Early Z Front End on a 280ZX

[Chewievette]

I was curious if it would be possible to graft a front end from an early Z onto my 280ZX? I'm probably going to try it one way or another but I thought I should check and see if anyone had already tried it. Most likely I'll get the subtle Z fenders, hood, and air dam that should give me most of the parts. Is there anything else you would recommend that I look into? Thanks in advance.

[Ed]

You might want to look into metal fabrication. Seriously, your trying to match body pannels that don't match. Like putting VW fenders on a Porche. It can be done but your going to have to do some fabricating. Do a good job and people will say WOW. Do a bad job and people will laugh. Do some measuring first to give you an idea of what your going to have to do.

Good luck.

[hls30.com]

Uhhh, Photoshop guys-wanna click in?

Will

[sblake01]

Pimp my ride, Chop, Cut, Rebuild? Why would you want to do this?

[Fun_in_my_z]

You beat me to it, I was wondering Why as well.

[Chewievette]

Well for one, I like the look of the early Z front end better than the ZX. and for two because the only good looking fender flares I can find are for the early Z. and for three I would have gotten an early Z if not for the fact that this one bascially fell into my lap. I was counting on doing major body mods anyways, I just thought I'd throw my thoughts out to the universe(or at least the www) before I acctually do it.

[Fun_in_my_z]

Not a bad idea i guees. Im kinda curiouse to see what it would look like.

[Bambikiller240]

Do a good job and people will say WOW. Do a bad job and people will laugh.

I'll laugh, good job or bad job.

Now, I'll go back to fitting that 59 T'Bird Dashboard into my classsic 240Z.

[sblake01]

I'm with you on that one, Carl. If you want the look of a Z front end buy a Z. If the ZX fell in your lap drive it like it is rather than spending money to do something that might not be do-able in which case you'd be wasting money that you'd never be able to recoup. The body lines are different. A Z is a Z and a ZX is .... well whatever it is. It's like my 810, if it hadn't basically fallen into my lap, I probably wouldn't have it. But I'm not going to put a Skyline front end on it.

[Chewievette]

Well my car needs a whole new front clip so I figured I throw in a bit of extra work and some readily available parts to make something totally unique. But I'll wait till I have some time to go over the car with a fine tooth comb before I make any big decisions. You did answer my question though so thank you.

[sblake01]

My last comment on this: ZX parts are also readily available, junkyards are full of them, and they bolt on.

[Chewievette]

Okay, I'll go hide in my corner for a while until I get another hairbrained idea... Thanks for the help