These cars are lamented by some, coveted by others. While many acquire only that which is brand new, shiny, technologically advanced, warranty-included, keeping-up-with-the-jones’ level cars, Mr. Walker simply does what he likes, drives what he likes, and makes no apologies for it. These cars are of my favorite era; a time where modern build and design techniques began coming to the forefront and where hints of the modern era emerged. Sure, they are non intercooled, impossibly geared, basically fuel injected…but the design is iconic. It arguably looks more contemporary than any other performance car of its day.
we showed off a prototype trunk cage for the 370Z coupe from GT Spec. Good things come to those who wait, and now it’s finally being released for in November/December 2013. Contact us for details and pricing, or to reserve one for yourself
Cusco has just introduced a billet differential cover for the Subaru
‘s using an R180 differential. This new cover is a direct replacement, offered in silver or anodized blue, and takes total fluid capacity to 1.2-1.3 liters (from .8-.9 liters). It features integrated heat sink fins to aid in keeping the rear fluid cool..which is essential for fluid life, differential life, and proper performance. It’s also thoughtfully pre-tapped M16ｘP1.5 holes for connection to an external oil cooler. Requires OE part #s Air breather cap 38354AA020 x1, Gasket (differential carrier) 38353AA050 x1, Gasket (T-type H3 & H4 oil temp sensor type only) 803920050 x2.
Next year the V6 Turbos will be on the grid in Formula 1, and it’s a move that had many fans concerned. If you’ve never been to an F1 race, it’s hard to grasp how important the audible component is to the series. Sure, the cars sound amazing as the V8’s wail away at ungodly rpms when you watch it on tv. But in person, you feel the sound. They pop, snort, and sing, and your brain craves in every measure of it.
Honda has now released sound clips of their new V6 Turbo. They will be supplying these to McLaren (perhaps others?) a year after the changeover. While you don’t get the physical sensation from the video, the sound itself is the sweetest V6 I’ve ever heard.
Courtesy of NBCSports
Here is a clip of the 2014 Mercedes V6 Turbo F1 engine:
….this car, in the midst of midtown Manhattan – the juxtoposition of classic JDM styling, blending artfully with the modern NYC skyline. No matter what new cars Japan throws at us in the coming years (and lately, there hasn’t been too much to get excited about), the old school is the best ‘new’ school there is.
A rare car in an even rarer color. While the 360’s don’t have the mechanical reliability of the 430, it was a game changing car for Ferrari. This one, in Tour de Force blue has aged particularly well. One of those rare cars that so many of us try to emulate, regardless of the marque. A car built to be a weekend road terrorizer and a race track toy, and perform each task with sublime results.
A close friend of ours down south has a 350Z. For the last several years it served as faithful daily driver, and weekend track slut. Now that the stars have aligned, and a truck now handles daily driving duties (and doubles as the track-rig on the weekend), the Z has been relegated to primarily track use only. He runs the car all over the Southeast, and despite the fact that it (for now) is still a stock engine with some bolt on’s, it’s wildly competitive. The reason? Intelligently selected modifications. Everything on the car has a purpose. Nothing was selected by accident, and in several cases, it took some trial and error of different components in order to come up with the faster combination.
The car was recently in NASCAR country, North Carolina, for a recent round of upgrades, including a differential and ring and pinion change. While there, a former NASCAR tech got hold of it, and using some fabrication skills and NASCAR carbon splitters (the rear deal), this was the creation. Next set of shakedowns is a few weeks ago at Barber, stay tuned!
There is an old expression in the sports car world “handles like it’s on rails”. In other words, a car that changes direction with such eagerness, authority, and minimal loss of energy, that its akin to a train following a track. To this end, people often go about fitting the stiffest springs they can, with the biggest possible swaybars, and rubber-band thick tires, hoping to reduce lean and roll. This works great on cars with huge sticky tires and lots of downforce (and thus high speeds), and ideally, driven on perfectly smooth tracks. While many try to mimic this on a street car, it’s usually not the case. Normal roads, and even many racetracks around the country are anything but glass-smooth. We’re genernally not running slicks or even R compound tires when we drive to the local diner or for a weekend blast down some backroads, and while we may have installed them on our cars, we’re not generally using dive planes, functional splitters and spoilers to their potential due to street-legal speeds. The same car that handles on rails is also crashing over every imperfection out there. Expansion joints might as well be speedbumps, uneven pavement akin to driving over road spikes. Geometry aside, these super stiff setups often compromise road car handling, more than they improve it. Chassis stiffening is not the same as suspension stiffening, and this is an often-overlooked feature. The chassis of the car is like the skeleton of a high rise building. It’s made of steel girders, because it’s the backbone of the structure. Similarly a cars chassis is the skeleton of the car: it supports everything else.
When NISMO developed the 350Z NISMO edition, mane shunned it as merely a cosmetic upgrade. The engine afterall was the same – but it wore a wildy out there (for a factory car) body kit – a long front bumper with low splitter, a long rear bumper overhang, and a decidedly “Fast and Furious” style spoiler. Delve deeper and you find what makes it so special. The chassis is fully seam welded. Meaning every joint, where 2 pieces of aluminum are bonded together, are full sealed. There are no gaps, there are no open joints. This increases chassis rigidity by a decidely large amount. This is one of the things people often do when bulding a race car from the ground up. To that chassis, Nissan fitted significantly stiffer springs (one of the stiffest out there on a road car) with heavy duty dampers. While the bushings and swaybars remained the same compared to other NISMO cars, the car was noticeably stiffer. But this is, afterall, a road car. While it is very much at home on weekend track days and club events, it’s designed to be a fun, sporting day to day means of transportation. Had it been left alone, it would have been panned for being too obnoxious on the road, too upset by the concrete jungle. To solve those issues NISMO worked with Yamaha to develop a Z-specific pair of body dampers. These attach fore and aft of the shock pointing points, between the 2 biggest “holes” in the chassis – at the front bumper, and in the rear spare tire well. Why there? When a suspension compresses and rebounds, energy is created, stored, and released in very quick succession. The stiffer the spring, the more aggressive the shock valving, the quicker this process happens. Which is why from inside the cabin, that uneven pavement can be downright punishing….whereas in a Toyota Camry, it’s just soaked up effortlessly. The dampers Yamaha and NISMO developed are designed to specifically combat these vibrations, without toning down the benefits that the spring/shock combo gives the handling aspect of the car. When you look at them out of the box, they are basically a strut brace, with a little shock built in. They compress and rebound, like a strut does. However they mount veritcally, whereas shocks mount horizontally. So they combat the natural vibrations the chassis will face when hitting potholes, uneven pavement, and normal bumps in the road. This minimizes energy losses, and lets the spring and shock more efficiently do their job, while keeping the driver comfortable, and thus confident, behind the wheel.
Think it’s still just marketing hype? F1 cars began using similar devices in the 2006 season. Or, just try it for yourself: we have. A 350Z with coilovers (pick your poison, it even helps with wife-friendly coilovers such as Bilstein and KW). With the typical set of low profile 18 or 19 inch tires, and at the typical lowered stance these cars look so good at, it turns the car from a bit erratic over bumps, to downright stable. The suspension is now more able to work in unison, left and right, front to back, whereas without the dampers, it’s a bit of a free-for-all, with the driver being asked to control it all on the fly. It is truly eye-opening how these simple bolt on devices stabilize the vehicle.
The neat thing about these, is they are available for several carswe get here in the US, including the Subaru WRX (02-07), 350Z/G35. Need one for your car? Just drop us a line!
Kwame
Z1 Performance
Jonathan
Corner Balance 