Build log of what is technically my first car up till this point been using my dads old commodore. Going to be a little different to most build logs on here as it'll be more largely focused on the interior, electrical and audio. Going to do something sacrilegious and add a shit load of weight to the car too haha. Respray in the future but for now she is what she is. Make: Nissan Model: 300zx Year: 1992 ODO: 130k 2+0/2+2: 2+0 MT/AT: MT Colour: Aztec Red Now as it stands my plans for the car are to go active 2 likely 3 way fronts, no rears and a single 10-12" sub. I further aim to keep everything looking as much like stock as is possible, the work done on the design of the car is great and I do not plan to ruin it. The tweeters will be most likely glassed into the a pillars as there is no factory tweeter location, the doors will end up housing the mid and midbass drivers, possibly using the peerless 8" and 4" drivers I have. For the head unit instead of going with a double din or even tablet as I tossed up I have chosen to go with a 6cd stacker single din unit circa '06. A NOS Nakamichi MB-VI that I have fallen in love with can't wait to use it for the first time. In terms of sound processing and amplification I am still researching and making my decision. On to the car. She was a japanese import that had been sitting at work doing nothing for many years, owned by the caretaker that had parked her one day with covers in the interior but sadly not the exterior. Here she was as she sat for some time. I had a chat with the caretaker and even had my mechanic come and inspect the vehicle, cranked over first time on 50/50 really stale fuel and a top of fresh 98, no smoke and no suspicious sounds. At the time however we couldn't come to an agreement on price and he wasn't very much interested in selling, one year later though he came to me asking less than I initially offered. So up on a trailer she goes. Back home and in desperate need of some TLC and cleaning After the first wash, you can see where the clear is screwed on the bonnet Also should mention I am porting over a thread from another forum so please excuse anything that doesn't make complete grammatical sense and don't expect this much posting all the time as it is a labour of love and hate that'll take time)
Now on to the interior and bare in mind i haven't cleaned the interior in any of these pics, this is as I got it. Don't worry the gaudy Fairladdy Z badge has been removed and I have a new radio bezel trim piece The cockpit Bonus haha I have some loose change now Now then I had some stuff to fix cosmetically and for roadworthy, the rear center piece was all cracked Tearing down the boot reviled some nice surprises, like the ample amounts of felt sound deadening, going to make it all that much easier sound deadening wise as there will hopefully be less rattles and underneath the boot carpet nice and thick Now back to the big hole left by the center cetion of the rear lights, thankfully the previous owner already had the replacement part but never installed it. before and after much better. As you can see that stock plate is looking mighty cramped in there I do however have some of the new Jap plates coming from vic roads with NZX-32 on them which will be a very nice addition to the car. Now then with stock shoes on this lovely lady coming in at 16x7.5" it just wasn't going to do, that is when I also noticed this tyre placard, somehow in the compliance this is what ended up on it meaning that I can put on some rather large and wide rims with no issues. New shoes (courtesy of tektrader) Just a bit of dish, 18x9" ROH Drift R wheels, wrapped in 255/35/18 Pirellis The car is currently being serviced and roadworthied so it'll hopefully be registered and on the road in a few weeks time. I have undergone work in making up the headunit loom and modifying the head unit brackets as I was not happy with how it was sitting, the headunit was too far forward for my liking. The next step when it gets back is temporarily hooking up my cheap sony two ways so that i have some tunes to listen too while I source some spare a pillars to mode and sort out what i am doing with the rest of the system. Glassed spare tire well for the sub and most likely getting an MS-8 are right up there on what to get to next.
So attempted to get some stuff done but was delayed by a lovely card from aus post, headed down to the post office to find a new toy had arrived. Finally ordered myself one when I saw it for 92% off in a pre tax time sale. Couldn't easily access my MDF tonight but since this is going to be a temporary housing for my two ways I am not too fussed so crapty old ply it is. A couple shots of the stock speaker baffle there are a few ridges that will need to be sealed with a combination of foam and sound deadening. Broken speaker surround part of why I won't be using stock speakers till I fab up my final system Really roughly tracing an outline One partially done and not too bad an edge for free-handedly cutting with a battery powered jigsaw on splintery ply. Still need to finish the other side its 80% done because with fast failing light and batteries (4 dead...) I decided to call it quits. Not sure if I'll be installing my cousins stereo into his new car tomorrow so not sure when I'll finish this yet. Got to get the speakers, for these baffles, out of the commodore cut the holes to mount them and platidip everything for a bit of protection. Found some photos of the preliminary loom work while waiting for cloth tape to arrive and of the discrepancies between the stock headunit and the nak mb-iv. De-pinned and removed a plug from a iso harness for the 300zx, not going to need the stock speaker wires but do want to be able to easily return the car to stock at some point. Nicely bundled together not happy with one of the ground wires going to cut and lengthen it so it can sit in the bundle nicely and then cloth tape over the whole thing. Also went with heatshrunk and crimped connectors so that if i ever change my headunit plans I can reuse with ease part of my loom. Onto the headunits, you can see quite easily sit at different depths Stock headunit 19mm and sits flush with the radio bezel The Nak MB-IV sits at about 35mm with its trim panel on I have already modified the brackets and mounted the headunit in the car so that I could test out the glory of 6 cds in a single din slot. Unfortunately no pics as of right now have to wait to get it back from the mechanic which will hopefully be soon as I really want to get it on the road. The headunit does sit flush now with the trim ring filling the gap around the headunit and sitting up nicely against the radio bezel.
So now to share some pics. New plates first up, so happy with how the new Japanese plates look from VicRoads. Also got a cheap ebay licence plate relocator so that i could mount the plate securely to the front bar. Wasn't keen to use the god nows how old rusted bits of 22guage or worse steel. Buzzed the edges of the two baffles with a flush trim bit to clean them up a bit from the jigsaw cut. Excuse the messy holes but could not get a circle jig from Bunnings so I ended up using a hole saw bit that broke while cutting the first hole grrrrr then I used a flush trim bit to trace the hole to the other piece and chamfered both pieces. At this point the tweeter will be mounted down in the door as this is for some temporary tunes while I work on fiberglassing pillars and making baffels that'll get 8" Peerless SLS drivers in the doors. And now with the first couple light coats of plastidip Test fit of the two way speakers Now back to where the car is at, final roadworthy should be going down in the next few days, basically as soon as the inspector is ready. Then it is call up vicroads and see when I can make it in to get the car registered. The first batch of servicing is done but right now it is a matter of running it easy for a while to get the engine all nicely lubed up again and then asses the full major service to be done as primarily preventative maintenance.
So been a little while now and unfortunately haven't progressed anywhere. Got the car down to VicRoads on Tuesday and unfortunately failed registration. Bit of backstory, the car was imported in 2000 and was complianced and assigned a VIN as the Japanese Chassis Number does not suffice for Australian registration purposes. Now on the green compliance plate there was one vin number and on the silver vin plate that was attached to the car there was a different one not drastically different just some idiot that got two of the digits in the wrong order. Now this wasn't picked up the last time it was registered but I had picked it up. Now after much calling to VicRoads and going through archives and confirming the vin against the previous registration we discovered the issue and after being assured over the phone by a senior operator that it would be okay I turned up on Tuesday to be told I couldn't register the car. Thankfully I was told that I can get it registered and that it is not unregisterable fullstop. However I need to get the vin plate removed and have the correct vin stamped into the body of the car, also need a new RWC as the other one is going off the incorrect vin. A complete d*** around. Back in next Monday and thankfully I did not need to pay a new appointment fee or an unregistered vehicle permit to get it home but I will need to pay for a RWC again most likely grrr. On the plus side I finally got some driving in after six months if having it in my drive. A nice 50km and boy does it hammer. It shifts smooth and easily and only has a small amount of whine from one of the auxiliary belts on a cold morning. Other than that there is only a small amount of transmission vibration especially at very slow reversing speeds. However as we need everything to be lubed up again we haven't properly looked at everything so it may need some more bushings or a fluid change but that'll happen at 1-1.5k kms. Now it's in my drive or rather my neighbours as we have 3 unregistered vehicles in ours I'll be able to get some work done on finishing the mounting of the head unit that I'll post tonight. (Resolved VicRoads issue now, keep reading)
From the right angles it does scrub up nicely, still got a long way to go. I grabbed a bonnet, nose piece and na bumper for 100 or so dollars a while back to replace the pieces that where quite sun damaged. Still need new drivers quarter panel to make the body properly line up as it's slightly bent in. Then I'll be getting a full respray make it look nice and pretty again. Got dicked around again but after much persistence lots of calls spanning many hours of time on the phone to VicRoads I now have a piece of paper authorising the vin changes and on Friday I should drive away with plates on the car.
Anyway grabbed some photos of the head-unit. Nakamichi MB-VI It's a beautiful 6CD stacker that fits in a single din slot, removable amplifier section for remote relocation or even just bypassing it altogether to run independent amplifiers. 2 auxiliary inputs, adjustable back-lighting for the screen and buttons which can be independently lit different colours to fit in with different interior lighting schemes (I have gone white/white to match my interior). Really like the understated 90s styling no of the gaudy bling and flashing lights of a lot of head-units, suits the interior of the car nicely. As it has sat for a while half installed It has been a little twisted as I needed to get proper length screws to fix up the mounting The old mounting forgot to snap a pic of the new screws in place here, you can see the mounting holes I drilled and where I drilled out the old mounting points, not the most pretty but with the new screws it sits nice and snug with no movement and nice and centred in the din slot. In place secured now i had it going for a few weeks without the four screws just the loacting tabs and the pressure of the bezel that was also only clipped not screwed into place. but not being so bad now. Here comes another problem when the bezel is back on there is a trim piece that goes on to cover up two screws and at one point the previos owner decided this was a good idea, however not to my tastes at all. Thankfully the brand new oem part was available in aus for only $15 or so. Bezel back on with old finisher And now with the new finisher, also mention I am glad I bothered to make the radio mount flush from behind looks much more factory than protruding 10-20 odd mm out the front of the din slot. Now just need two more parts, little finisher screw covers up in the air vents not sure where I'll find that yet just check the aus300zx forum for now. And a working clock far too many dead ones in 300ZXs however i might have a cheap ebay solution that ads temperature and voltage monitoring. Had another issue I addressed on the weekend and that was a severely under performing set of horns, the most pathetic metallic dying roadrunner meep meep. Thought about unsing horns from my old holden VR but after discovering they where two wire and used a larger diamater mounting bolt I decided to just see what was down at autobarn. Picked up a set of horns that bolted right in and plugged directly into the harness too. Comparision with the old over sprayed horns. From behind and conveniently I don't have my front splash guard on due to servicing work and a crazy amount of oil changes that have happened. And through the front bar They make a nice loud and deep sound now, better than the horns on my dad's VE sportswagon, very happy with the change. That's all for now the moment I have plates on this car I will be more game to get in with some of the bigger work, like deadening the doors and installing speakers but until I know vicroads wont f*** me again I am holding out.
I remember you asking about buying this on the forums a year ago. We all said it was too expensive and you could do better. Funny, the seller obviously became "motivated" to sell if you called you up after all this time.
Yup haha he needed cash more than the car he wasn't using all sorts changes over a year. He came back to me and asked if I was still interested ended up settling for less than I offered initially. Kinda good I hadn't settled on any other zeds I'd looked at in the mean time, just wasn't happy with the ones I'd seen.
Great read. You have done a lot of work and it shows pride in your car. Well done. That's another great car saved from the scrappers.
So managed to pass registration on Friday which was a massive weight off the shoulders, then proceeded to take it down the Mornington peninsula for the weekend. Looks so much better now that it has plates and soon hopefully some more work will follow to get the car towards where I would like it.
Looking good! It certainly cleaned up well and looks like you are taking care and not rushing it. Love the new head unit, so much nicer than most of the stuff around with those fricken terrible blue led's and flashing knobs.
Actually got the best comment I could ever hope for from my best mate the other day when I showed him the car. "So when are you going to change the headings and do the sound system?" He couldn't tell and didn't really believe me when I said that the headings wasn't the original one that came with the car. Oh yeah and it only really cleans up from that angle haha the other side is all faded panels and the rear hatch is blue still.
Another time haha, great place to head come summer especially, had my grandma drive the car around a bit too as I was visiting her
