G35 engine swaps galore with happy GT-R ending!! (read the entire story)

Z Car Garage is a special place for a lot of us because that is where we get to fulfill our automotive fantasies.  In some cases we get to knock our two birds with one stone, I’ll explain…

When the customer who owns the Athens Blue G35 you see here came to us a few years ago in a quest for more power we were happy to help.  The first phase included an APS twin turbo kit along with a host of other suspension and cosmetic changes.  It made good power and he was happy for awhile.  Then he wanted more.

Continue reading after the jump!!!

Let’s just say that the first engine had seen better days.  The decision was made to go with a built motor this time around to see what kind of power it could handle.  The engine was installed with good results all around.  500+ wheel horsepower and nearly equal torque (on a mix of 91/100 octane I believe.)  Unfortunately this engine also bit the dust, this time due to an oil starvation issue.

The car was now to be parked for some time due to a rough economy, which has a habit of killing projects such as this one.  Luckily things turned around for the owner last year and the car was once again pulled out of hiding.  This engine build was closely monitored by Rob to ensure that we would have no more freak engine failures.  The install and tune of this third engine took less than a week and we were instantly impressed.

After a few hundred mandatory break-in miles the engine made 500whp with less boost that in previous attempts, and we were still waiting for it to loosen up a bit more!!  The engine tuning was kept “safe” for a short while until the owner was preparing for a road trip down to LA for a show.  Then car was strapped onto the Dynojet dyno and we proceeded to tune the car for good ol’ CA 91 octane.  The car still made 470whp and 470wtq.  Truly a strong piece of machinery.

The car has stayed in this state as a weekend driver for some months now until a once in a lifetime opportunity arose.  A FEDERAL LEGAL R33 GT-R was up for sale.  The GT-R, who belongs to another one of our customers, was in need of a new home.  The problem now is that both cars can’t be kept. Time to make some tough decisions.

It took all of five minutes for the owner to realize that the G35 was a goner, after all the chance to own a legit R33 doesn’t come around all that often.  To raise capital for the GT-R it was decided that more money could be raised by selling the twin turbo, built-engine drivetrain to someone else rather than an entire package, and lucky for us we knew just the person looking to put more power into his black G35.

The owner of this black beauty is none other than the same person who owns the BEHEMOTH RB28 240z.  I can hear you all mumbling jealous phrases under your breath!!  His black G35 used to run a Jim Wolf Technologies twin turbo setup on the stock engine, but since it was a very early kit with the small turbos, it never put out the power we were looking for (they have since upgraded the kit to offer at least two higher stages, JTW site)

When the owner of the black G was presented with the chance to posses the built APS set up he jumped at the opportunity to have 470whp/470wtq on 91 octane.    Thus the deal was done.  The drive train came out of the blue car and into the black one.  Both are from the Rev-Up engine generation so the swap was smooth as could be.  The blue car went back to having a stock drivetrain and it’s owner now has a GT-R to put in it’s place.

Good swap all around.

That’s not the end for the black G though.  Since the JWT kit runs a split intercooler system and the APS uses a rather large front mount style, a new bumper choice needed to be made.  A urethane Karuma Z unit was the final choice and it was sent off to paint to match the rest of the car.  I’m happy to see this bumper come in urethane now because fiberglass is just so fragile!!  When the bumper came back we made adjustment to the ZCG oil cooler that we equip all of our turbo cars with and we were on our way to boosted pleasure.

The video below is of the custom digital display that is installed in this car.  It can display just about anything you want as long as there is a sensor available for it.  If you look closely you can see the Z Car Garage logo on the face of the gauge.  Very cool.

Sorry for the lack of dyno runs in the post, I will be at the shop tomorrow and will post them with an update in this post.