I Like Exclusive: V. 2.0 Fairlady Z content

[Dalers08]

90-96 came in either N/A or TT form.

[1badg35]

crazy weekend, but managed to get a lot of the projects underway. hoping to have the car done in 3 weeks so i stay on schedule.. things should get interesting

swapped out all of the adjustable rear suspension components for some better components from spl. Going to be getting the four corners aligned in a few weeks, so i figured i should get my new components in before i do so.

pulled the front coilovers out, so i could disassemble them, remove the upper pillowball mounts, strip, and then powdercoat pearlescent white. pic is after i bead blasted one of them



i bought a blasting cabinet last week so i can bead blast projects just like this, and so far so good. i like how large the tool collection has grown over the years.. dont mind the mess on the workbench. way too many little projects going on. the bench is 26' long, and its almost completely full from end to end with projects. haha



finished up on the welding of 9 bbs rs centers so i can have them cnc redrilled and then shoot them over for some powder/ polishing. none for my car, just stuff i had to get done.

chopped up the upper intake manifold and removed all of the stuff that needed to be removed. now for some welding....

did some more work on the second motor on the stand. this tt motor is almost completely disassembled, all of the parts are laid out on the floor waiting to either be sold or cleaned up and put back on. i made a few decisions, and i think i am going to build this motor similarly to the way i built mine, and then throw it in a 240z. not for a few years though, need to buy a house first (hopefully with enough land to build a monster garage) so i can store a few cars and have a small shop to work on the projects. the garage we built last year over here is 26'x26', i am hoping when i buy my own place, to build a garage 28x42 or so.

[zcar4me]

Here's a pic of my car at the local autocross.

It's no where near the level yours is, but you've given me some great inspiration!
I've bookmarked this thread and check it once a week. Love the progress!

[Tubaman]

Dang man, thats gotta be the cleanest Z i've ever seen.

[mighty mouse]

Hey Vince there's a nice shot of your car in this month's Import Tuner- they did a feature on FCF.

[1badg35]

thanks andy, yeah a friend posted it on FB, and i saw it a few days ago. I heard modified did a small feature on fcf too in this coming months issue..

keep on the lookout for modified and possibly import tuner in late summer. should see much much more of it in there.


thanks zcar4me. yours is looking good! i need to get mine out to the track a few times this year. havent had it out there in a few years.

[1badg35]

time to get this upper manifold finalized.



removed all of the areas that are no longer needed, will be welding in and filling all of those areas. chopped up runner #4 on donor manifold, modified it a bit, shaved all the casting marks to match, and now comes the fun part...

[1badg35]

getting work done...





decided to flip the manifold for some reason for these pics. whoops







now to get out the tig welder

remember- this is what the plenum looked like before i powdercoated it last year. the 6th runner has always been known to starve that cylinder because of its shape. that in conjunction with the u shape to the stock fuel rail means that cylinder 6 is starved of fuel and air. took care of the fuel thing by dual feed, taking care of the air part now..



that was after 7 hours of shaving. so far another 6 or so hours in shaving, deleting the balance tube, chopping and replacing runner #6, and lots more to come.

[1badg35]

spent most of the night last night finishing up 2.5 sets of custom work to RS centers, so i could get them to the machinist for a redrill. luckily thats in the past now, so i can get back to finishing up the car. was in the shop till 1:30 last night on these centers, and dropped them off to the machinist before work this morning.

I also decided to leave the work of one of my suspension components to the professionals, and had a friend whose shop makes custom tubular race suspension components mock up a tubular set of lower adjustable rear control arms for the z. now i can adjust camber a bit more, adjust roll center, etc. cant wait to see them finished, get them disassembled and powdercoated, and on then the car. they should be quite interesting..

[zcar4me]

I also decided to leave the work of one of my suspension components to the professionals, and had a friend whose shop makes custom tubular race suspension components mock up a tubular set of lower adjustable rear control arms for the z. now i can adjust camber a bit more, adjust roll center, etc. cant wait to see them finished, get them disassembled and powdercoated, and on then the car. they should be quite interesting..

Not sure if you know already, but Nagisa Auto makes a tubular rear lca. SPLparts used to sell them long ago. I found them here as well:Click me

Also this gives me another excuse to post. Nice work on the plenum!

[1badg35]

thanks for the link. Yeah I contacted Kuah at spl a few months ago, and they are thinking about releasing a new designed lca in the future off of their original design, but i want to get it on the car before this season, and it was an opportunity to have some components made, so i jumped on the task.

I am going to be doing the testing on the LCA, and then may have them reproduce for a small z32 crowd. Just another option out there for a custom LCA. would help with wheel clearance, and give quite a bit more adjustments, especially roll center, which is needed on a really low car.

[1badg35]

so, summer had a few small feature images in a few magazines this month. super street, import tuner, modified. and she is currently up for photo of the week

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=384147061612866&set=a.384146418279597.104057.115746028452972&type=3&theater

please vote for her.

lots more to come by way of magazine features, lots...
working out the details for the shoots this week i hope, so I can see her in a few august/september issues

[BaggedV36]

^That reminds me i gotta go pick up import tuner, im in there too!

[1badg35]

alright, so i need some opinions before i finish up the intake manifold. I am about to smooth the intake manifold out again, and need to decide on a color/finish for it.

heres a picture of how it will look if i do the same wrinkle black on the intake manifold.



OR

i can change things up a bit

gloss black smoothed upper intake manifold- wont require me to modify any of the colors of surrounding parts

OR

i can also do gloss pearlescent white to match the wheels- i will then need to change the color of the shaved timing covers, the shaved throttle cover, the throttle bodies, and a few surrounding parts as well.

here are the only pictures of a smoothed white manifold that i have ever seen.





important info

I am leaning toward the wrinkle black still, for several reasons. One of which i have not spoken about, which is that I am going to have the entire exhaust from the headers all the way to the mufflers ceramic coated white. This wont happen this season most likely, but its in the future, and 100% sure thats the move i want to make. Obviously, the black upper motor parts will look better with a white exhaust, or at least the way i currently have the car set up.

heres a picture of what the ceramic coated headers and exhaust look like on other cars





thoughts?

[MommysLittleMonster]

Go with the wrinkle black. If you do white, it will discolor with age and show EVERY imperfection/blemish over time, not to mention get dirty just by looking at it funny.