A quick update on the 200ZX -
First off picked up a rear bar today for $35, ebay is my friend, fits nice and easy and is light without any of the reinforcing, but I plan to be quick enough not to be centrepunched
Hopefully Dimitri now has a Nismo copy body kit for me which should arrive in March as long as someone sorts out someone elses hissy fit at PI.....
I am also waiting to back from a bloke on ebay who auctioned off a front clip for a S14 Series 1, basically all panels and lights. I was the only bidder at $250 but it has now been over a week and haven't heard back. I will keep messaging, SMSing and calling, I want my cheap bits!!!!!!
And now for the update of the fun stuff.....
One advantage of buying the shell was that one of the worst jobs required to prep a production based car for serious circuit racing was 90% complete.
Thankfully, the sound deadener was removed by the previous owner using dry ice to freeze the deadening material which is then hit with a hammer to shatter it, or using a screwdriver to lift large pieces from the floor. Alot easier and quicker than the old heat gun and scraper I used on my Zed and 180B SSS when preppeing them for Marque sports and IP many years ago.
Unfortunately only the back half of the car was cleaned up properly and then painted with a "cold gal" paint to stop any further corrosion of the surface. This left me with the front half of the car unprotected and with remnants of deadener and sealerto clean up along with surface rusting from a few weeks in Brisbane's recent humid weather.
To clean up the rest of the floor it was out with the $15 Bunnings reversible drill and a couple of wire wheels, a 40mm cup wheel and a 75mm standard wheel. I wouldn't recommend doing this with a good drill, nor doing it at night in the suburbs, the neighbours may complain
The reversible drill was handy to get the wheels to cut through paint and sealer better in tight corners, rather than have to turn myself inside out to reach corners.
After the floor was basically bare metal with all surface rust removed and as much of the sealer in joins and the deadener I could get out the floor was then vacuumed to get rid of most of the debris left by the stripped sealed, deadener, paint and rust. As per the instructions on the spray can, I wiped down the floor pan with mineral turps to get rid od anything left and any oils from my hands as I stumbled around inside the shell. A couple of coats of the "cold gal" was laid down to make the inside of the car a pretty silver, and more importantly stop any further corrosion whilst the shell sits for the next few months until I can get the cage installed.
I have to wait until the Charger is finished as there is about $20k left to go on that to finish it. Once it's on the road then it will be full steam ahead for the S14 as the wallet can cope. One advantage of the time delay is that I can designa cage that can take the most advantage of the rules to tighten the chassis up as well as protect me the in the best possible way. To meet the rules of prod sports I can't have a tower to tower cage, but with the location of the rear subframe mounts and rear strut tops I should be able to tie the rear suspension into the cage. The front of the car will be stiffened by seam welding the shell at the same time the cage is fabricated. This should give me a great base to get the car handling really well and to make the most of the tyres I am planning to run, as a hint I will have to fit 9" and 10" wide wheels underneath the guards and run around 5 deg of negative camber on the front to make the most of them. The diff may have to be something a little shorter than the 4.3that seems to be popular with the drift boys.
