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.
This upscale event took place back on June 28th and once again it did not disappoint. This year we were invited to participate in a ‘Then and Now” display. We brought a friends 240z to be positioned across from a new 370z. One of the most amazing cars of the show though was right next to our Z.
In front of our friend Glen’s new R35 GT-R there was an 1973 Skyline GT-R (also known as the “Ken and Mary” Skyline) in near original condition with 40K miles on it. According to the importer of the car, it has not undergone any form of restoration and has been in climate controlled storage for most of it’s life. The reason that this second generation GT-R is so special is that they made only 197 of them, total in the world. They are rare and extremely expensive. GT-R Wikipedia (2nd Gen. skip)
A few other highlights of the show included a one of the most original and un-restored Mazda Cozmos known to exist, vast vintage police vehicle display, as well as a plethora of vintage and historic race cars. I was also pleased to see beautiful examples of almost every model of Porsche ever produced, there were some beautiful cars with great racing heritage.
I encourage all of you to join us at next years show. The people are nice and the cars are even better. I hope you like the few pictures I have included here.
Filed under: 350z,Performance
by Forbes @ 3:32 pm on July 6, 2009
On the 23rd of last month I put up a the most recent track video featuring our good friend Scott and his 350z. The car had received the new MotorDyne Shockwave single exhaust the day before the track event so here are the dyno results, videos, and my impressions.
I normally shy away from favoring any sort of single exhaust on the 350z but this may be the system that has changes my mind. From the moment it was unwrapped it was easy to notice that the quality was there, and then we came to the exhaust tip. MEGAPHONE!! Here at Z Car Garage we have a special place in our hearts for the megaphone tip, as they are currently installed on Rob’s 240z and 510 as well as Alvin’s Roadster. The MotorDyne system comes with one from the factory, sweet.
The exhaust was installed without hassle thanks to the simplicity of the included V-band clamps. As soon as the car fired up we were all impressed. Rasp was virtually non-existent (this car still runs stock cats) and the sound was extremely crisp. While it’s not overly-loud, and passed the decibel meter at Thunderhill, there may be a sound limit issue at some of the super-strict tracks like Laguna Seca.
On to the dyno!!
We made a few baseline runs just prior to the install and came out with a hair under 252 rear-wheel horsepower (rwhp.) After the exhaust switch we made two more runs while carefully monitoring all critical temps as well as the air/fuel ration with an Innovate wide-band 02 sensor. The number we came out with was sort of a let down: 251rwhp, a one hp loss. Before simply marking it up as a loss we pulled out the laptop to check the timing in the U-tech piggyback computer. After pulling a couple degrees of timing we were happy to see the number climb to 259rwhp, a very nice gain for a normally aspirated car.
Unfortunately this isn’t a true comparison because we can’t be sure of how the NISMO system would have performed with the reduced timing, on the sound alone I would recommend this exhaust. Make sure you check out all the videos and photos after the ‘read more.’
A few weeks ago you may remember that we stripped the interior out of Kurtzee, the blue RB project, and mid last week it returned. OUR FABRICATION PEOPLE ROCK!! The chassis has be stiffened in all the right places to handle the power of the new RB25DET. All parts of the new cage structure have been tucked away and as tightly to the factory bodywork as possible so that it will not interfere with the driver in anyway, these cars need to have the functionality of a daily driver to be a success in our eyes.
The next step for this project is a trip off to the paint shop to have the cage covered and for the engine bay to be smoothed over and finished. This should be completed in the next few weeks and then the car will begin final assembly at the shop. Ill have some more photos when it’s at paint.
I hope you all had a great fourth of July weekend, MotoGP at Laguna Seca was amazing. Thanks to all who came. ZCG
