Mr. G. Brettin's Slow Motion Leg Hump

gbrettin

Well, I committed to getting the Winters Quick Change. It has been at the shop for a couple years and I really needed to put up or shut-up. I kept thinking about my diff being welded or changing to a quality OE diff. Neither of those were the right option for my build. Getting the Quick Change is a step in the right direction but I still need a new subframe and axels. I'm not changing anything until my car is up and running with some test miles. This just plots the course for the future when I turn up the power. The quick change has all sorts of upgrades considering it was going to get abused by a sand rail buggy (original intention for it). The ring gear is 10" and there's a list of other items that are shown in the picture of upgrades. The Quick Change doesn't seem to be heavier than the IE either. I guess I can weigh both of them later if anyone is interested.

Wiring progress update: I took a few steps back on the passenger side and re-did some of the work. Electrical tape was wrapped around the wiring for the headlight and turn signal wiring. The electrical lead for the Accusump was routed through a frame hole and that had me freaked out about fire potential so that was wrapped in electrical tape and then put in loom, along with the headlight leads. The ground and power were twisted together which required me to re-do the ends (no biggie).

Passenger side was already taped off last time I worked on the car so that only needed to be tucked. The brake lines will need to be cracked open and re routed. During the re-route operation I will tape off the metal portion of the line because that stuff is like a chain saw on the paint. There's a pile of wiring going over the brake booster so I'll try getting that under the booster when the brakes are opened up.

I'm going to try getting the O2 wiring pulled tonight. Trying to keep these tasks simple so things actually get done.
The last picture here... I really like because I can actually see the engine bay getting cleaner!

gbrettin

Small updates. Ordered some IDS drag coils that have been valved for 1000+ hp. Should be here in a few months. No rush on those.

Originally I had thought there were wiring issues inside the fuel assembly because the primary pump didn't turn on. I took the fuel hat off and only saw that there were wire detached for the level assembly. Fixed that but it wasn't the main issue... but an issue none the less.

Upon further inspection, Someone didn't use a proper crimp tool so Dave fixed what he could and then we couldn't get the last one fixed. Ordered another CJ Motorsports plug because some of the pins were jacked up. Using nice new pins and proper crimps are key for those. Someone folded over the tabs previously, of which I will not call out at the Auto Dynamix shop. It was caught and fixed. This is just inside stuff that can happen anywhere. I'm just showing all the catches where most people/shops don't. Also, take a moment to appreciate how damn big the power and ground wires are for the fuel pumps!

With that said, Dave and I back tracked all the wiring that has been done. It all looks good. Although... I have to take the plug apart again because I didn't add in the level sensor signal wires to the clip going into the top hat. oops. Easy fix that doesn't require the fuel hat to come out.

Z1 SS brake lines came in. Not sure if I said this or not... but the old brake lines supported the k-member... and engine... This was because the hydraulics on both the forklift and transmission cradle slowly leaked while I was fixing the oil pan. There are visible signs where the line was getting stressed. I don't mess around with brakes, they need to be right. I need to change all the routing on the brake lines anyway. This is a good chance for me to drain the brake fluid and make all the adjustments.

Last night I needed to mark where the O2 bungs were going. With the exhaust going back on the car, I took the opportunity to put my trim rings on the car. They look damn good! Very happy with the result.

Final thought here.... I figured out a way to clean up the engine bay a bit, but I will do the work down the road, but I want to share because I've been saying I want to clean up the water lines. The front swirl pot will be removed. That space will convert to an expansion tank for the swirl on the cooling system. In the trunk I will add a few gallon water tank placed at a higher level than the pump and radiator (to get air out of the system). There will be a bulk head passthrough so I can detach lines easily. Ideally it will fit in the spare tire well. Then I can hard line the back hauling lines to the front with aluminum tube. That's the idea for the future anyway... later.

No more changes are allowed at this time though. serious. I'm not going to put on the drag coils until the car works. With that said, the car is REALLY close to hitting the dyno... for real. Nick and Dave are working on getting their race car done for Sick Week 2023 and are working every night so I'm thinking that the actual dyno runs will happen late to end of February when they get back. That's totally fine too. It's Winter in Michigan so it's not like the car can go on cold salty roads.

gbrettin

As mentioned before, I needed to get the O2 bungs marked off. That was done and I drilled out the pipe with a hole saw. I cleaned up the bungs and the pipe really well and then Dave tacked both of the bungs but also proceeded to finish welding the driver's side pipe. The finish weld was completed because because he had already welded the exhaust up.

Dave mentioned that he hates the prep work so I leveled out all the MIG tacks, wire brushed all the welding joints, and then degreased the whole pipe. I can see why he was holding off on doing the prep work because I think there was 2hrs in that alone. He mentioned that it would be less than an hour worth of welding now that all that has been done. I suspect he will weld it sometime this week because he has been welding a cage for his "Street Car". Check the cage work out.... They are working on sub 7sec.

Also had a custom brake button sent to me by Redondoavab. I love easter eggs on my car like the "SMLH". It's a reference to this build on this site but it's also a hilarious story where it originates from.

I think this is MIGHT be the last post or one of the few prior to a dyno run.

A battery tender has been until the last bit of wiring is delt with. Inside wiring needs attention from Dave. There are a few grounds and exposed trigger wires that he has set off to the side. I'm not sure what he is doing with those so I have to let them be. Now here's the rub on all this. The "Street Car" is going to Sick Week in Florida in two weeks. They are busting their chops to get that done during the two weeks. The Diehl Brothers (Racing) has completed that promod cage in 3 weeks after hours, certified, built the rear end, mounting tabs, panels and are building three engines. My car is taking a back seat until they wrap up with that event. Sick Week is a drag and drive event. The whole event will be broadcasted live. This is the "Blue Turd" from last year, which is a stock 5.3 LC9 block (CAM and gapped rings). (my engine is WAYYYYYY more built) :





Please take a moment to appreciate how difficult it is to make the pipes dance around like this. I'm very proud of this accomplishment.

gbrettin

Main take away... We're almost done. What a wild ride guys! Long a$$ time coming and I appreciate all the input over the years. I went from not knowing sh1t to barely knowing sh1t.

gbrettin

I have a plan to pop the mold now. I'll need to make a metal jig and weld in large bolts on the back side of the jig that will allow bolts to enter the back side of the mold. The mold will need to be drilled at the same location of the bolt holes. Then I can use bolts to apply even pressure around the face to release the part. Scott/Madwi gave me this idea in a similar application.

Moving forward in the interim I purchased a cubby from a totaled car. Both bottom legs broke off at some point, one by me and the other in shipping. One leg was epoxied on.... I may have threw the other leg that broke off. ANYWAY, the mount was really easy. I used some scrap carbon fiber at the shop that was cut to the size of the cubby. I used another piece of CF for strength after I cut the holes wrong. The back side of the CF was scuffed and epoxied to the cubby while the front side was silicone sealed. The back side of the cubby was cut open to allow for cabling.

If someone wanted a cheap and easy cubby mount, that is the way to go. I have about 3 days into it but most all of that time is waiting for epoxy and sealant to dry. If someone wants a crazy expensive cubby mount in the future... HMU. Patrick/Redondovab is first in line though. Also, I don't really work on timelines so well... wait times may vary. Just look at the history of my build for that confirmation.

gbrettin

Ok, small updates are better than nothing IMO. The radio, Tinker Electronics and dash (mostly) are back in. The temporary dash looks much better than anticipated. I'm happy with the looks... Now I need to look into reconditioning my dash with some Sonax... She's looking a bit chalky.

gbrettin

Michigan had some unseasonable warm weather for a few days, so I took advantage. I did a few more layups on the cubby mold. After a complete cure cycle it was time to release the mold. Removal was accomplished by drilling holes into the back of the mold and then hitting 2" bolts with a BFH. To my delight the cubby was released! Upon inspection I noticed that the legs needed some work and a few air pockets needed to be addressed. Marglass was used in the pockets and then sanded. After that, I followed on with light weight Bondo to smooth out the surface.

I recently ordered a center cubby console off of ebay so that I can test the accuracy of the mold. TBH, I think it's dead on but I will give it a test as soon as it comes in this week. Once the weather gets a little warmer I can start in on the B side of the mold. That shouldn't be anything like the first part of the molding process. I already have the mold and all I need to do is get the face and mount points for my Tinker Electronics display. Working a bit more with fiberglass has helped me understand how to lay it and the the timing of the resin. You might be thinking I went hard on the resin for the A side... well, that was intentional. I needed to make sure that the face had an accurate representation and I wasn't comfortable at laying in the fiberglass. A forum member asked for cubby mount for a Motorvate digital display so I think he will get an even better cubby mount than what I have. Next cubby will have less resin and OEM looking feet (I hope). And let's be honest... The feet came out pretty decent on the first one here. I'm just looking for perfection I guess. Perhaps I will do vacuum bagging on the next one? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

In other news. Sick week wrapped up and the Diehl Brothers landed top 10 in their class (I think 8th). Check out the video of their last run. During the week they were out my Nismo RS Juke was totaled. A kid pulled out in front of me in a full sized Tacoma. No injuries were reported but I'm sure that kids Dad was mad as hell. Now I'm on the hunt for a nice daily. You ight be curious as to why I'm posting that bit of information... Well... I now have Nismo RS Juke seats for my Z. I'm actually on the fence about putting them in. They look amazing but they are heavy due to air bags. I know this is going to be a shocker, but my Z will not have airbags. Hey, I guess I have options.

gbrettin

Phase 1 of the cubby mount has been completed. I had to massage the bottom of the cubby and ended up taking a tad too much off the bottom, but I still think it looks amazing. Fitment around the sides are completely snug.

Now I need to move on to phase 2 which is making the fiberglass mount for my Tinker Electronics. That's happening today hopefully. Also, the B side of my mount should snug up the bottom middle section of the fiberglass cubby mount.

Phase 3 will be purely aesthetics. I'll add carbon fiber to the face, prime the cubby and then paint it. I'll keep you guys looped in.

I've had a few people inquire about getting a cubby so I'll just address that below if you're serious. Best place to reach me is on Instagram@gbrettin because that's a public profile.

What does it fit in?
-- 370z only.

What is it used for?
-- After market gauges or anything your heart desires.

What are the face dimensions?
-- 5" x 7". Actually slightly larger but you'll have 3/8" wiggle room.

How much?
-- $599.

Why so much?
-- It took forever to make the mold and the materials were not cheap. I will likely make a 3D printed version which will be much cheaper in the future, but that's not where I am at now. There's also no guarantee I will get around to that either, so don't bank on it.

What is the lead time?
-- 3mo approximately. I do it in my free time and have a day job.

How long do you plan on making these?
-- Not sure. Might be a one off if no one is interested.

If you're still interested then PM me on IG@gbrettin for further discussion.

gbrettin

Moving onto phase 2. I was able to pop a perfect fiberglass mold of the front bezel. NO AIR POCKETS! hah. I think I have the hang of fiberglass now. I'll do vacuum bagged cubby mounts going in the future but I wanted to work on this doing hand layups.

90% of the face was cut out of the original face. I left a corner at the top left and right of the original face and then a small strip at the bottom so I can lay the bezel against that with out it moving around. I used a finger sander to carve out the back side so that I could lay my Tinker Electronics display flush against the bezel and so that side can support the unit.

Lightweight bondo was used in the small areas around the border. As mentioned earlier, I wanted to fix the bottom of the mount so that there are very tight gaps between the oem plastic and the cubby. Now here's were it got tricky... My car is 30min from my house. I used marglass to build up the bottom to the gap I marked out on the face, ranging from 1/16 to 1/8. Excess fiberglass was cut from the bottom of the mount with a razorblade while the fiberglass was soft. I'd say about 6-8min after initially mixing it up. Then I used 80grit to lightly shape at the 11 - 12min mark. Then I loaded up the orbital sander, sand paper, and cubby into the car and headed down to the shop to test fit. Now this doesn't happen often, but I applied the correct amount of fiberglass or at least knocked it down to the right spots the first time.

For being the first mount that came out of the mold, I'm extremally happy with the cubby mount. It fits exactly the way I want. Originally I was going to toss this one in the garbage because of the original layup wasn't great due to the air pockets and the feet did not form how I wanted. This particular part is imperfectly perfect to me. I'm going to clean up a few areas and bond some mounting brackets, but this thing is nearly ready for primer/paint.

gbrettin

Primed, bondo, sanded, primed, scuffed, and tested.

That pretty summed up what happened in the pictures below. Hard part was doing bondo on the bottom again because I had to do guess work on the sanding because my car was remote. Thankfully I had reference marks and it worked out again. First picture shows the problem areas at the bottom when I primed it. Short story, all the issues came out and said "HI!!!!!!!" after I primed it.

I'll need to make one more pass with limited bondo and then prime it at 3rd time. Fun times! The work appears to be paying off. Painting it black is going to be pretty easy after all this.

gbrettin

OK this might be one of the posts you have been waiting for. The cubby mount is done for my Tinker Electronics. I was going to inlay carbon fiber... but nah. I think it looks really damn good as is. Leading up to the completion I had to figure out how to mount the display to the cubby. I went to Lowes and bought a few different types of L brackets and some Polycarbonate. Turns out the L brackets fit the bill perfectly. All I needed to do was sand out slots on the side of the cubby and then epoxy them down. I used two types of epoxies to do this. The first was a clear gel that I put into the grove and all around the metal. Now, I know this is likely enough but I used a different two part epoxy that built up and over the cubby (it was less runny.). The mount worked perfect!

Now I'm just getting things out of order... Prior to doing the mount, I attempted to paint the cubby with VHT satin paint. It looked amazing! Down side was that the color and look was all wrong for interior. After sanding 95% of the paint off I learned that Spray Max sells a matt black trim paint and satin black trim paint. So... I bought both of them. I started out with the matt black trim, after the the other debacle, and it was exactly what I was going for.

I sure hope you guys liked seeing the complete process from A-Z for this. It wasn't a cake walk for me. Now I'm working on getting the mold prepared for Mr. Redondoaveb. He has some awesome plans with the blank cubby mount and Frank Motorvate. I need to lay out clear coat over the face of the cubby. I found out that the cubby will pull the slightest imprint onto the face.

I was so happy with my cubby's fitment that I gave it to a buddy that works in fabrication for airplanes (I'm sure there's a fancy name for it) and he said that they have a 100k+ dollar scanner that he can scan the cubby mount. This will be the first step in getting a 3D printed version out to people. Now, I don't know if this will actually materialize getting done, but getting it going to see what can come of it is a big step. I've had 4-5 people ask about getting a cubby and they immediately lost interest when I told them 700. I can't say I blame them, it's expensive. However, I'd gladly pay 700 not to f#uck with buying supplies, sanding, and sinking my time in general if I personally had the option. It was a LOT of work getting to this point. I think people understand that though, or at least hope so, because I've been completely transparent about this process.

I'll need to get the cubby back soon though... My Z is scheduled for some dyno time soon!

Pictures are in order of process:

gbrettin

You might be wondering what all the fuss is around the cubby mount. Check the video out showing what it can provide for read outs. I also wouldn't say it
s the "best" digital display. There are a lot of really good displays out. :

MarkRT

That's a pretty good digital dash!

gbrettin

Most of my dash is back together. A manual trim ring was modified to work with the Outlaw shifter, material was removed and the leather boot sliced and glued. It's not perfect but looks better than a hole. I'll worry about that detail later. Exhaust pipes came back from getting ceramic titanium.

I now have everything for the Sikky subframe minus custom DSS axels. I have a little bit of wiring needed but that's on deck this Sunday. Pending the wiring.... I should be on the dyno despite not having the Winters Quick Change in. Much Excite!

gbrettin

You may notice, we tore apart the dash and assembled again. and again. probably need to do it a few more times. I simply would not have been able to get over the hurdle of car wiring with out Dave's help (owner of Auto Dynamix). Dave re-did the push to start controls and finalized them, terminated the CAN EGT, and a whole bunch of "small" things that needed to be tied down. The car even has a neutral safety switch so it will not send its self through a wall if it happens to start in gear.

Couple notable items during that hectic day. The air to water fill sucks a$$. I'm removing the second swirl pot in favor of an actual 5gal water box that I will locate in the trunk. This will allow easy fill and the opportunity to run ice if I really want to. Fairly easy fix.

The turbos were seeping oil and then cleared up. Odd. They cleared up on the dyno, so what ever. The turbos are actually larger than I thought, 72/76. The buggy that it came off of previously produced 1800+hp .... I thought it made 1200. I didn't think the turbos would spool quick. WRONG. they immediately come online. I always hear them whirling. The springs were opening at about 6lbs and I think that this setup will produce about 600whp with out turning anything up. Yes, that's the bottom of the bucket HP for the car and only goes up from there.

This week we are planning on doing some power pulls. The car is out of e85 on the dyno so I'm literally going to the local gas station and will pump 20gal of freshness into plastic race cans. Also I need to pull the injectors out off the car because I'd rather not burn a hole in a piston due to some gummy junk at WOT.

There's no doubt in my head this will make 1000hp+ (dyno queen sh1t) driving on gate pressure this year will be perfectly fine for me considering where the bar will be set. Keep in mind, this engine can spin about 9k rpm after a bit more break in. OH, I drove the car under its own power on the road yesterday! It was 1/10 of a mile.... but it was a mental hurdle

A funny note - a truck passed me on the road and they stabbed the brakes and looked at me like I had three heads. I was doing about 3-5mph down the road. The car sounds like an absolute animal... watch the videos with the sound on.


Copied from FB because I don't feel like writing much... Yeah, lazy... I know. I'm really working towards getting to Zdayz this year and I would love to see you guys there at Blowing Rock, NC!
I'm going to drive this hazard down.
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Had a fairly stressful, yet rewarding day, yesterday. I've been pushing to get my car on the dyno and ready for Zdayz this year. My buddy, shop owner of Auto Dynamix, used his Sunday to get the wiring done (I was there assisting). We managed to knock out 99% of the wiring and got the car on the dyno. I pretty much was on pins and needles yesterday because I know the fool that built and fabricated everything (me). There were a few minor issues but that's expected since I didn't use a kit for any of this swap except for the LOJ engine mounts. Hopefully I'll be able to get some power pulls done this week after I put some fresh e85 in and clean the injectors one last time (car sat for a long while with e85 in it). Any questions, let me know; I'm an open book about this build (most people tend not to share specifics). I've posted the entire build process on my IG@gbrettin if you want to see the entirety of it. Also, come out to Zdayz if you want to see it in person and chat me up!