Ironhead

Already there. God awful mess. I wish I had a "dirty room" in the shop to do this sort of thing. As it is the sanding dust gets everywhere.

Try though I might, I have been unable to get the driver's side front fender to fit acceptably. It just angled inward too far in the rear portion, the result being it greatly overlapped the cowl panel and was totally out of alignment with the front door. I do not blame the parts, as I know that making fiberglass parts to perfectly fit on a 45 year old car that has been through god knows what is impossible. But it gradually settled in that the fender was just not going to fit without modification. It I tried to force it outward to align with the front door, it took so much force that it would tweak the OEM fender mounting flanges out of alignment and open a huge gap between the fender and the hood. I have never done fiberglass work, but there is YouTube after all, how hard could it be? So I made long perpendicular cuts in the area I needed to re-align the part, and held them in the proper position with sheet metal welding clamps. Then I filled in the gaps with 5 minute epoxy, just to hold things in the correct alignment while I worked with the fiberglass. This didn't work incidentally, just moving the part was enough to crack the epoxy in one place, and I had to return to the welding clamp as I started applying the fiberglass. I built up 5 or 6 layers of glass on the underside of the part, perhaps 3/32" thick, to strengthen the area and hold the "pie slices" in the correct place. Then sanded down the cracks with large bevels, to remove the epoxy and give the fiberglass a decent amount of area to grip and spread the load. Then it was just a matter of building up 7 or 8 layers of fiberglass in the area until it stood slightly proud of the original surface. Initial assessment is that fiberglass is pretty easy to work with, almost idiot proof. Of course if the area immediately cracks I will be singing a different tune, but it seems to me it should be just as strong, or nearly so, as the unmolested fiberglass. Now once it cures, I just have to hand sand it flush. I plan to put a skim coat of filler on the fiberglass parts anyway, just because they are a bit ripply as they come... Thanks for looking.

I would like to hear as well. For years I have tracked an E30 BMW with fantastic handling. I am scared to death I will finish my very expensive years long "Z" build and wind up with an unwieldy dog of a car with a big engine that only goes fast in a straight line.

Just more fitting of the fenders. I just have it taped in place, but it appears that the front passenger side fits vastly better than the driver's side.

Working on getting the driver's side fender fitted. It's definitely fighting me. Get the hood gap correct, door gap is awry, and vice versa. I knew it would not be a slam dunk bolt on though.

Yes, N/A...it is the 525 HP/480 LB FT LS3. No drag radials or even drag starts planned. Glad to hear you have had good luck with a similar setup. I should just quit worrying and run it....I am committed now anyway. If it breaks I will have to come up with something else.

I would like to know too. I am running an R200 shortnose in an LS swap and am a bit apprehensive about it holding up....

Got the shell totally stripped down (again) and bolted back on the chassis cart. I started working on fitting the Ztrix rear over-fenders. I have to say, I could not be happier with the fit/quality/sturdiness of these parts. Just perhaps 1/2" trimmed off just behind the door, and the fit was basically perfect. Definitely not what I expected for fiberglass body parts. Only have the driver's side done though. Hats off to Ztrix! Thanks for looking.

Great build and great SEMA pics.... Was it a typo, or is $20K for the inflatable paint booth the correct price? I mean, holy crap, I think that is about what a high end permanent paint booth costs...

I have mainly been dismantling and storing all the mechanical/electrical bits on the car, to fit the body panels and get everything ready for rustproofing/epoxy/seam sealer/primer/paint. This is going to be a dusty/messy process and I figured no reason to expose everything to that. I also have to conjure some sort of half-assed spray booth in my shop. Not sure what form that will take yet.... I did manage to adapt a shifter boot to work on the car. The inner rubber portion is just a generic "Hurst" part, to lessen noise, fumes etc. The outer boot is Nomex to be fire resistant.

So many businesses kill themselves this way. They don't want to spend the money to hire people to take orders and get products out on time, and act as if delivery time is irrelevant. Customers will only tolerate horrendous service for so long, no matter how good the product is. I ordered from RetroSpec a bit over a year ago, which I know won't help you. Items took much longer than expected to arrive even back then. I was pretty happy with them once I did get them, however.

I only used the turn signal/high/low beam switch on mine. I melted the solder and removed all the OEM wiring. It's pretty simple to figure out what does what....just put the switches in their "on" positions one at a time, and use an OHM meter to see where continuity exists between which solder terminals. There is one ground terminal, and when switched "on", the other terminals are connected to ground. One you have it all sorted, re-solder wires in whatever colors make sense to you. It can be a little tricky to wire the wipers and get them to "park", but there are several tutorials online for various configurations. The biggest headache is wiring the LS3, just because of the vast number of wires needed. It can be confusing. You know the wires to the electronic throttle and the accelerator pedal need to be shielded and the shield grounded, right? Also, the resistance of these wires needs to be correct (as low as possible) or the throttle won't work properly....

Honestly the biggest factor is your budget. I just finished doing what you describe, wiring the entire car as well as the harness for the LS3. I used a PDM, which made things much simpler and more flexible. But there is no denying that PDMs are expensive. If you go the "mil-spec" route with the wiring....that is another significant expenditure. Any way you slice it, this will be a fiddly and time consuming job...but I imagine you know that...

I always wondered about that too. I figured I wanted some grip to work my fat ass out of this little car.

Thanks gents. As far as the floor pieces...I won't be leaving them bare metal...getting a coat of either powder coat or bed-liner

Maybe your experience will be better. Even without the shipping damage, I just think these parts are too brittle and fragile to be usable.

Well....um....since you already ordered....I will just wish you the best of luck. It did not go well for me.

I just finished making footrests/false floors for both the driver and passenger sides. This wasn't absolutely necessary, and I debated whether I wanted to do it or not. I finally decided to for a couple of reasons... Firstly, the drivers side floor can now be adjusted up or down with spacers to fine tune the height of the pedals relative to it. There is absolutely no practical way to move the pedals up or down, and I wanted some adjustment capability in case I decide I am not happy down the road with where I mounted them. I did the passenger side primarily because I have a lot of wiring running along the firewall where a passenger's feet might go, and I made the footrest/kickplate to keep feet out of the wiring. Also, just to have continuity with the driver's side. The are just bolted to weld nuts on the bottom of the OEM floorpans, so they can easily be removed and replaced. The portion directly below the pedals I am planning to cover with grip tape. Thanks for looking.

I use a Miller Diversion 180. It is fine for my purposes, but in retrospect I think it is overpriced for it's capabilities. For anyone just starting TIG welding, it is one of those endeavors that is very simple in concept but the execution can take years or decades to perfect. Sticking two pieces of metal together is not difficult, but making a nice looking solid weld without over-cooking the crap out of the part is exceedingly difficult. People like the guy on "Welding Tips and Tricks" make it look easy, but.....it isn't.

Still dicking around with finishing the wiring. As will most things on this build, it is more time consuming than I anticipated. All the wiring is complete except for terminating the front harness that serves the headlights and front turn signals. Basically I am just testing things to make sure the wiring is correct before I heat shrink/boot the harnesses, which will make repairs complex and difficult. The only problem I have been unable to sort thus far is getting the ECU and PDM to talk via the CAN bus with the digital dash. But I have checked the CAN wiring about 10 times, and know it is correct, so I think I will just move on and sort out the CAN nonsense later on. For the wiper motor I figured I would do the Honda swap, since it is well documented and apparently simple to do. I actually could not find a suitable Honda motor in any of the junkyards in my vicinity. The '91 Civic motor is NLA from Honda, so I wound up buying a brand new '94 Accord motor. Apparently the wiring is the same with the Accord motor, but it has the splined drive shaft that has to be ground flat on two sides to fit the Datsun actuator arm. I quickly ran into a problem, however. The Honda motor is powered on by grounding either the high speed side of the motor, or the slow speed. I am using a PDM for the electrics on the car, and it can only output +12V, not grounds. Yes, I could have used relays and all that to overcome that problem, but I didn't want to add that complexity unless I had no other choice. So I found this wiper motor: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/cwa-56005181 It is meant for a Jeep, but uses a similar three-bolt mounting as the Datsun/Honda motors, and has a "flat sided" driveshaft that interfaces (with a bit of filing) with the Datsun actuator. It is also powered on with +12V inputs which made it compatible with my PDM. It was easy to make it "park", just by wiring the park signal from the motor as an input to the PDM, and programmed the PDM not to turn off "slow wipers" until it receives the park signal. Best of all, it was cheap. I know it is probably a Chinese/Taiwanese part, but I don't anticipate using the wipers much anyway. I debated deleting them entirely, in fact, except that I wanted the car to remain street legal and that requires wipers. If anyone wants a genuine Honda/brand new '94 Accord wiper motor, I will be selling one. Thanks for looking.

Looks great. This is pretty much what I am shooting for with my build, just a bit toned down so I can drive it to track events rather than having to trailer. You have any additional pics posted anywhere?

It is kind of funny the way our minds work as builders. I am building a Z currently....with LS3 and pretty much everything else upgraded. There are still many limitations to the build simply because I am using the Z bodyshell. It would have made a lot more sense, in terms of time and money and every other practical consideration to just buy a 3 or 4 year old Corvette. But, I didn't want a Corvette. I wanted to build something. I know a big element of my thinking was that the Z is smog exempt in my state....so I could build whatever fire breathing monster I wanted and still street register it. Also, I have always really loved the IMSA Zs from the 1970s. But beyond that I can't really explain my choice. A Vette could be as fast or probably faster for less time and money. But I'm just not interested in Corvettes. Just highlighting how "impractical" this all is....LOL

I know...I have so many photos on the net from over the years that I hosted on Photobucket....no way I am going back to rehost them all. When PB pulled their initial round of BS back in 2017 I switched to Imgur. It is free and easy to use. Eventually PB relented and the photos started to show up again. But now, after this most recent crap with blurring the images and extorting us for money, I went to PB and deleted all my photos, just to be done with them. I honestly think they will fold soon. I am wiring my Z from scratch, with a PDM, and I am just trying to figure out how to get the park function to work. Most of the DIYs on the subject approach the topic from the angle of integrating the Honda wiper motor with the stock Z wiring. I don't have the stock Z wiring, so I'm a bit lost. I know green/black is +12V.....black is ground....blue to ground is slow wiper....blue/yellow to ground is fast wiper. I just cannot wrap my head around what to do with the blue/white wire to get the wipers to park.

I'm trying to sort this all out on my car ATM. Of course Photobucket has once again screwed up the internet by blurring out the images, so I'm not getting much out of it. Why doesn't Photobucket just hurry up and go out of business?

The bulkhead connectors for the wiring and battery cable required weird holes with flat sides, so that the jam nut could be tightened without the connector spinning. I couldn't for the life of me conjure up how to drill/cut/grind one of these holes on my own (I did try...it was a fiasco). So I just cut a large section out of the firewall and had a machine shop make the holes in a piece of 18 gauge....to be welded in. Just another small hurdle overcome.