OldAndyAndTheSea

Yup! Been daily driving it, 300+ days a year, for the last 4 years. Approaching 75,000 miles on the turbo build. No regrets.

1x Large Purple Hoodie 1x Large Orange T-shirt Shipped to 13650 Thanks for all you're doing!

I have a couple e31 heads from my years of collecting. Both are complete, and let's assume in working condition. One is ported and nicely polished with a mild cam The other is from what I gather to be completely stock. I know that is not a lot to go by but what is the market like for the earlier e31 heads? Anyone know? Thanks brethren

So when the car first came home, it actually had two very small pin holes develop in the tank, which I neglected to mention....I patched them up, through the power of composites, and hoped that would be the end of it. All the while....in the back of my head, experiencing these reoccurring lean conditions, I couldn't help but think the tank is probably my underlying problem. So last night, on another routine check under the car I inspected the tank again....and by just wiping it down with a trashed microfiber it sprung yet another leak..... this cannot bode well for the inside condition of the tank.....it's gotta be the source of my leaning out. I imagine the pickup and screen, if still in tact, is probably full of debris...but still can pass enough fuel for idle, and light cruising. Again....logic would dictate that the fuel tank would be the obvious suspect. Here's hoping. So I ended up contacting a gentleman in Florida, Doug at Fever Racing, who builds what I would argue the most robust and well designed aluminum fuel cell for these cars ever. Mine is going to essentially be a replica of the oem tank, however it will have an internal Walbro 255 mounted within the tank, eliminating my external filter and pump setup. These things are works of art. It will be the final piece that really sets the rear/underside of the car off. My fuel tank was definitely the weak link both visibly and physically (apparently). He also wants some carbon door panels and a console, so we will work out a bit of a trade deal when the time comes, which is cool, as this is a $2,000 fuel cell and pump setup. But I want the car to be robust and future proof. This is the answer. The lead time is claimed to be two weeks.....so until then it looks like the Z will most likely sit in the garage and I'll work out the last mechanical and electrical kinks in the meantime. Like installing my new shift boot and parking brake boot. White stitching to match the rest of the interior. Very pleased with these pieces. Came from England. Before I still haven't detailed the interior......gah I wanna do that so badly. In due time, Andy....in due time.

Mark, Few can, and will, build to this standard. You've essentially set the bar for these cars in the States. I myself have been motivated by your projects on my own car. I don't know if I ever would have gone as crazy with my carbon stuff if I hadn't seen your build. So I thank you for that. And also, thanks for taking us along for the ride. Now it's time for YOU to enjoy that ride. It's been long enough. Cheers, Mate! Congratulations. She's a beaut.

Couple random shots from driving it around. The car has developed a lean condition that I am currently investigating and diagnosing. Cruising and idle AFRs are good, it starts to lean out at partial throttle, and while under boost.....fuel pressure and the pump seem to check out. Clamping the return line pegs the pump at just under 90 psi, so I don't believe it to be a restriction issue. While I do that I am finishing up little details here and there each night. It's pretty cathartic to be able to work on this thing each evening, as it idles away, and I test various systems. I did the first stage of paint correction. It finally feels smooth again. Time to take it down a bunch of dirt roads...haha. Tonight I added a v-band and a section of flex pipe to the downpipe, as to allow for some movement in the system and to take some stress off of the downpipe bolts...I'll probably safety wire those eventually, but this whole exhaust is very temporary until I source a new turbo...but for now, and for what I have into it, it'll suffice.

Not bad for a 2 month come up. It was nice getting some Z time in while my car was tucked away nice and warm in storage. Yeah, any Z guy will know immediately that it's not a 240z, but it'll fool most. The 77-78 body wasn't doing me any favors...especially with the bumpers.. That rust definitely originated from a hole, filled with bondo, that leaked. Definitely a-typical. I think the hole may have started at the lead roof seam...most of the rust on the car came from sloppy previous repairs...which I guess makes sense...these cars weren't worth the money, at the time, to invest in proper metal replacement....so it got bondo.....and then some more bondo....and some more on top of that.... It's gonna be a great driver. I am excited for the owner.

Haha! Caught me. That is a 1978 280z that I backdated with a bunch of 240z stuff, and painted for a Canadian gentleman. If you'd like I could copy and paste my thread from another site and upload that here. There was some pretty awesome rust repair that went into that one. He is hopefully coming to get his car, and a boat I fixed for him by the weekend, or early next week. here's a link to that thread. It's got a shit ton of pictures. http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?9043433-1978-Datsun-280z-quot-resto-mod-quot-Progress-Thread Some teasers. I can make the same thread on Hybrid if people feel that may be cool. Then perhaps the owner could take control of the thread and keep it updated throughout the life of his car. Twinning is winning. Not sure if you mean the composter (the cubic looking thing next to the fence and driveway). Food scaps and other organic material are thrown in there, and over the course of a few months it is rotated to transform the contents into excellent soil, rich in nutrients, to supplement with yearly planting.

I was able to delicately mount it in the car today. Now it can hurry up and cure fully. I get by with a little help....from my welting. I'm telling ya, this shit's gold! Good enough for the girls I go with....Honestly not bad for roughly 20 dollars total investment. Really happy with the result. And to confirm I put everything back together correctly I started it up and brought it out to the end of the driveway. On display, haha. Being in the sun will speed up the flocking.

Instead of flocking it today, I decided to do it late last night/early this morning, so it could be curing to the touch when I slept. It's got a couple more hours before I can carefully handle it and install it. But here are a couple sneak peaks. I forgot how much flocking changes the appearance....all of a sudden this fifteen dollar piece of plastic looks expensive. haha. Yay! Now maybe I can have the car all back together then take it for a ride. The weather isn't terrible today, so I didn't want to waste the day waiting on cure.

Tonight was spent modifying my A pillar gauge pod, preparing it to be flocked. The gauge pod was originally meant for a NA Mazda Miata, and was much too wide. You could see all my wires with the pod mocked in place. so out came the heat gun....which worked surprisingly well. Slowly working my way up the lip, molding it to the weatherstrip, and then trimming off any new excess. Looking fairly haggard, but it conforms nicely. HOLY shit does my windshield need to be cleaned. Christ. Forgive that. Tomorrow it's gonna get flocked. Cool.

Eliminate the gas tank as a variable and squirt some fuel in your carbs. Does that change how it runs? Have you confirmed your fuel pump is working properly? Have you checked the lines, and vent lines, for a restriction? If your chokes aren't doing anything that should tell you something.

Tonight, after work, I decided to putter on the 240. not having door handles was getting tiresome, so I installed some Porsche RS style handle pulls. I opted for the red set to match the seatbelts, and also for some better visibility for "ohshit!" grabbing. haha I could have mounted them like this.....but that's too easy, and it looks like garbage... ...so I took it one small step further..Choppity chop chop.. I really really really like how they turned out. Exactly what I had hoped for. I will be replacing the temporary fasteners with something a bit more appropriate. These are just to see the proof of concept. simple. lightweight. clean. I'm a fan. ...also got the rear tow hook bolted in place. The front will take a little finagling, but I'll knock that out in the near future. I can't get over the grip this thing has.....I still haven't broken traction. haha I love it.

thanks! It's been a while coming. And teaching myself has presented a lot of learning curve...but I don't regret any second of it after driving the car. It's all worth it. yeah, there is very little actual stock Datsun left on this car....I have either touched, redesigned, or upgraded virtually every major component in the car. The ONLY thing I didn't do myself was corner balancing, alignment, and fine tuning the idle on the dyno. otherwise, it's all me. It does feel amazing having done all of the work myself. The car is a constant reminder of how far I've come in all aspects of skill. From painting skill to welding to just general and theoretical automotive knowledge....I am shocked at how far I've come.....I knew very little about cars, aside from an addiction, when I started this project. I also had NO idea this car would potentially gain magazine status.....that's fuckin' nuts. On my current setup the car feels supercharged. Full boost (granted, only 5-6psi) hits at right over 2500 rpm, and will pull strong until about 5500 rpm, when the car starts to lose its juice. It wants more boost. But I am being VERY conservative, as this is now my primary daily driver, as I find a suitable replacement for my E30 which was totaled by a snowplow this winter.....RIP girl....I miss you. You deserved better. 215 miles in. Still a car! Woot!

She came home last week. The shop wants me to bring the car back as soon as possible, once I clean and sort it out, for a photoshoot. Super Street is the rumor. I don't care either way I just want someone to shoot the car. Needs a paint correction baaaad. But she wouldn't boost at all, it was running very lean. Idled fine..After a little investigation I discovered the source of the problem. The trailer ride back over stirred up some **** in the gas tank which proceeded to severely clog one of my fuel filters. I also developed a couple leaks due to things heating up and cooling back down a few times. Like the rear diff cover needed another go around to stop some seepage, and the turbo oil feed gasket failed, so I made a replacement for that. The fuel filter fixed the lean condition, obviously, and the car boosts beautifully. It's a hoot at only 5-6psi out of the tiny t3. A wonderful starting platform. It really feels like what you'd expect a racecar to feel like on the road. It feels LIGHT. It takes no effort to move itself, and it feels very stiff. I have not come close to losing grip. The car is very planted and balanced. Makes sense....it was corner balanced. The carbon interior, not being fully installed, doesn't even rattle. I expected it to rattle like a snake, but nope.....a couple loose screws on some plastics in the rear, but the dash is Gerbraltskis. Rock solid. The new 5 speed n/a zx transmission is wonderful. The rear end does transfer a bit of noise into the cockpit, some of which I will attempt to quell, but otherwise it isn't overly concerning for me. I LOVE every second of it. It is serious sensory overload. The sound, the look, the feel of being surrounded by carbon....the response....it's the whole package. I am very happy. Now I am putting the car back in the air to confirm all the bolts under the car are still tight. I'm looking at you diff bolts.....axle bolts....lug nuts. It looks like shit now...I can't wait to clean it up a bit. It's a car again! Now it's time to make it a better one. 125 miles in. She hits.

I really admire, and appreciate, what you're doing here. That is all. Carry on.

Typically any ends are covered by the laminate, exposed core is a risk to the core itself, not unlike any other circumstance, and should be thought about in the same way. The core is usually prepped, with beveled edges, at usually around a 45 degree angle (or at around a 2-5mm radius - material thickness depending) to allow for easy conformity of the fabric over the core's surface. Sometimes the ends aren't capped, but those situations are less common I find. ..but again, there's that tailor-ability coming into play. If you want caps, you can have caps. If you don't need caps, you don't have to have them. You have freedom of choice. Unfortunately freedom can sometimes be dangerous too. haha. I love answering any composites related questions. Unfortunately there is a lot of misunderstanding of these materials. I'd like to help clear that up, to make the industry, as a whole, better. I do apologize for any tangential trajectory that my comments may have taken things however. haha.

yeah, getting aluminum honeycomb, or honeycomb in general, to lay nicely over complex compound curves is inherently a challenge. It has massive compression strength. Shear, not so much, like you mention. Depending on the complexity of the geometry, you can sometimes carefully scarf, and bevel, core to make them flex, bend, or conform better. Sometimes you must cut the core into many sections and lay them side by side, instead of one continuous piece. It definitely can be tricky. Getting resin within the combs themselves shouldn't happen, if you're using the proper materials that these were designed around. Prepregs. If you're using these types of cores, you should NOT be using hand layup. That defeats the purpose. Very much like a laminate that includes both chopped strand mat, and a carbon fiber skin. That is not a "carbon" laminate. That's mostly fiberglass and the carbon is doing very little, if anything, to the structure of the layup. You see virtually no weight savings over the "fiberglass" versions...and the carbon isn't even allowed to do its job... It's simply a more aesthetically pleasing cover, which there's nothing wrong with...just stop calling it a "carbon X". If you're using prepregs and honeycomb it is a breeze. The prepreg fabric only has enough catalyzed resin for itself, so you must use a sheet of "film adhesive" (a literal sheet of catalyzed resin) to join the fabrics to the core. The film adhesive is just enough resin to, in a perfect world, form a little meniscus over the top of each of the combs, holding a firm and uniform bond between the skin and core. If it is too resin rich, the laminate becomes heavier (like you said) and brittle. Resin rich comes from hand layup. In a perfect world, when you test the physicals of the laminate, the core itself will fail, and the skins will not delaminate. high density foams are a wonderful material, and work well in combination with honeycombs, but as you can see from even my brief touching on the topic...there is a lot of variability, and tailor-ability to composites....which is one of its greatest advantages. If you understand the materials, and how they are designed to be used, you can customize the laminate to do exactly what you want, where you want. Only robust in those areas that need it, or strong in a certain force, while others areas that don't need said requirements can be as lightweight as possible. I think the main reason behind most doors being metal is simply it's the best bang for the buck. It's wonderful at dispersing load, and provides good intrusion protection. You will absolutely see a weight savings with a carbon, cored, door over its metal counterpart - but doing so would add exorbitant cost and effort. As far as physical performance, the carbon door would be superior in virtually every way, but only if properly constructed. If not properly constructed, it could be devastating. I was extremely lucky to learn from, quite frankly, one of the Composites wold's leading authorities, Henry Elliot. Now a head consultant for the Oracle Team USA Americas Cup team. I oringinally had planned to make full carbon, FIA legal, composite doors while at school. When I told him about the project, he raised his eyebrows big time... Basically told me not to do it....he told me that the juice was not going to be worth the squeeze. "if ten pounds is what makes or breaks your race, you're on an entirely different level of skill.....Don't sacrifice safety for weight, that's not how composites are supposed to work." "don't sacrifice safety by chasing numbers." is essentially what he told me. If you aren't going into making doors with these thoughts in mind, you shouldn't be making doors. That's my humble opinion.

1. Thanks. I knew very little about these materials before I decided to learn. Anyone can do this work. It just takes the willingness to try...(and fail). I learned these skills because I couldn't find anyone who could do what I wanted....I also couldn't afford to pay someone else to make this stuff.....and most of what you're getting is fiberglass with a carbon skin. That's not a true carbon laminate. I want my carbon to actually serve a purpose, and not just be some "bling" to look at. Weight savings/structural integrity first, then aesthetics. 2. I get that....I've found that even that harbor freight spot blaster thing works well on small stuff in a pinch. My sandblasting cabinet leaves a lot to be desired. The second you start blasting you can't see shit. The light sucks and my vacuum (wet/dry vac) assisted dust collector isn't much better. It's a struggle, but even still, it expedites the process enough to still be worth it. Nothing beats virgin metal.

it would be easier to just direct you to my build thread. The following is a link to my post when I first acquired the setup. The powder coating stuff starts about 3/4 down the page.

What lovely bones with a bunch of time consuming work already done for you. Nice. nylon wire wheels also do an amazing job at removing rust.

You will not regret powder coating. Unless it is absolutely necessary, or the body of a car, I prefer to powder coat everything. Random brake line bracket? Powder coat. Strut top bolts? Powder coat. The only time you need to worry about powder coat is when high tolerances are needed, so avoid threads or interference fit parts (or at least those areas of said parts) With powder the finish is much more durable, and the turnaround time is amazing. You can pull a bracket, give it a quick sand blast or wire brush, shoot some powder on it and toss it in a small convection oven. Thirty minutes later, or when you can touch it, you can reinstall the same, now fresh, part. That just doesn't happen with paint. My powder coating setup, initially, was less than 200 dollars. (you do need access to compressed air, however) 125 - ish I think for the Eastwood Powder coating gun, and between 50-75 for the largest clearance counter top convection oven that I could find at Wal Mart. I acquired a conventional electric home oven later, for free, on Craigslist some time later. The convection oven still sees the most use, as mI am always powder coating small widgets for my projects.

Without a cage, or monocoque design, quite frankly, I wouldn't. But if you want to go down the rabbit hole, you must include some sort of load bearing/dispersing core within the laminate. Most F1 racecars are constructed from a combination of aluminum, and nomex, honeycomb core. Aluminum is best used for crumple zones, and is highly structural, while nomex is designed for excellent fire resistance, but isn't as structurally robust. Nomex is significantly lighter, and subsequently more expensive, than aluminum, so it is used only where advantageous. So the survival cell (Monocoque) sees this type of core most often. I'd build a totally composite version, with aluminum honeycomb (3-5mm) core. Imagine if you were to take an s30 door and cut the inside skin off. I'd make that idea, and then build a semi structural door panel that goes over the inner workings of the door, because I also would want to retain window function and such. Horrible description, but eh I'll roll with it. I really dislike the idea of making some bastardized door hybrid out of 40+ year old existing shells and single skin, hand laid, laminates. That's not safe. Nor is it truly using these materials as intended. It's like if someone decided to build a carbon fiber house...and they start by making a bunch of carbon fiber 2x4s.....sure that will work, to some extent I suppose, but it isn't using the materials to their advantage. Unless the person really knows these materials (at an Aerospace / ISO 9001 level) you really shouldn't be making your own doors, in my opinion. Not the task for the average body guy. I feel this is an aesthetics game, hidden beneath a "weight savings" veil.

If you have any questions in regards to carbon construction, and safety, don't hesitate to ask. I'll gladly share anything that I know.

The rocky mirrors are not carbon fiber, if that's what you're looking for, those are clearly hydrodipped, or painted to look like 1x1 twill. If it's entirely the shape you're after, then disregard my entire post; Good luck with your search.