Thread: Z'ed frame

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Ok i was talking to Randy @ Ravon rods.
About getting the 3 window a bit lower. ans he told me to Z the frame and a littel higher Kick in back!!
Anyone have a Z'ed frame?
what prob will that make?
I am to tall to chanel the body so i think this will help with the look i want.
Anyone got any info??
thanks again
Dave

In my opinion, anyone and everyone who wants their car lower should either Z the frame AND/OR go with dropped spindles instead of screwing around with the springs and control arms.

I realize you're talking about the rear of your car and it's an early car, I was just making a generalization.

I wouldn't hesitate for one second to Z the frame. It's a cakewalk and it's bulletproof.

Here is a poor picture of the rear of my Brookville frame. The details are in the corners but may not be clear. The Brookville frame also has a flat rear section instead of the stock arch over the pumpkin. I think the Z-kickup is 1 1/2" on this frame. Generally the frame is cut about 3" in front of the rear crossmember and a pieces is cut out at an angle and then reversed to create a step up in the rear of the frame, but care must be take to keep the total length of the frame the same.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Don, if that's a Panhard bar I'm seein' there, why'd ya make it so short?

Tech1, as you must know by now I am just a "kit-installer" and that is what came from TCI to fit the bracket welded on by the Brookville folks. This setup was recommended to me by the Bebops shop. It remains to be seen if the ride is too harsh. The bar across the front of the frame is indeed much longer. Since that picture was taken I have decided to put the braided brake line OVER the panhard bar, hoping there is a bit of space below the floor and out of the way a future muffler.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Here is an excellent picture of a frame Ze'd in the front of a car. This is on Cliff Hansens roadster pickup, built by Roy Brizio.----If you want to see more shots, type in "Cliff Hansen roadster pickup" on your search engine.

This is a picture of a frame which I built for a 1927 Ford roadster which I built about 10 years ago. The frame has been dramatically ze'd in the rear, then extended beyond the rear axle to give me protection in the rear in case the fiberglass body ever got hit from behind.----as an aside to this story, I never use expensive coil-over shocks from the aftermarket I find that I can fabricate coil cups and use conventional springs and shock absorbers for about 20% of the cost of "coilovers".

This is a rather nasty digital picture, taken of a picture in my "Build book". This shows a Ze'd frame that came as the result of a mistake I made. I built a 1931 Desoto coupe, and in a quest for the perfect profile, I whacked the top 3" and channeled it 6" over the frame. It had an absolutely killer profile, but -----------------Oh $%#@---when I sat in the darn thing I had to bend my head sideways to look out the windshield. Not wanting to undo the chop nor the channel, I reasoned "why not just drop the center of the frame and reconfigure the floor in the car so that I set about 4" lower"---And thats exactly what I did, and it worked out perfect. Now, in this particular case, the frame is only Ze'd directly in front of and directly behind the seating area in the car, but as you can see from the other pictures that I posted, the front Z can be as far towards the front as Hansens, or as far towards the rear as the 27 roadster that I built.