitment of a 255/40/17 tire under stock fender flares:
Our Z Car Garage CV Axles help transmit power to the ground and ensure smoother operation compared to your standard half shafts. We have over 250 CV axle kits on customer cars and we are stoked with all of the positive feedback.
We built Gary a set of CV Axles, shown below:
LS3 V8 Power
The LS3-crate motor came with a warranty from GM and weighs less than the L-Series engine it replaced. Engine and 6-speed transmission were installed using the Hoke Performance kit:
The larger, twin-fan radiator and A/C plumbing and wiring:
Ovalized exhaust from headers to catalytic converter help with ground clearance:
Dyno Tuning
The LS3/6-speed T56 drivetrain was dyno tuned after installation, making 405hp/410tq at the wheels, a significant increase of 115hp/206tq compared to the L-Series:
Enjoy this video with dyno run, in-car driving, cruising and fly-by action with Gary’s LS3-powered 280Z:
See more details below and serious inquiries only please contact rob@zcargarage.com.
A full feature documenting the restoration and upgrades with more photos and video can be viewed HERE
John B has been with us for many years. We featured his 1971 Datsun 240Z back in 2013 when he visited Z Car Garage for a mechanical overhaul, dyno tuning and Panasport wheels:
In 2020 he returned for our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes and more sorting. Since then he’s been Enjoying the Ride and recently completed his first track day at the world-famous Laguna Seca. Enjoy his track day report and read on for a summary of work we performed over the years.
John’s Track Day at Laguna Seca
JOHN: Here’s a report on my Track Day at Laguna Seca on 29 Nov 2025, with some history of my Z cars.
The event was hosted by Turn8 Racing on Saturday 29 Nov. It was my first time, so was a member of the Beginner run group. I brought both of my Z cars but only drove the 1971 240Z on the track. There were many other types of cars in the run group, some new ones like a 911 G3 and a new Ferrari, but there was one other 240Z.
The first couple of runs were “lead-follow”, where we followed an actual race driver around the track to learn the proper race-line through the curves. For the remaining runs we were free to attempt to find the race-line on our own, which happened occasionally for me. It’s pretty obvious when I did not have the race-line since I was either in the dirt or was quickly approached by traffic from behind. I found the slower I went the easier it was to find the race-line. The Beginner run group only allowed passing on a couple of the straights (for this event), it was my track during the turns and my chance to learn to find the race-line so I felt it as ok to go slow.
Of course, once in the straights, everybody passed me. By “everybody” I mean EVERY car on the track. They may have been going faster, but I was having a blast with my 240Z on the track. My smiles per mile was high.
My favorite turn was turn 9, the sweeping left-hander out of the corkscrew. Probably because it’s challenging to judge the brake/coast/accellerate adjustments since the next turn (10) is slower right turn. It’s nice to “have” the whole track during the turns at the Beginner run group to try different approaches. The whole track is great, it’s Laguna Seca man! What fun.
I want to go back with my 1977 Lotus Esprit to see if I can beat my lap time in the 240Z. I expect that the Esprit will have faster laps since it seems to accelerate quicker out of turns and is closer to a race car than the Z. I had ZCG inspect the 240Z the week before the event to ensure that the brakes were up-to-snuff. They performed well, as expected since both of my Zs have the Z Car Garage Big-Brakes.
ROB: John asked me about doing his first track day in his 240Z. I think the interest came from attending our Vintage Racing Events with his girls, eating snacks and hanging out at the track. I said why not? You’ve got brakes that can handle it and we know the car is safe. We did a tech-inspection on it, made sure everything was good to go and yes, John Bunker drove his S30 on the world famous WeatherTech Raceway also known as Laguna Seca. Good job John keep on loving the Z we can’t wait to work for your girls someday.
The Z Cars
ROB: We met John around 2012 and did a bunch of work to his 240Z. He later acquired a 280Z and 280Z 2+2 so his daughters could ride with him. Both of these S30s have our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes. John and I have the same passion for music and he is just exactly why I love my job: he’s passionate and spends time enjoying and driving his Z cars. He also has a vintage Lotus that we’ve done some work on.
JOHN:The 240Z is a 1971 model built in Oct 1970. My mom bought it in 1978 and I’ve been driving it since 1980 (45 years, yowza). My siblings and I used to ride in the hatch. (Why a mother of six bought a two-seat sports car is a point of discussion amongst us). It was her daily driver until about 2000 when she started having trouble getting in and out of it. She put about 250K miles on it and replaced the L24 engine with a rebuilt one from a 260Z. I bought it from her in 2005. In 2013 ZCG went through it and made it run as it should. We installed the Big Brake Kit, Panasport wheels, new tires, new headers, exhaust, and a suspension upgrade including Techno Toy T/C rods. It now has about 275K miles on the road and about 40 on the track.
The other Z is a 1978 280Z. It was originallly owned by my mom’s neighbor. He traded it to my brother for some custom furniture in 2000. I bought it from my brother, then sold it to my niece, who sold it to her brother. It sat in the driveway of his mother (my sister)’s house for a few years until I bought it from my nephew in 2019 where it went straight to ZCG for a Big Brake Kit, new Panasport wheels, tires, and a suspension upgrade. It has about 195K miles.
Both are daily drivers, mostly. I can’t take my two daughters in them (well, not legally), so it’s usually just me in the car going to work. There is a third Z car, a 1976 2+2, intended to take the whole family, but we will not talk about that here. These are multi-generation family cars. The goal is for my girls to continue the Z-car tradition when they get older.
Z Car Garage Big-Brakes
In 2020 we installed our ZCG Big-Brakes on John’s 240Z, giving him the ability to brake on a dime, perform well and daily drive. This is the same brake kit as seen on “Mrs. Butters”, our 1971 Series 1 240z shop demo car (above).
As fellow S30 owner/racer Glenn C mentioned in his review, on top of braking performance, pedal feel is extremely important and our Big-Brakes deliver. This is a direct result of working with Stoptech to create a totally bolt-in solution requiring no M/C change or additional proportioning valve/adjustments. All fitting behind a 15″ Watanabe or Panasport wheel and retaining factory emergency brake lever! A few details below:
Calipers: Stoptech ST42 4-piston front & rear race calipers (Alum 6061 mil-spec Type III anodized)
Rotors: 280mm x 20.6 with Alum 7075 hats
Pads: Stoptech 309 sport street pads
Blog posts documenting all of our customers running the ZCG Big-Brakes can be found HERE.
A few closer detail shots of the calipers, rotors and hardware:
We removed John’s stock brakes and installed our ZCG Big-Brake kit. The Z also received suspension parts from Techno Toy Tuningincluding their adjustable T/C rods.We really appreciate Gabriel and his staff. They make some of the best suspension parts out there for Z cars.
ZCG Big-brakes up front:
T3 T/C rods and new brake master cylinder/booster, clutch hydraulics:
At the rear, the factory drum brakes were replaced with our ZCG Big-Brakes. Factory handbrake functionality retained!
Enjoying The Ride
Photo by Alex Nibyt
We love seeing John in his Z cars locally, doing kid drop-offs and other daily driver duties:
He also joined us on Tokyo Calling 5 event hosted by Breakfast Club Rally. More photos in the gallery below.
Happy Friday from Z Car Garage! Here are a few cars in for service, performance upgrades and mechanical sorting. Enjoy! Matt’s 1972 Datsun 240Z received our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes and Z Car Garage CV Axles along with a full suspension refresh and engine tuning back in 2022. He returned to ZCG for a KA24 5-speed transmission, LSD and a new 3L L-series engine with triple-Mikuni carb induction.
Michael’s LeMans Sunset Nissan 350Z is getting an OS Giken LSD and gears.
2025 marked the 21st Anniversary of Z Car Garage. From all of us at Z Car Garage we thank our friends, family and clients for another exciting and productive year! Enjoy our 2025 recap and preview of projects and features for 2026.
Z Car Garage Parts Update for 2026
We ended 2025 by sending off 10 sets of cores for our Z Car Garage KW V3 Suspension coil-overs. These first 10 sets are all spoken for, now we let KW do their magic. Super excited to see more S30 owners enjoying a product we are proud of. These coil-overs offer game-changing performance suitable for street, track and daily-driving for your S30 Datsun Z car.
Our exhaust header for the 6-cylinder L-Series engine has been in testing (2 revisions and 2 prototypes built) for perfect fitment. It made more power and torque than anything we’ve tested on our ZCG dyno. Special thanks to Rebello Racing for their help with R&D and dyno testing. Super excited to offer a stainless header for all our builds, and yes, it fits our 6-speed CD009a swap. Photos, dyno testing and video coming soon.
Z Car Garage CD009a 6-speed Shifter
The CD009a 6-speed transmission have been a common ZCG upgrade. We’ve been looking at options for making the shifter more user-friendly. Now on the 3rd shifter assembly, we have just installed it into Mrs. Butters, our Series 1 shop 240z, with testing underway before it is released in our product line.
Z Car Garage Big-Brake Kits
One of ZCG’s greatest achievements is the development of our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes with Stoptech. Tons of happy clients are running these brakes on their S30s. When Covid hit with supplier issues we could not deliver this product to clients. Despite our best efforts, unfortunately we had to move on, no longer offering this kit. Good news: Since we always like to one-up things we will be offering a new Big-Brake Kit! It will have a slightly larger rotor, 4-pistons calipers front and rear. It is in testing, and will be released only if it’s better than V1. Stay tuned for pictures.
Client Updates for 2026
We had a busy year and many zcarblog features have yet to be published. Before we take a look back at highlights from 2025, here are several exciting projects coming along at the shop with full features in 2026:
Rashid lives in Dubai and his Datsun 240Z is getting 3.2L L-Series with pH44 Mikuni induction and exhaust header, ZX 5-speed transmission, OS Giken 4.11 LSD, Z Car Garage KW coil-over suspension, our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes (Stoptech) and 16″ Panasport wheels:
David G’s Series 1 S30 which already features our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes, ZCG CV Axles and CD009a Six-Speed transmission. It is getting Twin-cam power with the Datsunworks KN20. Re-assembly is next. To see our first KN20 build in action and learn more about Datsunworks please visit zcarblog HERE
Our most viewed video was James’ Turbocharged L-Series Datsun 240Z, enjoy:
Ken’s Series 1 Datsun 240Z (#1762) has our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes, Z Car Garage CV Axles, CD009a Six-speed transmission and Fujitsubo exhaust. The L28 now has Jenvey ITB EFI managed by a Haltech 750:
Photographer and car culture ambassador Larry Chen commissioned Z Car Garage to transform his beloved SR20DET-powered 1970 Datsun 240Z from an “ok driver” to a no-excuses, multi-dimensional sports car. Affectionately known as “Ole Orange Bang”, it features our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes, Z Car Garage CV Axles, chassis preparation, dyno tuning and more. It received a full engine bay restoration.
Jim’s 1971 Datsun 240z is now sporting a Rebello 3.2L with Jenvey ITB EFI, Recaro Specialist seats, CD009a 6-speed transmission, our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes (for small wheels) and Z Car Garage CV Axles!
Rick’s BRE-inspired Datsun 240Z track car is getting a CD009 6-speed transmission, Z Car Garage Big-Brakes, coil-over suspension and track preparation.
We have several Z32 NA and TT cars currently at the shop. Gary’s Twin Turbo (above) got a new set of BBS LM wheels. Full update on this car soon! Paul Ferrari returned to ZCG since we completed his Epic Z32 Build in 2017. He’s ready for ethanol, after running this car on race fuel for many years. We will be installing dual fuel pumps, BDE top fuel rail and all the fixings:
William’s Z32TT, formerly Rob’s personal car for over 20 years. Featuring Volk SF-Challenge wheels and fresh paint:
Cameron’s Z32 is here for maintenance work and downpipes, inlet piping, larger intercoolers all from Specialty Z. Cameron has been bringing his 300 to us for many years and we we are really glad to have him back.
William’s Z32TT is getting 740cc injectors, downpipes and more:
510s
Noah’s Bluebird racecar and Marcus’ Datsun 510 featuring a S14 SR20DE drivetrain
Dyno Tuning your 350z/370z/Q/G
We have been dyno tuning your late model Nissan/Infiniti sports car daily. Bolt-ons, UPREV tuning. Our customers leave happy with more performance. Call us to schedule an appointment! Here are just a few cars:
Kevin’s Nismo 370z
Aaron’s G37 with Stoptech brakes
Nissan Z (RZ34)
Dyno tuning, bolt-ons, suspension installs and general maintenance for the RZ34
Skylines, R35, R34 and R32 GT-R
Chris’ and James’ R35 GT-R
Kurt’s R32 Skyline GT-R is got a fresh RB26 motor and turbo upgrade to complement the new KW coil-over suspension:
Hakosuka Skyline
Sebastian’s Skyline left the shop after a suspension refresh, engine work and adapting our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes (Stoptech). We hope to offer this in the future for C10 clients.
2026 will be an epic year for vintage racing. The Historic B&C Sedan (HBC) will have its own run group at the Velocity Invitational and Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion (RMMR). This year, the featured marque/celebration is Japanese Motorsports! It will be very special. We are almost finished with th Joel Anderson’s #49 IMSA GTU Datsun 240Z, debuting it at the Velocity event in May.
2026 race schedule with CSRG coming soon. We also be traveling this year, attending PIR and Pacific Raceway (SOVREN). Always excited to see our clients improving their craft while having a blast racing. Vintage Spec Miata is growing and please let is know if you are interested running with us!
Highlights from 2025
Even though 2025 was a busy year for all of us we still managed to have fun on and off the track. The shop made some really great progress as well. Enjoy these highlights from the year and Z you in 2026!
Click on each link or photo to see the full features!
Mike R sent us his 1971 Datsun 240Z from North Carolina for mechanical sorting, Z Car Garage-style. Our Z Car Garage CV Axles, Z Car Garage Big-Brakes, Z Car Garage KW V3 coil-overs and CD009a Six-Speed transmission transformed this 919 Sunshine Yellow S30.
This is Christopher’s 1975 Datsun 280Z featuring our Z Car Garage CV Axles, Z Car Garage Big-Brakes and ZCG KW coil-over suspension! He performed a meticulous restoration himself with highlights including an ITB EFI-fed L-Series, CD009 6-speed transmission and Watanabe wheels.
This is Matthew’s 1973 Datsun 240Z featuring our Z Car Garage KW Suspension. He has kept the car mostly original aside from chassis and drivetrain upgrades including a triple-carb’d L-Series, Watanabe wheels and Recaro seats.
We first met Jonathan in 2021 while visiting Nissan Headquarters in Tennessee to preview the Z Proto. In addition to being a proud Nissan North America employee, he is an avid car enthusiast with a passion for Nissans and Datsuns, having owned a 240Z, 350Z and Hakosuka Skyline. Jonathan recently acquired this QM1 White R34 Skyline GT-R from our friend Sean at Toprank International Vehicle Importers, and came to Z Car Garage for upgrades and dyno tuning.
RZ34
Joseph’s 2023 Nissan Z
Racing
We love racing! See our race reports below and 2026 schedule coming soon
For Sale (SOLD)
1970 Series 1 Datsun 240Z
VIN # 6132
Monte Carlo Red. Original paint
L28 engine with 4-speed manual transmission
Full suspension upgrade with Z Car Garage Big-Brakes (Stoptech, 328mm)
Price: $27k
Interior: stock with Recaro Specialist seats:
Car currently has 16″ Konig Rewind wheels with Bridgestone RE760 tires and chassis upgrades:
-Stoptech/ZCG big brake kit (Stoptech ST-42 calipers)
-Arizona Z Car billet suspension
-Ground Control coil-overs
-MSA front/rear strut tower bars
Engine is a stock L28:
Solid car, only evidence of rust just below battery tray. Paint is original (Monte Carlo Red only available on early models) and could use a refresh.
