Sirpent

Goth First, anyone with the most basic skills can do this, you just need to get over your misgivings about attempting it, you need to remember that unlike steel for instance, plastic is very forgiving in the you can quickly undo remodel or add to it. Second, I would but the face of these fascia's are only half of it, there are very intricate mounts and grooves on the reverse side that would be hard to replicate. Third, you guys drive on the wrong side, LOL, so these even if replicatad probably wouldnt suit Cheers John

Thanks, but just to let you know, Im using a $5.00 soldering iron, no joke, happy to do a vid of a section in action to prove it.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh the madness continues. Had to give some thought as to how to mount the new fascia and also how the console fascia and shifter garnish would be treated as far as trimming, then came to the realisation that it wouldn't work as I had it, so got the cutting disc and chopped the previously mounted and welded lower 2DIN surround out and mounted and welded it to the fascia, this will now help with the mounting and mean that I will now have a 1 piece fascia which curves down into the console where it will meet the shifter garnish, the idea now is to have the console and dash dressed in stitched suede and the new combined fascia and shifter garnish finished in a low bake gloss black, I'm thinking GM's Panther Mica black. Cheers John

Bang You guys from the Lone Star State. always had a soft spot for you all probably due to growing up watchig westerns........... Seriouslty though thanks for the compliments much appreciated, and look forward to seeing your take on what you are planning, watch out over the next few days as I do some serious disections as I just came up with another idea. Cheers John

Well since you put it so nicely LOL Had some plastic trim pieces laying about from an Australian Ford Falcon.............. After some brainstorming and dissecting in my head they got the chop and weld treatment and now have an Ipod / Iphone dock cradle,I hope to find a set of SC400 Lexus power window switches to mount ahead of the dock and between them and the shifter will be the engine start button. Cheers John

When you are all sick of seeing this mod, just shout out, in the meanwhile managed to get a load done this afternoon, I'd say by this time next week this will be all wrapped up. Just a few pics Cheers John

Hi, Had to drop in and check out your build thread after the obvious complimentary design cue tastes we share. Some great work happening there, and no matter what side of this planet we are on it seems we all deal with the same build issues be they restoring a ride or the logistics of doing so. Will definately keep my eye on your progress. Cheers John

Just an update, prelimanary weld and alignment of the 2DIN fascia in its final position now set and sitting nicely, the center console is around (50mm) 2" wider now and positioned back about (25mm) 1" away from its normal forward position to create better alignment to the dash. Will finish welding and shaping then alter the lower dash points so as they meet flush with the console giving it a flow effect into the center console. Cheers John

Thanks Buddy, As I have explained to the boy's in Australia, the idea is to create a Hybrid that would be an interpretation of what I would think an S30 factory retro might be if it was done today just like some of the crop of modern factory cars currently enjoying the retro treatment. The entire dash, and console will be done in stitched suede so I'm hoping for a nice tight flush finish to those area's. Cheers John

Second prime and rub back completed and now trial fitting and sectioning the center console to fit the 2DIN fascia. Idea will be to blend and extend the dash finishing points so they match the new center vent CC control fascia, then do the same with the center console meeting these surfaces so as to create a flush seam finish between the 3 surfaces. Cheers John

Fascia almost done now, Finished plastic welding, primed and sanded it back for the first time, another few coats of plastic primer surfacer wet and dry rub back and should be ready for assy. Next is modifying the floor console to match up to the bottom of this fascia and incorporate the 7" 2DIN unit. Cheers John

Climate control is proceeding really well, have completed the blending of the Ativa, Diamante and S30 fascia's into one sigle piece all plastic welded and no awaiting some surface filling before plastic priming. The wiring was like working with spahgetti, the step motors and CC only came with about 10cm's (5") of cut loom at each connector so this meant fabricating a new one almost from scratch, problem is that there are a number of shared impulse pathways and a total of 8 components to make the system automated, 3 step motors, a sun sensor, water Temp sensor, air intake temp sensor, outside air temp sensor and then the relays for the blower etc. Luckily I tracked down a copy of the wiring diagram but its like reading hieroglyphics so much of Saturday night was spent simplifying it and working out how to blend it all together, Sunday the soldering work started and was able to bench test it and post a vid of it operating, in case anyone else ever wants to do this I will post a PDF of a step by step wiring diagram I have been doing as I progress. Just to let everyone know also, if there is anyone out there who wants air con in their car, but cant track down all the bits, you don't need to if you decide to do this mod, simply put there are only 3 components you need to install air in a Zed as far as under the dash hardware and non of them need to be genuine. #1 The in dash evaporator (it a simple alloy unit pretty much available from a number of modern cars) #2 A controller such as the one I'm doing. #3 The in dash evaporator casing, this is just a plastic casing square in nature that bolts up to the generic Z system installed in all zeds, it can easily be fabricated from aluminium. I'm more than happy to do a drawing with measurement of it as I will be dropping mine out in the next few days to line up the ducts. In the engine bay it just the simple bolt on hardware, beats paying a $1500+ for an aftermarket unit or trying to reserect a 30+ year old original. Anyhow, a pic of the fascia and a vid of the bench test of the CC Cheers John

Ha Ha, havnt you got a Bavarian to finish rather than stalking these threads David? At least I have an excuse to be doing interior design work, my powertrains still on a ship somewhere in the mid pacific, from memory yours is about 40 meters from your back door LMAO :D

Just an update on the fascia climate control mod. Roughed this up and am pleased with the overall layout, will now roll it over and start plastic welding it before staring to fill and contour the final fascia. Cheers John

Hi Ron My research and what I have planned will make this a simple conversion, basically everything forward of the Air con condensor housing is trashed, and 3 acuators replace the vacumm and cable controls. The amount of space this affords is enormous as the unit is only around 125mm or 5"inches deep, this particular unit is plug and play stand alone and dosent require interaction with other systems, the hardest part is mounting the step motors correctly. I will be writing a tutorial for the Australian forum boys and will be happy to post an abridged version here along with the final hybrid wiring diagram if there is interest. Cheers John

Been a few weeks and still waiting for the motor to arrive, so in the meanwhile been tinkering with components and decided to do a bit of an upgrade on the climate system as I didnt think the 30+ year old vacumm system in the aircon assy i had refurbished would stand the test of time. So did some investigation and came up with a few idea's, 1 to upgrade to a full climate control system incorporating stepper motors and also revise the blower ducting and vent facia's to something with a bit more guts and asphetically more pleasing. Did the blower upgrade using a local GM part out of a VT-VZ series Commodore, in US speak that would be a Lumina sedan, the increase in blower rating took it from the original 160W factory blower to 280W and the result is incredidable even though there was a fair amount of modification to the blower enclosure, all worth while though. Check out the links http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IvZP9s-x4Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPXOKIF3MH0&feature=channel_video_title After that I purchased a Mitsubishi Diamante / EVO5 climatre controller, along with a Nissan Activa vent fascia out of California, these arrived a day ago and I started the remodelling of the Zed fascia, see pics attached. Im looking at using the center vent pod as the location for the factory clock and using the center dash pod location for a speedhut Boost guage. Cheers John

Thanks for the remark venomous, Think it will be a tough build and hopefully as tough a ride in the final outcome. While waiting for the motor to arrive, decided to start refurbishing other components of the "Z" first off the aircon unti which I salvaged from a 2+2 with factory air that was being paretd out. Most of the galved brackets and leavers were rusting so these along with the main chassis were taken back to bare metal and re-enamled

Thats very high praise, cheers. But there are a couple of others down under which are extreme also, theres an old saying down here about Aussies. Break down in the midle of the desert and give an Aussie some fence wire and he's sure to use it somehow to get you back up and running again. Youre always welcome to come visit. Cheers John

The car that keeps inspiring me.

OK,Take 2, Hi, I'm John from Australia and have owned my "Z" since the age of 18, I'm now 45 and going through a mid life crisis, LMAO. I originally started a build thread back in Jan 2011 on this forum, but unfortunately uploaded a photo set that was far too large without realising it. As a result I decided to ditch that thread as every time I went to open it as I’m sure many others also found, I would literally run out of virtual memory waiting for the thread and the photo's to load, my apologies for those caught out by the situation. So, first a bit of background about the car and myself. I hale from Melbourne Australia and I originally purchased the car in 1983, did a bare metal respray on it, added triple 45's then later around 1990 a Turbo L20ET, sold the triples for $350.00, regret that one now, then in 1994 I stored it away in my parent’s underground car park, it sat there for 16 years untouched. Here are pic's some 27 years apart, the car in 1983 after the first bare metal re-spray and in 2010 having been in storage for 16 years. 1983 and 2010 Well i got the bug, and after 16 years of plotting planning day dreaming, I dragged it out into the sun and home and started the long process of restoration, I was extremely lucky as there was only one major rust patch the size of a packet of cigarettes on the entire car located on one of the rearward rail sections. Here are a few pic's of the progress at differing stages, and yes, I am building my own Hybrid G-Nose mock up which will be going into production some time mid 2011 in both CF and FG, I have a number of firm requests for it from Australian AUSZCAR members. I have a running set of progressive photos available on my Face Book page, if anyone is interested. http://www.facebook.com/sirpentz Then a few months ago I started to contemplate a different direction as far as the powertrain, I knew I wanted something that was driveable in all situations, city or freeway, reliable yet responsive when called upon, I always enjoyed the idea of what we call here in Australia "Sleepers" wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing so to say rather than the Tokyo shock boy rides of today which are moving bill boards for the authorities and scream out, "Pull me over" I came across an alternative that ticked all of the boxes and started the long search literally on every continent, came across a few and started negotiating, finally did the deal with one a few weeks ago, hopefully in a matter of the next few months, withstanding hurricanes cyclones and tsunami's I will have sitting in my garage an AMG 3.2L Intercooled Supercharged V6 with 5 speed triptonic Speedshift AMG box, associated wiring looms ECU's and cross members etc. etc. etc. Some facts about the motor and trans are as follows. Displacement cc : 3199 Bore x stroke mm : 89.9 x 84.0 Compression ratio : 9.0 : 1 Power output at rpm : 349 HP / 260 kW at 6100 rpm Max. torque at rpm : 332 lbs-ft / 450 Nm at 4400 rpm 0–100 km/h s : 4.6 seconds based on a 1650 kg C32 sedan 1/4 mile time : 13.0 based on a 1650 kg C32 sedan Maximum speed (ECU limited) 186 Mph / 300 Kph Transmission : 5-speed automatic with AMG Speed Shift function 1st - 3.59:1 2nd - 2.19:1 3rd - 1.41:1 4th - 1.00:1 5th - 0.83:1 Attached are a few pic's of the actual motor and trans I purchased, as far as I am aware this is the first of its kind or should I say attempt. I know of RTz's M3 here in the States and also Katokid's M3 in Australia but not of an AMG C32 V6, so that’s about it for now, I’m looking forward to sharing the experience as things progress. Cheers John P.S. My project was given the nickname torque monster back in Australia when I announced it, or as I like to refer to it now "Das Drehkraftmonster RS32"

David, As they say, you can run but you cant hide............. Im itching to be able to eventually post as RT and yourself have in such great detail about my Bavarian experiment also. Always a pleasure watching yours evolve. Cheers John