Glad to see you found another Z man, can't wait to see some pics of your install.

Quick update. We are pretty much complete with the "tear down" section of the installation.
Removed:
Wheels, Bumper, Fender Liners, Power steering lines and cooler, Upper intake manifold, injectors/fuel rails, cats, y-pipe, exaust manifolds, and steering coupler.
Every fastener has been bagged and tagged, and paired parts have been marked to designate which side and orientation they go back in.

We have had a bit of an up and down start as my BIL's kids do kid things and they have holiday stuff they've had to do - but we are starting to build momentum. Only one hangup so far, we lost 4 hours to the drivers side "demon bolt." As suggested in the instructions, we used 40" of 1/2" extensions with a 3 foot breaker bar but the socket would just slip off the bolt. We tried a 350 ft/lb impact wrench. Went to Northern Tool and bought a 1300 ft/lb impact wrench..still no go. We finally took the nuclear option and used a bolt extractor, and then finally the head of the bolt sheared off. Good enough for us.. it was clear that thing was never going come out unless we put a torch on it and we felt it was too tight to try.

One other small hang up.. the stupid manifold heatshield bolts. we got 2 of 6 off, the other 4 sheared off. Whatever. Damn things are only 10mm and there is no room in there to steady the torque on them so they just end up bending and getting stuck in the manifolds.

We are going to deviate from the instructions in a couple of small ways, please let me know if you guys think this is a bad idea. 1) The instructions suggest we install injectors/fuel rails and upper intake manifold and then install the exhaust manifolds and turbos after. I think the little bit of extra room with the intake manifold (and throttle bodies) off will make manifold/turbo installation easier so we are going to reverse those directions. Any reason why we shouldn't?

2) We are going to install the fuel pump last as my BIL's lift is a 2-post symmetric so opening the doors and getting in and out of the car is a bit of a pain... figure it will be far easier once the car is back on the ground. Any reason why we shouldn't?

We have taken a ton of pics, probably will do a mass pic dump after we are done since we are working under a time constraint. So far it's been really fun, but I am looking forward to that finish line!

this thread is still a better story than twilight...sub'd!

btw, looks like I need to come back home to texas....not too many ppl out here in GA doin things like this. -___________________- no offense to those who ARE lol

Sorry to hear about the accident, but glad you found a new Z and things are progressing :tup:

You can wait on installing the intake and fuel rails if that will make it easier for you. I would just make sure no debris gets inside obviously while you are working on your car. Same thing with the fuel pump. You can do that at any stage in the process.

Congrats on your "new" Z, especially so quickly. Good luck on meeting your time constraints!

That demon bolt is a bitch. I've only had luck with a bunch of 1/2" extensions and an impact socket. The regular sockets won't stay on the bolt.

^^THIS^^

Make sure to painter tape off the intake manifold if you are going to leave the upper portion off.

Yup! Intake ports and injector ports are both sealed off!

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We couldn't even keep it on with impacts... The bolt actually deformed one impact socket when we turned to the big impact gun. That's when we decided to go with the extractor. That bolt was never going to come out gracefully without a torch.

Edit: Pass side came out relatively easy with just impact socket, 1/2" extensions, and breaker bar.

I've done 4 different Z's, and have never really had an issue with the demon bolt. Granted they broke 3 out of 4 of the times lol, but it took me about a min and a half to do both of them. I used 2 1/2 craftsman extensions (maybe 15 inches each), craftsman impact socket, and a craftsman breaker bar.

Luckily whatever I was working on didn't need those bolts anymore, so breaking them rather than fooling with trying to use PB blaster and all of that was the better, quicker route.

Yeah you should be good to go then. You could wait until you started routing the intercooler piping of you wanted before you put that stuff back on.

Anyone know where to pick up pipe taps? Need 1/8" NPT and 3/8" NPT.. I'm at Grainger and they only have super expensive ones.

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I got mine from Harbor freight. I got the 1/8 NPT from a tap set and the 3/8 NPT from another set of 6 NPT taps.

Dam!!! What insurance company do you have???
They closed you out that quick and got you back on the road in two days???
Or did you just buy the new one and will recoup it from the crashed car later?
Anyhow, congrats on the new pick up and for those scouring at 80 mph in the rain, its really not that uncommon, I do it all the time, just not in my Z cause it never touches the rain :happydance:

Wow this thread is delivering in so many ways! Where are we meeting to help out? :)