Evolution of my TT Slicktop.

I've had my 1992 twin turbo two seater slicktop for 7 years now. its Sapphire blue and had black leather with micro suade trim and a bit of a doof doof stezza. when i bought it the previous owner imported it from Japan and had already rebuilt the engine with Arias forged pistons, ball bearing cores fitted to the standard turbos and a brass button clutch.
i drove it like this for around 3 months until i fitted a dual 3 inch cat back exhaust with cannons and a manual boost controller.
my first ever night at the drags got me a 12.77@110mph with pretty shabby tyres on the 16 inch stockies. this got me hooked.
about a year and a half later i got a Blitz pod and 19x8 Zennetti rims. this is how it looked back then.



not long after this photo i lost my license for an extended period of time for doing some stupid shite i'd rather not talk about, so the zed got put into a shed while i pondered what to do with it.
and so the journey begins....

 

first thing i did was do a plenum pull and delete things like all the water lines under the plenum, aiv's, egr, prvr, took off the valve covers and sprayed them blue and fixed a couple of small oil leaks.
while the plenum was off i thought, "meh, may as well smooth and polish it".
i re-routed some wires, moved some brackets and filed smooth all the bolt bosses on the plenum that weren't being used anymore. even bits and pieces underneath have been cut off and smoothed over. i was sanding, grinding, filing and polishing for a couple of months cause everytime i looked at it i found something else to do on it.
i put it back together with some silicone intake pipes and a big front mount intercooler kit, silicone top radiator hose and polished hard pipe, bottom hose hard pipe kit from Caz, Turbosmart adjustable fuel pressure regulator and i removed the battery tray and smoothed it out to re locate the battery inside the car.

 

about halfway through my no license stint the rego was due for the car. in my infinate wisdom i thought this would be the perfect opportunity to not re register it and turn it into a track car.
now, i'll be the first to admit i jumped on the superlap bandwagon and after the zed being off the road for 4 years i was seriously missing cruising around in it.
after lots of pondering i have decided to get it back on the road, make it faster and better than before and start enjoying it again.
while i was in superlap mode i fully stripped the interior to do major work to it. while this set me back a whole heap it did have many advantages for what i want to do. this will be primarily a street car and will be used for drags, events like Powercruise and the occasional track day.
like i said, i completely stripped the interior, all that was left was a steering wheel and rack and lots of wires. i deleted the entire aircon system inside the cab and engine bay including all the wires and brackets. the stereo system including wires and stuff. all sound deadener is gone, a job i never want to do ever for as long as i live. i took so many wires and brackets and crap out of the car that it filled 3 Sulo bins. after it was all cleaned up i painted inside the cab silver, fitted a Sparco seat and super low rails and a custom dash panel with guages.





i still have the seat and rails and can easily fit them, strip out the trim and carpets if i want to go racing. in this form it is about 270kg lighter.

 

at the beginning of this year i started putting it back together to make it legal but obviously missing all the modcons like aircon and stereo.



its been a big effort but well worth it. i regret taking it off the road to begin with but now its working out well. i don't miss the leather electric seats, electric seats shit me and i prefer fabric to leather. i've gone to the effort of taking off all the underlay from the carpets and sound deadener from the interior trims so the car stays as light as possible.



the wiring loom behind the dash is seriously half the thickness of a stock one and without the aircon and ducting there is heaps of room in there. i am going to put a simple and light electric windscreen demister in to keep the authorities happy and so i can see where im going.
i made up a panel for the stereo slot to house 3 guages. they are Drift oil pressure and water temp and an Autometer carbon boost guage. i put the turbo timer where the clock used to live too.

 

i bought a pair of non electric seats from a 95 model for my car thanks to John at UAS. they will need a clean up but are in great condition.



its starting to look like a road car again



there are so many little jobs i've had to do like making simple brakets to replace the many stupudly complicated standard ones and re wiring stuff i ripped out in my frenzy.

 

my rear wing had a big split in it from someone reversing into it while parked at work so i ripped it off....



cleaned it up and made it brazillian. there are a few holes to get welded up and i'll get the hatch repainted one day in the future.



i scored a GReddy style front bar for nothing cause it had some pretty major cracks and splits in it. i fibreglassed them all up and primed it to get it ready for my mate to respray it along with the vented center nose panel i had.

 

Should've kept the race car interior center panel!

 

Great writeup, BJ. Will be following this thread.

Isn't that a Bomex front bar though, just like mine?!


AAA

 

Yeah i have, doesnt take much to swap it and the gauges over.

 

Thanks mate, to be honest i dont know what brand it is, i just know it was fubar when i got it .

 

Heaps of work, kudos mate.

Love the stripped interior, looks great!

 

Cheers mate all the carpet and boot trim will all come out easy enough on race days.

 

It's a modified GReddy by UAS. It has better ground clearance and the speed holes in the side.

 

while the front bar was off getting fixed and sprayed i bought a Whiteline adjustable sway bar and rosejointed links and a Extreme 6 puck solid center clutch and heavy duty pressure plate. the clutch is great, it doesn't slip at all and the pedal is quite soft and user friendly.
here is the bar and center panel all sprayed up.



i had quick release Dzus clips trial fitted to the standard front bar so i have to transfer them over to the new bar. i made up some brackets that bolt to the original front guard mounting points and rivited the Dzus mounting points to the brackets. now it only takes about 3 minutes tops to get the front end off and the indicator wires are the only thing left hanging. makes things really easy getting on and off trailers or doing work in the front. in this pic the bar is still in the old crappy colour.







the passenger side bracket doesn't quite fit right so i'll have to knock up a newby and get it all lined up perfect.
i sold the off the 19 inch rims too, i'd prefer 18x9 or 10s to fill out the guards and get wider rubber on there.
also got a Nistune type 2 board soldered in by a smart fellow at my work.

 

test fitting the bumper. bonnet is in a state of disrepair. im going to put some mesh on the underside of the vent i cut into it and respray it all. im not sure if i should paint the entire bonnet body colour or paint the center satin black and leave two blue strips about 200mm wide on either edge. the front quarter panel here has been repaired and resprayed before because of an altercation with a roo, the colour is a little darker as you can see.



decided to paint the front mount and pipes satin black to keep it looking stealth and away from prying eyes. before....



after....



before....



after....

 

finally all back in one piece now after so many years so i gave the car a victory wash and just sat back and stared for a while.





i have some pretty cool holidays coming up soon so i won't be able to afford any big mods for a while. i'll have to make do with fabricating a new battery mount in the cabin for my Pulse dry cell and pimping out some bits and pieces in the engine bay to make it all neat and shiny.

 

looks really good man. loving the build. what times are you aiming for? drag radials will help you alot with the 60.

 

Well i've always wanted a 10 second streeter but for now id be happy with 11s. Im not really chasing times at the moment i just wanna go out have fun and smash tyres at Powercruise. Last time i raced it i was only doing 2 sec 60s and getting 12.8s and 12.7s.

 

i've started changing the engine bay. i originally was going to paint and powdercoat everything gloss black, change the blue silicone hoses to black and hide heaps of wiring. i sprayed the throttle cable cover and timing belt covers gloss black but i've already changed my mind about them. everything else is going black with no polished alloy or chrome anywhere. im a car detailer and all i polish shit loads of alloy bullbars and wheels and mufflers so the less i have to do on my own car the better. i've started shaving the unused bolt bosses and other raised bits and pieces and just generally smoothing them all out.

timing covers before the smoothing out


where im at right now.

 

mate you a credit to the 300zx for all the attention to detail you go through, makes some of us seem slack in comparison