Johnny Pat’s Z Story: It’s a 1978 280z that I have done a rear tail conversion on. I came across a listing in Iowa where a gentleman was mid process of restoring the car. He had an ‘oopsie kid’ and had to let go of the car in a jiffy. He had repaired the rust and had the car painted. The interior wasn’t complete but he had all the parts to do it.
On top of that I started attacking things that I wanted to do to the car. 240 rear, 240 bumpers, 300zx transmission, Built engine, roll cage, watanabes, custom exhaust, Tokico suspension, poly bushings, Toyota brakes, and much much more. Pretty much the most bad ass period correct build I could think of. (Without making it too unstreet worthy) I even have air conditioning on a new Sanden compressor and R134!
The car currently operates on a Megasquirt MS3X with a ProTunerz harness, intake manifold, and fuel rail. It uses a OneSix CAS for timing and was Tuned by Richard Boyk (ChickenMan).
In 2015 I saw a video “Dare to be Different” on YouTube by Petrolicous. I fell in love with Dave Scholz car and I was determined from there on out to make my car just as cool.
Christy (wife) has been with me the whole way through, encouraging me to keep building my dream when I was tight on money, even offering to help pay for parts (even though I never took advantage she was very insistent on it) She loves the car as much as I do and we will continue to cherish it.
What’s your Z story? #zownersunite
