I Like Exclusive: V. 2.0 Fairlady Z content

[1badg35]

yeah i am a designer. I have bachelor and masters degrees in architecture, but have been designing products for quite a few years, and sketch almost on a daily basis. I need to go home and take pictures of the wall at my desk. that 1 sketch is one of hundreds of different designs from over the years.
If all goes well though, those seats are going to be produced, and the z will be the first pair produced.

[326]

Nice work

[1badg35]

small updates here and there. finished the welding on the battery tray area. welded 5-6 holes and the main pass through to the fender that i no longer have a use for. just like normal, if im not going to use it, why not clean it up and simplify.. welds penetrated well, although after grinding flat always look like doo doo, so disregard. haha. going off to paint on monday morning most likely if all goes well.

some pics to keep you in the loop



since the fenders and bumper are off, took it as an opportunity to clean up some things. cleaned the fender wells out (surprising how dirty they got after 400 miles of use this year) and then i moved forward. since the car is all apart, thought it was a good time to start on another small thing off the list, the brake cooling vents. Removed the front bumper support, and the side fiberglass housings that used to house the fog lights. cut the openings in the housings so i can attach the ducts that will go back into the wheel well and aim at the front brakes. Now for some planning, for routing the duct hose to the rotors. but before this, i topped off the housings with a thin coat of matte black paint, and reinstalled them.

pretty clear here how the hose is going to be run



housing prepped and painted


opening in the housing that will accept the duct that is in the front fascia, and will attach to the brake cooling hose that will run to the back of the hub



also sanded and light buffed the front aluminum under bumper support just because i was in the mood to clean things. much better

[1badg35]

got a bit caught up in things this week, but back to the project shortly. body shop had to be put back to this coming monday so the car is all apart waiting for the fun trip over there.

oh and by caught up, i mean some fun finishing the big turbo build on my good buddy Dougs audi tt. thats me doing some bumper shaving in a pea coat and loafers after we finished all of the work to the motor on tuesday. Turbo came back from precision today, so it should be running within the hour



yes pea coat and loafers. since they are like our girlfriends, we build cars in style. haha

[softg]

nice work

you take a skate break in those loafers and peacoat?

[1badg35]

haha, friends garage in that pic, and the skateboard is usually holding up a motor of some sort. easy way to slide a motor in when doing an install. we made some time lapse video of the motor install in the tt a few weeks ago, but have yet to see it. the skateboard comes in handy for those events..

the fairlady made it to the shop today with no fenders, bumpers, mufflers, hood, center panel, or interior plastics. pretty funny drive to say the least. I do have to say the car absolutely roars without the mufflers. need to get a video when i pick her up from some more fresh paint

[1badg35]

alright, so since the car was at the shop getting a little red paint, i might as well spend a little time on some of the small projects that were on the list that didnt require the car.

one thing that i plan on knocking out is the intake manifold redesign and simplification again. I removed my pcv system, so i am getting rid of the one way valves on the intake manifold and welding that shut, among other things.
1. the intake manifold has an oddly shaped runner for cyl 6. its been known to starve that cylinder, so i am opting to steal a runner from another intake manifold cyl 4, and chop/weld it in so all of the runners are now the same. should help with flow, as well as just look more normal.
2. The balance tube on the top of the intake manifold evens out pressure between the two banks. It serves a good purpose, but is just downright ugly. I came up with a few plans to modify it, but then decided i would relocate it altogether. I am going to be welding the holes for the balance tube up top shut, and tapping the underside of the manifold (basically where the pcv valves went into the mani) and will be running a 8an line from side to side. will wind up doing the exact same thing, but you wont see it.
3. without the balance tube, this is what you see (dont mind the holes covered by blue tape, they will be welded shut and smoothed. notice how short the throttle cable cover is now without the balance tube.... lets fix that


i bought two scrap throttle cable covers, took some measurements on a spare intake manifold, and went to town. chopped the rear end off the one cover, and the entire front off the other. I removed all of the 3d letters with the nissan logo since i strongly dislike company logos and plastic welded the two pieces together. Now the runners all have a cover that fits flush to them, and it covers the little bit of wiring for the coil packs/injectors that now became visible. now for some sanding, smoothing, and a little white paint..

[dav3design]

Next level shiiiii right here!

[ef9jdm]

ur fairlady looks ill love the engine by clean and pure sex

[Icana4dit]

the attention to detail is crazy, you must be very anal about this car haha

[1badg35]

anal is an understatement.. haha







almost back and reassembled. about 4 hours now perfecting the body panel alignment and cleaning the bay is about half done after 2 hours. bay might officially be complete! now onto the motor stuff, and the rest of the list

[Svenska94Aero]

So awesome. Amazing work as always sir, you have a created a real gem!

[1badg35]

thank you. lots more to come

thought this was funny. When i went to the shop to pick the car up and start on the cleaning, she was parked next to this '32 packard. I believe thats what Frankie told me it was. cars of this caliber are in the shop all the time, but this is downright hysterical.

roof line of my car is about 5-6" lower then the belt line of this packard. Notice the front wheel and how it is almost as tall as the z.



crappy iphone pic, but heres the money shot of the height..

[1badg35]

after about 3-4 hours of sanding and shaping, the throttle cable cover is ready for paint. Took a bit more time then i would have liked to get all of the lines and the main center crease perfect. And i spent some extra time getting the sides to mold around each of the runners of the intake manifold. But its now in primer and it looks ready for some paint. Now i need to figure out what to do with it in terms of paint, logo, maybe some graphics? Not entirely sure yet, but it will most likely be minimal with the same white as the other bits on the engine.





one more thing off the list. next modifying the intake manifold some more to make this all come together.

[Icana4dit]

love every update