Dan Juday Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 I like the Z32 lights. Yes, I'm clearly biased. But the lights themselves are interesting. The complex curves and the multi-layer construction (now extremely common and overly exaggerated on most new cars) are what make them a nice piece to look at. I think they could still be made to look nice on your S130 even with the rather squared off design theme of the car. It's the dang body shop jumping the gun on you that botched it. When I did these on my 240 I spent hours and days aligning, realigning, adjusting, cutting metal, patching metal back in, looking, thinking, starting over. In the end the entire rear panel from the edge of the hatch down had to be removed and a completely reshaped custom rear made to coalesce with those beautiful taillights. It was a ton of work and money, and in the past I've said I wouldn't do it again, but now with the benefit of time I have to say I'm very glad I did. The car is beautiful and unique. I say cut your losses and find a true craftsman if you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself. Find someone who WILL WORK WITH YOU, not a production/collision shop. It will be the only one like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeeboost Posted January 7, 2011 Author Share Posted January 7, 2011 I like the Z32 lights. Yes, I'm clearly biased. But the lights themselves are interesting. The complex curves and the multi-layer construction (now extremely common and overly exaggerated on most new cars) are what make them a nice piece to look at. I think they could still be made to look nice on your S130 even with the rather squared off design theme of the car. It's the dang body shop jumping the gun on you that botched it. When I did these on my 240 I spent hours and days aligning, realigning, adjusting, cutting metal, patching metal back in, looking, thinking, starting over. In the end the entire rear panel from the edge of the hatch down had to be removed and a completely reshaped custom rear made to coalesce with those beautiful taillights. It was a ton of work and money, and in the past I've said I wouldn't do it again, but now with the benefit of time I have to say I'm very glad I did. The car is beautiful and unique. I say cut your losses and find a true craftsman if you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself. Find someone who WILL WORK WITH YOU, not a production/collision shop. It will be the only one like it. Don't get me wrong, I love z32 tail lights in general. I think they are a perfect fit for the z32, and yeah they do look awesome on your s30. When I google pictures of the z32 rear, it baffles me how they can achieve the straight / flat look from the factory (unless this is a 2d illusion). I've been comparing your Z side-by-side to mine for at least a couple hours now. I think I can see how you angled the panel to achieve that factory look, and I'm trying to mimic the setup on mine (thought photo editing programs), but I'm still a little confused. Especially on the inside of the tails. They curve in a little on the inside, are relatively flat in the middle, then curve in more and up towards the outside. I can barely see on yours where they curve in on the inside, but you mask it very well. On the z32, I don't understand how they make it look so flat, because it doesn't look like any part of the center 'dips' in, so to speak. I can see how they have the outside start to wrap around the body, but even then, it just amazes me how straight they got the lights to look from the factory. Do you by any chance have any pictures of your Z looking straight at the rear at eye level? (basically the same thing as the ones I'm posting up in this thread) Here's how my body shop mounted mine. The tail section of the 280zx is recessed a little...they filled this in. In doing so, they raised the center of the tail lights a litte more than the sides. They did this as an attempt to 'straighten' out the tails as much as they could. And it did, when you look at the pictures of the lights straight from the rear, they look relatively straight. However, this throws in added curvature that really screws with the design of the rest of the rear and doesn't look tasteful IMO. The only real fix I can conceive is to remove all the fiberglass/bondo they laid on there, have the tail section still recessed into the rear, but raise the center of the tail area and have it gradually flow in to meet the recessed portion of the rear 1/4 and tail panel...pretty much exactly the way yours is. I'd also get the real JDM tail lights b/c they do look much better than the knockoffs. It would be great to have the tail section all flat the way the 300zx can pull it off, but it seems like that'd make the rear end stick out too much. The problem with this isn't money...I wouldn't mind paying more for an outcome I'll be much happier with. It's time. This car has been in the shop their shop for coming up on 4 years now. They are extremely unmotivated with it, and will tinker with it in their down time between insurance jobs. They started off as a custom shop and they still are, but started slowly working in insurance claims. Realizing that they can make much more off these jobs, they don't focus so much on custom work (my speculation, anyways). At this point, basically everything has been finished. All they need to do is a few touch ups on the front end and get the custom headlight setup angled properly. I know that having them start over with the rear would be adding an extra year or so to my car's jail sentence, and I've come to this conclusion: I MISS MY DRIVING MY ***** CAR! So even though I go through my wishy washy moods with the tail lights, I'll probably leave them be for now. However, if I ask them to change the paint scheme in the rear, that wouldn't cost me much extra time. That's why I asked the opinion above for the z32 scheme. /rant They were the only custom shop I could find in Austin at the time, and that's probably still true today. I didn't have much of a choice, but from the small amount of reviews I could find on the net at the time, they had a good reputation. (They were pretty new when I dropped the car off with them) Curious, though, what characteristics of their work leads you to the "botched" description? No offense taken, I'm just curious...I actually really appreciate your help with the manner, since afterall you've mastered the installation on your s30. One thing that does help you, though, is you have flares that flow well the recession of the z32 tails. It just works with your car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Juday Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 ... It just works with your car. I think they will work with your car too. Shoot me a pm with your e-mail address and I'll send you some pictures from several different angles. The positioning of the lights is critical to how the finished product will come out. I probably tried 15 different postions untill I resolved at the what is there now. I can fill you in on some of the minutia of the details as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nismo_zxt Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 (edited) I wanted to do an conversion me too, but hard to find something that meets the line of the 280ZX. That want I have found few year's ago... Mustang Style R33 Style Edited January 9, 2011 by nismo_zxt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcs Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 Finally got a picture of the rear yesterday: Here I tried to show the final product by shading the lower gas tank guard (or whatever that grill thing is) and elminating the lines around the tail light housing. I think the lights look fine in the pictures straight from the rear, but then from the side they still look like poo. Maybe I'll play around with the black paint surrounding the lights. Anyone else feel free to edit the picture. Also, the tail lights can't be moved any higher. They're in the factory light housings, but due to the way the metal is shaped in the back, they wouldn't be able to just scoot the lights any higher without cutting out the rear panel and completely redoing everything...which I don't think would be worth it. Hi, I think I have an answer. If you swap them from side to side and flip them over I think the round corners will match up with the panel shapes much better. It will mean the clear lenses are on top but that should be ok. Is it possible to try a functional fit? pcs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeeboost Posted January 19, 2011 Author Share Posted January 19, 2011 I'm not sure if it would work that well with their odd curvature. They are currently molded in the back (not my choice either) so the only way I'd be able to test it out would be to completely tear apart the rear end and start over. I believe I can get them to fit better, it would just require more work than what they put into it. I'm wanting to start over and plan on talking to the body shop about it, but like I mentioned earlier, I don't want wait another year or so before it's finished. They're already so close with it now, so unless they are 100% sure it will only take them a couple of weeks to a month to redo the rear, then I'm gonna have to settle with that. Aside from that, does anyone see an improvement with the newer paint scheme posted above? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stravi757 Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 (edited) how you like these? Edited March 19, 2011 by stravi757 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nismo_zxt Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Simple but clean with the black housing. Where they come from? What Car? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stravi757 Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Simple but clean with the black housing. Where they come from? What Car? Ya I like how simple they look and how simple it really is to do this. This is from a 280zx I owned for a little while, i bought the car a few years back to do my first turbo swap(that engine is long gone ). I actually sold the car back to the previous owner, he was so happy I called him back. he regretted selling it. But the ligths are just standard truck lights. they cost like $10 each, Im thinking about doing this on my 280zx. Heres another shot of the car: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dassan80z Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 I've been looking at doing something custom as well. There are a few styles of super bee tail lights that look pretty good. I used one of you pictures, and put in some lights for an example. Also the dodge duster, and 70s road runner tail lights also look like they would work. http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&biw=1024&bih=574&gbv=2&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=super+bee+tail+lights&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq= Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dassan80z Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 skyline tail lights for sale http://charlotte.craigslist.org/pts/2269545637.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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