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Hi guys, I been trying to come up with a design for the 350Z, and I understand that the 350Z is fine the way it is, so this is not meant for a lot of people. Just those people who want something different I suppose. Anyways, if I made this widebody conversion for $12,000 or $17,000 with install and paint (includes free delivery roundtrip); would you buy it? The kit will make each side to 3" wider. Nothing is set in terms of spec, I am just speculating. Most likely this kit will be produced sometime in January 2004, after my Supra JGTC is done. I'm sure this kit will guarantee your car in magazines, tv, sponsorships and famous. It's what you do with it that counts.

What it will include is:
Fascia
Front Fender
Side Skirt
Rear Fender (cover over)
Rear Bumper
Hood
Spoiler
Rear Diffuser
Front Undertray
Exhaust
Brake Duct setup
and some other stuff that I haven't thought about yet.

Please vote thanks! I would not be parting out the kit because:
1.) It is totally different and will not mix and match with anything else anyways.
2.) This way I can limit the number of kits I sell to 50 worldwide. All of my work are limited so this can increase the value of your upgrade.

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forgot to post the picture

MATIX

12-17k for a drawing???

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This is a drawing of what it is going to look like. What the original post confusing? Let me know, so I can clarify it.

Red6

iTrader: (2)

Man not to burst your bubble but $13,000-$17,000 for a wide body kit is way off the chart. Honestly even 10Gs would be way off base.

Veilside has a wide body coversion aready for our car and its about 5 thousand. Few people would even buy this kind of kit for the Z and I would say most people want a little perfomace with style.

Dont get me wrong Im a body kit person and Im really like body kits on cars. Some wide body kits are nice and some are just way over the top.

I love the veilside MR2 spyder kit and also the APR widebody Celica. i feel they are not to over the top. If you make a kit please make it go with the lines of th car.

I would say if you could drop you price about 10G's I think some people would consider it. This would depend on price, materials, and design.

MATIX

Very well said.

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Thank you for sharing your comments, well to get this ball rolling I should explain the reasoning behind everything I do. First off, the price is $12,000 for the base kit. If you just get the basic kit which is the fascia, fenders (front and rear), side, spoiler, and hood that alone should cost around $9,000. Secondly, my parts in terms of fit and finish and the quality of the craftmanship kills Veilside by any comparison. I don't even like to compare anything I do with what they sell. They probably pump out like 3 kits per day on a mold where as I spend one week making one part off the mold. Our process are completely different, I spend a lot of time to make sure everything is perfect. My fiberglass alone is way stronger and lighter then Veilsides. The material I use such as my fiberglass, are on par with the prices of the cheap grade carbon fiber that all those cheap hoods are made out of. Hexcel is the only brand I use, and if you check with most of the companies making $15million dollar satelites it's the exact same stuff they use. One square yard of CF is $30.00 and I layer my kits up to 5 layers. Most of the kits out there only have one layer and the rest is fiberglass. Majority... nearly all of the kits out there require bodywork before painting because you need to block sand all the waves out of the panels, mine doesn't. I may be way off base, but I already acknowledged that this is not for most of the people out there. I only plan on making 50 and quit. This is the reason why my price is the way it is. I don't compete against others because they target the people who don't want to spend a lot on their cars, as for me I'm going for the other spectrum of people who want the best. If you look at some of the prices that float around such as a carbon fiber hood for the e class from renntech that's $6,000 for one hood. Or the lambo door conversion costing around $5,000. Add up all the stuff that comes with the kit and part it out, it's not really far off from the other prices on the market. Thank you for the input and I'm sure you speak for the masses out there. Maybe if the Supra project doesn't do so well I would start making parts like lip add ons and stuff as those type of product sell like hotcakes.

zeroday

honestly, if most people here had an extra 10k to toss away just on a kit, they probably would have bought an m3 or z06 instead of the Z....The reason i'm saying that is most people here that would buy a body kit also want go fast add on parts which is going to cost them even more money on top of your 10k body kit. When all is said and done with aftermarket wheels, etc, you'r lookin at a 50k$ Z. I'm saying most, not all would agree with me here.....there are a few mod addicts here like skidazzle and bigbadblacktrack that would possibly buy one....but I doubt you would sell more than 3 of those kits to Z owners here at that price. 50 just aint gonna happen IMO.

Nocturnal

iTrader: (2)

It is a nice kit, but it is expansive. I mean for that price, it makes the Ab-Flug S900 Wide Body Supra Body Kit look CHEAP!!! That kit, which come with everything, including light and all, and ever some carbon fiber insert, only goes around 10K.

Now, I know you are using quility stuff, and it is probably better then the Ab-Flug. Not to mention it is special because it is custom so probably make you 1 of a kind. Chances are you are not going to sell 50 of them, but hey...if 50 people are willing to buy a 15K+ kit, more power to you.

Now, you said your fiberglass are as expansive as those cheap carbon fiber used on hood....Hum...why not just make the kit out of the cheap carbon fiber, or even use the fiberglass, but make the top layer carbon fiber, I am sure that will throw ALOT of interests.

Imagine how sick a carbon fiber wide body 350Z will look.

VandyZ

iTrader: (2)

Kinda looks like a Celica.

Brandon@Forged

The one Ab-Flug has right now for the Z is really ugly. If you could make something like Top Secret's wide body Supra kit it would be really cool. The price is way over the top. I would just want the basic kit, no hood (which you don't need, your widening the fenders, not hood).

ares

iTrader: (2)

people that into appearance tend to be not so willing to drop that much cash, ussually appearance is chosen as a cheaper alternative to the real go fast mods.

of course there are those that take it to the extreme, and I guess even if 10 people buy it, it might be worth your time, I donno, but IME people on forums tend to be 99% performance oriented, if they had 13k, a monster body kit, or a monster turbo, Im not sure if youd get any takers. just what Ive gathered, I think your hittin up the wrong crowd.

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Hello Everyone,
I would like to thank you for your input and help opinions. I would seriously reconsider this project and seek for an alternative. As for for the carbon fiber part, I strictly use Hexcel as my material of choice simply because they are the best, but of course it is up to the customer to decide what they want. I'll be on this list seeing how everything goes.

Thanks!!!

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Here is a second picture.

center hood is inspired from celica, I thought it looked great. But I probably would **** off a lot of people here. So no flames haha.

MATIX

Reminds me of the Hasemi JGTC 350....

Chebosto

iTrader: (43)

if you are using 5 layers of CF per panel, then obviously something is a miss... you can make a body panel just as strong and light with three layers and a honey comb insert... with the correct curing process...
are you going to vaccum bag the entire panel or heat/pressure oven?

secondly paying $6k for a renntech hood is proposterous, although it is priced that much, i dont see the use of it unless it was perhaps pressure cooked and weighed in at 2 pounds.. but that is already overkill for the common market.. unless you are going for the GT class racers...

your fiberglass is probably very good. but again, your weight, even with the correct amounts of resin AND vaccum bagging will not cut it even close to CF or kevlar's flexablity...

i wish you the best of luck, but you might want to rethink the $12G.

are you planning on any aero / modeling & simulation processes? and if so . which software do you plan on using... just give me something to justify paying a third of the car for aero designs when simple splitters, diffusers, drakes, and proper placement of spoilers will do nearly the same affects as what you're planning..


oh yea.. typically if you are a high-quantity purchaser of CF, you get bulk discounts with yardage over 100... i.e. aircraft spruce offers 20% off with any 100+ yards of CF ... and thats just to regular people.. if you havea business license you can get it much cheaper...

perhaps think about bidding at defense contractor auctions for their left over CF...

1200tt

I'm sorry but this is too much...look at your renderings. I think a 10year old kid could do a better job. If you know anything about design, then you'd see that you already have the headlight shape wrong in your rendering, thus affecting how the bumpers, and fenders will be shaped. Did you also consider for your hood, how the engine sits inside the engine bay? Also how the hell you going to have a bumper that flat???

Go back to reading magazines, and browsing the internet, but before you think you know anything about design, go study industrial design.

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Chebosto: The type of carbon fiber I use is 3k, so they are thinner then the 6k or 12k filaments. I like to use thinner layers and stack them, this give a nice firm part. All of my parts are vacuum bagged, unless the customer request not to do so. I would use the honeycomb nomex core, but that would make the panels too thick and number 2 it's used for flat surfaces. My resin ratio is measured at around 75%, and yes I use heat to cure the parts. I don't have all day to run the vacuum on to cure one part. About the fiberglass and cf, there's a big misconception that carbon fiber is stronger then fiberglass. In reality, fiberglass is very close to the tensile strength of carbon fiber, it's just that the weight of carbon fiber is close to 40% off the weight. The program I use to model the design is the ALGOR finite analysis program. It works great for me and helped a lot on my NSX design. I don't think any of the bodykit companies out there actually even test their designs. I can at least estimate the amount of downforce produced at 60mph. I haven't plugged the model into the computer yet, it's just a brush and chop drawing from my penciling. One thing about my design is, it's not just about the downforce the kit can produce but also the amount of drag in penalty. I do incorporate some of the things to reduce drag and provide the crucial downforce. I do not have the money to purchase entire roll of CF. I currently purchase them from a government contractor company so the price is better then buying from nomal outlets. Anyways i would like to thank you for your kind regards and heads up.

1200tt: I realize the drawing is not well defined, I simply don't want to sharpen anything up yet because I haven't had the time to finish it. The rear fenders has not been incorporated yet, nor the side skirts. About my shape of the design, yes it can be done. The hood will remain the same height approximately (+_ 1 inch at most). When I designed the NSX hood, my hood is the only one on the market that has the dual vents without needing any other modification. Other hoods from Japan require you to remove the hood prod, relocate the fuse box, hood pins, remove spare tire. I know how to build. I'm going for something that few people will like, I am trying to doing something way different and bold. The front bumper will be elongated to make the front more sharper like a real exotic car. The fenders will actually raise in height as you go wider so that will create an McLaren visual effect. You have your right to your opinion and I respect that, but I just find it very rude of you to make a comment and comparing me to an eleven year old. What experience do you have to mentor me on how to build and design? I take negative comments with the upmost interest to improve my mistakes, but when you insult me it does me no good and just makes me upset. Sorry for bitching, but just letting you know how I feel.

junglist350Z

iTrader: (1)

im not too down with the whole making the Z look like the celica from the front thing.

1200tt

i apologize for the negative comments. Normally i restrain myself, but having been a student of industrial design, with emphasis on automotive design, and now working in the aftermarket industry, i get really turned off by individuals claiming they know everything about design because they can use photoshop.

I have not seen your work. On your website I dont see any of your products, only pictures of race cars that you say you will make a kit for. With no estabilshed reputation in the industry, and being a new company, how will people trust you with $12,000.00???