tonycharger72

Here is the guard with, um, a little bit of bog and some primer - still need to get out the deeper sanding marks and touch up one or two areas, but overall seems to have turned out pretty well!!!

Got any more pics , I am really interested in doing something like this with my Car! Particulary the front without the bonnet or radiator in place, I would love to see some bare pictures of that area if you got them mate? Had a look in the engine bay of a S4/5 RX7 the other day and its Radiator was sloped just like yours from the Factory! besides the ducting, which would have been very difficult if the radiator was straight up and down vertical, is there any science behind sloping the Radiator back like that mate?

So no one has actually put a 351c into their Z? 302c for that matter? Don't suppose you can purchase a rear oil pan for these engines?

Go for white, be nice and cool in the Summer and the prep work dosen't have to be as perfect as imperfections aren't as noticeable with lighter colours!!! Amazingly cool in the summer actually, recently painted a car white and even in the sun in 35deg or more, the car was still coolish to touch, and much nicer inside than a dark purple car I had! Throw on some racing stripes to break up the colour and your away !

This might be similar, as I don't know what the GM tranny mounts look like, You could always do a bolt-through-bush style mount! There is a fellow called PhilUk (I think) on Hybridz who has a 1jz in his 240z, there was a massive article in Zoom? magazine years ago, which documented its owner's progress! Just have to make new engine mounts and tab's of the crossmember, from memory when the 1jz engine was put into PhilUk's car, they used the bolt holes for the A/C, which are further forward on the 1jz block than the original engine mounts! It was done by a shop in Sydney called "Rocko's Perfmance" - he still uses similar engine mounts in most of his conversions! Its a 1986-88 VL Commodore upper control arm bush and an M10 or M12 Bolt! But, any solid bush would do the trick! There is a pic of a trial setup I came up with for my engine! http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=112003&page=6 On the last page, its a bit rough and I didn't ending up going with this idea, mainly because engine removal was such a PITA, but if your looking for strength, pretty sure this would do the job!!!

The flares are lined up with the inside lip, but the flare on the passenger side wasn't exactly like the original FB flare - was a touch smaller, so it might be a touch further forward, but not at the sides, at the top, kinda sucked the guard in when I welded it together - but the drivers side was pretty much spot on! But these flares weren't absolutely perfect, well made, but they didn't turn out as exact replications of the FB Flares, they needed a bit of trimming and the arc on one was a touch off! Might have more to do with the angle of the photos aswell?

74_5.0L_Z that is some great fabrication and customization mate - looks amazing!!! Does that bonnet arrangement really work with funnelling the air through the radiator - looks like it does? just curious as I don't really have a bonnet, nor a front end, or a radiator or radiator support panel - kinda looking at a blank canvass The radiator air tunnel from the front spolier out through the bonnet looks like a really good idea, just wondering how well you have found it cools your engine?

Thanks mate, it certainly was a lot of work, but quite relieving - this is really the 3rd time I have installed the engine, but just didn't like the way the engine sit in before and the way in which it was held in place, I used suspension bushes and bolts to mount the engine and decided I would ditch the idea, figured it wouldn't have been much fun for a street driven car and also the installation and removal was a nightmare, literally had to drop the front crossmember - wasn't fun ! Also, the Power Steering, wowzers that has been a b#tch! With the engine, getting the rack in a suitable position has been like threading the eye of a needle, instead the thread is a 300kg engine and gearbox ! Now just have to work out the suspension so I can get the thing rolling again so I can start on the bodywork properly! Still haven't decided if I am going to run the RX7 S4/5 stuff up front or what I am going to do with the rears! My plan was to try and increase the track a lot, so I can run high offset wheels, like 40-45p, which gives me a lot more choice, at much cheaper prices locally!!!

$600US is approx $850AUD or so, seriously, for well made bits and pieces (that book, which has lots of good information) and the cust service of JTR, that is a good price!!! But if your handy, purchase the book and make your own engine and gearbox mounts based upon their very accurate, to scale drawings held within the book! Building your own engine mounts from scratch takes a lot of effort, being able to bolt stuff in is very cool or at least copy someone elses brainwork!!!

Thanks guys, but I only attached these things, the fellow who made the Flares derserves the credit me thinks ! I have seen guards made with big sloping curves and that appear reasonably straight forward, just needed a knee and some patience - also an English Wheel doesn't hurt either! So the actual Flare part is pretty straight forward - search on Youtube for "Making your own fenders", found some pretty good information there! But - I have no idea how the fellow who made mine got the lip in there! They cost me $200AUD a side, which isn't exactly cheap, but they were very well made! If you bend the lip first then try and make the flare, I think it will buckle, and be very very difficult to get the flare shape once you put a lip on! If you make the flare then try and do the lip, I think you will most likely tare the steel - I think there was a bit of hammering involved with the lip, and because of the shape he wasn't able to use an English-Wheel, so he sanded it instead with an angle grinder to smooth out the flare? I am only guessing though! I am going to see if I can sit with him when I get him to make me two more!

Yes, If I use these guards I will run ZG metal flares on the rear!!! I originally was going to make the entire front guards out of Fibreglass, but made them out of 1800-2000 weight and they were about 5-6mm thick, so they didn't quite fit - then I trimmed them down so they would and it was really thin - looked good though !!! Therefore, I only got two metal ZG Flares made, but because the Fibreglass didn't really work out, decided I would see if they would work out on the fronts before I took the plunge and hacked up the rear guards! I would love to figure out how the Body-Shop guy made these with his hands, so anyone with an idea please chime in ! Also, this is my tricky way of fooling Rego, I guess I will have a largish increase in track, so when I rock up to Rego with a 7" rim that sits well within the guards I can, um, say the track is stock..............

Thought I would share some pics of my Metal ZG Flares - still have to bog them, but finished glueing them in place ! I really like the look of the ZG Flares, but don't much care for the bolted on ones, so I got a local Body-Shop to make me some copies of some Fibreglass ZG Flares out of Mild Steel so I could intergrate them into the body!!! I would love to know how he made them, so anyone with an idea would love to hear from you! I don't know how he made the lip part, the actual flare yes, but not the lip! Comparison of the Fibreglass and Mild Steel Flares! The Guards, I wasn't brave enough to use my good ones, these are fine, there just not the best guards I have ! Made some marks and made some cuts! Stripped of the paint and made marks where I was going to cut the guard to match it up with the new flare! Flare on with Metal Scews than tacked! Underside of the Guard! All welded, both sides!!! Welds sanded back ready for Bogging and Primer!

Finished the gearbox crossmember and mounts, I removed the stock transmission tunnel reinforcement and installed a new one a few inches back so I would have better gearbox clearance, enjoy!!! What was there before! The new gearbox crossmember! Eye-links, some suspension component from some car! Tried to find it in rubber but came as one solid piece! This is before I did some trimming and mounts and supports were just tacked in place - when I tried to drop the gearbox it wouldn't come out because the gearbox mounts were to wide , spent a few couple of hours cutting and grinding it down so the gearbox could be installed!!! Back onto the Rotisserie and lots of welding to do !!! Then all done!!!

Oh ok, thought it was more of a straight 6 thing! The mounts were rubber sandwitched between steel, the rubber was ripping, not the steel part, would have had to of been a powerful engine to break the steel apart !

All sixes torque right I think (passenger side for US), My old Charger used to rip up the left hand side mount, it was a straight 6 and just before I changed the engine mount for the 2nd time, I revved the engine and was amazed how much it pulled towards the right!

I wasn't really sure where to post this, it sort of covers a few things - Subaru PS conversion, 1UZ engine fitting, and my brand new RX7 Crossmember, with some small modifications !!! This was a lot of effort................. I am planning on using a mid 90's Subaru PS rack, so I wanted to keep the distance between the LCA mounts to 630mm, this meant I had to remove approximately 100mm out of the RX7 Crossmember, This is the S4/5 Crossmember that I purchased with the guide I made to keep everything true before I started hacking it to pieces! Plugged a few holes! & needed to make the RX7 Crossmember slightly wider at the top to suit the Z chassis rails - I hacked the ends of the Z crossmember and attached them to the RX7 Crossmember and then put a plate over the top, so it looks nice and neat ! There was a bit of a gap that needed plugging at the back, approximately 20mm! I couldn't find any 20mm box section wider than 50mm, so I joined two! Then glued it alltogether! Now for the engine mounts - I used R32 Skyline Engine Mounts, I had them kicking around and makes it so much easier to install the engine than using bolt-through-bush style mounts!!! Finally the RX7 Crossmember in the car with the Subaru Rack!!! & This is the 1UZ stuffed in place!!! Now just have to make the Gearbox Crossmember and Gearbox support within the transmission tunnel! Lots of work !

I have been using an old Cemont 170 Mig, got it from a friend - it has certainly had a long life, but has done the trick - just when I weld thicker than 5-6mm plate it starts to struggle and the wire feed sometimes stays on, I really want to purchase a WIA 175 Mig, tiny little thing but sure packs a punch !!!

I was going to offset mine to the passenger side (driver for US) for the same reason - but also, when I put the laser plumb-bob on the diff the diff appears to be angled back - so the driveline if looked at from the front slopes back and angles off towards the passenger side (drivers side for US) - kinda weird, would mean that if I aligned the driveline perfectly with the diff it would be way of towards the passenger side and angled really steeply back!!! I basically picked an arbitary point at the front of the car, which offset the engine to give my steering shaft clearance and put a plumb-bob on the diff and made a line,

Just curious about what others have done when fabricating their own engine mounts and how they have lined up the driveline? I have tried two seperate methods both with different "straight-lines" to line up the driveline, Firstly, I have gotten the car level, front to back, and then found a centre point at the front of the car radiator support panel and used plumb-bob's at the front and off the diff to create a centreline and gone from there, And then, I put a laser plumb-bob on the diff face (gives me a horizontal and vertical laser line) and got a line that pointed up and off towards the passenger side (drivers side for US), I have looked through lots of engine conversion pics of various different engines from LS1s to SR20s and most seem to just line the engine up straight in the engine bay, is my laser plumb-bob lying ? Just curious as to what other methodologies people have used when mounting various engines in their Z's and what they have aligned their engines up to in order to get the driveline "straight"!!!

You could setup the steering like this fellow!http://www.cardomain.com/ride/563982/3 Point the rack forward and then up over the engine - uses some FWD steering coupling from memory! But this fellow stuffed in an engine only 800mm wide, stuffing in the Suby motor at 825.5mm is going to be tricky - it flat out wont fit between the strut towers, but isn't far enough away that you couldn't just notch them, Wouldn't like to be the fellow changing your spark plugs though !

I used 1.2mm for the floors (maybe should have used 1.6mm) black mild steel, For the rails underneath the car I used 65x35x3mm box section, covered in weldable paint, was going to use Gal, but didn't fancy grinding it all off or soaking up all that Zinc ! For the engine bay rails, I used 65x65x3mm box section, except at the front where the Radiator is housed, for that area I used 65x35x3mm box section and a gusset! Still working on my RX7 crossmember and should have some pics to show soon !

I have used POR-15 on one car and some suspension components and wasn't overly impressed with it! only benefit was when brushing it very few brush marks appear in it! POR-15 is about $90AUD locally for 4L tins (so not cheap) - I actually got better results from purchasing $15 Enamel paint from the hardware store!!! However, the auto paint shop I purchased the POR-15 from have a sample piece of steel they hit with POR-15, like one side left bare and the other hit with POR-15 and it was hard as a rock, shiny (after years), whilst the other side was all rusty! But they did the Marine Clean and then the Metal ready stages! When I have used the POR-15, I did neither and that is most likely why I got poor results using this product! If you are going to use it, do all the stages of prep before applying the POR-15!

That is a kit straight out of Japan and don't think it is a "bolt-in" at all, just known to fit once you hack a few things up! Plus its wicked expensive, go onto Japan Yahoo auctions and you will get it much cheaper! Here is a link to a site that imports stuff to Australia, the item descriptions are in "Engrish", quite amsusing ! www.importmonster.com.au Or if you would like to do it even cheaper, use the components from a GM/Vauxhill/Holden Corsa/Barina - pretty much the same amount of work required it seems to slap it into your Z and a lot cheaper to purchase the required components - check EBAY UK for "Corsa Electric PS" and whole units appear for sale and cheap! Here is a write-up of how to install one, with pics !!! http://zclub.net/forum/hybrid-z-cars...-steering.html If you want to go hydraulic PS, Read through this for how to mount the Subaru rack, what pump to use and options for the intermediate shaft, http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=112003 & the very last post in this thread (#71) will tell you which combination of rack ends and tie-rods to use to slap the Subaru rack into your car! http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=143445&page=4&highlight=subaru+rack

This is a thread I started on the topic (more or less)! http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=144977 but died out pretty quick..........

I bought a cheapy ($120AUD) UNIMIG welding helmet about 6mths ago and found it quite good! but it stopped auto darkening, (I may have helped as I can be a bit careless ) so had to get a new helmet! There is a place locally that sells Miller's, Speedglass and their own brand (which are just re-branded Miller helmets) The Miller Elite was $500AUD, whilst the Speedglass 9100xx was $670 - after I put on the 9100xx grabbed it straight away, no offence to the Miller folks, but it was basically the same helmet as my $120 UNIMIG except it had a function for grinding and was suitable for TIG work! The helmet was the same as the UNIMIG and the lense looked like it was made on the same factory floor as the UNIMIG lense, all the dials were the same, had the same look, just one extra button for grind mode! Sure the Miller would have been a good unit, but the smaller lensed 9100v was basically the same price as the Miller and no way you would pay the same for the Miller as you would the Speedlglass!!! seemed way over priced for the quality of it compared with the Speedglass helmet! Bite the bullet and get the speedglass, such a great helmet compared to what I was using!!! You guys get them so much cheaper than we do in OZ as well!!!