1970 SRL311 Resto-mod - SR20DET (Lucy)

[RustyBucket]

Like the stack of doors and hood waiting to get primed up? Stripping paint off my ne of these cars is like Russian roulette, as you never know what you'll uncover.

[S Allen]

Looking good. Interested in seeing your finished product.

Steve

[beebo]

Wade,
Nice bit of work there bubba! Are you mounting the Volvo 740 rotors and calipers on you car?

Will you have to mount a mega mother master cylinders with vacuum booster ?

I've got 30mm aluminum 300ZX 4 pistons for the front. They are the same calipers that Spriso offers adapter kits for, I think. I just can't use them because of my different rotor offset caused by the way I went about swapping on that Z31 5-lug hub. I'll do a separate write-up on everything when I finish, but for right now, it is a Z31 Turbo front hub modified to fit the OEM Roadster wheel bearings, Ford Explorer rotors (who would've thought there would be cross-drilled and vented Explorer rotors haha), and the Z32 calipers. I'm going to have to take .09" off of the mounting surface of the caliper, which brings it right up to the threaded insert in the caliper, and everything should line up just right.

Like the stack of doors and hood waiting to get primed up? Stripping paint off my ne of these cars is like Russian roulette, as you never know what you'll uncover.

This thing had so much body filler. It was evident this was sideswiped or something minor, but all down the car. the rear quarters seemd like they were sculped with body filler before I cut them out, and one of the doors was 1/2" - 3/4" of filler. I can't really judge, because I'm not a dent repair man. I'll bee filling it back up with filler. I'll just be spending more time to block sand it all smooth. You could really see the filler underneath the paint before I ground it all away.

Looking good. Interested in seeing your finished product.

Steve

Thanks Steve! I've definitely gotten more motivated on this recently and have tried to make a habit of doing at least a small little bit every day. hopefully I can get it done in a year or two.

Cheers,
Wade

[spl310]

Very cool 5 lug and vented brakes.

[RustyBucket]

Well your doing a great job wit the body work, I'm envious. The more paint I remove, the more and deeper goes the Bondo ...
keep the posts and photos coming

[beebo]

I FINALLY got my brakes mounted. The front caliper brackets got finished up, and I had to remove some material off of the brake calipers to center them on the rotors. for this, I mounted them in my drill press and "milled" them down 3/32" with a forstner bit, finishing up with file work. Not how I wanted to do it, but it all lines up great. For the rear caliper bracket, I used some some 10mm 6061-T6 aluminum plate I had laying around. I took all my measurements and drew up the bracket. It mounts up behind the axle end bracket, and has provisions for two Z32 300zx rear calipers. One as part of the main braking system, and one as a hydraulic handbrake. I decided on this route because it seems like it would be easier to just mount another of the same caliper than to mix and match drum brake parts for z32/ford explorer bits and also have it align with how I cut my axles. Plus, I won't have to figure out all the little cables, brackets and linkages associated with a drum hand brake. Now that the caliper brackets are out of the way, I'll switch my focus back to body work. It will start warming up, so I'll be pushing it out in the driveway and doing my sanding/paint prep over the next couple of months. I hope to have it painted some time this summer!

20210220_145821.jpg

20210219_180839.jpg

20210220_154841.jpg

20210220_154852.jpg

20210220_154907.jpg

20210303_144151.jpg

20210303_160320.jpg

20210305_162243.jpg

20210305_180404.jpg

20210308_153717.jpg

20210308_160003.jpg

20210308_161324.jpg

Cheers,
Wade

[RustyBucket]

Wade,

What did you cut the aluminum stock with ? Had to be an industrial grade bandsaw or CNC it. It's rather a "rather Stout" chunk.
That car is going to stop on a dime now .
Keep posting the amazing progress.
Cam

[beebo]

Cam,

Nope haha. I cut it out the poor-man's way. A combination of an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel, drilling a series of small holes and connecting them with a coping saw for the tight radii, filing it down with rasps and files, and smoothing it up on an old belt sander. It took forever, but I got it done.

Cheers,
Wade

[RustyBucket]

Wow. Impressive! ‘Truly Hand Crafted’. One of kind unicorn!!
What do you figure the whole conversion is going to cost , if I may ask ? You have serious hours invested !!

[C.Costine]

Good work! Have you figured out a sell price yet for others who are mounting Z cylinders? Once you have made a few dozen you will have your hours each down to where you could maybe make minimum wage!

[beebo]

Wow. Impressive! ‘Truly Hand Crafted’. One of kind unicorn!!
What do you figure the whole conversion is going to cost , if I may ask ? You have serious hours invested !!

The conversion for just the brakes? I think i spent 200 on the front calipers, 100 on the rears, I still have another pair of rears to buy so another 100, 300 for the rotors and hawk pads, The reverse swing pedal box and master cylinders were about 300. So around $1000 for the main stuff. The plate was just stuff I had laying around, and I still have to do all of the hard lines and hoses and do the hydraulic hand brake, so I'll be about $1500 on the brakes.

Good work! Have you figured out a sell price yet for others who are mounting Z cylinders? Once you have made a few dozen you will have your hours each down to where you could maybe make minimum wage!

Thanks! This solution is so specific to the hodge-podge of modifications that I have already done (Z31 front hubs and narrowed ford 8.8 rear axle), that it wouldn't be worth trying to reproducel it as a kit. If I had a stock roadster, I would love to design and sell a rear disc conversion, and a big brake upgrade. I would do it so differently if I were starting over though. The Z32 calipers are getting pretty pricey nowadays, and there are plenty of wilwood calipers that are cheaper, better, thinner and brand- new. Plus I would need to model any brackets up in SolidWorks and run some FEA studies before I would trust letting other people trust their lives to them. I'm a bit more cavalier with my own however:) My "Use an angle grinder to cut it out of whatever is laying around" approach does not reflect my design/engineering capabilities when it comes to professional product development.


Cheers,
Wade

[Mattk]

run some FEA studies before I would trust letting other people trust their lives to them.

100% agree!! I really doubt that has been done for the kits being sold by others!! I'm still using an old crusty version of Anasys from school I have laying around, but I think Fusion has a decent FEA in it.

Also what rotor did you use? Looks like it worked well. Did you use any spacers? Hows the wheel clearence?

NIce work! Keep it up!

[spriso]

Mattk wrote:

100% agree!! I really doubt that has been done for the kits being sold by others!! I'm still using an old crusty version of Anasys from school I have laying around, but I think Fusion has a decent FEA in it.

I know that when we designed our brake kits (and all the Spriso products), we ran some FEA analysis (these were designed in Inventor) and that was the reason why we went with a 3/8" (from 1/4") caliper bracket due to the stresses that the caliper can see. When looking at this caliper mount, I would be concerned about flex with the calipers since this is in one plane--- Nissan got around this with a thinner caliper bracket with formed caliper mounts, but once this is on a single plane, you won't see the stiffening benefits of the formed portions. Just my .02 yen-- spend at will.

Love the 5-lug hubs--we have had so many requests for these over the years...

Michael

[Mattk]

Hey Mike thats great! I'm sure we would love to see them! Thanks!

[beebo]

Nissan got around this with a thinner caliper bracket with formed caliper mounts, but once this is on a single plane, you won't see the stiffening benefits of the formed portions.

Oh for sure. These front caliper brackets would absolutely flex 100%. I appreciate your .02 and value it much higher, thank you! Even though the calipers are mounted, the mounts aren't yet complete. I saved some of the trimmings from cutting them out. When it comes time to finish and paint them, I will bolt them to a 20mm thick aluminum plate and weld these trim pieces to the back side as gussets. Being carful with some TIG welding, I think I can keep them from warping due to heat. When using just regular plate for caliper brackets, most people go with 3/8" (atleast i see a lot of that on other forums like the h.a.m.b). The way all my stuff lined up, 1/4" was as thick as I could go, and I still had to shave off a good amount of the caliper for that. The rear caliper brackets are 10mm aluminum plate, and the forces and moments are much much less than at the front brakes. So those'll be fine.

20210311_112156.jpg

Also what rotor did you use? Looks like it worked well. Did you use any spacers? Hows the wheel clearence?

The rears are just z32 300ZX rotors with calipers from the same. I just got lucky and had the perfect amount of axle stickout from narrowing the housing/axles, and everything just centered right up without any spacers. After the rotor, I have 20mm bolt on spacers. This was just to push the wheels out a bit, so when I created my rear fenders, I left myself some room for different wheel options in the future. I'm comfortable doing this on a live axle rear end, but adding spacers on the front really screws up suspension/steering geometry, and is generally considered a no-no.

Love the 5-lug hubs--we have had so many requests for these over the years...

Michael

Thanks Michael! After having done all of this, I should have just created a 5-lug version of the stock roadster hub in SolidWorks, had a pair lathed up at a machine shop, and then bought your brake conversion. Oh well, It's good for the mind to try and figure things out.

Cheers,
Wade