My RB26 260Z Project

[EF Ian]

Could you just paint the outside of it and then a satin lacquer on the inside to still show the carbon but look neat?

Thats exactly the plan, you must think like me.

 

[mcmurray]

Maybe not suited to an older car, but nice when the weave shows through the final top colour? Like this:

 

[svensktoppen]

It's either carbon (or anything else for that matter) for function, or for show.

If it's for function then paint it, just makes the car so much more cohesive. Especially on something like this where it's still subtle and largely oem look.

Good idea to leave the weave visible on the inside though

 

[EF Ian]

It's either carbon (or anything else for that matter) for function, or for show.

Maybe not suited to an older car, but nice when the weave shows through the final top colour? Like this:

Bit too fancy for me on this build. Though it would be easy to do, as the colour I am using is essentially a candy and requires either silver or white base below it. Leave out the base and the carbon will show through slightly. Though it would the same as a dark grey base so the final colour would end up darker than the rest of the car.

Good idea to leave the weave visible on the inside though

Its dry carbon on the inside, only reason I am coating it at all is to prevent dirt and dust from being attracted to it. I think a single coat of satin clear should be enough, don't want to be adding weight.

It's either carbon (or anything else for that matter) for function, or for show.

For me, on the cars, its only ever for weight saving aside from the odd small trim piece, such as the rear wing. That full dry carbon bonnet is over 10kg lighter than the stock one.

On my bikes however, its mostly for the looks.

 

[cauld1]

Out of interest where did you get the bonnet? I'd imagine off the shelf for these. I want one for the E34 as it'll be much easier to pull off and set aside at shows, painted same as what you're doing here though. It's not so much that the metal one is heavy, just that it's an absolute pain to put back on.

 

[EF Ian]

Only off the shelf one for these is a Seibon one, but they are not full carbon, so they would be a couple of KG heavier. I wanted a full dry carbon bonnet so In order to get quality I got this from a specialist in Japan - Restored JP. It was pretty expensive, but it only weighs 5.75kg (Stock is 17 I believe) and fits perfectly.

I'd go with Seibon for yourself, they generally look great and fit very well and a decent price and would still be a lot lighter than a metal one.




I still plan to own this car for life. So far future upgrades are carbon fenders molded from my metal ones so the fit is exact, but it needs to be top quality, hopefully save another few kg off the front end. Also want to change the bumpers to carbon, but get them chromed, so they look the same but save many kgs. Not many places doing non metal chroming though.

 

[EF Ian]

I really miss this thing, but that gives me good motivation to keep working on it.







I got home a few days before Christmas to find some great presents waiting for me in my Garage

Got all this lot to go on the engine.

Luckiy I printed off all the relevant pages from the workshop manual at work.

Nicely re plated parts

Great gold colour

ITBs looking as they should again.

 

[svensktoppen]

Fabulous

 

[EF Ian]

Tomei Full cast stainless manifolds, These should be a good upgrade over stock as you will see from the following photos, they surely flow better and offer less restriction and as a benefit are 1kg lighter per unit. Hopefully coupled with the ported turbos and new custom equal length downpipes that leaves the exhaust side of things as good as I can get it.

Check out how much the stock ones block the flow directly out the ports, not only is it a small hole left on the outer pipes but the exhaust flow will hit a wall and cause massive turbulence.

No such problems on the Tomei's

Much more open on the outlet side

Quite a bit larger in the middle and a better shape

They have downsides though, much harder to fit, I'm going to have clock the compressor housing just to tighten up the nut.

Stud will have to be trimmed and I'll need to turn down a spanner for the other side,

Can't fully fit up yet as they will still require some form of extra heat shielding, but I'll still run the stock heat shields as well, but it pains me because you loose the nice look. I had to modify the shields with a ball peen hammer to make them fit. They will be cerakoted silver on the inside and black on the outside.

Also received a Nismo Plenum, to improve flow on the intake side.

You can see the shape and size difference

Quite a bit chunkier

I was planning to fit it as it came, but the blotchy colouring in the metal was annoying me too much. So I swapped the blaster over to Glass beads

So much better safterwards

Considered cerakoting it, but I want to keep the variation in colour that the bare aluminum finish gives, so the current plan is to use a cerakote clear, tested gloss, now got to test matte and then decide what to go with. Its not to improve the look at all, just to keep dirt from getting embedded.

 

[Boydie]

That red for the rocker cover is lovely!

 

[TheDaniel]

I love this thread.

The spark plug cover is a nice touch

 

[cauld1]

Fantastic @EF Ian where did you get the bolts etc re-plated?

 

[JT079]

Inspirational build

 

[EF Ian]

That red for the rocker cover is lovely!

Yeah, I'm really happy with that choice. Its House of Kolor candy apple red. It might get re done as its got a few small signs of wear, but I'll wait until engine is back in. I'll re do it in the same colour, pity its not really a job I can do myself as its not worth the hassle of trying to get House of Colour products, so it would be back to AG Automotive for this.

Fantastic @EF Ian where did you get the bolts etc re-plated?

Unfortunately I don't have budget to do everything myself yet, as I would have liked to do this. That being said, I'm sure it would take a while before I could get a result as good as Awlyn from Parts restore NI gets, he has been doing it for a while and does a lot of zinc plating work.

 

[cauld1]

Unfortunately I don't have budget to do everything myself yet, as I would have liked to do this. That being said, I'm sure it would take a while before I could get a result as good as Awlyn from Parts restore NI gets, he has been doing it for a while and does a lot of zinc plating work.

Cheers, must give him a shout.

I'd thoughts of getting kit to do plating for myself too, but quite frankly life is too short in my opinion!

 

[DJMCA]

Awlyn from Parts restore NI

Funny i follow him on Bakebook and his work looks top notch

 

[Eager]

Back to Greg gush to tune with the changes or who will you trust?

 

[EF Ian]

I'd thoughts of getting kit to do plating for myself too, but quite frankly life is too short in my opinion!

You wouldn't get the same results right away either.

Back to Greg gush to tune with the changes or who will you trust?

Most likely, though not 100% yet, other options are Dave Rowe @ EPS or Romain Levesque @ Racecal. Also having thoughts about bringing one over here for the mapping so they can do my Civic also






Building up my intake manifold. Liquid gasket on the bottom part.

Nismo Plenum test fit

I can't fit it permanently yet, for one, I've not sorted the coating yet, and secondly, I am not sure it will fit yet, it could cause issues with the clutch master cylinder, so I will have to drop the engine in for a test fit before final bolting down.

New o-rings for the top side.

I wanted the balance tube to be done in satin black Cerakote.

These are the spacer/washers for exhaust manifold installation, even though they won't be seen I didn't want to leave them rusty

So I stuck them in the blast cabinet and they got a coat of Cerakote.

I even decided to cerakote all of the hose clips, I semi regret this as it was a lot of fiddly work.

 

[svensktoppen]

Not just get new clips

 

[EF Ian]

Not just get new clips

90% of those are brand new.

But in that form they will rust pretty soon, and they look better in black. Its cerakote, not paint, so no chance of coming off and it doesn't affect operation of the threads, so it made sense to me.

 

[ace275]

Just caught up on the updates

I remember us talking at the Blackwater cars and coffee a few months ago, and I mentioned I was renting one of these in Japan. It far exceeded my expectations, they're a great car with a great chassis. This one was certainly a bit rough though, but I really want one now!

 

[Eager]

Don’t discount MB automotive either. Both him and Greg were happy to entertain coming over when I chatted to them before.

 

[wbrown343]

Can recommend Alwyn at Parts Restore as well! Very particular with cleaning threads and bolt heads before plating, worth a bit extra over general platers that have lost stuff on me before! Just make sure to allow for a while to get them through cause he has a lot of work on.

It was great to get seeing the engine and the BMW Ian, your work is even better in person than it looks in the photos! Excited to see these calipers

 

[gary87]

The 260Z detail on the rocker cover is a nice touch!

 

[EF Ian]

I remember us talking at the Blackwater cars and coffee a few months ago, and I mentioned I was renting one of these in Japan. It far exceeded my expectations, they're a great car with a great chassis. This one was certainly a bit rough though, but I really want one now!

Cool photo. Yes, I remember, that sounded very cool, was the trip as good as expected?

Its amazing how capable the chassis can be, it doesn't even have an issue putting 500hp down.

Don’t discount MB automotive either. Both him and Greg were happy to entertain coming over when I chatted to them before.

Didn't really like Martins attitude, doubt I'd use him over Greg. If I were to get one over, might see if anyone else is in the market, and would need to sort a dyno.

Can recommend Alwyn at Parts Restore as well! Very particular with cleaning threads and bolt heads before plating, worth a bit extra over general platers that have lost stuff on me before! Just make sure to allow for a while to get them through cause he has a lot of work on.

He can be slow, but its a step above normal platers. He even kept all my fiddly bits in the zip lock bags I gave them in, not even a small washer lost.

It was great to get seeing the engine and the BMW Ian, your work is even better in person than it looks in the photos! Excited to see these calipers

Thanks. Looking forward to getting onto them properly. Was sorting some equipment, parts washer and a bigger oven. So far I've only given them the initial degrease, theres a load of hard caked on grease so will be needing a good bit more in the parts washer before they are ready for the acetone bath. But 1L of burnt bronze arrived yesterday, looking forward to spraying this as I haven't used this colour yet.

The 260Z detail on the rocker cover is a nice touch!

Thanks. I love the look of the R34 badge, but I couldn't very well have it saying skyline could I, so got this made exactly the same, but with 260Z. Its one of my favorite finishing touches on build.




Heat shields are done. Cerakote on both sides, should massively limit the heat transfer. I went for silver inside as it should reflect more heat, but black for discrete looks outside.

Regarding the manifolds themselves - Thermo met want £900 to lag them ., there is no doubt its the best option for reducing the heat output though. Zirrcotec want £603 to coat them. That a lot of dough, so I am considering just cerakoting them. It will cut thermal transfer by at least 15%, but some reports have it showing as much as a 40% reduction in surface temperature, so it might be good as Zirctotec but a lot cheaper for me.






It turns out that while the main body of my HKS turbo elbows is stainless, the flanges are just steel. Never noticed before because they were coated by Zicrotec. But since that was removed when the Thermomet lagging was installed I noticed some rust starting. We can't have that.

Almost forgot to clean the threads.

So they got the cerakote treatment. I think they look piles better, but also has the benefit of extra radiant heat reduction.

To go the extra step for even more thermal barrier protection I also blasted and ceramic coated the insides.

Time to fit the Tomei oil pump.

You can see how much oversize it is compared to the N1

Did have to drill out the reliefs for the dowels slightly.

Fitted with the aid of PRP alignment tool to ensure perfect alignment with the crank.

All fitted up with new timing belt really popping. I didn't realize how much the old one had faded.

Now, I had already coated the cam gear cover bolts. But the new washers had the problem of the metal showing at the sides.

Just didn't look right.

So these got coated also.

Well worth the effort.

Nismo manifold is now coated, now I don't think it looks as good as it did uncoated, but when you feel how smooth it feels coated it makes sense, the dirt won't be able to stick to it. In the end I used a custom mix of 80% matte, 20% gloss ceramic clear, because either on their own was either too glossy or too matte.

Starting to think its too nice to be putting in a car, might just leave it on display in the workshop.

Give me a shout if anyone is looking for some parts done.