djdryon

Hey everyone. It has been a while since I posted anything, so I figured, "why not? I just did something crazy, might as well share it."

I bring you... a rough guide to fitting a 350z dash into your s13. I forgot to take some pictures of things like the ducting and mounts, so I might update later.

A little background: I've been putting up with my crashed dash and carbon ashtray cup holder (which is available BTW if anyone in the Seattle area wants to puck it up) for a while, and felt that it would be nice to not only have legit cup holders, but also to modernize my dash, let me have my vents back, and give my NDSI tablet a better home than a flimsy mount. I measured, and researched, and measured, and researched, and settled on a 2006 350z that was being parted out near Sacramento. Picked up the full dash, minus gauges and electronics for around $300. It came with some sensors, and a few odds and ends that I will probably sell to recuperate some of what I spent... but onto the good stuff.


Goodbye old friend. You've served me well this past decade. Time for some plastic surgery.


My trusty harbor freight pro series partner in crime. A HUGE shoutout to Nissan for making everything Phillips head screws and 10mm bolts!


Trusty dash schematics helped me find the sneaky bolts underneath the vents.


Oh, she's exposing all her under workings... scandalous

Take everything off except the defroster vents (if you can get your hands on the windshield defrost vent that will give you a much nicer "blow" on the windshield, but remeber that it won't just bolt up. I kept the one from the 240, because I'm lazy, and it actually works 90% perfect. I might go back and put some washers behind the vent to move it out a bit, because the 350 dash sits a teeny bit further from the firewall (unless you want to use the 350 dash support and mod it slightly, which I didn't have) if you do desire, you can mod the side ducts to run to the "Z logo" vents. I am fine with the center vents, as they push enough air to blast my hair back, so I removed them... DO NOT THROW AWAY THE VENT DUCTS FOR THE 240 DASH, you'll need them... but more on that later.




Test fit looks good. Only issues are the gap on the sides, and the dash ends are taller than the door cards. You can cut them and mold on the 240 dash ends, you can cut them and leave them off, or you can do what I'm going to do, which is route the door courtesy lights to LED-lit plexiglass panels that will go in place of the Z pieces, fill in the gap with custom plates, and eventually fiberglass the door cards to match, replace the window switches with illuminated ones, reposition the speakers a little bit, and have the "OH S**T" handles on both sides.


I tried to reposition the dash to line up with the doors better, but this makes the 350 panels fit like poo without some cutting (more than you'll have to do anyways), ESPECIALLY the center console, which is a tight fit as it is.

The way I mounted the dash lets you retain the existing side mounts.

Hopefully this helps.

Next step, loose fit the panels to make sure everything fits, and the doors close. Then take each panel off carefully without moving the dash too much, and mark and measure the mounts you'll need to make...


here's a rough idea of the mounts I made from some spare flashing I had. Used tin snips, straight edges, a hammer, and some pliers to make them. They hold STRONG even without wielding, just have to know about folding corners ^_^.

Remember to test fit the dash panels again before proceeding. I utilized zip ties to hold while measuring... left some of them on for extra insurance.


Wonderful spaghetti. I kept all the plugs connected for now. I will be wiring the lights, fogs, front/rear wipers, etc to new stalks eventually, but for now I only need what's on the 240's stalks. Rarely use the rear wiper or defroster, rarely use cruise control, don't need the flip light button because i have my pilot controller, and hazards will be routed to the 350's hazard button. Just bundled the switches in electrical tape and zip-tied them so i can reach under the dash and push them. For the sections of the harness that go alongside the radio supports, I re-routed them behind the dash bar to give a little more clearance. Driver's side was easy. Passenger side was a PITA because of the hvac system. While I was at it, I moved my alarm and backup battery so that it's nearly impossible to get to the wires without completely taking the dash apart. Tilt and motion sensors are mounted up near the locations they were calibrated for, and zip-tied the wires for the alarm antenna, microphone, folding mirrors, etc to the dash support, keeping things tidy.


What a mess!


A little better.

Next step is ducting... this was TIME CONSUMING!
I took apart the center section of the 350's ducts, and cut out the left and right ends that the dash panels sit inside, then cut the 240's ducts where they come out of the hvac unit, and measured, taped, trimmed, measured, taped, trimmed, and so on, until i had the ducts mocked up, keeping as direct flow as possible, and using the 240's ducts as donors. I applied duct tape to the joints on the inside and outside of the ducts, followed by a wrap of metal thermal tape on the outside to stop thermal leaks, and finally another layer of duct tape on the outside to prevent any possible shorting of wires on metal. Here's a horrible doodle of how the ducts run (until i take photos)


After that, the center console needs to be cut to fit the hand brake, and the seatbelt brain needs to be relocated (if you have the roll-top cubby). You can move it back a few inches, or put it under/beside the driver's seat. As I'm missing photos of this, I'll make another crappy doodle of the cut. As an optional cut, you can split the console into two pieces, which really helps, since the hand brake is SO close to the shifter. You probably could move the brake back, but i didn't feel like messing with it.



As an additional note, it's easy to relocate the outlet from the center console to the new spot on the passenger side of the dash. I clipped my plug and extended the wires, so the plug could be used at its new location. Luckily, it's the same plug. Also, the ash tray plug can be used for the roll-top cubby. Just unwrap the cubby plug from the 350's harness and push the pins out. They fit directly into the 240's plug, and you can wrap them with electrical tape... or clip and splice.



Here's the (nearly) finished product. Need to get a new pod holder/ bezel because the one that I got with my dash was broken, and I prefer the storage box to flip closed, hiding my tablet (which I'll wire a charger into the harness and set up tasker to run NDSI when the car turns on, and quit and sleep when the car turns off). You can see the cut for the hand brake (which I'll cover with an extravagant boot) clearly, as well as my inverted cluster (works like a ghetto HUD until i get a 350 cluster). I tried to just use NDSI, but the ecu seems to need the speedo readout from the cluster, plus, no gas level with NDSI, unfortunately... which is kinda important... I was REALLY hoping DashMaker would work, but it doesn't seem to like my Bluetooth consult adapter. If anyone can figure out how to make DashMaker work with the consult adapter, I'll give you a free led hvac kit.

Final step for me is a full RGB dash light conversion, so I can change the interior lighting to fit my mood, or make it all coolio for meets or shows. Going for two-zone illumination, with dash and courtesy lights independently controlled. Shouldn't be too hard to wire and program.

Thanks for reading, and hope I might inspire others to take the leap.

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk

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