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Light weight, Japan-style 240Z


BenZed

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Nice Z!!! Have you had it on a weigh bridge?  Should have awesome acceleration with all that weight reduction and a stroker  :)

 

Do you think the bracing to the front wheel arches has made much difference?  I saw the same thing in a BRE book and though it looked like a good idea to stiffen up the soft nose of the Z.

 

Yes, 935kg as I posted. Haven't really punted it around a track yet, so can't comment on the bracing yet.

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Nice car Ben, thanks for sharing :) Like everyone here, Im looking forward to the finish product! I like the way you finished off the roof ala M3. Just wondering with the legalities of your CF body panels. As you mentioned earlier, you want to keep your car legal. Do you have ADR approvals for the CF bonnet, roof and fibreglass hatch? Im also thinking of ditching my dashboard blower, will this ceramic heater keep it legal? where can i get one?

You must have a soft spot for the old zeds, amongst all the nice cars your've owned, you kept going back to it :) well done!

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Nice car Ben, thanks for sharing :) Like everyone here, Im looking forward to the finish product! I like the way you finished off the roof ala M3. Just wondering with the legalities of your CF body panels. As you mentioned earlier, you want to keep your car legal. Do you have ADR approvals for the CF bonnet, roof and fibreglass hatch? Im also thinking of ditching my dashboard blower, will this ceramic heater keep it legal? where can i get one?

You must have a soft spot for the old zeds, amongst all the nice cars your've owned, you kept going back to it :) well done!

 

Do I have ADR Approvals? You mean an engineering certificate? The car is a 1973 model, so it doesn't have to comply with much in the way of ADRs. The ceramic heater is fine, legally all you need is some kind of demister. As for the CF, that's probably the last thing anyone will think to book me for. I probably should have said 'keep it registered' rather than 'keep it legal'  :D

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The PWR radiator is a very tight fit for the engine fan, but it doesn't touch. Fitting the oil cooler was trickier than expected, but it was a cheap kit ($279) and I didn't need any extra parts to make it fit.

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  • 1 month later...

Another small update, I've just carpeted the interior. The carpet is all unbacked grey stuff like you see on speaker boxes. It weighs almost nothing and you can stretch it easily so it's great for curved surfaces like the wheel arches. I made up new rear panels on either side behind the towers from 3mm MDF, plus a new panel over the tail lights from 6mm MDF. Everywhere else the carpet is glued directly to the painted steel floor. All of the bits that are still visible in white will be painted satin black this week. I don't plan to re-fit the original console, so I carpeted the depression in the tunnel where the choke lever used to sit. This makes a handy place to store bits and pieces. You may notice I also had the door trims retrimmed in black vinyl with dark grey center sections.

I'm still waiting on some custom-made induction rams for my injection before I can fit everything, but that should be my next post.

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Crap!, I'm building a car at the moment and was hoping for somewhere around the 950kg mark but looks like I won't get anywhere near that now.

 

Funny isn't it, I have a 4 door Datsun with a V8, that weighs 1050kg's (no driver, 1/2 tank fuel) and I could easily take out another 55kg's at least. more if I replaced the bonnet and boot lids.

 

Does anyone know how much the standard L series engine weighs in the Z's?

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L-series engines are very heavy. An early 240Z L24 is 141kg and later engines only got heavier.

The lightest L-powered 240Z I have seen was a drag car in Japan with all of the lightweight mods on my car, plus holes cut in all the internal metal panels, no trim of any kind, plastic seats, aluminium fuel tank and titanium exhaust. It weighed 880kg and ran high 10s with a 350hp L31.

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hey Ben, any chance you could take a very close up pic of the gear knob ? Im missing the H pattern on my gearknob & I thought I might make my own precise replica on AutoCad and then print to a sticker..

better still do you want to sell yours !!  ;D

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Just got my extractors ceramic-coated, ready to go back on with the injection. If anyone is interested in getting some coating done this high-temperature black coating cost $400. You can get the polished aluminium finish (slightly lower temp rating) for $320.   

PM me if you want a quote on other parts (the coaters are next door to my company).

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Just delivered the car to my tuner to get the computer wired up and tuned. I had the aluminium ram tubes you see here custom made to fit inside the filters. Actually there's more space than I thought, so I might get bigger filters later. Need to give it a bit of a clean too  ;D

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I already do drive it on the street  ;D

I built it mainly for weekend stress relief and tarmac rallies (Duttons etc.)

It was fun even with Hitachis, can't wait to drive it fully tuned.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Where did you get the injection setup from?

You stated from Japan. Who did you deal with and how did you go with postage?

 

Thanks, Simon.

 

I had a friend in Japan take care of it for me. I can supply the kits brand new, look for my post in the classifieds section.

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Benzed,

with all the weight reduction you have done to your car do you have a breakdown of how much difference each modification made.

For example the dash and heater, how much weight did you lose?

 

I wasn't dedicated enough to measure the weights of all the bits, but here is a guide to what is worth doing and some estimates:

 

Carbon bumpers: really light, probably only 10-15 percent of the weight of the steel bumpers, so worth doing to save 7kg or so.

Carbon bonnet: Only a small weight saving of 5kg, so not really worth doing for the money.

Carbon roof skin: Hardly any weight saving (couple of kilos at best), only did it to fill the hole.

Fibreglass front guards: Probably 3kg lighter per side, not really worth the effort unless you need to replace them anyway.

Fibreglass doors: Heaps lighter, maybe 10kg per side with the acrylic windows, but a complete bastard to fit and not readily available here.

Fibreglass rear hatch: Heaps lighter, a good 10kg saving here if you use the acrylic window too, so this is a good one to do.

Stripping interior sound-deadening: About 4-5kg saved here, and very easy to do as the old tar comes off easily.

Fibreglass dash: Massive saving, about 15kg or more. The heater/fan assembly is really heavy and the steel frame of the dash weighs heaps too, My whole dash and ceramic heater would add up to less than 5kg now.

Changing seats saved some weight too as the stock ones are very heavy. The standard spare wheel also weighs about 4kg more than my large Watanabe spare.

 

So to sum up, the weight saving mods that make the most sense for someone less insane are carbon or fibreglass bumpers, fibreglass hatch, acrylic rear window and quarter windows, stripping  interior tar, light alloy wheels, lighter aftermarket seats and if you can be bothered, fitting a fibreglass dash and electric heater (also solves the problem of a cracked dash).

With all of these changes you can save 50-65kg.

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