AkumaNoZeta Posted September 17, 2012 Share Posted September 17, 2012 Progress on my car has been extremely slow on my Z but I did a lot to it and feel like I should share. I don't have enough to start a good build thread yet, tell me what you think so far. Here's how it was when I first got the car: http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/68829-vent-knob-and-floor-problems/page__p__648881__fromsearch__1#entry648881 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebekahsZ Posted September 17, 2012 Share Posted September 17, 2012 Looks great. While you are fabricating, be sure to put a jacking well of some kind in the rocker panel about mid-way to allow you to jack your lowered car - and get both front and back tires off the ground at one time for quick tire changes. My dad was raised in Mountain Home; my great uncle ran Peace's Grocery there 'till he died. Look up Dr. Jay Thompson - I went to medical school with him. Perhaps when your car is together we can meet somewhere between Little Rock and Mt. Home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AkumaNoZeta Posted September 17, 2012 Author Share Posted September 17, 2012 I wouldn't mind, but the car won't be done for a LONG time. Especially with my limited income. I just hope by the time it's done that Branson will still have the Z car festival. I haven't been to one yet, and I don't want to go until I can drive my Z there. My inner rockers are completely replaced by a 2X4 0.120" tubing and I have a 1.25" wide strip of 1/8" thick steel welded on the bottom of them to act like a replacement pinch weld. I think that would be strong enough to use for jacking, or would it not? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarveyZ Posted October 13, 2012 Share Posted October 13, 2012 Nice, looks good man. I will be doing my floors this winter. Thanks for giving me a little more motovation lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AkumaNoZeta Posted December 10, 2012 Author Share Posted December 10, 2012 I finished the connector on the driver's side. My progress has been very slow, I know. It appears I may have to modify the pedals to compensate for the higher floor. The boot sank the cardboard down a little bit while taking the photo, so I think the pedal is going to land at mid-foot. And here you can see that the bottom of the accelerator comes in contact with the would-be floor. I'm going to wait until I get seat brackets fabbed up and re-mock up the pedals and see how it really feels before I cut them up. Planning on using dual brake master cylinders so I'm not too concern about changing the pedal ratio since cylinder bore can compensate for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Namor Posted December 11, 2012 Share Posted December 11, 2012 Maybe its an optical illusion but are your floors actually lower than the top of the framerails? Basically, are you going to have a raised portion down the middle of both the passenger and driver sides where the frame rail is? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AkumaNoZeta Posted December 11, 2012 Author Share Posted December 11, 2012 Yeah, the rail will be jutting out. The subframe connector is a 2" X 2" X 0.083" tubing and the floor is in the middle of that so the rail sticks out 1" from the top of the floor and 1" below it. I also have 2 sections of 1.5" X 0.083" round tubing to connect the subframe connector to the 2" X 4" X 0.120" tubing in the rocker panels. I've read multiple times that through-floor subframe connectors are stronger which makes sense to me thinking it makes the floor act more like a gusset instead of something more or less just along for the ride. And we all know that a straight tube is stronger than one with bends in it. I just put both of those theories together in my design. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Namor Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Yeah, I would buy that it will be stronger. I guess the real question would be how much stronger. I don't plan on tracking my car, so I think the added stiffness would largely go unnoticed. I also wouldn't want to have to explain to everyone who gets in my car why there is a bump in the floorboard. But I hope it works out well for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AkumaNoZeta Posted December 12, 2012 Author Share Posted December 12, 2012 (edited) Well, after I started dissecting the car I quickly found I had nothing to work with. The floors that were in it were nothing more than 22g sheet metal screwed around the perimeter (I didn't cut any of the floor out, the removed sections are what were left after removing the rigged up "floor". Also the rockers were completely shot. It looked good from the outside but I quickly discovered that one of the previous owners sprayed expanding foam in the area, then shaved it down, bondoed over it, and painted it. I also have a stick of 2" X 3" X 0.083" tubing to replace the front sub-frames inside the engine bay. These too are filled with the same expanding foam, as well as the rusted out rails being completely buckled above the sway bar mounts. Back when I was still driving the car I had to jerry-rig something of my own because the front torque box (that's what I call it, the sloping part of the subframe behind the TC bucket) busted out under braking forces. It was my only driving car back then so I had to do something just to still be able to get to work. It's not a track car, in fact I hope to have it as a reliable daily driver again. I'm not putting a cage in it and it's just getting a Toyota 7M engine. The 2X4 in the rocker isn't just to put back the structure lost from both inner and outer rockers being gone, but because I wanted reassurance that the car can handled being jacked up from them over and over again for another 40 years. I don't think the hump in the floor will be nearly as noticeable after sound deadening and carpet are put in. I will give the Nissan engineers all the credit and respect that they deserve because even with no floors, half a sub-frame missing, and no rockers, it still felt stiffer than my rust-free foxbody and it stayed right behind my friend on his cafe-style KZ650 on the curvy back roads of Arkansas. I will say this though, it took me two days of placing jacks and jack stands in just the right areas to pull the twist out of the unibody. Edited December 12, 2012 by Grim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AkumaNoZeta Posted March 10, 2013 Author Share Posted March 10, 2013 (edited) 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. Edited March 10, 2013 by Grim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.