My Free Widebody Project

[TomsCoupe]

updates?

[oink23]

when your done with the back, will you take a picture of it from over the car, like stand on your house and take a picture, so i can see the curves of the car.

[steal my nametag]

man... i logged in after all this time hoping there would be some new posts about this car... hope all is going well gijonas.

[mull]

I had not seen this project until now.

 

Wow, the rear fenders looks great! Almost like stock. Nice job! I like it a lot

 

However, If I would do this. I would cut the door skin off and make the doors

a little wider, and maybe bring in the "hip" at the quarter window to get it to

blend in a little better. More like the original shape of things.

 

Either way, this will turn out way cool and I'm looking forward to more updates!

 

Makes me wish I had another project Z : )

[Guest S12]

thank god you dug this back up... this is truly awesome. i am half way through my wide body build up as well... i have an s12 however, so i have the "boxy" appeal AND curves... been looking for a front end conversion. i know the s13s (240sx) have done it before with a Z front end, but they are a hell of a lot more round than the s12. i wish they had a junker around her so i could play with it...

 

INCREDIBLE WORK buddy! now, for some more pics.... haha

[G.I.jonas]

OH boy,here we go...Well for the time being i'm afraid nothing will be happening for a while.I've had to face the facts about this hobby and realized just how bad my income to project cost ratio is.It may be on the shelf for now but i'm not getting rid of it.

[mull]

Isn't the topic of this thread "my FREE widebody project" ? : )

[Guest TeamNissan]

Ya thats the tittle but with body work you still need supplies, even if you don't pay for parts or services. No free lunch you know that .

[G.I.jonas]

Ya thats the tittle but with body work you still need supplies, even if you don't pay for parts or services. No free lunch you know that .

 

Thanks....Yea that and all the crap that i know i still need in the future.

[GOTHALOSISM]

Have you thought about getting some sponsors from body shops in the area? I see shops around here with sweet cars that were done to promote that shop. Just an idea to get the project rolling again.

[Shift]

Hate to dig up an old thread, but any updates?

[G.I.jonas]

Hate to dig up an old thread, but any updates?

 

Haha - yea right silly boy...with all my projects and motivation??

 

You could call this an update??

 

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=131893

[happynukes]

isn't stupid how a 500-1500 body will end up costing thousands to get it close to what you want and then even more for what you really want?!

[BSD]

Amazing work, honestly... It's motivating me to do the body work on my car.

[drwharton85]

updates?

[ragefear]

when I first saw the door I was impressed but I just thought it flowed too quickly, then you primered it and it looked a lot better, but I agree with Careless, I think it would have been better if it were more gradual and the blending started further forward...

 

either way, Kudos! Looking better than I could ever do!

[Challenger]

As I believe has been stated, Id like to have seen the doors widened a bit also. Would help with the flow of the rear end.

 

Im thinking of doing this on my parts car, see what it looks like.

[MrZ]

Great project!!!

[Daeron]

I cannot BELIEVE it took me over a year to notice this.

 

For advice/input on my part, I start by saying this: picture what a caricaturist would draw of a 240Z.

 

Could you possibly snap a few photos of how the car looks as-is? in reading through the thread you linked to as an "update" of sorts, (regarding the Miura shape and how it inspired you) it seemed like there have been some updates in the actual appearance.

 

What I would be working towards is an effect identical to the back of blueovalz's car, and complement that concept on the front side of the fender flare. I (also) would personally have extended the "flare" further forwards on the door, but not by much. I would like to see the door end up with the front, bottom, and rear edges "flared;" the flare line continuing through the car from the front marker light, through the door handle recess and into the "butt cheek" as I think of it, then finally taper downwards slightly and inwards as the rump comes to meet the rear face of the vehicle.

 

(I LOVE this project and none of the critique here is intended in a negative sense at ALL, but I wanted to word it strongly so I could emphasize the issue I am trying to point out for clarity of communication)

 

As you have it now, the transition from the sail panel behind the quarter window (vertical side plane of the car) to the horziontal, and then back to vertical, through the area just aft of the quarter window to the back corner of the car, is completely buggered.

 

Here is a shot of blueovalz's car in primer:

 

here is a shot of a GTO conversion car: (in my mind I can picture a GTO car that has a much more Z-ish looking integration of the three planes)

I REALLY like the concept of shooting for something GTO ish for the backside of the car, but that would require shaving the existing rear corner of your car from being as square as it is now to a much rounder aspect. The same would need to be reflected in the front. I would shoot for an oval shaped backside similar to this GTO, but with about 3-4 inches in vehicle "width" removed, to give the entire "rear corner pillar/wraparound to the "butt" outline" a tight, drawn-in look. Maybe not quite as exaggerated as 3-4 inches.

 

The door skins I would wind up making essentially a three-dimensional U-shaped plane, stock sheetmetal surface for the middle half of the overall length and height, meeting your "flared out" front fenders and rockers.. I am picturing extending the ide you worked into the back side all round the perimeter of the door to meet "widebodied" front fenders, but the front side of the door may well work fine as-is if you can hit the front flare juuust right.

 

I would say some rrreeeeall slow-blending, but ultimately substantially flared front fenders (again taking this flare in all three dimensions, so it bows AWAY from the current line every so slightly) that flare back to stock location by the headlight bucket would complete this car, but they would be tricky. Stock fenders with smooth-molded flares (not the bolt-on affair that everyone loves these days) would match the car well enough though.

 

 

NOW... I say all this because I (amazingly) JUST stumbled onto this thread, and you are almost EXACTLY duplicating what I saw in an old (76? 78?) hot rod magazine (pretty sure it was Hot Rod Magazine or one of the other super-big ones that have been around forever.. not my scene TBH) The article claimed to be the first Big Block (it was a chevy) in a 240Z. They basically just welded an additional set of front fenders and rear quarter panels from a crash repair parts supplier on, faired everything in, and were off. I was trying to explain this idea in a thread someone made discussing chopping the entire vehicle up to "wide body" it.

 

In my opinion, and with all due respect to Terry and ADORATION of his car, this car EASILY has the potential to blow his out of the water when it is done. However, in my mind, the "ideal" widebody S30 Z car would look distinctly like his car, and your car looks like this ideal car in progress. I am going to try to take a couple of your photos and stock front fender photos and use paintbrush to make some sketches to illustrate some of my ideas. Basically, picture, say, the caricature view of stony's avatar, or something similar. Mild exaggeration in all dimensions, making for a ferrari-esque muscularity overall, as well as MUCHO more room for rubber underneath.

 

In conclusion (for now)

[Daeron]

One thing that stuck out to me was the interruption of the line flowing from the front corner of the car, through the signal lights and door handle. It was "picked up" on your original door flare, and I did some paintbrush tweaking showing what I would shoot towards.. all of this is suggestion and I imagine it will probably be well taken.

 

I circled the area I tweaked here showing what the door would look like closed. Most of my tweaks only show a portion of the changes I envision, and I circled the zone I worked in here.. all I refer to is the change of overall curve here:

 

The blue spraypaint shows an area I would "lift" and the green spraypaint shows an area I would "drop." The red curve at the tail focuses on the approximate region I would envision the disappearing edge of the butt-cheek to be; I imagine pushing the corner edge in towards the driveline axis of the car and possibly lifting the bottom rearmost corner up a good bit a la 250 GTO, and the red curved lines near the door show a VERY rough approximation of how I might accomplish the bulbing or ballooning profile line to incorporate it all into a single undisturbed line. I couldn't get a decent curve in paintbursh, but the shape of Terry's car is what you should go for, simply transposed further forward on your car.

 

 

I think re-integrating that line into one would accomplish alot to make it LOOK like the "wedge taper" effect begins earlier on the car, because as it is you have to look at your car and Terry's car side by side to really see that yours is much further forward at ALL, and the actual difference is night and day; his doors are practically stock compared to yours. Also reference the 70's corevettes in this region for guidance.

 

(speaking of 70's corvette, what about doing door handles off of one of those?)

 

And here is the concept of the tail section.

 

I used a yellow line to indicate my conceptualized "edge" of the vehicle; combine that line with my rearmost red curve in the second photo in your head. The red squared off U shape indicates the edges I would have cut on that piece of steel you added; note that the "bridge" of the U would NOT be parallel to the front edge of the added piece of steel. The red curved outline shows the perimeter of the plane I envision to be the tail panel, and the purple spray painting indicates the zone that I have the most trouble with.. Looking at it now I think I went too far forward on the car, but I was attempting to spraypaint purple in the area I would slightly "lift" outwards to match the overall "hump" of the buttcheek. This top outer corner, after all, is one of the most important quadrants of a butt, after all.

 

 

 

I am sorry to bombard you with so much I think I would change if it were to fall into my hands all of a sudden.. but please, understand that your work has stimulated my imagination so much I had to go to such lengths to give you my input; I am NOT a widebody person, and I am in LOVE with this even more than with blueovalZ's car, which I had thought was the only widebody I really liked for an S30.... so ALL this booklike postage should be taken as a compliment to you anr your work, and as encouragement.

 

EDIT

 

I forgot to mention that my profile of the tail panel would almost fit the stock 240 tail light lenses... turned SIDEWAYS....