Man I cant wait to see the car finished. Looking good so far

 

Well after some deliberation, I think I am going to swap out my "gtp" hood louvers for these z34 louvers. When I wanted to start this project I had debated between these two styles and now I am second guessing my decision to go with the gtp vents. I just picked these up on ebay and will be mounting them approximately in the same location as I have the gtp vent....If someone wants to pick up my gtp vents (I have both) let me know and we can work something out...

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GTP STYLE
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Z34 STYLE
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Well got a new hood tonight to put on the z34 hood vent, thanks to ctdrftna....I'll tell ya, I can believe how much lighter the oem aluminum hood with all the bracing is compared to the steel stock replacement. I had a steel one with ALL the bracing cut out and it weighed 26#'s!! The aluminum one would'nt even trip the digital home scale I was using but its gotta be a good 15#'s lighter (I had no idea what I was missing). Once again, rivnuts came to the rescue to get this puppy mounted since the stock studs had been ground down b/c he was using hood pins front and rear.

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I had a steel hood on my car when I got it also. It was so dam heavy that I dropped it when moving it around one day lol. Now Im much happier with my slightly beat up aluminum. How are you attaching the headlight lids?

 

Yesterday I took my Alum hood to a tig welder to strengthen the 'louvers' I cut into it... I must be a ***** as still able to drop it. I shouldn't have been on the phone carrying it with one hand. Dented in the drivers front corner but can easily be bent back into place. Is there any other aftermarket hood that weighs less than the oem alum and is under a grand? Ya gotta love nut rivets! Are you going to fill in the rear pin holes?

 

Are you gonna blend the headlights with the hood?

 

Yea I'm going to fill in the hood pin holes and blend the headlight lids. Since I dont have access to a tig welder I'm going to use some marine epoxy and then skim the areas with bondo to smooth it out....going to try that tonight, it should work out well..

 

In for some close ups of the headlight lid merge/grafting..... I should get around to doing that over the random plates I riveted on the last hood

 

Well I got good news and bad news.....Good news is that my tires came in!! They were'nt due in till at least the end of the week, maybe even next week. Bad news is my fiance has the camera with her in Florida so all you guys get is shitty *** cell phone pics

You guys should have seen me....I was like a damn mad man after work trying to get the wheels over to town fair tire and back on the car before the sun set. After I pulled it out the garage I couldn't help but to take it for a rip, o my the grip even in the cold temps!

DRUMROLL PLEASE:













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The bachelor life isn't what its cracked up to be....I'm bored out of my mind with my fiance in Florida. At least its given me uninterupted car time . Decided to take on a few more projects to keep myself busy. The first was to attach the headlight lids which I started yesterday....then after some thought, I decided to polish the hood rather than buy more of the carbon wrap (Since I didn't want to drop more cash on that when I could save it for my rollbar...and I started to second guess myself about putting the vinyl on the hood with how hot it gets). Then the last project I started was undercoating on the flares. Yesterday when I went out for a spin, I noticed that the flares were takin a beating with sand and rocks (at least it sounded that way) so I decided I wanted to spray some undercoating on the insides of the flares in hopes it'll protect them a little from all the debris. I ran out of time tonight so I just got them off the car and all taped up ready for tomorrow.


O yea, if anyone is wondering on how I did the hood:

Aircraft stripper
80 grit
150 grit
220 grit
400 grit
1000 grit
2000 grit
Flitz with my buffer
~4-5hrs

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What's the plan for the headlight covers? The front end looks pretty good, but along with the polish and white, you have carbon and black on the back. Starting to get a bit patchy.

 

The black stripe is goin away everywhere and will be all white (Finish panel, rear bumper, front bumper) Without a large enough piece of the carbon wrap I'm going to paint the windshield surround black for now....the headlight lids I'm probably just going to paint white and rock the car like that until I get my roll bar.

The car isn't going to look the same as I envisioned when I started this endeavor, but imo I think it will still look pretty badass

 

 

Love the polished aluminum hood.

 

You shoulda hit me up we coulda went for a ride. My car is still in one piece untill next week

 

I didn't really drive all that much. I've been too busy working on it trying to finish up all these little projects before the nice weather really hits. That way when the weather does turn I'll be able to just drive, drive, drive. We'll definitly have to hook up and cruise together, your right in New Haven right?

 

I'm really digging the polished hood look...just if I had the ***** to do mine :-/ How long did it take you?

 

Yeah, we are only 20 min away. There was this chick I used to bang out she lived in southington and it used to take me 20 min and your right before southington

 

No ***** necessary! Its really straight forward and you can't really **** anything up....it just takes a few hours and some patience. It took me the better part of 5 hours start to finish.


If it wasn't going to pour this weekend I was gonna say we should go for a cruise but its supposed to be a damn monsoon!

 

I got some momentum goin here so I figured why stop now ....some pics from tonight. Undercoated the flares, finished blending the headlight lids and painted them.

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