Bumpers, Fender Mirrors and Painting

Well, not a planned update for this year... as I wrote before my passenger side fender got all banged up in the garage over the winter. Originally I was just going to leave it, didn't want to waste fun summer driving time and potentially miss any races. Well with work, family and travel schedules... a 3-4 week window appeared and I decided to let Pilo over at Pilo's Body Shop have a crack at her. 

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie...

If you don't know the story.. google it. If you know me well, thats how I live my life... while I am doing something, might as well do it right and get some other items done as well. So a quick fender paint turned into... 

Sandblasted my Shelby Libre vintage wheels (still working on refinishing them)
New rear bumper (Skillard)
Got a new Xenon front air damn from a car club member (thats Kurt!)
Fender Mirrors (Z Car Depot)
Also painted rear deck lid, so of course also got a new deck lid cover (Skillard)

Since I didn't find a new front air damn until we had nearly finished... I splurged and ordered the Skillard.com front Type 1 Air Splitter... it was originally to help off set the sagging front spoiler (from going off at the track two years ago) and gave me an excuse to splurge. I still haven't mounted that as it is fairly extensive... 

Anyhow... the paint match on the fender, deck lid and front spoiler is awesome. Not perfect, it never is on spot repair (I skipped on blending since I want to fully rep
aint the car someday), but man its so good I bet hardly anyone will be able to tell. The best part is that Pilo let me work on the car a little, I learned some painting tips and helped with the front spoiler. 

I made some good decisions on parts, and some bad ones, let's break it down. 

Fender Mirrors - I got the grey plastic ones, they were on clearance (still are if you want a set) and I figured for the savings I can paint them black quick. However, the black ones are also now on sale, and I spent more in paint, sand paper, and time than I saved. I mean it was fun sanding, and I went above and beyond and since I had to paint, I sanded off the flashing lines (plastic mold lines) so I feel like they look more high end... but I know they are cheap, and I shoulda of just bought black ones. 

Rear Bumper - they sell it in raw aluminum, or black powder coat. I am glad I went cheaper here, cause it was easy to paint, and we ended up custom cutting a notch in the bumper near my tow hook. That would of ruined the finish on the powder coat. The real mistake here though was not buying a bumper in the first place, and trying to jury rig an old bumper that was in terrible shape to the car... that was last year and now my rear fenders look like swiss cheese. Fix that another day... the new bumper looks nice and I need to adjust them a bit but looking good. 

Okay so what is next? Well I have some autocross events, a track night at Gingerman Raceway and lots of other projects around the house and garage to get done. I need to find time to finish the rims, no real priority on that, but man I can't wait to see how she looks on vintage rims to complete the look. 

August 6th Cars and Coffee, August 11th Gingerman, then September and October autocross events... maybe sneak in a Z car show and a track day with the Corvette club... who knows. Glad to have my baby back! 

Here comes 2022

Well the 2022 season started... I got the suspension installed in the car and done barely a week before the first race. It was a labor of love... and a longer blog will be coming on what all it took to get it all installed and the work we did, but for now I wanted to note all the work that was done to the car and how she is riding. 

Z Car Depot: www.zcardepot.com
Adjustable Lower Control Arms - 800-890
Bump steering spacers - 650-259
Stainless Steel Brake Lines - 800-193

The Z Store - Motorsport Auto (MSA)
Front Street camber kit from MSA - 23-4188 
Rear Camber Adjustment Kit - 23-4171
Koni Yellow Adjustable struts - 23-1032/33
Eibach progressive springs - 23-4042
Steering Rack Bushings - 23-4151 
Steering Shaft Coupler -  23-4160

Apex Engineering - Quick Steering Knuckles - S30 280z

Techno Toy Tuning - Custom Control Arm Bolts - S30

Also new inner and outer tie rods, new lower ball joints, and tons of new bushings and new rear bearings, mostly from Z Car Depot. I did 90% of the work myself with other students at Ivy Tech Community College. I am two classes away (I think) from earning my technical certificate. 

Lot's of special thank you's to people for the help. Special thanks for all the members from the South Bend Region SCCA (SBR) who help with leads on parts, experts to help, and general encouragement. I have struck up a great new shop relationship with Direct Performance Solutions and hoping to find some time at Pilo's Body Shop to get my fender repaired... see my previous post on that poor fender. 

Want to see my baby on the track? Check the SBR Facebook page for events, hopefully I will be at most of those (fingers crossed). 

There Goes 2021

 Well... I guess I was worse at writing on this blog as I was on my personal blog. So let's see what did we miss since Feb 2021. 

Autocross - The Z did nearly a monthly autocross this year! Well I think I only actually got to 4 or 5 events but I felt like I was regular out there with the car! I started the year on my stock suspension and crappy tired but ended up upgrading to my Falken Azenis and dropped in a used set of Tokicos/KYB suspension. 

Track Days - we did three! I feel good abut that, I did two last year and this year more. So she is getting her workouts. We chewed up the Azenis pretty good, and luckily no major issues this year on track. I did have one big spin out in the middle of the track and luckily everyone dodged my car and we stayed safe. If you want to get out on track... following the SCCA Track Night in America program, great price and great way to get safely on track. 

Wrenching - well we were less than productive in the wrenching department this year. Installing my rear bumper the fuel tank neck got drilled into... nearly sidelined me from an event. Luckily the part was $65, unluckily it took way more labor than I care to admit dropping the tank, putting it back in, dropping it again (long story) and re-installing again. Whew. Also, the used set of shocks/struts I put in... one strut straight up blew out at my track day, and one was leaking pretty badly so I bit the bullet and bought all new (more on that later). 

Scarwars - I wrote a blog (One More Scar) about my new scars... new knee surgery, eye lid surgery, and a big scar to the Z. When I took my Z up to Ivy Tech (I am working on my auto tech degree) I was quickly backing out to pull into another lift and BANG CRUNNNNNCHHHHHH.... I hit my passenger side fender into a big commercial truck. Luckily no damage to the truck, luckily I have a spare fender already, but unluckily really no time/money to do body work on her right now so it will have to wait. 

So what is next? Well this 6 month recap will hopefully not be the last post for 2021. The Z is on a lift now and I am working on putting in new Eibach progressive rate springs and new adjustable Koni Yellow struts. This upgrade is considered way easier than the challenging coilover install on these... but man this "easier" job is proving very challenging. Wish me luck... and if you follow this and I haven't posted about the suspension being done... HMU. I need to update the page more. 

Glove Boxes, Tow Hooks and AFM

Well as usual... long time between posts, and this blog will end with a promise to post more... but hey we all know how this will go by now. If not, welcome to "Me and My Z"... a now quarterly blog about my 280Z. I do have a few more months before April and when I need her back on the road, back to autocrossing, and back on the track. 

Recap - I started classes again at Ivy Tech, partially so I am no longer a college drop out (Blog - College Drop Out), but also for some shop time, access to a lift, a warm spot for working on my car, and the chance to learn more skills as a mechanic. 

 

We finished the fall semester with the car in parts. We did finish the valve stem seals, and adjusted the lash while in there and worked on timing and ignition but the Air Fuel Meter (AFM) was completely taken apart. The lock screw was stripped and we couldn't get it back together. So January couldn't come soon enough to get back in the garage and finish it. We have to jury rig it but we got it all together, tuned, and even took a very cold January drive (with a driver side window, and no heat).

New Items - over the holiday break I ordered some Skillard tow hooks, and I worked on a custom mount of the radio bracket into the glovebox. I snagged a cheap deal on a Bluetooth radio, so I figured while we are re-wiring things lets put the radio in the glove box to free up space for more gauges in the dash. I also thought, hey lets fix the horns, it can be that hard... typical Datsun owner, who hasn't learned that nothing is easy... like trying to fix the map light switch to work... another story for another day. 

So where are we? 

Well the radio works (I need some mounts for the speakers still), the horn works, most interior lights have been converted to LED, and the AFM works. BUT, we took apart the air intake, and in mid conversion to a cold air intake style filter... ran into fitment issues. So she is filterless right now, but luckily not going anywhere so its cool. I ordered some parts so hopefully we button that back up soon. 

So what's next? 

We are going to rip out the AC parts (she doesn't need AC and none of it works anyways). Then we need to get it to the body ship. My man Pilo is going to help with getting a rear bumper mounted and we are going to tackle replacing one of the frame rails (maybe both). 

If that all goes well and doesn't total drain the car piggy bank I hope to get a new exhaust for it (I think suspension will wait until next season). Then I need to finish restoring my set of Shelby Libre Wheels... and she will be looking fresh, smelling cleaner and if I am lucky with a driver window in case it rains again while I am driving her. 

Thanks for checking in y'all. Me and My Z are nearly ready for 2021!