warneej's epic continuation build thread for the ZX3

[trailbikerider]

See if you were cool you would've come in first :P

In all seriousness, congrats on the 3rd place finish..your car would run circles around my rod-knocking POS.

[norcalfocus01]

Haha you look like a major retard with TWO seat belts on.

Congrats on the 2nd place finish man.

[warneej]

Thanks Chris, just tryin to get on your level

As for the AutoX results:

By time, 16th fastest car overall(!) http://wedrivefast.com/LinkClick.asp...bid=80&mid=400

By class, 3rd place in class E3 by .2 and .07 respectively. http://wedrivefast.com/LinkClick.asp...bid=80&mid=400

WOW what a day. Can't believe how well I did overall!

[warneej]

Well I have the next 2 days off so I've been working on a few things. Pulled the screen bezel back out to redo it properly, no rushing this time. Also going to look into mounting those seats...

Throwing some filler primer down to fill all the imperfections and prepare it for paint:


Also considering what color to paint it. In the past I've done satin or flat black, which is still an option, but I also have a bunch of other muted colors. Still have a bunch of that hammered charcoal that could look hot as well as a hammered brown. And some bronze wheel paint might look good too IDK. Any suggestions? I'm probably going to be spraying my spare bezel and installing it to see if I like the look in the different colors...

[ChuckDee]

gunmetal grey, glossy. i mean really glossy.

[theheat]

neon pink...

[ChuckDee]

hey evan i got a guy that sell u some brackets for the seats if u want. pm me for details!

[warneej]

^^didn't see this til now but guess what I did today!

Met up with a buddy from work today at his shop and we discussed ways to mount these seats to the stock bracket so my seat belt and airbag sensors would still work. After an hour (at least) of brainstorming and sketching possible ideas we came upon what seemed to be the easiest and strongest! Follow along!

Stripped the seat down, the stock lower cushion bolts to the bracket in the center. The forward bolts used to angle upwards, following the contour of the cushion, so we notched them and hammered them flat. Still completely reversible, which was a goal of mine, but strong and safe.


Found some scrap 1/4" aluminum plate and cut out a pair of adaptors. See the seats mounts are about 3" wider than the factory seat's and so we needed to space them to bolt securely. Greaser-lookin boy Pat then let his OCD take over while we weren't paying attention and filed the cuts down smooth and rounded all the edges....



....and then proceeded to mirror polish the faces. I mean seriously. Whatever, the VAG-guys can have their hardwood trunks, I'll have mirror polished seat bracket adapters...


Damn


Test fit


x2


Drill a few more holes and you got yourself a seat mount!


Detail shot


And installed temporarily!


It fits perfectly however the surface rust on the stock parts is a little ugly. Going to remount the plastic trim back on it if it fits, if not (and I may do it anyways) I'm going to paint the whole frame a nice gloss black.

We'll mess with the next one on my next day off, the passenger side mounts differently--although I'm not sure how different as I haven't disassembled it yet.

[kenzx3]

Seat's are sitting too high IMO.

[warneej]

Lucky for you the height adjust works perfectly still. They are currently all the way up as I like sitting high but we'll see where I like them.