iBang

Cad work is largely complete! Here's what you helped create: A center coil pack cover for RB25 that is "inspired" by the old L-series valve covers. I think it came out looking pretty nice! Pretty close to what I was going for originally, don't you think? Now I just need to find a machine shop to CNC this thing for me out of some aluminum. That plus a little powder coat and I'll have a nice new center garnish for my RB25

All of them awesome! Thanks guys, that's a great help. I'll post up what I'm doing with the pictures when I get a little further along.

Not sure if this is the right place for this post, but better than nothing. I'm looking for a specific picture of an L-series valve cover, specifically this one: Credit to rossman, pic is borrowed from his build thread. I need a picture looking straight down onto the top of the valve cover and I need it at as high a resolution as possible. I'm going to base some cad work off of it so I need it to be reasonably close to straight overhead - I can work it a bit in photoshop for it being a few degrees off but any more than that and its no good. Would someone with one of these mind ducking into their garage and snapping a picture? I'd really appreciate it and it might lead to something pretty cool for the members of this board down the line a bit. Thanks in advance!

I looked up klearz on google and the only Z stuff I could find were the front turn signals. Any links to those tail lights? I don't mind switching to a later style S30 lens if its what I want color wise.

Here's a question - does anyone know of an aftermarket 240Z tail light replacement that might have a clear lens? Maybe something in a ricer altezza style? I want to do LED tail lights as well but I want them to be a more modern look with clear lenses and red LED's in a nice pretty housing, but I've never seen tail light covers in anything other than OEM red. If I could get a set of altezza lights and throw away the crappy innards and just use the clear plastics over my own custom inner housings with LED's that could be very cool. Alternately it could look horrible but that's the chance you take.

I'd love to see the interior bits. I'm about to need to source an entire interior plastic set and I'd really rather buy a brand new set of FG pieces and paint to my specs rather than getting a 40 year old set of plastic pieces that will just start cracking on me immediately.

Congrats! I look forward to being in your position. I graduated last fall from Business school and while I didn't have nearly the total you had, I'm still working on those pesky left over student loans and credit card bills. I'm hopeful to have everything taken care of by or in early 2011.

I'm glad someone brought it back up! I never saw it since I'm a relatively new member. I love to sail although I'm strictly an amateur at it. I owned a 16' American fiberglass day sailor. Yes, I owned a boat made by a company that makes toilet seats. The performance was about what you would expect from a toilet seat as well. The keel vibrated, the hull plan was horrible, but with the jib up and a stiff wind you could heel it over till the first couple inches of deck at the widest points had water going over them. Had some good times with that boat when I was younger. Broke the front mast stay one and the side stay another time... landed the time with the front stay since the dock was close and straight downwind, the sidestay was in the middle of the lake. Had to get a tow for that one. One day I'll get another boat but I want either a bigger keel boat or a cat this time. I have a real love for cats thanks to some time rented in a couple hobies.

Cool build. That picture of the BRE front lip finally clued me in to what the old fiberglass piece was that's been in my car since I bought it. Awesome to find that you own aftermarket parts you don't know about.

Ive seen a few people pull it off (several of them in this thread) but it seems that the magic that makes them work is a body kit that includes a set of side skirts. In my opinion 18's just look wrong on a car without skirts.

Mmm... that is some serious eye candy. Anyone have some nice pictures of FI engines with sexy fuel systems? I need some inspiration for my RB25's fuel delivery system.

I haven't actually tried craigslist yet, not a bad idea though. I didn't really want to pull that head off but if its worth something I may go ahead and pull it. I really wanted it to go to someone who would use it but that was back when I had a 2000sq/ft shop and could afford to have entire engines and transmissions laying around taking up space. Now I'm down to my garage and a 5x10' storage unit.

Since I haven't had any luck selling my whole non-running L24 with 4-speed and I no longer have room for it so I'm going to scrap most of it. I've already pulled the carbs since I know they are worth a bit. Is there anything else I ought to pull before I roll it off my trailer at the scrap yard? At the moment its all there, accessories and everything.

Actually S12 front subframe, S13 front lower control arms, S14 knuckles... I know - what a combination of parts, right? There's a method to my madness actually. The front subframe is a S12, mostly becuase the S12 is the right width allowing the subframe to fit to the Z's rails. I plan on using the S13 front lower arms since I have a set that came along with my S14 knuckles with brand new S14 ball joints. I believe the are a bolt on fit to the S12 subframe and no matter what I use it will have to be shortened a little so I decided to go ahead and use the arms with fresh ball joints. All of this of course is pretty much dependent on how everything actually fits together when I get the car ready for the swap to happen. The S14 knuckles are for the 5 lug hubs that they come with. Rather than working within the limitations of wheel selection available for 4x114.3, I'm using my decision to use modern underpinnings to my advantage and doing the typical swap that S13's do to get 5 lug hubs from a S14. I'm really looking forward to all of the custom fabrication to put everything together and make it work but I have to hold on for a little while. I'm currently working on the car in my Father's garage since I'm in limbo without a usable garage until I move back to Houston and the car has to remain able to roll for a little while yet. Once he clears out his sailplane from the other bay of the garage and the stuff he's currently got in front of the car moves over there I'll be able to put it in the air for a while and install the new front subframe.

With Texas summers in the future of my Z, AC is a necessity for me to use my car where I live most of the year, made only worse by the fact that I'm going to paint it black. Since I don't have any of the original parts from my RB25's donor car and I also want to simplify the under-dash system in my Z, the plan is to use a classicair or similar completely custom solution to putting AC in the car. That way everything that goes in the car is new, modern, and hopefully works the best.

I went in to Houston and got some work done on the Z this weekend. Since I'm working on a non-existent budget right now I decided to tackle stuff that I could do without spending anything. 1st up, the old cracked dashboard. I pulled the dash out Sunday morning. For a car that doesn't have a lot of systems under the dash there sure is a ton of heavy gauge wiring under there. Fortunately for my sanity none of the original harness is going back in. Virtually everything electrical on the dash is being replaced including the gauges, AC/heat panel, even the original ignition switch. Since so much new stuff is going to have to be wired in I'm taking the opportunity to replace the 40 year old wiring with fresh wires and a new modern fuse box. That though will wait till later, for now my task was restoration of a dash that has spent the last 20 years or so baking in the Texas sun. Sadly I didn't take as many pictures as I should have to keep things interesting since I was focused on getting as much work done as possible before I had to leave for home so you'll have to make due with my after-the-fact pics. Here's the dash after my work. You can see where I did a quick test with some vinyl dye to see how that worked to restore the fading. It did a wonderful job but unfortunately nothing is that simple. Before I can re-dye the dash I need to get those awful cracks taken care of. I decided to follow the advice of another HZ member (who unfortunately I can not give proper credit as I have not yet figured out where my thread subscriptions went with the new forum) and started on his restoration method. This calls for expansion foam in the cracks, a bit of dremel work to take the curled edges down, and some bondo brand bumper repair expoxy. I would have loved to have gotten that far but as you can see thanks to an 8hr dry time all I was able to get done today was the foam which did a wonderful job of filling the cracks as advertised. One problem I'm faced with that I'd love some advice from the HZ forum members - My glovebox lid is pretty much done for thanks to those years of sun warping it beyond repair. The box itself was also gone. I'm considering going ahead and just sealing up where the box was and making the dash seamless on that side. Its either that or find a glove box and lid in good enough condition to restore. Opinions? Since I couldn't continue with crack repair I moved on to disassembling the gauges and preparing the cups for the speedhut gauges that will be going in there. I created a bit of work for myself unfortunately by going through a couple cans of primer before I finally found one that wasn't plugged up and spitting bubbles on everything I was trying to prime. No worries though, nothing that another couple of sanding sessions won't take care of. I primed one metal face for the small gauges before I doubly realized that I wasn't likely to me re-using those, and even if I do I will powder-coat them. That's all the work I got done, but I do have more pictures of additional parts that I've sourced. First up is this wonderful griffin oil cooler. I doubt I really need it but since I already had it and had forgotten about it I decided it would find a home here. These don't look like much but they are the S14 front knuckles/hubs and S13 front arms that will be used with my S12 front subframe conversion. Nice pieces with fresh ball joints too! Might have to kill them though when I disassemble to run them through powder. No pictures of them but I also picked up a set of 1000lb AC delco engine stands to use to make my rotisserie. Currently my plan is to keep working on the interior until the dash is restored and ready for its new electronics. After that I'm going to start in on building my rotisserie. Unfortunately before I can throw the chassis up on it I need to repair the bent in bumper mount location on the back right from the fender bender that originally took the car off the road back in the 80's. Not much damage but I have to spend some money to buy a stud welder so I've been putting the job off since money is - as always - tight. More updates soon!

Could be worse:

I want to see one with chrome bumpers.

You would have a better time with sheet metal if you had gas but it will do the work. I have the same unit and I have done sheet metal with it, no gas. Learn how to really use the wire-feed speed. I've found that fine-tuning that is the key to getting heat into the welds. Once you learn the unit pretty well you can actually do some nice work even without a gas bottle. At first I used too much speed and it made for lumpy pitted welds. The trick that I finally figured out is that you need to get your speed as low as possible without blowing holes in the metal so that you get a lot of heat in to the joint. With heavy stock that's easy but with sheet you all too often end up with hole so be cautious and play with some scrap first. Do you know which kit your brother bought? I have a 220v mig but I'd love to set my little unit up as a mig so that I can do stuff with an extension cord rather than being stuck to the wall with the outlet.

I've been looking at the clasicair kits since I want to install an entire new kit to get AC with my RB25 in my Z but that may not be very practical for someone who wants to use the stock system both under the hood and under the dash.

Love that installation. I plan on using that set in my Z when I get to that part of things.

Love the headlights on that gray car.

I'm planning on installing a hydro rear brake on my Z when I finish it. My plan is to actually hide the system under the car and use the stock e-brake handle or whatever I retrofit in there. To be honest I don't have a real reason for wanting one but as someone who also does drift events regularly, I want my e-brake to work RIGHT when I use it so I'm going hydro... and I may take out the Z once or twice so that I can get that classic photo of full opposite lock with a trail of tire smoke for my desktop.

Voted. I can't wait for this car pack.

My girlfriend supports me with my Z. As a car enthusiast and motor head herself she understands the desire very well. Heck, she sold me the RB25 for my swap when she parted out her race car. That said she also helps restrain me when I get some of my wilder ideas and start thinking about buying things I probably shouldn't. It works out pretty well overall.