As with most projects and rebuilds, they all start in the same place, mine was no different. However, this isn’t truely the start of my forever ongoing Z project. I’ve owned this car (my second Z) since 2008 when I purchased it from a former member. For the first 5 or 6 years I did the usual mods with suspension parts and basic bolt ons. For reasons unknown, whilst running stock boost, piston 5 cracked a ring land during a track day at Castle Coombe. A forged build and a remap later all was well until a sunny October’s day 2013 at Bruntingthorpe killed that engine with what at the time was a suspected head gasket failure at 181mph..... And this is where I shall start my journal.

 

The Z was stored off the road from Oct 2013 until March 2015. I’d had a major knee operation at the beginning of 2015 which meant I was going to be off work for 6 months. I’d saved up enough to start thinking about a parts list to rebuild her and frankly, after a couple of months of staring at the same 4 walls, I was going stir crazy! I employed the help of a good friend and decided to pull the engine and see what was what.... just a head gasket my arse!

 

March 2015

Problem 1: It turns out stainless steel, exhaust wraps and condensation don’t mix well

 

Before I’d even got the engine out, a new set of downpipes was added to this list. These AMS items were only 2 years old, so I was far from impressed! I contacted the retailer and after a bit of tooing and froing I secured myself a set of replacements for free... how long they will last, only time will tell!

Little bit of progress yesterday reassembling the engine. Waiting on a few parts to turn up that were missing before I can put the engine back in the car.

 

I also pushed on with sound deadening the interior of the car. I took JoelyP’s recommendation and went for Silent Coat sound deadening. Hopefully it’ll do a nice job of cutting out some of the road noise for the 295 section rear tyres!

Edited March 28, 20214 yr by nickz32

Dual 3” exhaust system, concerned about road noise from tyres... :lol:

What size pack did you buy of this sound deadening? I see they’ve got about 3-4 different size packs on their website. Might do mine over summer.


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35 minutes ago, Stephen said:

Dual 3” exhaust system, concerned about road noise from tyres... :lol:

Road noise is annoying.... exhaust noise is awesome ?

27 minutes ago, naz27 said:

What size pack did you buy of this sound deadening? I see they’ve got about 3-4 different size packs on their website. Might do mine over summer.


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2mm 40 pack. I’ve used 22 sheets so far, so should comfortably have enough to do the drivers side floor under the seat and around the rear wheel wells with what I have left

Great, thanks for that [emoji1417]. Haha I also don’t like the road noise but love the exhaust note especially when flooring it [emoji41]. Hopefully this stuff will help.


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Looking great Nick ?

Making a bit more progress with the sound deadening.... turns out my Mrs is much better at it than me!

A few more little jobs ticked off today. First up was the steering rack bushes. At a glance they looked ok, but on removal, they were clearly a little worse for wear. Easy job while the engine was out, so replaced with Energy Suspension bushings from Luke

Then I should have cracked on with the sound deadening but just wasn’t feeling it, so ended up giving the viscous fan a good clean and removed the melted on black plastic from where the shroud had previously shifted and rubbed against it. Pleased to find no cracks in it and I think it looks virtually new after

First stage of the exhaust modification/custom build sorted. 
 

converted my expansion down pipes to V band (rest of the system will also be v band)

 

shall be ordering the rest of the pipework needed for my exhaust in the coming weeks

#weldporn

Another little job done.

 

I made up a mounting plate for both the oil cooler and the Improved Racing remote filter mount.

 

This is the “final draft” made with some Ali checker plate, which to be honest, is a bit flimsy (but free). I managed to get hold of a bit of aerospace grade 1.5mm ali sheet that I’ll make the finalised version from.

 

A little glimpse as to what I got up to yesterday 

 

She’s not quite sitting how I want it, some little tweaks needed on the right hand box, but it gives a good impression of how it’ll look, and I’m really pleased. The 3.5” APR tips give the OEM+ look I was after and fit the recesses in the bumper perfectly

 

Edited April 26, 20214 yr by nickz32

Delicious!

Very nice Nick but just not quite as nice as mine ?.

8 minutes ago, Guest phutumsch said:

Very nice Nick but just not quite as nice as mine ?.

If copying an existing off the shelf design is your thing ?

That beefy spoiler, wide wheels and exhaust combo is spot on [emoji1419]


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56 minutes ago, naz27 said:

That beefy spoiler, wide wheels and exhaust combo is spot on


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Cheers.... this pic shows the rear stance a bit better

 

Again, that looks mean as f**k! Gotta love TE37’s. I got a Twin Z type 2 spoiler to be fitted, which has a similar arch to the spoiler as yours does. Hopefully looks as good when it’s on.

Looking forward to seeing this car in person one day [emoji1417].


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Coming together nicely, Nick. ?

Tick another couple of jobs off the to do list.

 

Fitted the replacement carpet I bought from Banzai Breakers. Considering the mechanical improvement Nissan made on the later cars, always baffled me why they the cheaped out on things like the carpet. Early spec cars carpet is much plusher in comparison

 

 

Second job was to mock up all the Haltech bits in the footwell. Took my finest puzzle solving skills to figure out what to put where and have enough room to route wiring etc. It’s a shame the patch harness connector has no provision to hard mount it to a surface, so I’ll have to have a think about some way of securing that.

 

still waiting on a few sensors to turn up, and then need to finalise the wiring, routing etc.... but you get the idea

 

(The forums having a hissy and won’t orientate the pic correctly)

Well after 6 weeks and counting, I got bored of waiting for the parts that got missed when returning my engine back to me, I cracked on and sourced the majority of the parts from Jimmer and a few other places.

 

Here’s what I’ve been up to recently

I replaced all the T-bolt mikalor clamps, because I bloody HATE them, with genuine High Torque Jubilee clamps. These should clamp more evenly that the t-bolts, and hopefully no more pipes popping off!

ive also fitted a WinFactory hood prop kit, which has done away with the rather antiquated hood prop.