HoustonZ

Sparky, your car is EXACTLY what I want mine to be!

Herculiner is probably the best stuff to use. It's about $20 a quart. STAY AWAY from the cheap $10 autozone/duplicolor/napa brand bedliner.

Sparky is in charge of those kind of details, I just make the stuff Alright boys, we're making progress! I'll bring the hat back to the shop on friday for final trimming and measuring, then it's back to Sparky again for the mount up on an actual car. Then, we get a whole batch made

I would leave it as is. I don't think it would have the same good look as the Dash when sprayed, but that's just my opinion. Perhaps you should do it and prove me wrong though

Thanks everyone I actually forgot to give the glove box door to the people, so it stayed original. The difference is not very big, if it was I would have it sprayed. The glare is actually minimal in person. The flash of the camera tends to make it look shiny. It's in fact almost matte. Definitely possible, and probably a better approach.

My borrowed toy Today I had the chance to do some work on the rear end. I've depressurized the stock bumper mounts and moved them 3 inches closer to the frame. This makes the stock bumper actually look half decent, so I'm keeping it until those 240z bumpers become affordable. After taking the tow hooks off, it was time to play around with the welder. Sure looks a lot better with all those weird dents and holes gone. Looks like a blown headgasket!!!!! Just kidding. That is Seafoam doing it's thing. I was really surprised how much better it seems to be idling and reving. Unfortunately I can't take it out on the road for a seat of the pants test. Too many pieces off the car right now...

With high pressure bedliner, this is about the smoothest you can get. There is another system that uses a low pressure gun. This has almost no texture, which is probably the look that you're going for. Ask for samples at a shop, and you can see the huge difference.

Possibily, but I'm not that concerned about weight. It only weighs about 5 pounds more then stock.

Thanks for the great response about my dash project. Some of you have requested additional pictures/information, so I've decided to put it all in one place. When I first brought the car from dallas, it was a bit of a mess. The original dash was BAD, with about 8 big cracks going all across the top. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the top of it, only the front. You can see one of the cracks extending down the face, but for the most part it looks great from this angle The first step was to use a razor blade to trim all of the cracks and try to smooth the foam as much as possible. Second, fill the cracks. I used kitty hair type bondo (the green) for all the big gaps and major structural work. This stuff is very strong and sands decently. After that, regular bondo (red) was used to smooth everything out. More bondo, sanding, bondo, sanding, bondo sanding. I definitely wanted to retain the awesome shapes of the original dash, so there was a lot of hand sanding in the corners and contours. At this point, I had a repaired dash, with a major problem. The top was very smooth due to the feathered bondo. The issue was that the original vinyl had a texture to it that was hard to replicate. I tried painting it with a flat black roll on bedliner made by Duplicolor, which turned out horrible. The stuff was thin, it dried way too fast, and still didn't hide the stock texture. What led me to the spray on bedliner was the quest for THICK paint, and after all, what is thicker then that stuff? It's more like spray on rubber. I took my dash to a place off of 59/Dairy Ashford called Star Auto Accessories. The guy there was very helpful, and didn't call me completely crazy :bonk:It was $150 to get the whole thing prepped and sprayed with High Pressure bedliner. This is what I picked up. As you can see, it came out almost perfect. The transition lines between repair and original material are invisible. Most importantly, it will last forever. The inside of the gauge holes did have to be sanded slightly so that I could squeeze them in. During that process I came to realize just how tough this bedliner is... So for $170 and a few days of work, my very unique dash was completed.

I hope he is still alive after that presentation today.

And if you feel like taking all the Houston Z-guys out for a steak as well, let us know

Taste of Texas serves an excellent one.

He lives! Good to hear from you again Sparky. I hope all goes well with the presentation on Friday. Don't worry too much about Z stuff, school is more important...

I can't really do much until Sparky gets back to me. Maybe someone else has 12.19 rotors and is interested in testing the prototype?

http://www.mcmaster.com Type in standoff.

I would sell you mine if you were closer...

Thanks for the offer Tom. I'm still debating whether to turbo this L28 I have, or go with the V8. Someone from this board just pm'ed me with an offer to take a drive in his Turbo 280z. Apparently some people don't like the idea of me swapping engines I'm in San Antonio until Sunday. Hopefully while I'm here I can go by Sparky's to pick up a 2.5" exhaust. The last few days I've been driving it around the neighborhood on open headers. The neighbors probably hate me:biggrin:

Thanks Kuntry. I enjoyed talking, and that V8 swap is becoming more tempting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjQU-7ySnag

I have the head, now I just need to find the time to measure everything. The brake rotor hats are a higher priority, but I'll get this finished soon too.

Actually I cleaned up the valence very nicely with a wire wheel. I'm definitely wanting to add an air dam, it's just that one hasn't come up on ebay yet. We'll talk after I get out of college

The paint process is very much like jail... Stripping and smoothing the panels. Soon enough I'll get the Mig welder from Tom so I can fix up the rusted out section under the battery. Hopefully I'll be ready to prime in a few weeks.

The final cost for our kit is still $200. The rotor hat is done, and now we're just working on the bracket design. It'll be done soon guys, I promise.

Loving that hood.

Sent you an email with a picture.

It's just the stock Tach gauge that you need? I've got a working spare I would sell for way less then $100...