My 71 240Z

SLCustoms · **Posted:** Fri Apr 05, 2013 7:13 pm

Hi everyone, Im new here and happy to see all your nice rides so I'll show you mine. Its cool to have a forum like this to share our passion, Oldschool japanese enthusiasts are pretty rare here in Qc, Canada. So my 240Z is an early 71 serie 1 that have been almost entirely restored by the previous owner as it was in bad shape due to winter here. I bought it 2 years ago in good condition, I only repainted some parts under the hood to make it look better. The engine is an F54 L28/P79 head with the 71 twin SUs on.

Some pics:

With my friend's MKII Celica Supra

Lots of informations to share, I'll keep up posting!

Sébastien

mkisgood · **Posted:** Sat Apr 06, 2013 1:02 am

Lovin those rims

SLCustoms · **Posted:** Mon Apr 08, 2013 9:38 am

First thing I've done when I bought the car was to remove the big, heavy and ugly speaker/sub box that the previous owner put in the trunk.

I wanted to keep the 6x9s to still have a good sounding system, so I made some lightweight aluminum speaker boxes, insulate them and glued black carpet on it.

From the idea to the final product.

Sébastien

SLCustoms · **Posted:** Fri Apr 12, 2013 9:44 am

By the first day I had the car I wanted to put strut bars, but I didn't want ones that every Z owner can buy on ebay or anywhere else on the net, I wanted something unique. So I decided to make my own setup!

I wanted to make it look like oldschool custom made high quality parts. Every parts of this setup is made out of 304 stainless steel, bolts, plates pipes....

Here it goes...

First I took a 1¼'' SST shaft and machined both ends of the bar, one will be welded to the bar and the other ajustable to fit the car.

I also drilled a hole all the way thru it to make it lighter.

Laser cut parts that arrived, I drew gross parts since I didn't know how it would fit.

So its the shape I finaly needed for the 2 front shock towers.

I machined the nuts to fit in the pipes half way thru.

Then 3 points for the rear.

After all this work I thinned all the bolts head to make it cleaner and put some half nylon lock nuts on the other side.

Some pics after cleaning all parts.

Very satisfied by the look and also the efficatity of it.

Sébastien

RedSunday · **Posted:** Fri Apr 12, 2013 9:55 pm

Great tig and machining skills there bud, looks great.

SLCustoms · **Posted:** Sun Apr 14, 2013 7:01 am

Thanks man, I realy try to make parts that looks like it could've been an OEM option.

AJS · **Posted:** Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:00 am

Nice car and very nice DIY strut bars! Love it.

Kennymonster · **Posted:** Sun Apr 14, 2013 4:30 pm

Awesome design on the bracing, you make it look so easy

I think this really is the ideal way to go, triangular reinforcement with adjustable bars. Unfortunately many owners & I lack the welding skills, I inquired about a similar product in So Cal and they sell theirs for ~1k.... I laughed and bought a Cusco one instead.

*Those mag wheels look 15/16 in size, custom barrel or lipped?

SLCustoms · **Posted:** Mon Apr 15, 2013 9:41 am

Those are 17 x 7 MSA Flashback wheels I had on the car when I bought it.

Welding is a fairly easy thing to learn, machining is harder and longer.

1000$ for a similar kit is not that bad, a guy asked me to do the same kit on his Z so I had to get a price for it. After looking at every parts and material I had to buy, its like 950$ and I had to make 5 kits.

But its worth it!

Eric · **Posted:** Mon Apr 15, 2013 10:19 am

Some people have all the skillz, nice parts you made there!

SLCustoms · **Posted:** Mon Apr 15, 2013 7:05 pm

Thank you all for the good comments.

SLCustoms · **Posted:** Tue Apr 23, 2013 2:40 pm

An other little thing I did...

I had no coolant overflow tank so I made one out of 20g stainless.

I bought a replacement cap and did a model.

I made a fitting with a matching thread pitch.

A little nipple for the tube.

Then the welding.

Cleaned up.

More custom parts to come!

MikeRL411 · **Posted:** Tue Apr 23, 2013 6:38 pm

Given the Aluminium boxes for the speakers, I would have put some carpeting inside to aid the low frequency response . Most HiFi speaker systems use internal "padding" to improve overall frequency response. How does your installation actually respond?

SLCustoms · **Posted:** Wed Apr 24, 2013 2:39 pm

Yeah I didn't show it but I've put some ''padding'' on all the faces inside, it realy killed the resonance of the aluminium sound. When I hit it it sounds like wood.

On that pic we can see some in the hole.

The result is good but its not the best it could have been. The boxes are a bit small for the speakers, but I didn't want them bigger as its not a priority on the car.

My 71 240Z

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