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PostPosted: January 5, 2014, 4:08 pm 
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Location: Fort Worth, Texas
Since the weather is preventing me from working on the car I'll go ahead and begin the build log as I promised. Settle in, prop up your feet and get yourself a hot toddy cause this will go on forever.

THE FRONT STORY:

My soon to be daughter in law thought it would be great if I could build them some sort of cool and unusual car to use when they drive away from the wedding. How's that for a cool daughter in law?

Unfortunately she has no clue what that entails. We talked about buying a cool car, because that would be cheaper and it would give me time to fix whatever was wrong with it, but that didn't tickle her fancy.

THE PROBLEM:
The wedding is September 6, 2014

At that time we are going to present him with a build book and a link here. This will be more or less a Readers Digest version of the book

THE BACK STORY IS THAT THE CAR WE ARE BUILDING WILL BE WHAT WAS MY SON'S FIRST CAR. He didn't really get to drive it, but it was technically his first car.

15 years ago when he was 15 I bought him a 1977 280Z for his first car. I'm sure I'LL forget a step or two and a detail or two, but here's the story as I remember it.

We began looking when he was 14 but he was 15 before we bought a car. We started early because no matter what car we bought, we knew some customization was definitely in the cards.

Before looking we did our homework and he decided he wanted a 280Z with the 250 GTO body kit. Fortunately for us one of the manufacturers of such a kit was about 2 miles away so we spent some quality time with him.

He built a kit for a convertible version.

Attachment:
1.jpg


Then we bought all the right Restoring the Z books to begin boning up on what to look for and began our search. We looked for about 6 months to find a car that wasn't beat all to hell or had huge rust holes in it. The roofs and under the battery/passenger footwells were the worst areas of most cars we looked at.

We eventually got lucky and found a stalled project car that a man and his 2 sons had built. They'd done a good job on the parts of the car that mattered to us. It had NOS (new old stock) seats and NOS Dash plus a newer engine.

We (I) drove it for about 2 months before we began the tear down process. Every day after school and on weekends we worked on it. Tearing down soon got old because we never seemed to have any forward process.

We stripped it down to get it ready for a color change as the first step. At the this time we decided to add a street cage because we knew he would spend some time autocrossing and some track days. We figured that it would be much easier to design and install it at this time rather than having to tear it apart again later.

We still hadn't bought the body kit because we weren't liking the way the convertible kit was coming together and he had a sorry convertible top. As a fall back position we did our work as how would he want to build it IF we didn't buy the kit. He like the no bumper look and the "standard" Z bolt on wheel flares.

He wanted the car to be intimidating looking so we talked about lowering it which worked whether we bought the body kit or not.

I sectioned the struts 1 1/2" and bought Tokico adjustable inserts.

I bought Ground Control sleeves and coil over springs along with Caster/Camber adjusters for all 4 wheels.

Attachment:
gc.jpg


The suspension was totally disassembled, blasted and then repainted in a Hammer finish.

I bought electric door poppers as we'd decided to shave the door handles.

I got a full set of Energy Suspension bushings. EVERYTHING that got a bushing was getting stiffer bushings!

Because we wanted the car to be light & nimble, and we both hated the huge boat anchor of an 6 cylinder that came in the car, we looked for alternative power plants. A little extra power never hurt, right?

The first engine we looked at was the twin turbo 3 rotor Cosmos engine as it was said it to have the closest sound to a Ferrari V12 and what's not to like about that sound?

But after driving to Oklahoma City to pick one up I decided that someplace north of 400 hp was probably not the best engine for his first car.

Instead I bought a 1993 Twin Turbo RX7 for it. Somehow I ended up with 2 of them in my driveway and one slightly dinged one in the garage. If nothing, I am good at excess.

These cars were amazingly put together. A remarkable level of engineering, but I'm glad I didn't have to do any serious work on any of them because if you wanted to remove the engine you had about 3-4 layers to remove to get to it.

It almost seemed like sacrilege to tear one of them down so we changed our minds again & decided upon an SR20DET and I imported one from Japan.

Attachment:
SR20DET2.jpg


We could put that engine in the Z and my son & I both could stand in the engine compartment in front of the engine. How's that for buying some room and losing weight?

This seemed like it would be great. We lost weight, added power and shifted the weight backwards. We just knew this was THE ONE!


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mobilito ergo sum
I drive therefore I am

I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.


Last edited by carguy123 on January 20, 2014, 6:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: January 5, 2014, 4:33 pm 
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OK, if you were almost 16 this could sound like heaven right? Well all except the time it took to do it. At 16 you want it NOW!!!!!!

What am I saying? Even with the age numbers reversed I still always want it NOW!!!

We did tons & tons of prep work and sanded the whole body Baby Butt smooth. We still hadn't worked on the engine bay as I knew I'd need to build some sort of cradle to fit the new engine and about then he began to lose interest and began eyeing my Miata!

Long story short, he ended up taking the Miata and I decided to keep the Z for me. This of course required some rethinking. Now the 3 rotor sounded nice again.

Actually I was happy with the SR20. There was quite a lot of power to be had in the engine and I like the light & nimble aspect of a 4 cylinder.

I bought the 250 GTO kit, but the owner of the company died right at that time and all I ended up getting was the front end - I had to fight his heirs for that! I literally drove up to an offsite storage area, that took me almost a month to locate, and a friend and I took the front end out of the hands of the son while waving my paperwork and receipts and yelling the whole time.

But it was a Pyrrhic victory at best. Shall we say that it wasn't of the highest quality and leave it at that. That kinda put a damper on things and I lost interest.

A year or so later I heard from a man who said he'd heard I had the last one made & he'd like to trade a one piece, flip front end version for mine. I jumped at the chance and drove up to Kansas to make a swap. We met alongside the highway, swapped pieces and then turned around.

Attachment:
flip front.jpg


I was racing more and had less time to work on the car so even with the new front end it kinda languished and everyone began to make fun of me and my folly. It just wasn't fun any more so I walked around it for years.

When I moved to Fort Worth I moved the car and all the boxes of pieces and set the car out back on blocks. I did build myself a very nice shop that would allow me to work on cars so when the time came I would be ready.

And there it sat until one day this little cutie came to me with her idea. This is her just moments after my son asked her to marry him. That's my son behind her holding up the pole as he contemplates what he's just done.

Attachment:
1.jpg


No one except her and my wife know what we have cooked up which means I can't ask for help from anyone.

As you can well understand the time limit creates some real problems. I am having to farm out some of the work to have any hope of getting it ready by wedding day. Unfortunately I'm farming out the things I do best and having to do the detail things I like doing the least.


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_________________
mobilito ergo sum
I drive therefore I am

I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.


Last edited by carguy123 on January 20, 2014, 7:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: January 5, 2014, 4:51 pm 
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Now here's some pics as we begin.

First is the Z as it sat and then some pics of the S front & rear subframes & engine.


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mobilito ergo sum
I drive therefore I am

I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.


Last edited by carguy123 on January 20, 2014, 7:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: January 5, 2014, 4:58 pm 
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Getting ready to move it and moving it.


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PostPosted: January 5, 2014, 5:02 pm 
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Now we're cooking with gas! Well actually we weren't and it was pretty cold in there.

Not Canadia cold, but Texas cold. I'm thin skinned and I run & hide when the weather man even talks about it getting colder. I don't know why I live way up north here in Texas, I am really a reincarnated beach bum from Cayman!


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_________________
mobilito ergo sum
I drive therefore I am

I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.


Last edited by carguy123 on January 20, 2014, 7:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: January 5, 2014, 5:07 pm 
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The car skates worked pretty well to move it around, but all the Sharpies I stole from Team Slotus actually allowed me to move it the best.

Every so often I'd throw a worker under the Sharpies to lubricate the wheels and make it roll faster.

Now if you'll blink your eyes really fast as you scroll down to see the pics they will look almost like video and you will truly be amazed.


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mobilito ergo sum
I drive therefore I am

I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.


Last edited by carguy123 on January 20, 2014, 7:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: January 5, 2014, 5:12 pm 
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Yes those are 3 piece Kinesis rims and I think they'll look killer on there. That's either 275 or 285 meats on the rears. I've put both sizes on there so I don't remember which ones are on there now.

The fronts wear 255s.

Here's how the track width worked out. Looks like the standard Z flares ought to cover everything except the bottom portion of the tire.


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mobilito ergo sum
I drive therefore I am

I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.


Last edited by carguy123 on January 20, 2014, 7:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: January 5, 2014, 5:18 pm 
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This was the scary part.

See those tabs on the front of the subframe that are resting on the ground? Even tho I measured it I was worried those might end up under the seats.

The idea is to basically put together a tube frame and attach the car body on top of it. That's simplified of course but this way we get a strong subframe and we stiffen up the chassis, which isn't the most rigid one out there.

The second pic shows the little parcel shelf right behind the seats that the tabs fit perfectly into. I think we can attach them side to side with steel and then use that to set the roll bar legs on.

The fore & aft steel will parallel either the frame rails or go outside to the pinch weld area. Only time will tell on that.


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PostPosted: January 5, 2014, 5:43 pm 
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If you noticed the rear S2000 subframe had a shiny tray on it. That's where the gas tank sits. It fits underneath where the soft top is stored.

Attachment:
IMG_5983.jpg


The Z gas tank sits in a similar place.

Attachment:
IMG_5984.jpg


We'll cut the floor out and get rid of those rear strut tower monstrosities that have already been cut to fit the caster/camber plates, which will give us room to build the supports for the new subframe.

The front is so much easier.

Attachment:
IMG_5985.jpg


See how much room we have. Here's the S front subframe. I'm hoping to keep the electric power steering, sway bar & everything.

Attachment:
IMG_5986.jpg


Now do you know anyone who needs a full 77 Z suspension with all the good bits and an engine & transmission? I was doing my bit to help the economy by buying all kinds of bits I'll never use. You've never done that I'm sure.


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PostPosted: January 5, 2014, 5:45 pm 
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Hmmmmm, that 250 front end looks good on the S2000.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?


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PostPosted: January 5, 2014, 10:03 pm 
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Looks like fun, thanks for all the pictures and good luck with it all ... !


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PostPosted: January 6, 2014, 9:07 am 
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Yo Carguy!
I wondered where the heck all them Sharpies went to. I never thought of using them as rollers under the chassis or of tossin' a worker under there for lubrication. Actually, I'm pretty sure James would resist such and idea, and even if I did squish him up under the car it would make the floor so greasy nobody could stand up on it...

The project looks like a lot of fun and it's for a very worthwhile cause. Good luck with it! Keep us posted on your progress.
Regards-
JD

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JD, father of Quinn, Son of a... Build Log
Quinn the Slotus:Ford 302 Powered, Mallock-Inspired, Tube Frame, Hillclimb Special
"Gonzo and friends: Last night must have been quite a night. Camelot moments, mechanical marvels, Rustoleum launches, flying squirrels, fru-fru tea cuppers, V8 envy, Ensure catch cans -- and it wasn't even a full moon." -- SeattleTom


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PostPosted: January 6, 2014, 11:33 am 
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carguy123 wrote:
This is her just moments after my son asked her to marry him.


Say to her "may nwee, wah, how pee oww lee ung!".

No, you won't get into trouble! :cheers:


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PostPosted: January 6, 2014, 11:37 am 
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Quote:
how pee oww

Sounds like a rather personal question, iffen ya asked me... :mrgreen:

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JD, father of Quinn, Son of a... Build Log
Quinn the Slotus:Ford 302 Powered, Mallock-Inspired, Tube Frame, Hillclimb Special
"Gonzo and friends: Last night must have been quite a night. Camelot moments, mechanical marvels, Rustoleum launches, flying squirrels, fru-fru tea cuppers, V8 envy, Ensure catch cans -- and it wasn't even a full moon." -- SeattleTom


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PostPosted: January 6, 2014, 7:50 pm 
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GonzoRacer wrote:
Quote:
how pee oww

Sounds like a rather personal question, iffen ya asked me... :mrgreen:


Now see, there you go ruining it! It was a tender precious moment and then you and your juvenile behaviour have just ruined things.

how pee oww means Tender Lotus Blossom in Texan, I mean Chinese.

Your wife has already complained she cain't take you anywhere and now here you go messing up the web. You're never getting your Sharpies back now, not that you want them with worker grease all over them.

EDIT: You must be speaking Mandarin, she speaks Cantonese so I didn't get slapped.

She says she might have to join the forum to protect herself.

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I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.


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