haha I've given up on the Tommy K Mikey! was more into it when I was going to paint it black anyway, not too keen on tommy k + gun metal. Taken a break from posting stuff up, what you can see in this thread now is about 1/2 what I've got to post... urgh
Suspension And now the car's with me! next to the daily <3 But we were still full steam ahead. Ryan was in Sydney for a week and a half before he was set to head home in my NA. In that time he helped me and a friend of mine (Hendo, the homo friend of mine with a Poopra that keeps jacking my account) fit all my adjust able suspension that I'd had lying on my bedroom floor for 6 months: so we got on it. it's so much easier than I thought it would be! coilovers first. The rear camber arms were dicky to line up, had two guys standing on the hub to bring them down enough to line them up. we couldn't actually get the front upper control arms on. the bolt on the chassis side you can't get to, so you have to take off the bracket it goes onto... on both sides, one of the four bolts that holds it on was seized. we just couldn't do it. oh hai der i'll get a shop to the front upper camber arms. adjusting the coilovers down will come soon
rear main leak sooooooooooooo... it was not long after the car moved in that we had an electrician around to install some lights in the garage. after shifting it up the drive for him... there was a 20 cm puddle where my new zed had had a wee. of oil. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO http://www.aus300zx.com/forum/showthread.php?t=311816 looked like a rear main. so I borrowed Rob260's trolley jack and a pair of axle stands and with ryan and his stands, we smashed it. exhaust, driveshaft, box, clutch (car is on stands, bricks and tiles were just in case) custom shaft! oil in the bellhousing... 1500 kay old lightweight fly coming off... such a bummer to not need a clutch change while we were there lol so there it was. it wasn't the rear main leaking, but as far as we could tell it was because they leak out of the gearbox breather hole. rear main was brand new replaced with engine refurb. it was a rubber seal between the rear main carrier and the sump. unfortunately the sump has to come off to replace it, so we patched it with some permatex black. we put in a new rear main anyway, just in case.
the detail slapped on a UAS radiator air guide I picked up for $40 from old school member brian, awesome guy! and a 35w 6000k HID kit from chatmod for $60 I iirc, had 55w in my last zed and it was just too bright, 35w is awesome. also went and grabbed some front tyres from arvin for 80 bucks, bridgestone 235/40/18's, not exactly what I was after but they'll do! got an engine splash guard from rob! already had the front. forum stickers and my girl applied a woman's touch to my previously flawless third brake light...
things slowed down now. ryan left with my NA, and I had a few grand of debt to pay off before I could make any real progress. so small jobs in order to keep myself busy. painted my FMIC: black on one side, unpainted on the other. so I can swap it and have it visable when I get my fulls lol engine enamel, vht. there's not such thing as radiator paint
next I did my front lights. i gave the fogs to ryan because ducts are on the menu later on. this left me with no parkers... so I picked up some aus spec dummy lights and got to work: 45 minutes later! so clean, slots in nicely. picked up some orange globes, unfortunately orange globes only come with offset prongs, not opposite. they point at 12 and 4, instead of 12 and 6. so I grinded one off and all is well. since the aus spec lights aren't actually tinted, there's no problem seeing the light. it's a clear lense over a black case. theeeeeeeeeeeen I got ambitious and cut out the unused section and retrofitted my parkers there! good to have some since they were in the fogs before... mad happy! had to extend the loom to reach that far (no big) but an hour of soldering/heat shrinking later and it's like it's OEM. ****in' mint! got some new LEDs from China for $1 each which are MUCH brighter, look heaps better than these jaycar spec ones.
picked up some FMIC piping (the car came with an unfitted FMIC with no piping or brackets to hold it) from old school member brian again, $300 of custom kit for $50 and I put a bid on a full set of 240z exterior emblems and won the lot for a lowly $16. sold the two I don't need for $15 and kept the two cast iron old school Z badges! going to get them re-chromed, one in black and use them for the two planned nose panels (stock and quad vent stillen) also grabbed some red silicon intake hoses from Z Steve here for $50, fit like a glove we also had a crack at mounting the FMIC. the piping wasn't made for this intercooler so it wasn't a good fit, but after a lot of manhandling and loosening/re tightening of hose clamps (and breaking one) and couplers, it fit. it'll do for now. when the time comes I'll take it to a shop who can bend the pipes a little and make it perfect. Special thanks to Mitch who came down to pick up a wheel and helped a lot making it happen! He also supplied some strips of aluminium I'm using to make the supporting brackets. while we were mounting it we just sat the intercooler on some phone books so we could work out where the pipework wanted it to sit height wise. also, loving the decals on the air guide
Actually. I dont think i ever gave you the history of this one lol. I bought the entire car for $1000. I knew the engine ran and that was it. It was owned by a lebanese guy who paid $7500 for it when he came to Aus. The gbox died on him weeks afetr he got it so he garaged it until the final days of his stay and had to get rid of it asap. I got really lucky with that one. Ended up pulling 6k off it No info about the previous owner but the leb guy was 25 ish. Matt
you need to dummy fit these rims on and take some photos.. looks to making good progress.. keep the thread going..
bro I'll make you a deal... when the tyres are on and I've got the adapters, you come help me put them on! hmm. I don't want to stereotype but a 25 year old lebanese guy who managed to blow the box in a fortnight... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm compression is good, that's what matters! Couldn't if I tried! They're BMW fitment, 5x120. Either redrilling or ordering adapters, depending on what offset I want. Post in wheels coming soon, got LOTS more to keep posting! doing it now!
oh man. what do I want to post about now. uuuuuuuuuhhhhm dumped in a mine's 300 km p/h dash, had nearly the same mileage as my car too! $150 from Static here on the forum, jumped on it! doesn't look patchy IRL, white LED conversion from Rob's group buy coming soon anyway! I'm the test mule for the installation guide, so I get it installed for free! also got a genuine EL panel, but it's cracked. looking into resins I can inject to make it strong and less visible... I'll do it when I do it haha. already pulled it apart, will be getting a red strip like the one I made for bracket!
my rims! Okay so one of the most important parts of the build are my wheels... and they areeee... VMR is the make, VB3 is the model. Specs as follows: Fronts: 18 x 9.5 +22 with 235/40/18's Rears: 19 x 10 +38 with 255/30/19's These are aftermarket wheels for BMW's, so they don't have the correct stud pattern; 5 x 120 to Nissan's 5 x 114.3. This was taken into account. there's a US company that makes custom, made to order adapters to whatever bolt pattern and width you desire. The minimum width is 15mm. These spacers will bolt to the hub, and the bolts coming off of them I will mount my wheels on. I haven't ordered them yet because I don't know how thick I want them yet! Awaiting Mikey's new Varrestoen's, when I see them IRL I'll get a good idea. Looking for a CM or two of poke, maybe flush. Was going to get 15mm for the front, 18mm for the rear to make it +7 and +20, but it sounds like I'll be poking hugely on the front with 9.5's... I don't want more than 2* camber, so I might get the fronts redrilled and keep them at +22, or add some small spacers afterwards. decisions! 39 INCHES STRONG got tyres for the fronts on, waiting on rear tyres and spacers. then they're on! getting some coilover adjusting spanners from BLACK BEAST too! cheers rob!
Veilside evolution For this build there are a few very rare, very unique items I am chasing. Three really - an Escort Racing vented bonnet, a Tommy Kaira rear wing and most importantly by a long shot, a genuine VeilSide Evolution catback. The bonnet is proving to be very expensive to obtain (2k plus), the Tommy K wing I'm not as set on as I used to be (more into it when the car was going to be black, not grey) but the exhaust... well, after more than a year of searching on Yahoo! Japan, I got one http://www.importmonster.com.au/view.php?url=http://page7.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/g105083757 That's the listing... Won it @ $550, going to be about double that to my door. As I post this, it's getting courier'd to my house. Cleared customs in Melbourne. Couldn't be happier. I'll get a soundclip when it's on. Planning on some aftermarket dumps of some sort, combined with custom twin 2.5" front pipes with some good cats, and maybe a pair of resonators. I want this thing to be a good level of loud, but not deafening or huge-ly defect worthy. I'm sick of people (Civic drivers...) who try and make up for a shit exhaust note by making it loud. Quality over quantity people!
ganadors for daysssss ganador wing mirrors are pimp. haters gonna hate, **** not given. spotted these on yahoo! japan and thought I'd give Jesse Streeter a trial! http://www.importmonster.com.au/view.php?url=http://page16.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/u36499440 the driver's side one is a bit banged up, passenger side flawless. won them at $156!!!!!! Arrived in ORIGINAL BOX, with ORIGINAL owner's manual in asianese, as well as genuine decal! mint! Not so stoked about this though.. cracked all the way through on the underside, but it's not too bad. Dropped it off at the local bodyshop yesterday who are going to V it out for me, stick is up and fill it. When they're painted it'll be like it was never there. look purple from the cameraphone pics, they're OEM burgandy. Then one mister DAVE WATSON came 'round to pick up and drop off some parts... ended up staying, and we got to work! Mitch was demanding my old mirrors, so we Dave helped my yank off my door cards so we could get them off. When we did... good news and bad news. bad news first: RUST!!!!!1!!!!!!111!!1!!11111! it's only really minor, just on that edge haha. we checked the whole door. no big, i'll get it treated when it goes in for paint. Now the good news... Front speakers that retail for $400! kick ASS! Good shit! a sound system is in the works for down the track, don't have to worry about the front speakers now! rears are shit though. BUT STILL Big props to Dave for the help! Unfortunately it seems that Ganadors use aftermarket bolts, not OEM ones. The bodyshop I took the cracked on to had some, so I'll grab 6 from there when I pick up my repaired mirror. Then they're on! In the mean time, they have an awesome feature with second plug at the base of the mirror, so you can leave the loom plugged in behind the door card and take off the mirrors without pulling the door cards off. We also had a look at the aftermarket wiring left in the car from its last sound system... 4 gauge from the battery... amp cables to head unit (JVC thing), etc. can re-use! going to make the new system so much easier. car also came with an aftermarket false boot floor! and mint boot carpet. good for when I'm making sub boxes. Mirrors tested great, all electronic adjustment works. Driver's side loom had been cut off, and 1/2 an OEM mirror loom used. This left two cables (fold in, fold out) unused. They also hadn't done much to connect them... Soldered, heat shrinked, good as new. couldn't give a ****, works the same and you can't see it.
front bar! hoiked the tacky TT front bar, bought a clean NA front bar! why? BECAUSE RACE CAR got this bar from Matt, zedboy. $40! from his mint aus spec: removed the massive black thing from the back, stitched it together to allow for a little more air flow to the FMIC: that whole thing, as far as I can tell, is there to support the number plate bracket. overkill much? easily replaced with one of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/NUMBER-PLAT...arParts_SM&hash=item2a0a7e3500#ht_1991wt_1396 bar is unfortunately loosing its front lip. bodyshop can fix that, and they'll slap on some metal braces behind they said, to stop it happening in future. woot! ps: aus spec and j-spec FRONT bars are actually different believe it or not... j-specs have two large rectangles cut out in the middle beam where their number plate goes. Aus specs don't!
Mounting the FMIC This was a real pain in the arse. The car came with an unfitted, second hand FMIC with no pipework or brackets to mount it with. A quick forum ad nabbed me some pipework for $50, but there was still nothing to bolt it to. we thought the best way to handle it would be to prop up the FMIC on some bricks and phone books, put on the pipework and just see how it wanted to sit. After a LOT of pulling and shoving, the pipework went on. Before the brackets were made up, this is how off the FMIC was: that's with the front bar on for a test fit... front bar is straight. Once that was done, we got to work making some brackets! Mitch had some strips of aluminium which we cut up and bent pretty easily with a small clamp and some hammers. Unfortunately I didn't snap many pics of how the brackets looked when they were done, but you can kind of see them here! Then we did a few on/off's of the reo bar, marking where some cutting had to be done in order for it to clear the FMIC pipework, as well as the FMIC itself. me clearly enjoying myself with the angle grinder... that's me yelling about the metal chunks coming off haha. Good thing I always carry eye protection. Stylish eye protection. Brackets on, Reo on, this is how the cooler sits now! straight as john wayne! happy snaps success! Both the reo bar and brackets are very structurally sound. shaking the brackets where they are bolted in shakes the whole car. woot. all done, front bar all bolted on and lights in! how she sits as I type this. splash guards not bolted up yet, mehhhhh
