AkumaNoZeta
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Posts posted by AkumaNoZeta
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I ask because I already triangulated my front tower with two welded in legs, the bar going across removable for obvious reasons, all using hefty size tie-in plates of 1/8" plate. I'm working on the back ones currently, already have the hefty sized tie-in plates made and installed and will make the bar this weekend. Even though all my subframes are new tubing, I was wanting a cage to tie it all together. Having a nice, plush interior is more important to me though since I've never owned a car with perfect interior before.
I realize there's size constraints and other considerations, but I figure there's gotta be people with deep pockets and big enough wills to find a way. I do like Gareth's set-up and I always liked 74_5.0L_Z's car. I think if I were to do it I would have to have it bent so close that you can take 1" wide strips of sheet metal to make nice gussets to weld attach it to the unibody across the whole thing, sticking close to the A-pillar to a bar behind the dash that will have branches coming off to meet the welded up strut braces in the engine bay. Obviously a lot of vinyl won't be able to be used, or larger pieces made that cover the whole thing, and a little cutting up of the dash and won't be able to any HVAC, but that only means you can only drive it on nice days.
Then again, like everyone here is saying, I'm not building an all-out race car. One day I will but a different car and after this one is done. I need to stop wasting everyone's time here and go without the cage idea. Sorry for the ranting everybody.
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I see them all the time with muscle cars. Especially in the high dollar drag cars, but also in the pro touring and autocross. The only reason I've reasoned against a cage in my car is because I want a full, clean interior....because I never owned a car with one before. lol.
I already heavily reinforced the unibody, including triangulated front strut tower bracing, made all new subframes for the front half of the car and currently working on welding in the rear strut brace so I feel better about replacing the subframes in the rear. I was just hoping to see some photos of people putting a plush interior around some caging.
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Of all the time I've been on this site I've seen tons of photos of people with full interior, without any kind of roll cage, sometimes with a simple roll bar, but I can't recall any photos of cars with a full cage and donning anything but a stripped out. Has anyone ever seen a S30 with full interior cleanly mated to a full cage with a halo and down bars?
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I too heard all the positive reviews for Eastwood welders so I bought their 135 about two years ago, and had the same experience as Pat1. In fact after a few months of struggling with it, the drive motor went out completely. I sent that back to them and exchanged it for the 175. It work alright for a couple months before the plastic gas line broke inside the machine itself. That's when I got all my money back from them and bought a Millermatic 180 and it's been my precious ever since. It's always reliable, welds are perfect, penetrates everything, and saves me a lot of gas. A 4' tall bottle would only last a couple weeks of moderate welding with the Eastwoods before needing replacements while when I got the Miller I hooked it up with the half-full left over bottle and I've been using it for the past few months with a lot of heavy, and light welding and still have plenty left in the bottle. I wish I would have just got the Miller from the get-go.
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I haven't got lucky enough to mess with my suspension yet. I recently bought one wheel that I was thinking of running and my 245/50/16 tire should be coming in tomorrow. I'll get it mounted and start mocking things up. Not so much for the suspension's sake though, mainly to see where I need to place the 8.8 CV diff and start building the back part of my frame work. I'll be taking measurements though and start coming up with drawings from them later. Not to mention I don't know how long it will be until I have the money to get the AZC coil-overs, brakes, and front control arms. I want to get the car on a rotisserie too.
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I'm not saying that these are things we all need to do to our cars. I just spend my free time looking for ideas and it's rare that I find something unique and different. I failed to come up with a way to make the steering set-up from the GTR practical on a S30 but I do like the idea of using what that Porsche did because what I'm paranoid about with a slotted crossmember is the hardware wanting to work itself out of position and that would help that issue. I think it would be a good idea to use the same idea for an adjustable TC rod too to experiment with anti-dive angles. I was already planning on being able to adjust bumpsteer at spindle so it's independent from the RC.
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This one is from a Porsche but it's a good idea for adjustable roll center http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads5/rsr+hh0801110875583.jpg
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There's a lot of topics here about bumpsteer and I came across this on Google Images http://www.importtuner.com/features/impp_1101_nissan_bnr34_skyline_gtr_vspec_ii_n1/photo_03.html
I really like the idea, especially for radically lowered S30s with relocated mounting points for better roll center. Not to mention you could design it for quicker ratios, more ackerman, or even just lowering the steering rack to mount an engine lower in the chassis. I should have the tire I'm planning on running delivered Monday so after I get it mounted I'm going to mock it up and see how much the geometry changes at the height I want and try to do something along this line. I have the springs removed from the struts so I can move the suspension through cycles.
I also like the blade style adjustable sway bar, I would like to do something like that except not cable operated from the cockpit but just done under the car like a tie rod. Trying to keep the interior as close to stock as possible.
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I just don't want it to be off so much that I have to modify the center console. I want the interior to look completely stock.
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I'm building an 88 7MGE-T and all I could afford right now is a W58 transmission, for an early 260Z. I plan to upgrade to a R154 after the car is "finished" and before I try tuning for higher boost. My question is on the shifter placement though, does anyone know it the two transmissions are the same in that aspect?
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Nice to hear actually, I was hoping it would be big enough to make a good excuse for Subtle Z fenders and 940Z quarters.
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I want to get wheels the same size, but with 245/50s all around. Do you think that would stick out too far for even rolling the lips to clear?
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Mind sharing the size and offset?
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I started off wanting to do the same thing, that's why I got a Toyota 7MGE because it had a distributor and the exhaust is on the passenger side (just like how a right hand drive with a Nissan DOHC engine has the exhaust on the passenger side) and I was going to put triple Webers, custom air box to match the S20's, custom valve covers, etc, etc. But since then I've spent too much time around high powered cars and I found a real nice set of RB26 ITBs so I drifted away from the "replica" idea even though I still want to have the custom made valve covers and I want to make a low mount turbo manifold with big swoops like you see on the headers people use on S20s and TC24 heads.
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Well, my car was completely gone in that area. One of the previous owners sprayed expanding foam in the rockers, shaved it down where it came out the rusty areas (about 80% of it) and laid down the bondo and paint over it. The floors were nothing but 22g sheet metal attached with sheet metal screws, and half of the frame rails were just missing. I was young and dumb when I got it but I can't get rid of it, it's part of the family.
What I did was spend a good 8 hours with jack stands, shims, a modified screw jack, and a regular floor jack forcing the body to get as close to square and level as I could. I left the motor and transmission in it so the extra weight pulls the shell back together, I even left the doors on so afterwards they open and closed like new again so I felt confident with it. I used some 1x1 tubing to make an X brace underneath it connecting at what was left of the rockers.
That's when I started tearing all the jerry rigged stuff out. I thought since I had nothing to work with I would start with the rockers. After I cut out the outer rocker I found I didn't even have any inner rocker left. At this point I'm shocked that the only thing I had to jerry rig myself, while it was my only car for over a year, was the TC bucket separating from the subframe. Before I started to remove my X-brace and start cutting the inner rocker out I laid two more braces attaching the door jambs to the transmission tunnel, front and back. Swallowed my pride and cut it out, took measurements again, everything stayed the same. I replaced the structure with a 55" long 2x4 0.120" tubing with a 1.25" wide strip of 1/8 thick steel welded on to replace the now gone pinch weld on the bottom, used a couple C-clamps and a jack to put it in place, lots of clearance, re-measure everything, the started tacking, re-measured, and lots of welding. For the areas that were spot welded together I just cut it close to the lap joint and grind it down flush, I got one of the spot weld busters from the tool truck. Pretty much just a funny looking chisel and with a big hammer it worked wonders for separating the joints.
Didn't mean to rant, but it's been a journey for me.
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It's fun being able to tell people I can't help them because I have strippers to play with.
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I'm afraid of what could be on the inside too, especially since there's still a pile of acorns in each side that I haven't gotten to vacuuming out yet. I am planning on running a 1.5"x0.083" round tube from the 2x4 in the rocker, through the wheel well, directly to the top of the strut towers so even if it was/is thinner that you'd expect, should I really be too concerned about it? This is my first real car build so I'm always looking for advice.
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I don't have any air at home where the car is now, but I was hoping that after I get the big areas I can use the cheap blaster we have at work to get the harder to reach and worse off areas. I plan to put it on a rotisserie too. I know to always prime before painting, but I don't know if something should be used between the primer and cancerous area.
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That's after the wire wheel. With some residue left behind from the chemical stripper. Should I take a flapper disk to it and prime it or just throw some rust converter at it?
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I've been doing a lot of stripping on the weekends lately and I want to get people's opinions on what I should do about the rust on my front frame horns. It looks to be a little more than just surface rust but I can tap all around it with a screwdriver and it all sounds solid.
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Here's an update. For the past few weeks I've been busy stripping the front end to make plans for the new rails up front, but here's how the floors ended up. Not perfect but I'm happy with it. I haven't fabricated the new buckets for the seat belt retractor yet so no new photo of that end.
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I found one. Thanks for all your help.
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It's a 74' 260Z. I don't know early or late though. I haven't seen it yet. We're picking it up next Sunday to work on it. Hopefully the customer will let us spend the money to rebuild my N42 L28 that I'm not using on mine, along with a rebuild on the 5 speed to get rid of her automatic. Her daily is a 5 speed Eclipse so I know she wants it.
Caged Interiors
in Interior
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I'm going to forget about the cage idea. I'm just looking for a really nice street car anyways. I was thinking 10 years from now, when I finish the Z, I'll tear down my foxbody and turn that into the race car. I like the style of the car, just not all the Ford engineering in it so I think it's a prime candidate.