what i'm trying to do....'71 2 door

[John408]

okay guys so you are going to hate me when i tell you this but let me remind you i was a idiot kid that didn't know how to drive great in a race car. doesn't sound good already, i don't even want to write it, but you guys should know. both times (i know, i have heard it all) were not my fault and my 4 1/2foot tall dime with a bre scheme seemed to be invisible or a magnet to a certain type of people in my city (sorry to stereotype but that's what happened). horrible man .

so i'm trying to do this one right, my 3rd 1971 2 door. i still don't know a lot about these cars and the last time i touched one was about 6 years ago and i was stoned the whole time building them so i don't remember much. so i'm going to need help please. i have been doing a lot of research on what i have, but i want to know every part of the car.

the motor is a Z22 with an L20 head, dual 44mm mikuni's built by rebelo some 10-12+ years ago. it still is strong since it hasn't been in a car for the past 6 years and not driven much in the past 10.
the rear end is an r180 (thanks thisismatt)
the suspension is 280z front struts and koni adj. in the back w/ground control 180 coil overs.
i have some old sparco jr. seats
i have 13" panasports and 14" libras
the tranny is something. its the same size as an L28 but it says L2 on the side instead of L8. i don't know if it is just a different year or what.
I have pretty much everything else for the car all boxed up and has been waiting.

here is the car when i got it. really clean actually. barely any rust and amazingly straight. thanks James!!


shaved drip rails, side vents, rear right marker light, rear license plate lights. so i started stripping it and dropped in a roll cage.



i wanted to do this thing right

[John408]

so i tried to scrape everything underneath, but after about 10 hours and a quart of aircraft stripper i got sick of it. so i scraped the rest of the loose stuff and pressure washed it.


i filled in the holes on the floorpan and shot it with some 3m undercoating


then painted the roll cage all pretty


now the fun begins...

[watts510]

I like the underbody... Looks good man.

[John408]

got a jacked roof courtesy of Rod and welded the drip rails back on.
The dude who took them off was trippin man because it looked like a whole lot of work to take them off. but a few hundred spot welds by my dad got them in place. it only took us about 4 hours to get both on and ground down. and i cut out the vents.


i used a lightweight filler and it seems to work good. i got a gallon for a quart price so i couldn't refuse.

[510-Trevor]

Nice purchase. So what are your plans for that bad boy?

[John408]

thanks man. too much prep though. i need robots for that kind of stuff.

[John408]

thanks. every nut and bolt. its going to be a switching daily driver along with my 71 chevy c10. hopefully i can get it going in the next couple of months....

[John408]

on to the engine compartment. i got rid of the holes i didn't need and filled everything to try and make smooth. almost everything was stitch welded so i just finished the job. the hood has the hydraulic shock lifts and holes for locks so i shaved everything for it.





so far so good.

[John408]

So I have been kinda slow on the project in the past couple weeks....or it just looks that way on the car. I have been doing prep, sanding, and more prep work to get this thing ready for paint which should be in a couple of weeks . I have also been fabricating and unfabricating what has been done to this car.
I primed the engine bay though.......with the biggest problem in the world. I had just started spraying with a full cup when i jerked back a little and the top of the cup flew off!!! paint everywhere man. luckily it was more on me and the ground than anywhere else. now i have to sand away and prime again without pouring paint on the car. Other than that it looks pretty good.
paint all over.



i also made these for my camber plates. its 1/8" steel welded so it looks better than having to cut an ugly piece out of the tower.

[Denver]

Wow, looking awesome. I like what you did to the strut tower, looks really cool. don't be afraid to take hundreds of pictures of everything. We love that. Go out on a picture spree!

[supra510]

Looks nice, good progress.

[yenpit]

Nice work on the strut towers!

[duke]

Nice project. Looks like it is progressing nicely.

One question, in the first picture of the roll cage it looks as if you butt welded some tubes in. Are those actually butt welds, or am I just seeing things?

[John408]

thanks guys, I was surprised when i was finished cutting out the slots. I hope it will add a lot more support to the struts once they are on.

more pictures to come shortly of the minimal bodywork needed....

Duke----they are butt welds. when I had the other cars, my father and I cut them out that way to make it easier to weld back in. It was a lot easier that way.

[thisismatt]

Tell Duke you sleeved them...