Hi from the UK, a newbie with a modded Z600 Coupe

Team_Dandism · **Posted:** Fri Aug 07, 2009 3:53 am

Hi all,

I'm a relative newbie here, have just bought a UK spec 72 Z600 GT Coupe, which has been lightly modded by a guy about 5 years ago.

It has been debumpered, and repainted in black with blue detailing. Steel wide arches and a Fibreglass front air dam. Front indicators are Frenched in Mk1 Escort Ford items as are the rear lights which are mk1 Escort van, Frenched in vertically, which i definately plan to get rid of as they are terrible. The rear plate has been moved to the rear centre bumper slot which looks ok.

The car has 10*6 Starmag wheels like they used on old mini's, but I plan to replace them with some 13*6 Minilights or RX7 wheels if i can find them. I've also discovered that ATV's use the same stud pattern, so some of the aftermarket alloys for them may work out.

Here are a few pics from the auction where i bought it. It will be tidied up stock rear lights reinstated and repainted in silver with darker silver striping as they used to be.

SharmCos · **Posted:** Fri Aug 07, 2009 4:49 am

Hello & welcome mate.

Cool car. From which auction did you but it 'cos I remember seeing those pics before, most probably on this forum!

I have a few pairs of fender mirrors from Honda Z coming soon. Some are from this model I think

Team_Dandism · **Posted:** Fri Aug 07, 2009 5:38 am

It was on ebay a few weeks ago. It was built by a guy in Scotland (edinburgh i think), about 5-6 years ago, he took 4 years to do it, but bare metalled the car, did the FG work and painted it himself.

The black is pretty good, but alas the lacquer that was used on the blue is cracked and worn.

I don't like the rear end much (lights mainly), so am hoping that i can get it stripped back, stock rear lights or similar put back in and repainted in a mid silver with darker silver detailing. Let me know if you get those mirrors as the current one on the drivers side is rubbish.

I'm still looking for wheels and a few have come up but i think it may well end up cheaper to get some new compomotive ML's / revolution / minilites etc made for it in the UK. I did think about trying to get the rear bumpers back on but these are difficult to find and the body has been cut about too much.

The build spec says the engine was rebuilt at the time of the paint and has a longer duration cam from an N600. As all UK cars were the 45bhp 599cc models is this possible, were the cams different?

.sooperfresh · **Posted:** Fri Aug 07, 2009 10:17 am

love the front end.

colink · **Posted:** Sat Aug 08, 2009 11:16 am

loving it and welcome from another uk resident :tu:

79cord · **Posted:** Tue Aug 11, 2009 1:36 am

Very cool!
I think UK only got Z in orange.
Fitting original tail-lamps either side of that wide number-plate might be tight. Hope you don't find too much filler when you go for it.

I think the earliest 600's had a bit more power, sacrificed for more torque in later models... which might have made them faster?

Team_Dandism · **Posted:** Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:16 am

Yes as far as I can tell they were all orange with a black stripe up the side, this was rebuilt about 5-6 years ago.

The whole rear light panel looks to have been remade and the form is Fibreglass, so it will need to be redone to take the lights. The reg plate has been mounted where the rear bumper used to go so I'm hoping the lights will still fit, if not I'll have to get a smaller reg plate made up or a square one and mount it more like the US or OZ cars. I notice they are different rear ends, with the US cars having the plate mounted quite high, I've seen a UK car done the same and it looks a bit odd with such a large reg plate, the Oz car that I saw had a smaller plate mounted slightly lower on the back with a light unit that said HONDA on it instead of a black board with the lights above or either side of the plate.

It's proving quite hard to find decent pics of the rear of these things as most people only take the front.

79cord · **Posted:** Tue Aug 11, 2009 4:33 am

Just looks a little higher than the bumper level.
They are prone to rusting around the tail-lights & behind the wheels.
Australian plates are about at inch wider than US/Japanese plates so ours didn't fit in the rear recess, resulting in pretty unfortunate arrangements.
That improved slightly when the rear was re-styled for the water-cooled Z post '72, putting the plate below/between bumperettes.

Team_Dandism · **Posted:** Tue Aug 11, 2009 6:26 am

Here is a better pic of the rear end, could some one tell me wether they think the stock rear lights would fit around the plate. I expect them to be slightly higher on the body so will be either side and slightly above the current plate.

The plate drops down with the spare tyre cover at the moment, you can see the split line in the picture to the LHS of the plate.

79cord · **Posted:** Fri Aug 14, 2009 4:12 am

Didn't have any problems finding rear photos

There's only 44 cm between the rear lights to fit the number plate.
The recess intended for the plate was only about 34 cm wide at the bottom so most markets added a plate over the top like this to fit bigger plates & additional plate lamps. I think you'd have to move the plate down a little otherwise so it was no higher than the bumpers/spare wheel access.

& the Water-cooled rear, spare accessed from inside.

Team_Dandism · **Posted:** Fri Aug 14, 2009 5:17 am

Those pics are really useful thanks. I can't believe there are so many different types. Looks like i need some Euro or Oz spec rear lights too as the US ones I've bought don't appear to have indicators.

I think i can end up with something like the water cooled rear end and it'll work ok.

Is there much in the way of parts down in Oz, can you still find the water cooled rear bumpers etc?

79cord · **Posted:** Mon Aug 17, 2009 5:30 am

I was surprised to see the European reversing lights blanked over.
I suppose I can offer "normal" rear lights though the chrome trims might be pitted, since I have an air-cooled Z360 last on the road in 1987 that lived by the sea... So it's falling in two & should be dismembered, even the bumpers are rusty.
Honda Z certainly aren't common here either. We only received 360cc versions after initial N600 sales didn't sell as well as N360 due to their price premium. Which didn't aid total sales or longevity of use. So most disappeared in the '80s.
The later Water-cooled Hardtop models are even rarer since they were only sold here for only a year or so alongside the Life & Civic. But at least we got them since Honda never got around to bothering with 600cc variants.

joaoh2ohonda · **Posted:** Wed Jun 22, 2011 6:31 pm

Hello again!
I was trying to send you a pm with the pictures of the parts, but cant seem to ad pictures there.
So here they are:

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The parts are new-old-stock , and has you can see, have a little bit of surface rust, they must have been made over 30 years ago.
The smallest part is where the rear hatch bolts to the frame, he had it next to the other part so I just took a pic of that too.
I asked about the antenna for your N600 and he assured me he has some new ones.
Also said that he has all the bumpers, the little door for the spare Tyre and the lights and seals, but these I did not see.
He did not give me prices on any of these parts(said he has to check his notes)

Team_Dandism · **Posted:** Fri Jun 24, 2011 12:28 pm

Perfect, I definately want that back panel. So much better than repairing my parts car and cutting it off to put on mine.

Let me know how much he wants for it.

vwdmc16 · **Posted:** Sun Jun 26, 2011 7:55 pm

Oh man I need that rear too. at least someone will put it to good use

joaoh2ohonda · **Posted:** Tue Jun 28, 2011 8:43 am

vwdmc16 wrote:

Oh man I need that rear too. at least someone will put it to good use

Should not be a problem !
I think the man has more than one....
I still do not have the price on those ,because I've been away (family illness problem) and had no chance to talk to my "parts man"
Will try to visit him today or tomorrow.

Correction :cry:

Just got back from my parts man.
He only has 2 of those but he is holding on to the other one because he also has a Z600 that he is planing to rebuild.
Sorry... :oops:

Hi from the UK, a newbie with a modded Z600 Coupe

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