i like Exclusive

[P78]

truly a sick ride

[1badg35]

When looking at a build, this is what I look for - a relentless attitude on achieving the goal. And with that, a vision must be maintained. A lot of projects get abandoned. But I never see this happening here.

The attention to details are what it's all about. But don't get me wrong. Many would presume that with that statement, everything should be detailed. Everytime. No. A concept should also have a purpose and reflect the owner.

I don't know Vince. But at the same time, I know exactly who he is.

You've set a bar Vince. Now go above it. Then do it again.

street

this is just about the coolest thing a fellow enthusiast has ever said. it really makes me happy to see the awesome people who appreciate the effort and time that goes into a serious build.

for me, and many of us on here, building these cars is like an addiction, and the extra time placed on the details is what sometimes brings me home a trophy at the end of a show... but more importantly it brings the satisfaction in doing just that.. building a car that I fell in love with as a young kid. i am 25 and the car turned 20 back in may. luckily my aunt drove the car very little and took the highest care of it before selling it to me almost 8.5 years ago. The Z certainly isnt going anywhere, and nor will I or this build. haha. This car will be in my family for quite a while, and I dont see the build ever ending. It sometimes gets hard when you do things like:
adding up the mod list for the custom insurance policy, and notice how much money and shear time has been spent over the years
..but the satisfaction brought to myself, my friends while wrenching on this thing, and fellow enthusiasts makes it all worth it.

more to come real soon.. the bay is coming along nicely in the past two weeks. not too quick, but thats pretty typical for a one man show. all the close friends are in their garages starting their own builds for the winter. my buddy Dougs project 450awhp audi TT, Walts (no longer vrt) but soon to be even crazier corrado, a few cafe racer builds... we are all nuts. design and fabrication takes time, but its all worth it in the end.

thanks for the support and progress pics will be up probably tomorrow night. currently finishing up the custom hard lines for some of the accessories, and about to knock out the relocation of the fuel filter and a few other goodies. back to the garage for now


and if anyone local or any photographers want to come by and take a look, grab a wrench, snap some pics for the stanceworks page, just let me know

[1badg35]

being in the office on a saturday= no bueno. 70 hour week so far at my architecture office does not mix well with car work. progress updates tomorrow after a full day in the garage.

[1badg35]

Long overdue for updates: I just typed a small novel documenting the past two or so weeks, and my internet quit, so i am going to try this again

so to fill everyone in on some of the changes to the build the motor plans have changed a little bit for this winter, and the year ahead. Things got a bit more complex, but in a really good way. I am building the VG thats now on an engine stand, but not to the extent that I was planning a few weeks ago. It will still go through most of its treatment, extruded/honed upper/lower intake mainfolds(done), 58mm throttle bodies, 2.5" intake piping, new LW pulleys, new poly motor mounts, new poly trans mount, fixed rear main seal, freshly powdercoated valve covers, new timing covers fully shaved(been working on this week every night after work) and will go back in the car once I finish up the bay, and finish up the wire tuck(almost done), power steering tuck and custom hard lines(done), fuel line tuck and custom ss hardlines all in the coming weeks. This is where the motor goes back in in march (if all goes well) No ITBs or mild cams anymore on this engine. Not worth the fab time involved, as the tuning is the main concern. onto bigger, better, and lighter things. might as well go all out here.

Instead, i have sourced a VH45de low mileage out of a '90 q45, and am going to possibly think about building it slowly over the next year. long tube headers (custom), Full ITB setup (has already been done and proven for good gains and amazing sound!), and will be mating it up to my 5 speed built z32 trans with an adapter that is now somewhat readily available. now, achieving 350wheel/350tq will be a joke, 4.5l v8 with ITBs will be insane, the motor has all forged internals, can have the option to TT it in the near future, its a lighter motor then the VG30. easy no brainer here.

so thats the plan. My VG goes back in, and then a slow v8 motor build for the 2012 season probably.

now actual progress pics of what has been taking up most of my time.
The BAY

wire tuck has already happened for the most part, power steering is rerouted, and reservoir is mounted in its new location temporarily, so here is the fin part. chopping and welding

Driver Side: easier side, used the body hammers to smooth and flatten out the humps that originally mounted the main fuse box. then some small areas chopped out, about 10 small holes (under 1/2" dia.) welded up, and then the 3x3" area cut out and welded up.


example of some of the small holes, and tapped holes that I welded shut


Passenger Side: Much more complex, besides the numerous holes that i welded up, a large area of the wheel well needed to be removed and a panel be welded back in. onto some pics



I then began to weld an 18ga sheet formed to the area i cut out. but my welder decided to crap out at this point. The mig wire feed jammed up from time to time, but nothing to ever bother me before. This particular morning though, the welder wouldnt last for more then 5 minutes before jamming up. SO i searched CL for a few minutes and SCORE. Lincoln gas mig really nice unit, in my town for a steal of a price. used by the original purchaser 4 times, and only about 8 months old. and in perfect condition. 2 hours later, i had it in my garage, and got back to work




welds came out really clean, really good penetration, even though the pics are decieving, and then once ground down i changed tasks a bit. onto the body soldiering and smoothing
first time body soldiering (lead work). pretty cool techniques to get it right, unfortunately i forgot to take pictures of this step. whoops. knew i was missing something.

onto the next step which was some further smoothing. I bought a gallon of a special product. USC all metal. not like your typical bondo, it is composed of metal particles, and wont crack like normal bondo can from change in temps and movement. this product can actually be drilled and tapped when cured. pretty cool stuff. mixes and looks like liquid metal, but dries and sands similarly to a bondo like product






thats pretty much where this past weekend ended. I have yet to sand it down and shape the product. Probably lots of blocking, then two more coats of the USC all metal, and then onto the lightweight fusion filler on larger areas of the bay to get the areas all perfect and ready for final sanding and primer.


Another project mostly after work on weeknights. The timing covers:

first a diagram of a stock painted set of timing covers.



The areas marked in red I planned on removing and shaving. I have no need for any of these areas, as most of them mount items that i no longer run on my car or have relocated. the main one is the Injector control module ptu. Nissan back in the day thought it was a good idea to ground this unit by mounting it to the face of the plastic timing covers. by using metal threaded mounts, they thought grounding the unit would suffice. well needless to say a major recall back in '95 made it known that they dropped the ball on that one.
so my unit has been mounted for the past few years tucked away on the frame rail outside the bay altogether. thus, the four holes on the left of this pic go away like the rest of the areas.

Picked up a second set of unmolested stock timing covers, and started to get to work. I already shaved teh ones that were on my engine and painted the same gold as the HREs, but since i was going to change the color, and shave a few more areas, thought what the hell. start fresh. after a little bit of sanding, noticed that the set i picked up were far from unmolested, with about 3 different layers of paint over the years. but the plastic was in great shape, so why stop...

pics of the progress. drilled out and removed the areas i didnt want, Used my plastic welder and stock pieces of ABS plastic that i had laying around from previous projects, and got to cutting and melting. once fusing abs to abs, the item is as strong as if it never happened, unlike filling the areas with say bondo. plastic welding is the only way to do it right. takes time, but worth the end result. It is the little details here that make all the difference





a little bit more plastic melting and shaping, and then time for some primer and paint.

more updates soon in a few days....

for now i still have to weld somewhere around 25 small holes that i havent done yet on the frame rails, and then more smoothing.

[tripl3troubl3]

Nice start on your engine bay. What kind of welder do you use?

[RLB]

First time seeing this build. Really classy looking car. Where are you on Long Island?

[MikeG]

where were the original pics taken?

[1badg35]

original pics on the first page were taken in old westbury on campus grounds. suny old westbury if i remember that day correctly
I am on the north shore of the island, Huntington to be exact.

welder is a gas mig, Lincoln, not sure of the model number off the top of my head.

RLB, we drove down to H2o together this year man. I had the modded b6 dark blue S4



looks like I just sold the HREs btw! new crazier higher end set being built starting tomorrow. its going to be epic!

[Jedidiah]

YES! Time to shut it down Vince!

[1badg35]

its going to be sick Ben!! super stoked about the wheel change. more aggressive, dropping the frame of the car hopefully about an inch further, and lowering all around of course. time for more fender work once the wheels are finished.
wheels are decided to be 18x10+4 front with 4" stepped lips, and 18x12.5+4 5.5" stepped lips. biggest lips i could go with and still have clearance for the BBK. when taking clearance measurements, i was surprised how big those calipers actually were. when i got them, they shocked me, but i guess i got used to seeing them on the car.

not getting into exact wheel specifics until they are finished, but its a new wheel not yet on the market, and i opted for mirror polished stepped lips no clear, mirror polished inner barrels no clear, custom color/finish centers, and hidden valve stems. thats all im gonna say at this point

now onto tire sizing. thinking at this point, hankook ventus v12 evo k110. 225/40/18 front and 285/30/18 rear. unsure about this as i wanted a 35 series tire in the front, but no one makes that in a 225 or 235. did the calcs and the fronts will have 90mm sidewalls and a good amount of stretch. rears will have 86mm sidewalls and also a good amount of stretch. i guess this can work

Any ideas?

[Kaiyin]

wow, amazing car and this new build is going to be something to look forward to. I miss my z32 a lot. This car is just so perfect.

[1badg35]

thanks everyone

small update. did a little more welding, a LOT more smoothing, and got the timing covers shaved and up to primer.

quick iphone4 pics

passenger side of bay. still a bit more to go before primer. this week though


still have to weld more holes on the frame rails btw.

timing covers shaved and primered with white plastic etching primer

[Deemack79]

You sick bastid! When I seen the BBS spare at the grillout I was under the impression that it was an actual rim, not a donut!
Anywho....sick progress man, I have to make my way out to the Hunt to see her first hand.

[1badg35]

Thanks Dan. yeah man 16x4, made using (2) 2" slant lips decently rare parts, then powdercoated the center white, 24k gold spike bolts, and lots of polishing. the tire if i remember correctly is a 125/90/16. lol. the dude who mounted the tire told me he was scared to mount it, as he had never seen something like this before. then he told me i was a "truly sick man." hahaahah

interior shot just because. wishing i could put up some of the low res shots from the mag shoot, but cant till the mag hits stands. crossing fingers at the moment

[1badg35]

not a huge list of accomplishments this weekend, but a few things got done. Good buddy came up from Georgia, so crazy weekend commenced. but in the mornings, managed to reroute some coolant lines on the back of the motor to simplify things, pulled apart the top end of the motor, new gaskets, stripped and powdercoated the valve covers gloss black, finished one and a half of the three timing covers i am shaving (different color options), flipped my 2 piece stoptech rotors around (were on backwards), finished up the power steering relocation and custom bracket, and some more bay smoothing.
few random pics just because...

from this:

to this:


oh and decided on and purchased tires for the new set, some more suspension component upgrades, bought the lighter weight light weigh full pulley set, some stainless hardware, and a few odds and ends.


not skimping on tires this time around.. going to be doing something radical and stretching Falken Azenis RT615k (not my wheel btw just taken off the falken site, about 5 more weeks of construction time before i get to see my new wheels. progress pics will be coming i was assured though). the first set in production being constructed for my project!