tonycharger72

Just finished welding up the new engine-bay chassis rails and was just wondering if I should join up the welds, I have heard about the reasoning about not joining the welds, just wondering if I am better of joining all of the welds? Can see in the pic I haven't joined the welds yet!

This is from memory, but the width and offset of the wheels that are used to "fill-out" ZG Flares are 8.5" on front with a -4 offset and 9.5" on the rear with a -19 offset, Not at all mate , find out what size the rim is and what offset (or backspacing), for example, 7" rim = 201mm (8"'s), 8" rim = 228mm (9''s), 9" rim = 254mm (10"'s) and so on, Offset, -24 on a 9" rim = 254mm/2 = 127mm +/- 24mm = 103mm & 151mm, As this rim has a "negative" offset, this means the centreline of the wheel is moved inwards towards to centre of the car, which pushes the wheel outwards - this increases your "forward spacing" and decreases your "backspacing", Therefore, you would have 151mm of FS and 103mm of BS, So you know how wide the wheel is and how much room you will need under your guards and in what proportion to fit a particular wheel - now measure your car to see if it will fit yours !!!

Oh yeah, no dramas - in fact, pretty sure MM sell el-cheap rear hubs that have just been re-drilled to suit 5 stud pattern and they still have the holes left in it from the 4-stud , The fellow I took mine to usually charges an arm and a leg for everything he does, mainly because not to many people do what he does locally so you get charged a premium, but these he did really cheaply - just because he said he does it just about every other day, Also, he is the sort of character who will not do something unless he thinks it safe, doesnt want to be sued I guess, but he said there was plenty of meat on the Z hubs for this sort of thing - and Ross at MM wouldnt sell them either if he thought it would just fail! However, I wouldn't be doing it at home with your cordless drill !!!

Well I think its 15p, mostly because the Z wheels I have measured all showed a 15p offset - those stock steel rims with the "Z" hubcaps! Also, once I go to a 0 offset and 7" rim, the wheels are poking out past the guards, however, others have the experience of fitting 7-7.5 rims with close to 0 or even small negative offsets and the wheels still stick under the guards................... So it might be a bit of a lottery !!! Best thing to do is measure you own car, or measure the wheels that are on there at the moment, that is, if they fit !!! That will give you a much better indication of what offset you should choose for your car !!!

I was at it for 5 days to get both of mine in - however, the first side took up most of that time, once I got to the other side, it only took about 12-14hrs, from cutting out the old, bending up the new and installation, but then I waited a whole day and tacked it all in properly, that took a good day to do by itself - I went nice and slow to try and keep the warpage to a minimum!!! I was at it for about 10 days all told to get the new floors in and the under body chassis rails complete - I shudder to think what this would have cost me if I was paying a shop to do it !!!

Yes, I took my rear hubs down to a local machine shop and paid $150AUD to have them re-drilled to suit a 5x114.3mm stud pattern, some Ford threaded studs they had laying around and a collar over the front to suit my new rotors (they have a larger diameter centre than the original Z drums!!!), If you use the same 114.3mm spacing you can re-use one of the holes, then you just re-drill 4 more, they also filled up the existing holes, It should be pretty straight forward for any machine shop to do this!

My experience with an electric fan and an RB was not good !!! I initially ran an RB30 N/A in my Z with the stock 1974 Z Radiator (the smaller one) and it was fine, never overheated, Then I slapped a turbo on the side of the RB and the problems began!!! I started with the intercooler right in front of the radiator, even at speed the car wanted to bake, so I moved the intercooler down and out of the way, that helped a little, but still the engine wasn't really keeping cool! Then I installed a 16" Spal to replace the 16" EBAY fan - it was rated at 2200cfm (I know the EBAY ones say more, but they are full of sh#t ), it helped quite a bit, but still not right, I then installed a Radiator from a 1999-2002 Holden Rodeo, big single 35mm alluminium core and plastic bottom/top tanks and that basically did the trick.....................until I got stuck in traffic! On a side note - this radiator fits between the chassis rails and costs about $200AUD, its designed for 4x4 Rodeo with the V6 in it, so a reasonably cheap option for Aussie's wanting to upgrade their radiator! It is about 640mm wide and about 500mm tall (with tanks) from memory, you have to make up mounting brackets that are bolted/welded to the radiator support - but the bottom pipe works perfectly with the stock RB30 radiator hose, which was handy !!! http://cgi.ebay.com.au/HOLDEN-RODEO-TF-PETROL-99-02-AUTO-NEW-RADIATOR-CR1990A_W0QQitemZ270236787938QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Car_Parts_Accessories I live in Australia, and it sure gets hot here, so maybe my experience will be different to you guys, however I have mates who have had similar issues with their Z's in OZ and ended up running electric water pumps to solve their cooling issues - this option works a treat apparently, I never did this because electric water pumps and their electronic controllers are sure expensive and I took my car of the road and started pulling it to pieces !!!

When I have made moulds of items I have wanted to remain in decent condition, I lay down lots of wax, 6-7 coats - then use a good quality tooling gel (not just ordinary gel-coat) so the mould will remain together after a make a set - so you wont have to make another mould anytime soon !!! Lay down one layer, wait a day, lay down the second layer, wait a day - then go nuts, lay down your chop-strand until you hit about 1800 weight and then pry it off! Use good quality wax and the paint should remain intact!!! I have just used PVA release instead of wax when I have been lazy and gotten decent recents with that during removal, but usally still end up with some paint being removed !!!

Just finished tacking in some new steel at the front of the Z, the metal there was pretty bad, looks like someone tried to fill in all the holes with brass, it was everywhere !!! The old supports, which were retained! Made a cut-out and bent up some nice new pieces! Clamping the pieces in place before tacking them! Yay - guards still fit !!!

WRX 2001-2003 front headlights might be a likely candiate for transplant?

Honda's like most modern cars, have a high postive offset - somewhere from 38p-45p, Z's have a 15p offset, have to run at least a 25mm spacer to make these wheels fit, Also, being 25mm spacers they have to be the kind that will bolt to the hub and then the wheels bolt to the the spacers - not the kind that just slips on and is sandwitched between the wheel and the hub as your wheel studs wont last long and you will lose a wheel!!! And, Need to make sure the spacers you run are correctly matched to the Z hubs, I ran spacers on an old Ford Fairlane, which weren't located properly on the hub, centre was to large so eventually the studs broke and almost lost a wheel !!!

I have been thinking about how to gussey up the front of my Z to !!! I grabbed a set of Mazda 323 front headlights ages ago because they looked like they might fit - they wont !!! Then I started thinking about how to make them fit............remove the metal that the bumper-bar and hood are bolted to, that way you would have the room to have a modern wrap-around type front headlights, instead of a 5" circle headlight! I figure that the bonnet would be to long stock - so have to whip up a new one, but then would have to modify the way in which it is mounted as you have removed its original mounting points - so hinges have to be placed in the back of the engine bay and hood catch would be relocated to the front of the engine bay, I think you could use Z32 300zx items for this! I think its all do-able with a stack of time, memory foam and automotive clay! Basically making a brand new fibreglass nose-cone that would have integrated front bumper-bar, headlights and grill that is one solid piece, maybe eveb throw in a detachable front splittler !

For the last week or so the temperature has been hovering around 39-40deg's (102-104f), I have to work inside my shed or I would melt !!! Conversion looks good mate!!! This is a better representation of what Richard meant then my Paint drawing !!! Just curious, how are you going to hang the front fenders?

Take off your wheels, Grab a plumb-bob or flat bar of steel - and stick it on the inside of your fender lip, Measure from your hub to the front bar dangling down from the fender lip, this will show you how much "forward-spacing" you have! Then tape the same flat bar to the hub and measure back to the spring perch, That will show you how much "back-spacing" you have! You will want a 10mm clearance from the spring perch to the inside of the wheel, so when you get your "back-spacing" subract 10mm, this will give you have much room you have, It appears that folks have had different experiences with what will actually fit, best to measure yourself!!!

Here is some updates with the engine bay chassis rails! Out with the old!!! In with the new!!! The Underfloor to Engine Bay Chassis Rail Connectors! Still has to be properly welded and have to re-build the front nose area with the Bumper-Bar and Hood Latches are located!!!

So something a bit like this? A friend has a Z32, I will have a look underneath to see how that is done! I have cut out the original gearbox mounts and reinforcement, so starting from scratch in that area!

And I found it by doing a google image search on "240z Front Headlights" ! Love to integrate the entire front end of the Z, but it has such tiny little front headlights that most modern headlights wont fit, they would all foul on the hood latch & bumper-bar mount support! Might fit....................

I don't know, had me fooled, guess the front wheels should have given the game away !!! Well that sucks!!! Wanted to get some headlights like that for my Z!!!

Sounds like when I removed my rear spoiler after it had been Sikaflexed on, it really did not want to come off, about half of the bottom of the rear spoiler remained on the car !!! There was a sale at a local hardware store so I went down and grabbed two 900kg engine stands, bought some 75x75x4 box section, cut out the middle and lengthened it, I did not connect the ends of the rotisserie or run struts and dyna-bolt them to the ground, this way I can just push it out of the way to get more room! But had to leave the angle of the engine stand as it was, sloping back just a touch, otherwise could run the risk of the ends slipping out and the car taking a spill of the Rotisserie - means with the car in place it pulls the stand forward a little, just makes it really tricky to turn when the centre of gravity of the car is really low, ie.......when its upside down!!! I had to weld on a lever bar so I could spin it around more easily!!! The Rotisserie made life soooooo much easier though, doing this on jack-stands would have be awful !!!

Anybody know what headlights were used on this bodykit?

Thanks Richard, Don't suppose you have a picture of this, sounds like a very good idea - I am in the process of doing the engine bay rails and have to resort to putting the jack-stands under the new chassis rails, choc'd it with pine, but heaps prefer not to put jack's or stands under my new chassis rails, I would be awfully pissed if I bent them !!! You mean like run a removeable bar between the chassis rails behind the gearbox crossmember or something actually inside the transmission tunnel?

That looks really tidy mate, like it was from the factory that way, nice work!!!

Well didn't I get the short end of the stick................ The above pic I posted earlier shows an 8" rim with 6p offset, that gives me approximately 108mm of forward spacing on the rim and the wheel easy pokes out 10-15mm past the guard lip - really, I have 90mm before wheels will rub on the guards!!! You have 115mm approximately of forward spacing and they dont rub - that isn't fair at all !!! 25mm difference really - WTF!!!

No I was wrong, that is from an RX8.........I think............ But the S6/S7/S8 RX7's apparently had an upper control arm - but I think that Pic is of an RX8's front suspension!

I just went and had a look under a S4/S5 RX7 - it doesn't have upper control arms, it has a spindle and strut mounts to the top of the spindle - pretty much the same sort of arrangement that is found on the Z, The Caster is unadjustable apparently, only camber adjustment through the strut tops! Therefore, it shouldn't be all that difficult to just install the entire front suspension from the S4/S5 RX7, No wonder I couldn't find any upper control arms for sale for the S4/S5 RX7!!!