The song is ratchet and cheesy as hell, the car is anything but. The amazing Z belonging to a close friend and customer down south, basking in the final moments of sunlight at Barber Motorsport Park. Even though her heart is aching right now, she may live to race another day before going under the knife for surgery. Stay tuned
Just got these bad boys in for a monster Z33 build being done by a good customer and friend in Australia.
These are by CP Pistons and were a custom order with 3.937 bore, upgraded ring, ceramic coated for the tops, skirt coating and some other goodies tossed on as well! Stay tuned as this bad boy is built..it should be a pretty sweet end result 🙂
Tomei recently announced plans for a new line of Titanium Exhaust systems for several popular cars. The first one coming is the Evo X, which we announced here on the blog last month. I just wanted to share a few pics of the forthcoming system for the 350Z.
The Expreme Titanium exhaust will be out in 2010, and is a single, lightweight exhaust system for the 2003-2008 350Z (including NISMO)
Pics courtest of Dino @ Speedhunters. I’ll have new pics to share soon along with full specs
Tomei also has their new metal Super Catalyzer now for the 350Z as as well. They include integrated bungs for wideband 02 sensors, full stainless construction and are 150 cell, so they will flow amazingly well.
Anyone interested in either the exhaust or the cats, contact us at z1sales@z1auto.com
The press has seem some heavy action here lately – just swapping out stuff on our own cars! Kwame has a full array of bushings he still needs to do. In preparation for installation of my 4.3 final drive equipped pumpkin, we had to press out the stock pieces from the pumpkin. I picked this pumpkin up last year from a customer who had it sitting around. It had an inordinate amount of rust on it, and it made removing the bushings a royal PIA. Not to mention, when you’re trying to secure a ~100 lb pumpkin in a press, it’s no easy task. One bushing dropped out easily, but the second one just wouldn’t budge. Finally, after some coaxing with some Nuts Off (a really good penetrating oil), the air hammer and a cutting wheel, we managed to force it out. Next up we’ll file off the rest of the surface rust, and install the SPL Solid Bushings in their place. I think I’ve also been talked in to just dropping the subframe and doing the Whiteline Rear Traction Kit along with the rest of the NISMO bushings for the rear, as well as the NISMO exhaust hangers, to compliment the rest of the NISMO bushings already on the car. It never seems to end……
Had some time to sit down and install our new urethane transmission mount for one of our 350Z’s. This mount is a billet aluminum casing, and we offer it with 3 grades of urethane – 60a (comfort), 75a (sport) and 90a (race). We used the 75a for my car.
To start off, use the factory recommended jack points front and rear (see picture 1). With the car up in the air, your first thing is to remove the factory transmission cross member. This is a black steel beam that runs the width of the transmission (see picture 2). To loosen the crossmember from the chassis, there are 4 x 14mm bolts. You’ll now see the transmission mount, attached to the underside of the transmission (picture 3). Next, you will remove the long gold bolt/spacer from the stock transmount, which runs through the crossmember. To gain better access to the bolt, we found it easiest to remove the Y pipe, as it makes things. Since mine has been in there for a few years and I had noticed a bit of an exhaust leak recently, I took this opportunity to replace all the Y pipe gaskets and kill 2 birds with one stone. Take a jack, or jackstand, and place it under the transmission to keep it from sagging. It is still attached to the engine at the bellhousing, as well as the driveshaft, but you don’t want any accidents! Finally, remove the 2 x 14mm bolts and the transmission mount comes off the transmission. Fitting the new mount is just a direct reversal of the above process and goes right in.
So what does it feel like – HOLY SHIT stiff! The car immediately has a much deeper tone inside the cabin just by virtue of the fact that the new mount has much less slop in it, and has a full radius bushing (if you look in the picture showing the side by side with the stock mount, you can see daylight!). It was so much different sounding I thought my Y pipe was still disconnected! The shifter has a much more positive feel to it, which is very noticeable especially at higher rpm shifts. Engaging first and running through the gears from a dead stop, you immediately notice that the car has a much more direct overall feel. If you are in a higher rpm and just crusing (for example 2nd, entering a turn) the slight rocking back and forth that the car used to have is completely gone. I’ll drive the car through the weekend provided the weather is nice and post any noticeable changes.
Slowly buy surely we’re making some progress. I seriously can’t wait till this round of stuff is in the bag so I can enjoy the damn car again. She looks lonely sitting there without being used. Thankfully for the car (but sucks in general) the weather here in May and June has been horrendous, so I haven’t missed a ton of driving opportunities. But you know how projects go – at a certain point you just want to see them, or at least phases of them, done!
So today, I dropped the fuel rails off to the powdercoaters – will snap some before/afters when I get them back. Billy came down so we finally finished sanding the hood and did the first coat of primer. While we were at it, primed the cover for a bike that has been on the back burner for a minute (I think it’s from a Gixxer 750, but don’t quote me)
I just can’t seem to leave well enough alone. While I’m still working on finishing the ITB project, I picked up something to have some interim fun with. Much love to Viet for hooking it up!
Since I sold my nice 3 inch carbon intake tube I’m going to have to fab something else up. At least with the Haltech now in the car I don’t have to worry about a MAF housing (good thing, since I sold that too!) or a fancy intake (foiled again…sold the Gruppe-M one I was running). Word to the wise – don’t sell the old shit till the new shit is fully functional! I was going to go all psuedo hardcore and make a nice aluminum one, but who gives a shit…it’s an intake tube and it’s temporary, so some thin walled mild steel, will be just fine. Maybe I’ll even ceramic coat it (or maybe I’ll use ‘House of Krylon’…we’ll see). If I ceramic coat it, I “may” coat the plenum as well – haven’t given it much thought yet.
Not sure what throttle body I will run yet. The left side of my brain says to just put on a stock throttle body, convert the car back to DBW (easy thankfully) and have a go. The right side says…screw it, grab a Q45 tb, leave it as a cable throttle, port the inlet to the plenum (or cut it up and reweld the proper size flange on) and let her rip. Jury is still out…I’ll probably let the guru Steve (engine builder) make that call for me.
Tomorrow it goes out to be evaluated on the bench, see if we can maybe clean up some of the runners a bit so everything lines up nicey-nice. At least now maybe I can drive my car for a bit instead of just looking longingly at her!
Notice the true carbon endcaps…no Seibon/VIS wannabe stuff here. Cosworth always gives you the real deal.
For everyone who says this manifold is “overpriced”, you’re nuts, plain and simple. The asking price for it new, at full MSRP, given it’s thoughful design, cast manufacturing, and the real carbon endcaps and all the fittings to make it work, is a bargain. Is this the manifold for someone who has a stock Z or even one with a mild turbo kit? Nope, not at all (though it looks way nicer than stock!). But if you’re going all out, and want a plenum that will go there with you, this is a bargain IMHO. This isn’t a paperweight/canoe anchor design like some others out there, and it does, without question, solve the flow issues (of which there are many) that the stock setup has.
Time to get these things on the car and operational! The journey begins. Lots of work still to be done with various aspects of the kit, but I’m looking forward to firing it up.Â
My 350Z with ITB's!!!
Figured some of you might want to see a quick video of my car in action. This was taken last November, I think on Thanksgiving day, before headed to the parents for the festive meal (the run would have been significantly slower post-turkey!). Since the weather here has been so crappy, and I’m dying to drive the car, I figured I’d post a quick video to remind myself what it feels like!
And here’s a picture of it before we dropped it into the car (spring 2007)
It’s not done yet – got a few more things to go ! Hopefully it all works out
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Kwame
Z1 Performance
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