Here is an updated picture of the engine bay. Its pretty cleaned up. I need to remove some misc brackets completely, but so far so good.




Here is my idea for the intercooler location:




Yesterday I bought a little $12 propane torch to melt the remaining lead out of the A pillars so I can completely shave the drip rails. I had a weird taste in my mouth the whole rest of the evening after this:





I'll be back working on the car this afternoon after I get my work projects finished.

Here is a picture of the engine bay with the engine pulled. I need to clean all of this up once I get the floor pan figured out. I cut out the drivers side rocker panel yesterday. I've mocked up a 2" X 2" tubing to replace the current rocker panel. This will allow the floor to be raised several inches over a factory floor pan. This will allow me to lower the car much further then you could traditionally with a factory floor pan. This is the bases for the hole roll cage that will be going into the car. My only concern at this point is head clearance to the A pillar bar. I may omit that bar in my car to keep it more streetable as I don't want to have to wear a helmet to get inside the car. Since I'm not really build this car for any sanctioned race organization, I have a lot of freedom on the cage design. I'm not intending to be doing any serious drag racing with this chassis, so I'm happy to not have to do a NHRA cage. Also, since I will only be doing track days at the road course, I won't need a spec cage for that. The cage will be built from chromoly steel tubing as I purchased a lot of it several years ago when I was going to turn this car into a dedicated drag race car. Its all a big compromise to make this car something I will use regularly. I don't want to have to tow it to use it. I want to be able to jump in and drive it where ever I want.

Justin

BTW

I'm still undecided on which engine to use in the car. Its going to be a Toyota 2JZ or a Subaru eg33. I just can't decide!!!! The 2JZ I have needs to be rebuilt, so that adds to the lead time. The Subaru eg33 is in good working condition and could potential be a runner if I drop it in and wire up the stand alone ECU. The big trouble with this is the overall width of the EG33. It is so wide, a lot needs to change. I need to take a second look at the transmission flywheel adapter plate. If I can easily adapt the EG33 to the Tilton clutch I have, I think I will go with it. Otherwise its going to be 2JZ. I can always buy a 2JZGE pull out for $500 local to get the car on the road. Just need to decide. Hopefully I can mock up each engine and then make a decision.

/J

The L28 is out! Finally is all I can think. I had to pull the engine and trans so that I could replace the rocker panels and floor boards. I hope to have this job finished by the end of December. Hopefully! I will snap some more pictures tomorrow at the shop. I haven't been able to do much work as I've been trying to catch up on my Christmas shopping. The plan is to go after work tomorrow and clean up the shop as well as the end bay and cut the floor pan out. From there I can weld in the new 2*2 rocker panels, and weld in the new floor pan. Should be fairly simple from what I can tell. There is a cascade effect though, as I am raising the engine and transmission position, so the rear differential is also moving up. This will help a great deal in straightening out the half shafts at my extremely lowered stance.

/J

EG33 Engine next to Z.

Pictures for the day. Ross Adapter plate vs Tilton Bellhousing. Two pictures of the internals of my GF4A transmission.

Best Looking 240z I've seen in a long time:

Mounting the EG33 subaru engine is a big project the more I look at it and take measurements. The width really is a tough one to get around. It basically makes you redo the frame rails, brake master cylinder, steering linkage, and TC rods. I'm still very much interested in this! I just need to get all the pieces lined up to pull this off as I don't want to start and give up half way through.

So far I have:

Wilwood reverse mount pedal assembly:
http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Wilwood-Reverse-Swing-Triple-Master-Cylinder-Pedal,1959.html

I'm going to high mount the steering rack and flip the tie rods so they go down into the steerers the the struts. This should straighten out the steering linkage and allow it to go over the top of the motor.

I'm going to move the TC rods forward like a 240sx.

I haven't figured out how I want to do the frame rails. I can widen their spacing, but then I lose tire clearance and turning radius.

One step at a time I guess. I need to yank the L28 out and start cutting

/J

Been looking at adapter plates for both the EG33 and 2JZ to use the Dog box.

Here is my 2JZ analysis:

Comparing my Chevy R07 Flywheel (8 bolt pattern) to the standard 2JZ crank pattern, it would apprear they are very close in dimensions. I will likely do a little bit of machining on the flywheel and use a simple spacer between the crank and flywheel. Here is a picture of my Boostwerks TH400 crank adapter overlaying my Tilton flywheel.

Separate:


Adapter Over Flywheel:


Tilton R07 Flywheel model with 2JZ bolt pattern sketched over the top:


The idea is to ovalize the mounting holes on the flywheel and use a 0.025" wall thickness bushing around the 10mm 2JZ crank bolts. This will allow everything to bolt together with a simple spacer.


I went to Tube Service today for some 2" square tubing. I'm redoing the rocker panels and welding in a temporary floor to get me rolling again. My welding will finally be returned to me after a 9 month lone to a family member. Never let family borrow your expensive tools. I was supposed to have this back in JUNE!!!!!!

I got the car back into the shop tonight, so it can dry out and await me working on it. Gotta love Thanksgiving week shutdown at work. Getting paid to work on my car is great! Having time to do it is priceless

I'm back at it on the 280Z. Today marks a big day for my project. I now have a new transmission for the datun. It is a G-Force GF4a 4 speed dog engagement race transmission rated upto 1000hp. It is streetable enough for cruising and short trips. It is strong enough for anything I can throw at it. This will either be mounted behind the subaru EG33 or Toyota 2JZ. For now I can get the car moving on this triple disc sintered metallic, but its going to be on or off. No modulation what so ever. The clutch will need to be switched to a twin plate ceramitallic for streetability. The bellhousing is a Tilton Reverse mount starter setup for the 110 tooth flywheel and 7.25" clutch. This works out great by allowing me to lower the engine and trans for improved COG.

Here is the Tranmission, Clutch, Bell housing and Starter. I need to source a release bearing for the clutch, and a pilot bearing for the crank adapter.

Playing in CAD more. Looks like I'm extending the wheel base to around 95" from the factory 90.7".

Doug Clark was gracious enough to share his models for the C5 uprights, hubs, and rotors. This has saved me a ton of modeling time! Thanks Again!

Next on my list is to rough out the transmission, wheels, and engine in CAD so that I can tweak the dimensions more. I am going to shorten the overall height of the rear suspension section to match more closely the control arm spacing.

Justin

Been playing more in cad. I wish building the cage was this easy Weighs 185 lbs as seen here. We'll see where this actually goes. I need to start modeling the transmission and engine and model them roughly so that I can nail down more dimensions. The red tubes are 1.625 X 0.083 4130, and the green tubes are 1.25 X 0.065 4130.

I ordered a set of C5 Corvette uprights today. They will be a good starting point for my front suspension. I will be doing 4130 tube wishbones that are longer then stock corvette parts.

The 2JZ will be a structural part of my chassis. up front. I will triangulate the front as much as possible while still retaining the ability to pull the motor and transmission. I received the last part of the rear drive train yesterday. Now I have a complete R230 rear with axles and hubs. I'm hoping I can come up with a good steel upright for the rear so that I can use this R230 with stock axles. if not, I will run the C5 rear uprights with custom axles.

I wanted to highlight the issues I've run into thus far with lowering the 280z to its current static ride height. The idea is to work around all of these issues so that I can retain 2" of bump travel from the ride height seen below.

My 280YZ fender set came in today. God these fenders are wide. I'm going to have to widen the track 5" in the front and 4" in the rear. This equates to ~ 71.5" width front and rear. Also, my current total height from the ground to the roof is ~45".

I've got one side of the car near my goal ride height. Right now I'm just trying to get the stance correct, then figure out the proper chassis mounts for the suspension. In the back I'm going to have to cut out the fender wells completely, as at full bump, the tires would rub on the inner fender wells. I'm contemplating doing a custom upright in the rear to incorporate the 300zxTT hub. This would allow me to run the factory 300zxTT axles and diff. I currently have these parts, so that is the direction I'm leaning. I've been looking at doing a 5 lug to 4 lug adapter in the rear so that I can retain these rota RB's. All of the off the shelf adapters like this are fairly clumsy. I might just go to 15X10 5 lug rear drag wheels and run the RB's up front on the street. I may also sell the rota's with tires, and go to a 5 lug wheel front and rear. This mocking up is fun, but I can't wait to have my tools back to get to welding and building. Gosh I'm excited. I've been making a lot of progress lately because I am now driving again. I was cycling daily for the last couple years, and that had made it tough on me getting much done on the datsun when it wasn't located at my house. Now that I can get to my workshop in a 15 minute drive, I'm really there so much more often.

Beyond the datsun, I'm taking two classes at Portland state. I'm also working 30-40 hrs a week at my design job. Life is busy, and constantly changing for me. My father is moving to Tuscon. My grandfather and I are batching it since grandma has gone into a home. I have baby turkeys and chickens with my girlfriend. All of these changes all at once. Its overwhelming at times, but that's life I guess. I'm trying to make the best of what I have right now.

No more real updates on the car for a few days. I have midterms this week, and need to really focus on school. After that is over, I'll be back on the datsun working away. I get my welder back on the 8th, so I need to settle on a chassis design by then. I'll try and model up the suspension parts, rough out the dimensions of the engine/transmission. Lots to do before I do any really building. I'm excited to be working on this project. I just need to make sure I'm not going in more directions then I can handle all at once.

I wasn't making much progress studying so I decided to go to the shop for a bit. This is at a rocker height of 2.75" front, 3.5" rear. The YZ fenders are going to be cut at the front so I can raise the MSA T3 flush with the bottom of the hood. Obviously I'm going to need wheel spacers with the current layout. Sub frame is going to have to move up 2-3" to. Engine is moving back and up as well. New transmission tunnel. Differential is being raised. Whole new floor pan pretty much. Gotta do it though. I love the look that I will have in the end.

Here's the first new post on this blog :)

I installed my Techno Toy Tuning roll center adjusters. They are 35mm thick, and everything clears fine with the 17" wheels. I then removed the factory springs to see where the front struts would bottom out at. On my car, I'm at 5" at the rocker up front with the springs removed. This is a 280z w/ 24.5" tall tires. So that places my hub centerline at 7.25" above my rocker. I'm looking at lower the car an additional 2.5", while retaining ~2" of bump travel. The floors are going to be raised, along with the rockers. I figure I'm going to raise the rockers 2.5". The floor will be flush with this height. So I'll end up with ~ 5" of clearance throughout at static ride height.

Also, I acquired a Wilwood pedal assembly this weekend. Its a triple master setup with a balance bar. Should be nice I think



Here is the one picture I snapped today.The MSA is mounted in its standard position. It has 3.5" of clearance in this picture. Since I'm lower the car 2.5" more, but raising the MSA T3 4", I'm going to end up with 5" of clearance for the air dam when all is said and done.

I plan in the future to get a set of road racing slicks. I've been looking at the Hoosier 275/35-15's. Those have a diameter of 23", which would allow me to lower the car more. I could potentially end up at 3.5" at the raised rocker height, or 1" if the rockers weren't raised just for reference.

I bought a EZ Wiring 12 circuit mini harness. Once it gets here I'll be rewiring the car at nights after work. $140 shipped off of ebay.

http://www.ezwiring.com/

I have also contacted a local cage fabricator to bend up my main roll hoop out of 1.625" X 0.120" DOM tubing.
http://www.racetechmotorsports.com

I used this drawing from 74_5.0L_Z's photo album.:


I've stripped most of the interior sound deadening trying to locate any and all rust in the car. The only rust on the interior I've run into so far has been a 4"X4" patch under the brake pedal. I'm going to cut this out tomorrow. I've also found that the drivers side frame rail is slightly rusted out. I'm going to cut out the rust here and strip away all of the undercoating tomorrow.

I purchased a set of S12+8 calipers with pads from the local napa. I was hoping to get the straight s12 calipers, but they didn't have any. I'm going to go through the brakes tomorrow as well. Hopefully once I replace the calipers and bleed them system, I'll have no more brake issues.

Tonight I went out to PIR drag nights. What a fun event. The coolest car there IMO was a honda CRX with a turbo b18 in it. The guy was running a sc61 at 18psi on E85. It's final run that got it kicked off the track was a 10.4 @ 136mph. I was extremely impressed seeing this FWD compact car kick the ♥♥♥♥ out pretty much everything at the track What a good motivator to get me working on my car.



Going to the drag strip Saturday night really got me motivated. I started working on my 280z a lot this weekend. The 280z is now called Project Cheetah because of my rust removal work this weekend. I will leave the car multi-colored for this summer I think. Hopefully this next winter I will have the money to give it a proper paint job.



Anyway, I worked on stripping the interior some more. I used a buffing disk to clean off the remaining bits of tar from the sound deadening. I wasn't able to get all of this completed because the 20 gallon compressor in the garage just isn't up to the task. Its constantly running and getting very hot. The black painted areas are those that I got down to bare metal with the buffer.

Along the way I took a grinder and cut off wheel to the drivers side floor pan. I have almost all of the rusty metal out of it. There is a 4"X4" hole in the floor now under the brake pedal. I also have half of the drivers side frame rail that is rusted out. It really isn't terrible, and I will be doing some more grinding to get the rest of the rust out of this area. Once that is finished, I will be able to weld up both the frame rail and the hole in the floor.






I've been wanting to take of the 280z rear bumper for a long time. The metal shelf above the bumper was all bent up and ugly. Half way through buffing tar off the floor I decide to remove the rear bumper. It really wasn't hard to get the bumper shell itself off of the car. The hard part was removing the metal shelf and the bumper shocks. I had to drill out the spot welds from the metal shelf. Then I had to drop the fuel tank to get to the bumper shocks. Then I was able to remove both shocks. Get the tank buttoned back up. Then grind the crap out of the rusted area where the shelf used to mate up to the back of the car. I didn't have time to sand down the whole rear of the car, so I didn't worry about spray painting it all. I just did a quick coat of paint on the bare areas. I'm definitely going to go back over this area with some sand paper to make it look less hideous. I don't like the aesthetics of the car right now, but the weight dropped by losing the rear bumper was a plus. I also like that the car seems to be 6" shorter now.






So my day was about over and I decided to see if the S12+8 calipers would clear my wheels. I mounted the passenger side caliper. The factory calipers were trashed. I little work with the cut off wheel on the dust shield and I was in business. I'm not sure if brake fluid is flammable, but I was careful not to get sparks on any of it just in case. I ran out of time and didn't mount the drivers side caliper.



I went ahead and made an impulse buy on an OBX R200 LSD made for the 240sx. Its a Quaife knockoff and I've heard good reviews for their other models so I decided to try it. For $400 shipped, I'm willing to experiment. Hopefully I receive the differential in the next two weeks so I can mount it up.

I hate you 280z transmission tunnel!

I got my S2000 passenger seat all squared away. Cutting off the factory mounting tabs will make the seat rails fit very nicely. I go to test fit the same modifications on the drivers side and then realize theres a big bulge in the transmission tunnel to accommodate the catalytic convert. To get the drivers side seat to work, I'm going to do some "custom" mods with a sledge hammer.

Circled in red is the bulge I'm going to have to beat down to make the seat fit.


I finished installing the passenger side toyota caliper. Easy enough, but I didn't have a cut off wheel for the dust shield. I ended up using a sawzall. What a bad choice of tools. The dust shield is so thin, it just shakes back and forth and its very difficult to get a good cut started.

On the OBX differential front, I have a guy with will fit bearings to the diff. He's going to heat up the bearings in a oven at work and fit them to the diff. Once he's done with that, the install should go fairly easily. Do you guys usually set the pinion depth when swapping a new diff in? I'm going to reuse the ring and pinion that are currently in the pumpkin.

Heres how the car looks with the S2000 seats sitting in it. I'm trying to get them bolted down, but the sheetmetal is very thin, 20 Gauge? I just sourced some metal to repair the holes in the floor. I will likely weld in some angle iron and bolt the seats to that. I'd feel more comfortable having the seats bolted to some thicker metal.





I pulled the dash today to get started on rewiring the car and change the heater core at the same time. The dash came out surprisingly easy once I found all of the bolts. It is freakin heavy!!! I'm going to draw up a sheet metal dash and have a local shop bend one up on there press brake.

For the price, I'm considering making this aluminum dash from jegs work:

http://www.jegs.com/webapp/wcs/store...10002_12942_-1

I was considering doing the front fenders off of this car:

http://web.mac.com/markrolston/iWeb/Site/Z-Blog/80E6D86A-FC1B-4DD0-95E3-28017E424DA6.html

I called Al’s Bodyworks at 512-836-1851 about doing a similar set of front flares for my car. The cost was $5000 for the front set plus the car needs to be at his shop to get them fitted!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not that wealthy.

Anyway, I'm thinking I will go with the Subtle Z front kit and the YZ rear quater panels. I think this will look very nice I'm waiting to hear back from John Washington on the cost of this setup shipped to me up in oregon.


Just got the car road worth tonight and bought insurance for it. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on the Cheetah tomorrow at my friends shop. I'll post some updates tomorrow.

Well Today I feel like I got a lot done. I got the whole interior stripped down to bare metal. I'm going to pull all the interior back out tomorrow and spray it with a black enamel paint so that I dont get any surface rust. I also sanded down my hood with a DA sander and will spray that tomorrow. Grinding off all of the remaining insulation and paint was a tedious task. It took me a solid 6 hours today with air tools. I need to get the car down to my cousins shop to do the welding on the floor boards. I want to get the interior all rapped up so that I can start wiring the EZ wiring harness in along with Megasquirt.

It feels really good to be driving my humble little Z car. Its not really fast, but its a lot of fun to drive. I'm hoping with some suspension upgrades (Koni 8611's and Hyperco's) It will handle very very well. I'm holding off on doing any paint until I get all of the mechanical changes done. I dont want to scrap up a new paint job dropping in a new engine and working on the suspension.

Engine Shopping List:

L92 Heads $799.50:
http://www.sdparts.com/product/12582...inderHead.aspx

L76 Intake Manifold with fuel injectors and fuel rails $528.95:
http://www.sdparts.com/product/12590...L76L92Car.aspx

416CI L92 short block $4689:
http://www.sdparts.com/product/SDL92...CIFlatTop.aspx

Headers

Exhaust

Motor and Transmission Mounts

T56

Clutch

Master Cylinder

Megasquirt 2...

ts been a couple days since I took the interior down to bare metal. Today had a chance to paint it with some Krylon® Industrial Coatings™ Rust Tough® Enamel. It sprayed on really easy and the semigloss finish turned out nice.


Before:


After:


Well, My suspension plans are as follows:


Front:
250lb/in Hypercoil 10” free length 2.5” diameter spring
Koni 8611-1259RACE
5” threaded sleeves
17”X8.5” wheels
245/40-17
Suspension Techniques 240z ARB
Techno-Toy Camber Plates
Adjustable TC rod
Adjustable Control Arm


Rear:
275lb/in Hypercoil 10” free length 2.5” diameter spring
Koni 8611-1259RACE
5” threaded sleeves
17”X8.5” wheels
245/40-17
Suspension Techniques 240z ARB
Techno-Toy Camber Plates

Wow, I just priced the KONI 8611's and they've gone upto $309 per corner. I'll be looking at other options...

Bilsteins (F4-P30-0032-MO) per corner:
$101.25/Strut
$75.00/Revalved to 300/100
$25.00/Gland Nuts


I may try them with factory valving at lower spring rates of 200/225. I have to think about it. If I wasn't happy, I could send them to Bilstein for revalving at $300 for the set.

I'm thinking about doing a AIM MXL Strada digital dash instead of buying a bunch of individual gauges. The price of gauges really can add up.

http://www.aimsports.com/products/mxl-strada/index.html


Well, I'm breaking down and buying a ThermalArc ArcMaster 185 from Quimby Welding Supply down in Portland. They were very nice about price matching the best price I could find on the internet. I really wanted to buy the welder locally so that if I had any issues, I could take it in for warranty.

I found a 2JZGE engine locally that I'm going to buy. It should be great engine to play around with for the cost. Its much more affordable for me to do this motor then a big LSX motor at this point. The plan is to get the engine and transmission all setup and ready to drop in. Once I'm ready, I will pull the car off the road and build the engine and transmission mounts. Hopefully I will have minimal downtown with the car. I'm hoping to get the car running NA, and then putting a turbo on it once I have the bugs worked out. I'm planning on going with a TH400 out of the box with a boostwerx adapter plate.

I'm going to hold off on buying the TIG welder at this point. I want to focus on getting all the things I need to drop this motor in. For building the engine mounts I can use my friends tig welder.

Well, I got the 2JZ picked up and at my shop. It came with a complete wiring harness along with factory ecu's. I'm thinking I may just go down the Aem plug and play engine management, since I do have the complete harness.

On other good news I had a fuel line burst on my way to work. I was driving along and I started to see fuel spraying out of the vent hole above the intake manifold. I promptly turned the car off and coasted into a parking spot off the street. Man, I feel luck! I drove the car over 150 miles last night, and the car breaks down 2 blocks from my work.

The welder has landed. I went ahead and purchased the Thermal Arc Arcmaster 185. I sprung for the largest argon cylinder quimby welding would sell me. Can't wait to set up the shop.



http://www.thermadyne.com/evolution/...=99&pdtnbr=567


Playing some more with Solidworks.



The T6 collector is about 4.25" tall w/ flange. The T4 collector is 5.25" long w/ flange due to the smaller area it is merging into.

I've been looking at building a divided 6 into 2 turbo header for my 2JZ. I will be using 1.5" schedule 10 SS piping for the manifold. Here is an interesting model I did in solidworks comparing the T4 and T6 divided flanges when used for a 6 into 2 collector. It seems to me that the T6 collector would be much easier to build since the tubes match up much better to the turbine flange inlets. From my models it looks like you would have to crush down each 3-1 collector on the t4 flange for it to fit up properly. What yall think?

Justin











I was modeling the amount of grinding necessary to match the t4 flange outlet to the collector outlet. That can be seen in green. Also, this does simulate going in and welding up the four interior corners of the collector/flange merge as there is a abrupt shoulder there. Anyway, heres the picture.


Before Port Match:



After Port Match:


Well I got the turbo for my 2JZ build. Introducing MR S480:



And the reason I'm going t6 for one reason is the collectors are much easier to build with sch 10 1.5" pipe as you can see in this rendering:



Shopping list for the project:

Engine:

Fuel:
Injectors: 1200cc injectors
Fuel Pump:
Fuel Line: -10 AN Feed, -8 AN Return

to be continued...

http://www.tubing-benders.com/index.html

I ended up picking up a Pro Tools 105HD bender with 1.625" X 6" CLR set.

I was going to buy the JD2 Model 3 bender, but they are on national back order. I'm doing the cage between Christmas and New Years so I need the bender ASAP.


Manifold Design for big turbo:



I'm figuring out the roll cage that I'm going to be starting on the 26th




Added the x brace.



Since my car has a crappy floor plan with rust issues along with other problems that needs some work I think I'm going to go ahead and cut out most of the factory sheetmetal under the seats and do a SFI 25.2 style floor section. I will basically be doing a 25.2 chassis without doing a backhalve or funnycar style cage around the driver. This seems to me the best way to go forward on the car as I won't be limited if I do want to go further with this chassis.

Anyway, here is what the floor section of the cage will look like. This will give me a chance to lay down fresh sheet metal. These pictures are from a drag radial stange...





I've been really trying to define what I really want out of my car when it is finished. The first time I fell in love with these cars was when I read the Hot Rod Magazine Pump Gas Drags. The yellow 240z owned my Mark Eggers. This car ran low 9's on a pump gas setup and just looked so bad ass because it sat so low and had good sized tires under the back. I've seen a lot solid axel 240z that went to large on the tires IMO, and it just looks dumb. I want a good sized tire, and also to have the car nice and low. The only thing not for me is the riser hood. Anyway, here are some pictures of this car that started this whole love for datsun...







I sourced a R230 differential and axels today. I'm just slowly but surely collecting parts. I'm not sure if I will be using my 280z for the swap. Maybe but not sure at this point. If I can find a semiclean 240z I'll get one and put all my parts on that.


I figure the best way to run a huge turbo on a L28 is to put it on the passenger side and run the header under the oil pan and up to the passenger side.







Once I remote mount the battery I'm going to have a 5" side dump with muffer:




Also heres a picture of the TH400 with ultrabell waiting to be installed.



Received my 6-2 T6 collector the other day. It turned out ok. I'm going to need to massage it a bit before welding up the manifold. I also just purchased a AEM 30-1050 ems. I'm hoping to start wiring that up to the existing engine to get some practice tuning it.








Been working a lot on getting some good seat brackets setup. I ended up using two ~5ft long pieces of 1" X 2" X 0.083" rectangular tubing. I think this will be a very solid way to mount the seats low in the car.

Also, Tonight I started stripping the paint off of the Datsun. I ended up using Mar-Hyde Aircraft Coating Remover 3711. It works pretty well at stripping the paint away from the body. Takes it right down to metal. I ran out of the spray. I think 5-6 cans could do the whole car. I went through 3 cans so far.

I started wire wheeling the areas where the paint had flaked and bubbled up. I'm glad I'm stripping down to bare metal so that I can find the rust and bondo. I ended up running into a good amount of bondo on the drivers side fender. Hopefully not to much elsewhere.

---

I wasn't able to get to lowes. I ended up at the home depot right next to my house and I got the rapid strip disc:

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/...3+90054+524405

It worked very well! I worked on the car for ~20-30 minutes. I realize now with all the dust this creates, its pretty stupid to do this work without a respirator. I'm going to pick one up tomorrow and get back to work.

Picked up a MSA Type 3 front air dam last night. I also worked on plating the rocker where I will be attaching the floor section of the cage. It looks horrible right now, but I think I have my method figured out. The passenger side will go much faster now. I just need to make sure I don't deform the structure of the car while modifying the rockers. The floor is completely gone on the drivers side and half gone on the passenger side.

The rockers are filled with tar so I have to burn that out before I can weld the new rocker plates in. Slow going, but its going. I'll mount the type 3 bumper this weekend, along with welding in rocker mounting plates. I need a level to get everything square. Pictures coming soon once I patch up this rocker. Its UGLY right now and I'm a bit embarrassed to have cut so much away

I have a little time to start welding in the plate to narrow the rocker. This will give me more room and place the cage further out. I hope this extra 1.25" per side will help make my ride safer. Once I finish both sides, I will start on the floor section of the cage. Also, I started filling in the marker lights holes.

A little update. I'm about to order a set of YZ fenders front and rear. I'm going to retain the MSA type 3 air dam, and modify it to work with the YZ front fenders. I will be running the MSA type 3 in the location pictured below.



I'm also working on figuring out my Bilstein R36-5022 inserts. I'm currently struggling like many have to make the techno toy tuning front camber plates to work on these bilsteins. There just isn't much room for the thrust bearing. The upper ball joint can't articulate with my current clearances. I have some ideas, and will be discussing with my machinist friend ways to retain the thrust bearing.

In other news I have purchased a 99 honda civic to get around in. This is helping a lot as I'm not attending school 5 days a week, working 5 days a week, and caring for my grandparents in my spare time. Life is definitely busy right now, but I'm making the best of it. Hopefully things will get sorted out so I can make time for the Z on the weekends. I will be getting my welder back from my cousin at the end of this month hopefully. He's been using it for the past 3 months to build up is Land Rover project. You can see that here:

http://seriesiiirover.blogspot.com/

Also, I nearly forgot that I ordered JSK front rotor hats and mounting brakets. I still trying to decide on a set of calipers to use, but that should be soon. I want to do the brakes at the same time I section the struts. I have to figure out what I'm doing for my rear brake setup. I'm torn between doing a solid axle now, and retaining the IRS. There just aren't many reasonable options for a strong 4 lug stub axle. I think its pretty crazy to spend the money on the Modern Motorsport R230 axle conversion, and billett stub axles. I may sell my R230 diff and axles, and go to a ford 9". Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.


Here are my 17X9.5 with 245/40 Bridgestone RE-01R's. I will get them mounted today and hopefully take some pictures. I wanted to go wider, but I could not pass up these tires at half off from Tire Rack. I think if I ever make an upgrade from these it will be to 285/30-18's all around on some 18X10's.









This is at a current rocker height of 5.75" front and 6.5" rear. I think I'm going to ZY fenders front and rear to help get the car lower. Once I get the car down to the height I want it at, I will redesign the suspension pickup points to make it work. Overall I'm really happy with these Rota's. They look great on these Z cars!






YZ Fenders are ordered. I'm really excited to finally make the jump and do these fenders. They are what got me excited about building a Z car way back in 06. Finally my car will have a set

I need to figure out the best way to widen the track of my car to fill out the flares. In the front I will likely space out the struts an inch on each side. In the back, I'll likely run wheel spacers until I decide on my rear end upgrade.

The nice thing about the front YZ fenders is the ability to run the tires much closer to the top level of the fender since it doesn't curve away like the factory fenders. No dealing with mounting the ZG flares high enough now. Hopefully I can get the MSA Type 3 widened, as I'd really like to retain it.