 Now I must admit, my initial goal for this round of winter modifications was to solely to make my car handle better. Since I have owned the car, a big part of me has always wanted to take the Z out on the track, so I decided this year I was gonna do what little I could to make the car handle well and actually use it for what it should be used for (hopefully). But of course, I couldn’t leave well enough alone and began trying to make everything “look” nice and the list grew.… So I’ll start in the front and work our way back. Here are the things I did … and although this is mainly just to pic whore, hopefully there might actually be some useful information…. ___________________________________________________
FRONT BUMPER/ENGINE BAY
Here's what I did up front (with some pictures to go along): -removed front bumper -polished intercoolers (again) and clearcoated them -cleaned up oil cooler -cleaned up entire area behind bumper 
Don’t mind how banged up the intercooler is, they were used and I got them cheap….
 -Removal of AIV system
-Removal of PVRV system -Removal of Carbon Canister -Removal of Radiator Overflow tank and installation of replacement Moroso tank 
And just to show how much misc crap gets removed with the Carbon canister, PVRV, and AIV system removal
 -Installation of Master Cylinder Brace
 -Relocation of Cruise Control -Fabrication of boost leak tester and leak testing
 Just a note, I had a boost leak in the passenger side turbo inlet, so I since I had to tighten it, why not reroute all the wires and tubes on the passenger side…looks a lot cleaner huh…
 Just a word of advice though…protect your paint… I usually always always put towels over my bumper and fenders to protect it from scraches…but I simply forgot in this case since I wasn’t doing any major engine work (or so I thought)… here is the aftermath
 Good news is they will probably buff out… but it’s still annoying… ____________________________________________________
FRONT SUSPENSION / STEERING
Here's the suspension and misc. stuff I did up front.... -Installation of Stainless Clutch line -Installation of Steering rack bushings
 -Welded or “boxed-in” lower control arms
 -Stainless Brake line install -Adjustable camber arms install -Stillen Sway bar install -recoating of all factory arms/linkages -respray of rubberized undercoating into wheelwell -cleaning of all components 
________________________________________________________
REAR SUSPENSION / DIFFERENTIAL /SUBFRAME
and here's the stuff I did out back.... -Cleaning and repainting of rear subframe
-Cleaning and repainting of Rear Differential
 -Installation of Differential Carrier bushing set
 -Installation of Rear control arm bushing set and new rear outer hicas ball joints This picture shows the locations of the bushings in the ES kit. I’ll be honest, this will take a long time and a good amount of patience to get these done.
 This picture shows a technique I used to press out the old bushings if a press can’t get to it
 This picture show how we pressed in the new ball joints for the Hicas…pressing in was Easy, taking the
old ones out was a royal PITA
 -Welded or “boxed-in” traction rods (shown in one of the pictures above) -Installation of Stainless rear brake lines -Installation of Adjustable rear camber arms
(This shows how I made sure the settings were the same for a baseline…then I went a couple turns more)
 -Installation of Hicas eliminator assembly -Recoating of all suspension arms and exhaust tubing -Recoating of brake calipers -Respray of rubberized undercoating into wheelwell and undercarriage 
Here’s the trade-off for being so low…damn exhaust scratches…
 
SO now I have moved on to the interior…. I got quite a few things planned here, so I will be back with another pic intensive post on what’s going on there…here is what it looks like right now 
ENJOY!!!
 |
Suspension time!! Here’s what I’ve been doing lately (no56K) - 
