Adam393

To kick off the new year ('07) the rear of the car was done and we spun it around to work on the front: And one of my best friends Drew, who helped us out quite a bit: Now i get to return the favor as he now has a MKIII Supra Turbo with a blown motor that im helping him get fixed But back to the story, heres the old crossmember about to come out: And the front shock assembly, dont ask me why i decided to paint around the shocks instead of waiting for it to come out The brakes, mmmm safe.... Then the crossmember and the shot tie rod: Theres the dad: Heres the completed front assembly, same setup as the rear, except with Pro Slot rotors and Toyota 4 piston calipers and brakets from Motorsport, they work great: I think i have pics of how the front parts turned out after painting, but again, they are on my home comp, not my laptop, ill add at a later date Heres some more of the front all buttoned up, MSA sway bar in there and beefed up frame rails:

Next, the rear suspension was dropped off, here are the crap-tastic rear shocks and springs: And heres the rear diff: My dads friend who was allowing us to use his garage, also had a sand blaster which he so graciously allowed us to use, and here are the rear brake and shock assembly about to get blasted: We also decided to throw in a $20 valve cover i yanked off a 280ZX and put our air box in there too Before: After: Airbox: And here are the assemblies after the blaster: Next up was me cleaning and respraying the block: Here is the rear of the car after it was cleaned off and given two coats of POR (I also put 2 coats of truck bed liner on top of that, but i dont have pics of that): Now for the newly blasted, and repainted rear suspension and diff (For everything minus the diff and shock/brake assemblies, i used x2 coats of acid etch primer, then x2 coats of black rustoleum then a final x2 coats of truckbed liner to keep the metal from rusting again. The diff we just POR'ed, and the shocks were acid etched and rustoleum'ed, but no liner): Then all we had to do was put on the Energy Suspension Poly bushings (boy that was a fun day....) and bolt everything back up and now the car had an ebrake!: Then we had the new Tokico shocks and springs, along with new Brembo finned drums and new shoes (For the LOVE OF GOD DONT USE TOKICO SPRINGS! The shocks are great, just not the springs): This shot you can see the truckbed liner i sprayed underneath the car, gives it a nice texture and much better protection against the elements.

So fast forward a few weeks, now that winter had arrived, my dad and i found a space in his friends garage where we would have access to lifts and more tools so it would make our lives much easier than attempting it at home. He allowed us to have a corner of the garage for us to work in. Again, i have a lack of pics up till then, so these start out with the engine yanked out (but i dont think we really did anything major up until this point) Its cool to see a hint of that blue engine paint hidden under all the dirt and grime Next we found what everyone fears, the dreaded rusty floorboards. Although the rust could have been much worse, and it could have been in a worse area, we thought we had a "rust free Z" which i began to understand is an oxymoron unless your in AZ or CA. Still, not as bad as Mulls "rust free Z" A corner of the rad support also had to be cut out and redone due to a leaky radiator: Everything else in there was purely surface rust thankfully, we just hit it with converter and sprayed the engine bay enamel stuff over it. Heres the painted bay, he had it done in black since it would go with whatever color we chose to paint the car later: New patched in floor and a million coats of POR:

Although the car has been done for close to two years now, i thought itd be fun to put up a build thread, i love following the ones on here and enjoy your guys's stories, so i thought id share mine. That and im bored on a thursday night Being at college, i dont have the full set of photos from my home computer, so ill have to make due with the ones on facebook. Ill go back and add more to fill in the gaps, once i get my hands on them. So sit back, hope you enjoy my story, and feel free to post or PM with any questions or comments Ok, so the story starts with me growing up in the whole Fast and the Furious era, i had the urge to modify a Japanese car. After years of doing minor things to the IS, in my senior (fall of '06) my dad decided it was time for me to really get my hands dirty, so we embarked on a father son bonding project, in the form of a restoration. While going over cars my dad didnt want anything that had fuel injection since he hates dealing with wires and computers, even though he has an electrical engineering degree . He had an old Alfa Romeo GTV in mind, but i of course wanted the ability to modify and upgrade the car. So with that said, we started to look at Japanese classics. I was thinking an old TE27 Corolla or a 510. After much convincing for the 510 (My dad hates boxy cars) we started looking for one. After about a week with no luck and my dad and i discussing the idea over dinner, my mom chimes in and said she always loved the old Z cars. So my dad being the whipped man that he is, said "We're getting a Z!" Honestly, i wasnt too thrilled, i had my heart set on a 510, but not wanting to complain, i went along with it and after another week or two we found a Z in Columbus. It was on eBay, didnt hit reserve, my dad emailed the guy with an offer but he didnt get back to us. After about a week my dad received an email from the man, apparently he was out of town, so we took the friday off to go up and see the car. It was "restored" 8 years prior and had been sitting for 5 yrs. Had original color, original engine and tranny and an uncracked dash!!! After a short test drive, we were sold. A few days prior to this, i began to realize what a cool car the Z was. I didnt know much about them, but at this time i learned how truely special they are, and like most of you guys, i got Z fever quite badly. So, after what seemed like an eternity at the DMV we had our new plates and we were on our way back to Cincy (Again, apologies for none of the photos the day we got it, those are some that are home). On the drive back we began to discover the Z wasnt quite as good as he said it was. First off were the flat spot tires and the belts inside had blown, a gaping hole in the muffler, the suspension was shot, the brakes werent quite right (they kept locking up), the tranny was quite vauge and the engine was running on 3 cyl. That and the driver side window got stuck down (bear in mind it was about 40-50 deg and rainy that day) so my dad was miserable driving back and i had the nice and toasty Volvo hehe So after doing prelim stuff, we were trying to diagnose the cylinder problem, after many attempts at finding the problem, turns out the rear carb was gunked up. After cleaning it, the car ran perfectly. Now it was time to clean the car up. We washed it for the first time in ages, really buffed the paint and cleaned the engine bay and interior. Now here are the pictures you have been waiting for, these were taken after we spent the weekend detailing the car: E31 head I guess somewhere in this time we popped in the blue xenon ebay lights. Blew up 5 days later Ive learned my lession about cheap ebay parts

Well, never mind I guess, I called MSA today to order it and they said it wouldnt work with their 6-1 headers that I have I guess now I'll have to take it to an exhaust shop to have them add in a resonator and delete my muffler

Hey guys, Im interested in getting the twice pipes for my Z, but I dont want to have to trim the rear to get it to fit. Ive been searching around but cant find a definitive answer, but I was wondering if you have to trim a bit of the rear off to get the mufflers to fit in, or will it bolt up just fine with no bodywork?

Im so jealous haha, your car looks awesome! Whats it like to drive?

Nice car, very cool lighting effects, Id say it turned out well

well, there was this a few years ago, i think that may be as low profile as it gets: http://www.fastcoolcars.com/airless-tires.htm

Thats also partly my fault I forgot to correct that, the company who we bought the kit through mistakenly told us Tein when they meant Tokico, sorry about that Im not sure if they make springs or coils for the S30

/// What he said. If you want a more stiff and sporty ride, id say ST springs. If you want one with compromise, get Eibach, i have them on my Daily driver and they are a great compromise, im sure it'd work well with the Z too

So any updates Mull?

^^^:lmao: Those are always priceless moments But for something of that age, shouldnt the S30 be considered fast?

Ooo, forgot these ones, the Z sounds AMAZING! Wonder if this guys a member...? - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5109928495136207228&q=Ax+timeattack&total=8&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1 - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1045457597694914422&q=Ax+timeattack&total=8&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

http://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/PSDC06A/234100AX Urethane bushings are a great upgrade

I quite literally have to change my underwear every time i hear this NSX, great driving too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkJAv3q12E8 Amazing M3 rally driver: Not really a racing vid, but ive always loved this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z518RtsU7ik

Hahaha i love the Lolcats offshoot

Although it may not be that bad for the car to leave it in the snow, i agree with ZMaster. If u have cars like those, the least you could do is put a car cover on them...

My sisters comp had the same prob awhile ago. The comp would turn on and run, but nothing would show up on the screen. Turns out we had a bad electrical strip and a surge happened to fry the motherboard. Dont know how to diagnose that, sorry, but good luck.

Thats the second time today Not a half bad song tho...

Sounds great, i too would like to see vids of it when its on the road Around the 0:25~0:33 mark, what was that flashing light from the passenger side of the engine?

Havent had anything major, lots of busted knuckles. The one that stands out to me, i forgot exactly what i was doing, but the wrench slipped and my knuckle hit the rear brake fins really hard and i felt it hit the bone, it stung a lot but it was such and odd feeling... Also when my dad and I were doing the initial teardown (we were working in a friends really nice garage w lifts) the car was up in the air and my dad was unbolting the old rusty downpipe and i was holding it for him. Being a friday afternoon in my HS years, my mind was elsewhere and i underestimated the weight of it, so i just held it with my palm. Low and behold, he snaps the bolt off, the pipe goes flying sideways and it smacked him right in the head pretty hard. I did honestly feel pretty bad for screwing up like that, and of course he was not a happy camper lol....

Reminds me of the wheels that are on the new Nismo tuned Z's i think theyd look pretty cool on S30's, nice design work

Erm.... Thanks?

Hey guys, i just bought the MSA 4 watt dash light kit, but i cannot get the old ones out for the life of me lol Do you guys have any tips on how to remove them easier, or use some kind of lubricant (I know, probably a bad idea, just wonder if anyone else used some...)?