Following up on our FR-S/BRZ post we also have the initial Nissan 350Z Brainiac sketches to share with the community. We recently announced that the 2002-2005 Nissan 350Z would be the latest vehicle receiving a 10.1″ Brainiac installation kit and we’re now eyeballs deep in both planning and design after the initial 3D laser scanning 🙂
So far the 350Z has been the absolute ideal candidate for the 10.1″ screen. The vertical pillar style dashboard provides a ton of space to locate the touch screen and has an inner dashboard structure that is really favorable without having to work around any internal plastic beams or supports. There’s even enough room above the existing climate control for the Brainiac display.
From our initial scans of the dashboard we were able to come up with multiple revisions of how Brainiac “could” be incorporated into this large area. It was nice to have less constraints with the Z when it came to size and depth of the dashboard. Here are some of the revisions that we’ve been working through as we continue to narrow down our design.
As you can see we’ve been working through different screen depths, button positions and also actual screen location. Our goal with the 350Z is to provide two replacement trim pieces: The top gauge cup area and the lower 10.1″ screen surround, both utilizing factory mounting locations. The gauge cup area holds its own challenges because of some of Nissan’s design decisions.
It appears that after some time Nissan decided to plastic weld the top of the gauge cup tab to the plastic trim even though it appears that they started off by only bolting onto the lower parts of the trim. So we’re still working through the right approach for hopefully maintaining the factory inner gauge cup rings and transplanting them into the new Brainiac trim.
Much like the Scion FR-S/Subaru BRZ design sketches we still have more revisions of the design planned. After the sketching phase we’ll have our general design direction to start and implement the 3D CAD models to ensure everything has an OEM fit.
One of the main design aspects that we want to incorporate is the signature Brainiac “V” shape around the display as seen in our Subaru WRX/STI trim pieces. This gives a much more open and built-in feeling to the display vs a simple rectangular cut out. These small stylized touches make a big difference in the display appearing as an original OEM option vs an aftermarket addition.
We want to continue to have an open dialogue with the 350Z community which is why we’ve started a Brainiac discussion thread on my350z.com. We invite all members of the community to join the conversation and provide early feedback through the forum thread and reaching out to us on social media or email. Let us know what you think so far and make sure you have a chance for your voice to be heard in these early design stages 🙂
Workshop 12 