OPTaiva

Thanks mate! Well the project has not been forgotten, but work pace is a bit slow. The project diary has shifted to Instagram quite largely. One can find it under @optaiva in IG. In a nut shell: - Both rockers have been changed - Rear bulk head has been changed - All floors have been changed (floors are still out as fitting a cage will be easier) - Engine will be the Volvo T6 and projected hp maximum around 600 to the wheels, on street mode 250 hp to the wheels - Engine will be 200 mm inside the cabin and car will be front mid-engine. Fire wall modded accordingly. - Rear suspension will be the whole deal from a Z32TT as in R230 - Projected rear tyre is a 275/40/18 or 17 - Rear arches widened 50mm from each side along with the fronts - Front spindles and brakes will be from a 2011 Mustang - Rear seats will be left out and a ca 60 litre saddle tank will be made at their place - Front seats will be Sparco ones - Inside will be fully sound and heat insulated and upholstered - All body mods done purely with metal and no fender flares will be used... all metal build is the goal. Thanks for the compliments and hopefully I see you on Instagram!

Fabrication - Patch panels: Part XI Not much was accomplished during the weekend, but something and that is always better than nothing. Without further adieu, lets get the pictures rolling... First of all, I noticed when I was grinding the welds flat, that there were few pinholes in the welds... I marked those and contemplated if I should weld them up. I will just lead the patches and be done with it. That will cover the pinholes and at the same time will smooth the locations nicely... if I do it correctly! I ground the other side also and seems that there is still a lot to do. Still I will be leading it so hopefully that will solve some of my problems with these patches. https://youtu.be/87fuTnBS2bE I'm watching this video from YouTube to learn leading, but still... you learn only by doing I would guess! I also tore the front tow mount out to see what would be under it... not a big surprise that there was more rust! After that I decided to fix these two bad boys... ...pieces already cut out and first patch made... ...both patches fitted and unfortunately more had to be cut out from the right one... ...and welded up. Again came out quite nicely, but I should be picking up pace as these took far more time that they should have taken. Next up I manned up and cut the fuel filler out. I had marked the cut lines, but unfortunately the rot had spread more widely around the fuel filler as I anticipated and I had to cut quite large piece out. Test fit of CAD model. Looks good, but was far too wide and tall. In other words, was unfit. After much toiling and grinding, cutting and fitting, I managed to get the panel bent and fitted to the hole. Unfortunately I did not have time to weld the panel, but it fitted really nicely (top is a little proud so might need to address that) and should be quite ready for welding. Got to say that these kind of clamps are really helpful to hold the piece in place and they also pull the different sheets level with each other. As I'm quite happy about the outcome at this time, I really hope that my welding will be successful! It would really suck to fumble the panel (and the side of the car) at the welding stage... Knock on wood!

Really horrible to hear about your accident John! I did wonder if something had happened as your update schedule has been so frequent. I really hope that you are on the road to healing and you take it easy... Hopefully your back will heal and you can get "back on the horse" quickly. Have a nice weekend and take care! -Olli

Looking mighty fine John! As you said... "No updates only means rust is setting in !" -Olli

Fabrication - Patch panels: Part X This time a quick and dirty update as was the visit to the car. Around 6 hours was spent with these "achievements", but one can only wonder why and how it took so much time... First part of the left rear valance/corner patch. A bit difficult to weld it on as the original metal is heavily pitted/rusted, but still reasonably sound. Lines came out reasonably close to the original and I could move on to the bottom part of this patch job. Before I could start making the bigger patch for this corner, I had to fix one more rust spot. I cut a corner out of the rear rail... ...and used a left over piece of steel to form the corner. I made a rough CAD of the needed patch and again transferred it to the 1mm sheet... ...after few hours (around two) the result was this. A nicely sitting panel, but I really should leave bigger panel gaps for welding... would minimize the proud welds. Tacked with few spots... ...all welded up... ...and ground down. Still need to address these patches by grinding some more, but might need a small belt sander for that so I can do more precise work. Another way would be using smaller flap disks. I also drilled the center support out under the rear lock. It was in the way and I'm needing that space for something else... This. Suzuki GSXR, "aviation style" in appearance, gas tank cap/lid. Quite nicely made, aluminium, 110mm OD and came with a rubber seal and locking mechanism. I'm going to put that at the rear of the car and then connect it to the "tailor made" gas tank. Should be interesting to engineer.

Thank you very much! Those dimples did came out quite nicely even though the tool is not meant to do those. I encountered the trick in this thread: http://www.350z-uk.com/topic/94605-trigs-drift-car-project-350-power/ (post #45 https://goo.gl/08omm0). Quite cheap method compared to the traditional dimple die and shop press. Yeah the reason why I try to document my project as best as I can, is that maybe I can help someone else with the knowledge and they don't have to go through the same thinking process (if my thinking is usable and valid!). Also for MOT, I need to have some proof of the work I have done, so they can put it on the registration certificate and deem the car safe for roads. The spare wheel well was quite easy to remove by just drilling the welds out with 9.5mm drill bit. I tried a spot weld drill, but it was not up to the task and too small for those welds in my opinion. -Olli

Looking really good! Thanks for documenting your project and it is a pleasure to see what you do. Quality of the work is second to none! -OPTaiva

Fabrication - Patch panels: Part IX Well it's Monday now so once again my timetables did not hold. Well nevertheless, here is the update. First job was to mark the inner quarter panels to be cut. I decided that I would like to make a similar shape as the original corners, so I measured 5cm upwards from the cut line. After this I decided to raise the frame jig or rotisserie by 5cm. Now I can just roll around and under the rear of the car with an ordinary office chair with the back rest reclined (and a bit bent). Here it is cut and ground deburred. The part with the marker cross marks will cut away as it still has problems... e.g. three metal layers. Right bumper mount area is quite rusted out. The same corner from the outside. Left bumper mount area from the "inside", outside and underside One can see that there is multiple layers of metal in these spots also. Once again, I can only wonder what the previous (at least one of them) had thought when making these repairs. "Top notch job..." I began tackling the right rear corner by cutting the rotted metal out... ...welding one of the existing seams shut... ...making a quick CAD (Cardboard Assisted Design) template for the patch panel, transferring it to 1mm sheet and cutting it out... ...fitting the patch panel in place with a different type of Cleco and by hand. I tapped it in place with a small weld. Once I had it in correct place and in correct orientation and angles matched, I began making small welds around the panel and allowing the metal to cool after a little while. The original metal was quite easy to burn through, because of the rust proofing on the other side, but I used a flattened copper pipe as backing and heat sink. This way could fill the holes and get reasonable results. Once again a half final result. I will still grind the seam flatter before doing paint prep and "bondoing", but it's quite flat even now so minimal filler required. Also I need to box up the inner side of this corner, but I try to do it at the same time and panel as the inner quarter panel. In my understanding (and to my eye), the panel and surrounding areas did not heat expand and the measurements held. After the right corner, I took an eye for the left one decided to cut it open. Not a pretty sight... Cleaned up a bit and waiting for CAD templates for the patch panels. Well I did make one patch for the inner/upper portion of the corner, but there's nothing to write home about that... let us just say it did not fit as I chopped it 10mm too short. Oops. One last job was to mark the fuel tank cap area for cutting. As I stated in the previous instalment, I will relocate the fuel filler to rear of the car and weld this area closed (at the same time fixing one more rust spot). That concludes my Sunday day and thus the weekend. Tune in next Saturday/Sunday on the same rust channel at the same rust time!

Fabrication - Patch panels: Part VIII This time around post gathers happenings from three different weekends, so it's a "bit" long one and picture rich. Lets start by welding some metal back... and taking some more out. I manned up and welded this piece in that I have made few months ago. The reason for this delay was that I was hesitant about those dimples I made. Then I figured that I can always take it out or refine it more when I have the proper tools to make proper "speed holes". Yes the panel is a bit rusty, but I will treat the surfaces with phosphoric acid, so the rust will be converted into iron phosphate. After I had tapped the inner rocker panel in place, I saw that I had to tear more rust out as there were more patches inside the wheel well. This is what was underneath the patches... I don't get it. Why bother to fix rust issues, if you are just creating more problems by welding three (3!) sheets of metal on top of each other and leaving the rust below. Quite a sorry sight and where I left off the first weekend. Rust, rust and rust. Come the next weekend in this series, I had received my 15 ton hydraulic hole punch. I had perused from the Internet before purchasing this tool, that one can use it also as a dimple die. I drilled the centres with a carrot aka step drill to 20mm as the tool needs that as a starter hole and went to town with the tool. The end result. My system was that first I dimpled the metal by flipping the cutter side of the hole punch around and using the reverse side as a dimple die. The dimension of the dimple is 89mm. Second action was to punch the centre out with a 63mm punch. Quite a good result, if I may say so! This plate was meant to be as a pick-up point for the 48mm tube that I was going to run inside the rocker panel. Measures 125x105x3mm. Tube in question dry fitted... After discussions with my friend and thinking this once more through, I have decided to abandon this plan and leave the tube out. It would just add more weight and not be any more beneficial than nicely made roll cage as it would be difficult to tie this tube to rest of the roll cage. Same friend gave me a radiator for this project. It's a Ford unit. Quite a massive at that with two nice fans. Should provide good cooling... if get it to fit! I will cut the radiator support out along with the lower part. This way I can angle the radiator downward and get it to fit and at the same time fix the rust issues in this area. I will be using the tube I left out of the rocker panel, as the material for the lower part. Finally... I packed the transmission in the car on Sunday and planned to take it to the welder who would mate the Volvo original removable bellhousing to the BMW gearbox. Unfortunately our timetables did not overlap, so the boot became home for the transmission for the next week. One more job this weekend was to mock up a future modification... Third weekend I started by dropping the transmission to be welded and measuring and marking the cut lines for the "rust repair" of the rear valance. All marked up and to be cut. This mod lifts the rear line 12cm upwards and at the same time eliminates my rust issues in this sector. First bite and more to be cut away as I left 5mm surplus material. All that was cut away. Again triple stacked metal, rust and more rust and also glass powder and soda from the media blasting. Before I finalized the rear valance mod, I decided to delete also the rusted out spare wheel well. I drilled all the spot welds out... ...drew a 70cm circle with a shop ruler to a 1mm sheet metal... ...and then free handed the sucker out. Plopped it on and only one modification was needed as the rear lock support protruded outward. Made a notch to the circle and drilled holes for the clecos. Really nice tool those clecos! Pulled the sheet metals tight and made plug welding really easy! The grey stuff is through weldable CRC Zinc which should stop rusting, as it acts as a sacrificial anode. Here is the panel all welded up (might need touching up) and dimpled. Came out quite nice and rigid! Those 20mm holes will be plugged with rubber plugs and covered with seam sealer as will be the whole perimeter of the panel and welds. Here is the "final" results of the valance mod with the bumper mounts chopped off. Quite neat and tidy even without grinding with a flap disc! Of course I still need to connect the inner valance to the outer rear quarter, but for this I might need the fender flares I will be using. This valance mod of course means, that the original gas tank is unusable (was anyway) and I need to source/make a fitting tank. Rear of the tank can be 10cm high and the front can be 15cm high. Width can be around 80cm and the depth can be 60 cm. Might be that it's a bit difficult to find a suitable fuel cell as a product... When you do the calculations, it means that the tank could be around 50 liters or a bit more (I'm not calculating the slopie part). I'm also relocating the filler cap to the center of the car beneath the number plate and for this I'm going with a Suzuki GSXR flip cap. We will see how it looks, but it cost around 9 euro delivered to my door, so damage is not massive if it's not usable. This concludes our episode this time. To be continued on next Sunday!

Well... don't I feel myself a bit dumb. Now that you say it like that, all I can think is, how come I didn't think of that? That is so obvious, but I got fixated in my first thought. Of course your suggestion is much more sensible approach and easier also! Thank you very much for the idea and getting me to see the error in my plan! EDIT: Correct me, if I'm wrong Boben, but wouldn't it be 30 channels for voltage measurement in my original plan? As I would have had 30 series in parallel? I'm using the same logic as you in your previous comment, but again I might be wrong!

Well yea... it was about time. I'm a bit ashamed how my project has been lagging, but hopefully it will start rolling onwards! Your project, on the other hand, takes giant leaps forward, I'm a bit jealous! Thanks Boben for the feedback! I have been thinking about integrating a BMS to the pack, but there is some contradictory information about them. On the other hand, it would obviously be better for the cells and would be nice to know what the cells are doing, but it would add another point of failure to the pack and it would limit the usability of the pack by cutting the use too early. Also there is EV packs, that have been running for multiple years without a BMS and the cells are "balanced" naturally. You can check it here https://goo.gl/63CVc3 and here https://goo.gl/ZqSdmh. That is of course only one man's experiences, but nevertheless. I'm also going to check all the cells by charging them and then discharging them and again charging them full and leaving them to storage so I will see if they lose their voltage. I will be using this kind of charger for this: http://goo.gl/IvCAj2. This way I can see if they are OK as if they are not, they will warm up when charged and that cell will be disposed off. Charging current will be safe at ~0,3A and therefore no problems should arise. Again Jehus' views in this matter: https://goo.gl/yG5SMI. Thankfully he's collaborating with EV West so maybe he knows what he is talking about... By discharging them I will see how high the Amperage of the individual cell is and I can group them together so the series packs are as similar as they could be. This possibility you mentioned about making 30s4p would need some thinking (I'm guessing you meant this)... I would think this would need a quite hefty step-down regulator for the ~108 volt to usable in a 12 volt system. I might be horribly wrong also! Although this of course would minimize the needed Amperage with higher voltage. I'm going to use ready made holders as in http://goo.gl/0D4UwK and further isolate the cells with http://goo.gl/WqycEd. For contacts I will be using http://goo.gl/1fECp9 and soldering the cells to it via individual fuses, 0.25 wire could be good, but I will need to check if it will be usable in my situation. Soldering is not the best method, but I will clean the cell contacts thoroughly and use good flux so the heating will be minimized. Seems to do the trick for quite a lot of people, but we will see!

This truly is correct... rust is setting in, but still some updates are here! Fabrication - "Racing Battery": Plans I A long time has again passed since I made any progress in the project. Life came in the picture as we bought a flat, I'm finalizing my degree and getting a second one, got a second dog, more responsibilities in the office and so on... excuses are many. Now there is something that I have dabbled with in my head and decided to do a post about it. EV and Racing batteries as in Lithium-Ion are quite interesting to me and the next step forward from AGM or Lead acid technology and people are using old laptop cells in making these kinds of batteries. Traditional auto makers are also offering their solutions, but similar solution costs usually thousands of Euro (Porsche). This battery is going to cost me around 100 Euro, if all goes as planned. I'm planning to make a 80 Ah battery with maximum discharge current of 160 Amps continuous and 320 Amps peak. I know this is rather overkill, but better safe than sorry! I will be using Samsung 18650 cells as the building blocks and doing a 4s30p battery. So 4 cells in series and 30 of these in parallel. Nominal voltage will be 14.4 V. There are "better" cells that allow more current through them continuously, but I have a free source for these cells so beggars can't be choosers and 4C peak at start should not be so bad when the continuous is 2C. This gives me a safe and small battery (at least in weight), that has room for expansion and capacity for a data logging system and in car PC. Here are my calculations for the battery. Even though the capacity would be 80 Ah, the weight would be well below 10 kg when finished. Compare this to a traditional battery and the weight difference is huge. We are talking about 20 kilograms. I could also divide this to a two units, where one pack (~60 Ah, 4s22p) would be for starting the car and other high current electronics needed at start and another pack (~20 Ah, 4s8p) would be for data systems and ECU. This battery project I can do in my home so hopefully we will see some progress in this after I have all the needed parts and can begin the assembly! As always, all input is appreciated and welcome!

Hi all poor souls that read my ramblings (John)! Unfortunately updates and work on the car has been on halt for a month as I have been finalizing my degree (chemical engineer). Also me and my fiancée bought a flat so that and all related tasks has eaten a "bit" of my our time. Fortunately we move in in next few weeks, remodeling of the flat is finalized at the same time and after next week, I should have my degree also, so there should be some time to continue the Z-project. Hopefully I can get the project moving during the summer holidays! Thanks to all who read my updates... it really means a lot as I try to be as descriptive and thorough as I can, so I can give back to the community whom I have received so much information about these cars and various parts. Hopefully there is some usable information there! -Olli

Looking really good John and I look forward to what you have come up for the mustache bar! Your build really is top notch! -Olli

This time around I'm still messing with the left rocker panel, but some progress has been made! As the keen eyed reader might notice, the left rocker panel is gone as a whole and so is the front corner of the rear arch. There were three layers of metal on top of each other and all of them crusty rusty. I'm no expert, but it might not have been the best structure. Rocker panel inner part in the making. The metal I used is 1,5mm and it will go from the front of the car to the rear inner fender. As I don't have a proper dimple die kit, I had to resort to making my own. All that is needed is (at a minimum) a drill, hand held router, some roofing screws, a sheet metal hammer and hard plywood. I mapped the needed hole pattern to the sheet metal, drilled through the centers with a roofing screw to mark the center points to the plywood and then routed 5mm deep circles to the plywood. To keep the sheet in place, I used the roofing screws and clamps and did three dimples at a time. The end result... The panel came out reasonably nice. It did go a bit wavy, but after I put it to its place with clamps, it straightened out quite nicely! Next I need to get a suitably sized hole saw eg. 50-57mm one and drill the centers out to lighten the panel and to make it look more OEM. Even though no-one will see the panel once ready... Still some final fitting to do to the panel before I can weld it in place.