A musician's therapist (The $300 Z)

[seattlejester]

My seats are floor mounted (on plates welded to tubular frame rails) and you can see out pretty easily, if Omar is close to 6' than he is taller than me so I'll let him chime in on his experience.

 

Usually they run a broom stick test, although if your car is something like certain convertibles where you are in contact with the bar, with good restraints, they seem to give you a pass if you have the absorption stuff as mentioned. My bar was no where near my head, it sat right in front of the map light, to hit it my seat would have to snap on the cross bar first. If you are using a roll bar just design it so that it angles back.

[Jboogsthethug]

5 minutes ago, seattlejester said:

My seats are floor mounted (on plates welded to tubular frame rails) and you can see out pretty easily, if Omar is close to 6' than he is taller than me so I'll let him chime in on his experience.

 

Usually they run a broom stick test, although if your car is something like certain convertibles where you are in contact with the bar, with good restraints, they seem to give you a pass if you have the absorption stuff as mentioned. My bar was no where near my head, it sat right in front of the map light, to hit it my seat would have to snap on the cross bar first. If you are using a roll bar just design it so that it angles back.

Do you happen to have any pictures of the setup you created? I'm leaning towards something like that probably.

 

and interesting. I've never been to an event so I'm a bit on the outs as far as knowing how it goes in real life rather than on the paper. Thanks for the input!

[Jboogsthethug]

Also, Omar, are you a music teacher?

[seattlejester]

I'd prefer if it met up with the rocker and trans tunnel, but it works for now.

[Zetsaz]

1 hour ago, seattlejester said:

if Omar is close to 6' than he is taller than me so I'll let him chime in on his experience.

 

Your setup is very comfortable for me. I'm not a giant fan of the how high up the top of the doors come, but you have to make some sacrifice for the fitment. I fit in it great and see out just fine. Don't feel like there's more of a blindspot than normal.

 

57 minutes ago, Jboogsthethug said:

Also, Omar, are you a music teacher?

 

Yes sir! High school currently. Bands, jazz, marching music theory, mariachi (weirdly enough... it's way more fun than running a group guitar class which is the more standard option students would have). High School schedule is pretty exhausting. Example, we had a marching rehearsal yesterday and a football game the band is playing at tonight. Which means I haven't finished those rails like I hoped... slows things down, but hey! The car is here now, which means even a couple welds/bolts a day is more progress than I was making last year. 

Edited September 21, 2018 by Zetsaz

[Jboogsthethug]

8 hours ago, seattlejester said:

 

I'd prefer if it met up with the rocker and trans tunnel, but it works for now.

 

oh so you used just a flat piece of metal just as reinforcement, thats a pretty good idea! Have you had any problems with the bolts getting caught on things as you're driving?

 

7 hours ago, Zetsaz said:

 

Your setup is very comfortable for me. I'm not a giant fan of the how high up the top of the doors come, but you have to make some sacrifice for the fitment. I fit in it great and see out just fine. Don't feel like there's more of a blindspot than normal.

 

 

Yes sir! High school currently. Bands, jazz, marching music theory, mariachi (weirdly enough... it's way more fun than running a group guitar class which is the more standard option students would have). High School schedule is pretty exhausting. Example, we had a marching rehearsal yesterday and a football game the band is playing at tonight. Which means I haven't finished those rails like I hoped... slows things down, but hey! The car is here now, which means even a couple welds/bolts a day is more progress than I was making last year. 

4

 

Thanks for the input on his setup, Getting your seats to fit just right is like a jigsaw puzzle ha. And my brother in law also is a music teacher, he really likes it! He actually just moved to Abu Dhabi to teach music at a school there, about 45 minutes from Dubai. I think his schedule is a lot less rigorous out of the states but last year here in Utah he was going non stop with the after school commitments. You music teachers go hard! I just barely figured out what your thread name meant and remembered you were a teacher. Man I shouldn;t be working on my car if it took me this long to figure that out haha

 

[seattlejester]

My situation is unique in that my frame rails come into the cabin. So the frame is welded to that frame rail. I'm not sure if I would just trust welding a plate to the sheet metal on the floor. 

[Jboogsthethug]

12 hours ago, seattlejester said:

My situation is unique in that my frame rails come into the cabin. So the frame is welded to that frame rail. I'm not sure if I would just trust welding a plate to the sheet metal on the floor. 

yeah makes sense, are those the bad dag rails or just some pieces you picked up from a metal depot? I have 1" x 2" bars I'm going to lay down instead of flat bars, so then I'm an inch off the floor. I think that will work better for my situation, as they will still be tied into the trans tunnel and the rocker for additional support.

[jpndave]

On 9/21/2018 at 3:16 PM, Zetsaz said:

 

Your setup is very comfortable for me. I'm not a giant fan of the how high up the top of the doors come, but you have to make some sacrifice for the fitment. I fit in it great and see out just fine. Don't feel like there's more of a blindspot than normal.

I've never really found a problem with the height of the doors. It feels like your dropping down into a "cockpit" so to speak. The car is just small and low. Other sports cars I've driven are similar, some maybe not quite as much. Just part of the character I guess. The interior door release for example is near impossible for a newcomer to find but once you are familiar with the location it's just right in the perfect place, lay your hand down and there it is.

[jpndave]

14 hours ago, seattlejester said:

My situation is unique in that my frame rails come into the cabin. So the frame is welded to that frame rail. I'm not sure if I would just trust welding a plate to the sheet metal on the floor. 

The plate probably isn't ideal since it's only 2 dimensional and strength to weight would be better if raised up and tied to structural members.

 

How obtrusive are the rails up into the floor? I've toyed with that idea but am concerned with it always being in the way. Strength tying everything together and totally flat bottom underneath would be nice. I'm not sure that the longitudinal rails mess with aero much but they certainly can't if they are not there. I don't want to sidetrack Omar's thread much but thought I would ask as you both have been in the car.

Edited September 23, 2018 by jpndave

[Jboogsthethug]

Yes, sorry for the thread jack Omar! I'll allow you to resume your own postings.

[jpndave]

4 minutes ago, Jboogsthethug said:

Yes, sorry for the thread jack Omar! I'll allow you to resume your own postings.

Jboogsthethug, I wasn't implying you are off couse with your posts, to the contrary they seem right in line with the topic. Just because they apply to your car too isn't a reason to leave it out or chat about common interests. I have had people go on a rant totally off course in my JK build thread and that's frustrating. Omar can speak to his preferences but we've talked about ideas for his seat mounts a few times so I expect any input is appreciated. My comment was just about the interior rails. A quick opinion from seattlejester and Omar is appreciated, any more than that should probably get a new discussion thread.

 

On your 1x2 tubing idea, it sounds like a good option. If the metal underneath is solid you can save weight and potential rust spot by cutting off the bottom of the tube or maybe have a "u" channel bent. Structural channel is pretty heavy and rough for these applications. If you are OK with lighter material (less than 16ga) you are welcome to use my brake to bend it. It's rated to 16ga but as you approach the 4' length it doesn't make really crisp consistent bends. If you're in Riverton the drive is not horrible. It's a "box and pan finger brake" so we can even bend up a bit more complicated pieces. Same for Omar's project. We talked about the option a bit but he was pressed for time trying to get the car back up so he can work on it through the school year. For heavier there is a job shop in Logan that is reasonably priced. Any heavier stuff I just have them do.

 

HTH to clarify some, Dave

[Zetsaz]

Looooong, overdue progress post.

 

@seattlejester came by towards the end of the summer/early fall and showed me some tricks. Used the seats as a jig for the mounts and had some simple tabs off the ends at the correct angle so I wouldn't have to mess with the stock sliders. 

 

Initially I had "finished" the new mounts out of 1 inch tubing. Then I realized how much of a pain it was to get two separate pieces of square tubing to seat correctly, with the correct angles/distances for the seats. So I put it off for a bit but committed to putting more tubing along the rails running front to back. Made them easier to set into the car and tack in.

 

 

Tacked them in forever ago only to finally get back to it today after some sunshine motivated me to pick up the slack and.... the free moving sliders were installed backwards after being reupholstered. It was rubbing against the nice new material (UNACCEPTABLE) but flipping it around made the bolt holes no longer line up. Broke the tack welds and redid the tabs, and now I've FINALLY welded in the seat mounts. Far from perfect, and took much longer than expected, but they're very sturdy and I'm happy with it for now. Some of my welds are very clearly in the "booger weld" category, but when I get them good they're looking REALLY good. Or at least not terrible for someone with like 2 hours of welding experience haha. 

 

 

Will upload more pics tomorrow when it's light out. Finished them up as I was losing daylight. 

 

Edited March 4, 2019 by Zetsaz

[Zetsaz]

Have been seriously slacking. This isn't a "woe is me" sort of post but the community here has been seriously helpful so I figured I'd share an update. 

TL:DR - I've had some personal struggles that have held me back from getting anything done. skip past the following block if you just want to read strictly car stuff.

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I started going to therapy (the real one!) back in September. I was having serious issues with motivation, sleep patterns, feeding myself properly, etc... Was diagnosed with adjustment disorder related to some events in my personal life/relationships, and borderline clinical depression. Therapist is fairly confident neither will last forever, but they've been seriously holding me back in terms of doing anything other than things I'm scheduled to do for work and for my students. 

 

Fortunately with the help of therapy and an effort to socialize to avoid feeling isolated since I'm far from any family, and my town doesn't exactly have a lot of young people I can make close friends with, I've been able to slowly get better. Some days are harder than others but in my personal journal I've made it a goal to get at least small projects done weekly, even if it means something as little as turning a screw. 

-----------------------------

 

Latest baby project is moving forward on fuel system. A while back I bought an in tank pump. I don't have the heart to cut into the good metal on my "new" shell so I've been trying to keep as much as possible stock and practical for a daily long term. I went with a Hyfuel instead of the more popular Aeromotive Phantom due to cost (the Phantom is $150-$200 more at a minimum). Quality on the Hyfuel seems great, whether or not I regret going with it in the future remains to be seen, but for now I'm happy.  Decided not to cut and weld the tank, purely due to practicality and cost savings. For now I just drilled a hole in the top. The guys from Mighty Car Mods used a phantom but placed it on the hump on the low side. I figure since my location original had a pad on it, it'll prevent me from having to drop the tank as far.

 

I'll have to measure this for anyone interested. Note that one of the vent tubes is pretty close to where I cut. I actually had to grind the end to allow the inner pump plate to mate flush to the surface. Luckily the opening you have to cut is 4.5". Guess what else is 4.5"? Standard size flap wheels and cut off disks. 

 

The pump is fairly low profile (the wide angle phone lense makes it look a lot taller than it is in the pic) so at worst I'll be lowering the tank about 1/2". Still debating using the red ring which will allow me to use an O-ring so I don't have to replace the "gasket" every time I have to pull the pump which might be frequent when I'm first putting things together, but adds 1/4" to the height. 

Bellow is the red ring and my test fit with just the pump. 

 

 

 

That's it for now! Next step will be running fuel lines to the engine bay, which fortunately I now have a better idea of how I want to do. Might not get to that for a while, since I'm also debating pulling the engine to make the things I need to do on it a bit easier. Baby steps, folks. Baby steps. Current motivation levels in general will probably make this a much longer term project than I had ever wanted, but between focusing on using my money to be with people I care about, and being a music teacher that does this purely as a hobby on a budget, I have to be okay with making small steps at the quality that I want. 

[Zetsaz]

Also, currently reflecting that I have more than $300 dollars into just the fuel tank right now haha. I need to drop that part of the thread title. 

[Jboogsthethug]

Ha you may indeed need to change the name! Sorry to hear it's been rough brother, keep pushing and props on going to therapy! That is taboo sometimes but I personally think it's great. Are you planning on moving back to Utah from Washington ever?

[Zetsaz]

On 1/10/2020 at 8:16 PM, Jboogsthethug said:

Ha you may indeed need to change the name! Sorry to hear it's been rough brother, keep pushing and props on going to therapy! That is taboo sometimes but I personally think it's great. Are you planning on moving back to Utah from Washington ever?

 

It's not impossible, but currently Utah isn't a great place to teach. Varies greatly district to district though. More likely I'd switch to a middle school job closer to Seattle where I'd have more evenings off. I did my student teaching with middle school and loved it. The combination of band camp, football, basketball, extra rehearsals, split concerts due to how many groups we have that already double my concert load compared to other music teachers, and spring trips/tours all start to wear you down. 

 

Middle school job and getting my master's degree would be a lot of personal time gained and a huge bump in pay. 

[Zetsaz]

Had a small burst of motivation today since some plans got cancelled and I took the time to finally swap the oil pump and spindle to the ones I need to run the turbo distributor for MS3X. 

 

Got the engine set at TDC on the compression stroke, but I think the spindle might be one gear/spline offset clockwise. Will retry tomorrow in better light by using vise grips to hold it in place since I did most of my work in the dark today. I have a nice carport, but no garage and poor lighting along with early sunsets in the Pacific Northwest make for difficult time working the way I'd like. I have a decent LED work light, but I think my next paycheck I'll be buying the strongest work lights I can get on a budget.

 

Edited January 24, 2020 by Zetsaz

[Exposed]

Looking for help isnt always the easiest thing to do, good job on seaking some!

What pump are you going to be running? I'm looking at redoing my fuel system as well this winter/spring but still in the planning stages. I had picked up a Bosch 044 and didnt really want to swap it out for something else. Are you going to be running the stock fuel level unit?

[Zetsaz]

I'll be running the fitech 340lph that came with the kit. I think the Bosch 044 is 320lph? 300? Details get foggy on parts that aren't specific to the S30 since, as a hobbyist, this is the only car I've worked on to this extent. 

 

Yes, stock fuel sending unit. I did a bit of measuring and eyeballing to make sure that where I placed the pump wouldn't interfere with the OEM floater.  I bought a new one that isn't 280z specific since the old one was very worn out and rusty, so it doesn't actually have the third wire for the low fuel light that the 280z had. Doesn't much matter since I still have Speedhut fuel gauge from when I was running the F body tank in the other shell.