Did 4 rounds of color analysis - indoors hood, indoors driver door panel, outside rear bumper, and indoors passenger side door panel. From pictures nothing looks good and to be honest, I have to come to the fact that nothing is going to match the OEM color exactly, or within 15-20feet...just how it's gonna be. With that being said, I have to decide which is more important - having a slightly off covered hatch or having no protection on the hatch at all.

Colors 3 and 6 looked best on the hood
Colors 3 and 4 looked best on the drivers side door
Colors 1 and 2 looked best on the bumper
Colors 3 and 4 looked best on the passenger side door



I really like color 1 outside on the bumper - the base color matched well and the pearl was great but it didnt look as well on the hood nor the doors. Colors 3 and 4 were very close base but both needed more pearl. I was initially going to go with 3 but it seems that color 4 has a better base-color match. So color 4 it is (Avery Supreme Wrap SW900-109-S Gloss White Pearlescent) ... if it sucks I can always re-do it and call it a $70 mistake! Got the order in and it'll be here next week sometime.

 

With all due respect the light source changes from front to rear. I'd do this pic/test outdoors under natural light either early morning or late afternoon to reduce glare and give you better color values. With what you've got I like 7. Gl! (I was a printer for years, folks bring in a sample ink color, it was my job to match it spot on every time ).

 

I need you to be in colorado last week!

I totally agree and youre right...the car was up in the air (as I was working on the flat floor). I already put my order in so I committed at this point. I'll see how #4 looks and likely run with it seeing that I cant return it. Keep the color samples and redo the test outside like you suggested, I didnt even think about early morning or late afternoon but that's smart.

from my notes, colors 5 and 7 were really flat and had no pearl/sparkle in them.

 

Hey man,
Not trying to be "that guy" but -
What happens to the color-matching if you select the best 3 color-matches regardless of sheen and on the lower 1/2 of swatches spray your top/clear coat. (Unless you're doing 1-step paint). I see you're committed, just a thought.

 

I appreciate the discussion! Those samples were for wrap. I want to either wrap or plasti-dip the hatch. I am not against painting it but it's a last-resort decision. TBH, I dont necessarily like the CF look and I want some sort of protection against UV, dust, dirt, etc.

 

A little bit of a photo-dump and I've been working on the flat-floor for a few months now ... Not quite done but it feels good that it's all coming together.

One thing that I have needed to fix is that I have no underside protection ... essentially my oil pan, radiator and IC are exposed to the road and road debris. I do have a massive sheet of 1/8" aluminum but that'd add excess weight to my front end and further mess-up my weight distribution. Member Phoenix?? out in california said research Alumalite ... which (if you dont know, I didnt) is a composite material of a high desity plastic core sandwiched by two very thin sheets of aluminum. It's around 1/3 to 1/4 the weight of aluminum sheet. I think a 6mm thick 8' x 4' alumalite sheet is like 16lbs (I should weigh the four sheets I have...UPDATE: all four sheets come in at 53.14lbs). The downside is that alumalite is about $150 a 8'x4' sheet - so measure twice, cut once!

One thing that that I have massive room to improve on is aero.
#1 - I need to get a OEM front bumper on the car, bricks dont go fast
#2 - get airflow cut-off from the underside of the car. Nissan probably did a fine job with this with all the OEM stuff under the car...I have subsequently eliminated just about all of it. So blocking any turbulent air will promote speed
#3 - I'm more concerned with reducing drag than I am additional downforce but I'll take what I can get on the back-end. So a simple, well placed diffuser is desired. Gonna use the string trick and a go-pro to get a respectable angle/curve.

I need to trim-up the front splitter and add a little front angle and get the heim-joints installed ...

Also did a rear-bumper trim / cut to accommodate the diffuser... I trimmed/cleaned up some of the OEM chassis metal underneath the car too as I'm going to try to block this area off from anything near the undertray (ie keep the dirty air seperate from the clean/attached air).

 

wow you are making some serious progress, what do you plan on doing for the exhaust heat?

 

Flat floors are super cool, and can be extremely effective. It helps that you don't have to deal with exhaust heat down below. I know most of the more road course cars that go flat floor require a trans and diff cooler. It may not be as much of a concern as a straight line car but may be worth keeping track of the temps of those two the first few hard drives with it.

 

Thanks Rusty!

Elaborate on exhaust heat? what do you mean?

For sure - I should grab a picture of the car from the bottom-side ... I can only imagine how much turbulent air is being generated - so anything is better than what I currently have. I still have the finish work left on the flatfloor but it's coming along.

Ive been thinking about Z1's diff cover and I may pull the trigger on it at some point but yea, track duty will heat the trans & FD up real-quick!

 

Everything that i have read on flat bottoms, they tend to retain the heat from the exhaust that is tucked between the plate and floor. I know brian mccann was talking about setting up some sort of a fan system to push the hot air out the back. A couple flat bottoms i saw made a channel for the exhuast so it was under the plate but above the lowest portion of the flat bottom. So not completely smooth with this latter setup but keeps the heat out of the car.

 

Bealljk has his exhaust going out of the hood. So that shouldn't be a issue, although it typically is as you suggest.

 

hood exit baby! When my hood popped opened and got all fookered-up I said 'to hell with it' hood exit it is!!!

I will need to figure something out if & when I go traditional exit...I think there will still be airflow from front to back, but I'll have to get creative!

 

Lol, just goes to show how tied i have been lately. Sorry had forgotten about the hood exit hahhahhahah.

 

So much awesome progress James! Glad to see it. Looking great.
My 2 cents... Might want to consider wrapping the hatch and the roof black (maybe the hood too. It will match your wheels and would look pretty cool imo.
I have some wrapping tips for ya if you need it

 

I need as much help as I can get! The plan is to wrap it as close to OEM as I can and if all goes well I'll re-wrap (falling in love with the snow-storm 'large' digital camo) the car over the winter.




Speaking of … (not black Ced, but...a pearl white Avery SW900-109) wrap came in today … actually pretty hopeful with this particular shade!

We'll see how it goes - any tutorials or tips/tricks would be welcome!

 

That white is going to look very different when the backer is pulled off. It will show the dark of the hatch through it. I am not sure of solutions, other than doing two laters. Just a heads up though that a white wrap on white paint will look different than white wrap on carbon.

 

Appreciate the insight ... I'm committed and my expectation are dropping by the day!

 

when you said you were going to wrap the hatch i thought you were going to pull the backing off the vinyl. Opting for the easy way out ? hahahahah

 

Check out youtuber named CKwraps he has a lot of tutorials. Tbh the Z is one of the easier cars to wrap as it doesn't have tons of sharp angles.

Some must haves:
- super sharp razor cutters
- good squeegies - - a decent heat gun
- a dry erase marker
- iso alcohol to prep the surface

When wrapping the hatch cut out the window section loosely with plenty of forgiving edge. This will give you more flexibility with wrinkles etc. when you do the sides.

 

That is looking awesome man!