This is a two part series because we attended two different shows on the same trip.  I simply have too many pictures for one huge post.  This first installment includes the drive from Z Car Garage in San Jose, CA to Solvang, CA where the annual Roadster show is held.

This year we decided to take our new 370z on it’s first road trip along with the recently completed 1982 Datsun 280zx 2+2 non-turbo restoration car.  Both cars were still receiving their finishing touches right before the trip so we were anxious to get them on the road to see how they would perform.  The ZCG 370z had taken on some massive changes in an effort to enter it in the Modified 370z class at MSA, all of the modifications can be found HERE.  The 280zx restoration is a completely different story.  This is a car that has been taken back to completely stock in almost every area and better than stock in all the others, and it was up to me to get it through the weekend in one piece and maybe even bring home a trophy for the owners.

We left the shop pretty much right on time, strange for us, and got on our way with a group of six cars: the ZCG 370z, the 280zx restoration, two nicely modified 350Zs, and two 240Zs that have been shown love in all the right places.  Three old and three new, good to go.  The weather was perfect on the ride down and all the cars performed flawlessly all the way to Solvang.

A restored 1982 280zx 2+2 non-turbo isn’t what you would expect to take on a road trip of this sort, especially if you know anything about Z Car Garage.  We love turbos, torque, horsepower, high revs, and the smell of an uncorked exhaust on 100 octane.  This car is about none of those things.  First, the car is totally stock. Stock engine, stock suspension, stock brakes, everything.  So it goes without saying that it won’t be setting any sort of records around Nürburgring.  Second: Included in the stock parts list is a 3-speed automatic transmission, great.  This puts the (rev limited) max speed  of this car somewhere in the range of 105-110 mph, not that I could really tell at that point because the speedo is limited to 80.  How in the world am I going to keep up with all of these other modified cars.

In reality I had nothing to fear.  Everyone in our caravan was quite responsible on the way down and it allowed me to relax a little and enjoy breaking in the 280zx.  This car is a roadtripper’s dream!  It drives so comfortably that you have no trouble seeing why these cars were so popular when they came out, they truly were one of the nicest cars on the road.  On to Solvang.

The Solvang show is one of the largest gatherings of Datsun Roadsters in the country and you can always expect a few crazy innovations every year.  2009 was the year of the turbo’d Roadster.  There were turbos bolted onto everything from the stock U series engine all the way to the newest SR20DET engines out of S15 Silvias that were never even brought to the case.

Many of you know that Z Car Garage had a hand in restoring and modifying one of our good friend’s Roadsters and placing a modern SR20 engine in it some years ago.  I am happy to report that he once again brought home a 1st place trophy in the “Modified 1600” class.  Congrats Alvin!!!

The best of show honors went to the Michael Spreadbury built SR20DET monster of a car.  As always he and the Spriso crew have brought new technology and innovative engineering solutions to the Roadster world.  Nice job gentlemen.

Back to the trip…
After walking around the show for awhile and talking to some of you loyal readers we headed into town to grab some local grub.  Eye spy with my little eye a Nissan R32 GT-R, the real deal.  I walk up to the car and instantly recognize it as a car that I have seen at a few events in years past at Laguna Seca.  We take pictures and move on with a smile after seeing a beautiful GT-R.  Next on our rare car sightings list is a late fifties Ford Fairlane with the RARE “Skyliner” retractable hardtop option.  The owner was even nice enough to put it trough its paces for us.  Very cool, and the engineering alone is worth the price of admission.

We then gather our group of now four cars, the 240Zs were going to stay awhile longer, and we get on the road towards LA and our hotel for the night.   MSA 2009 is waiting for us on the other side of dawn….

Part 2 is coming soon….  click on the ‘read more’ below to see all of the pictures.

…[read more]

We have added a clean 1991 300zx Twin Turbo that is for sale by the owner on the “For Sale” page.  You can view the car by going to the for sale link at the top of the page or go directly to the listing by clicking below.  Let’s help find this clean Twin Turbo a new home!!

1991 300zx Twin Turbo For Sale

If you have been keeping up on our 370z exploits, good for you.  If you haven’t then HERE is some mandatory reading.

We were planning on taking the car to the Motorsport Auto Show (MSA) from the beginning and if you know us then you are aware that there was NO WAY that we were going to take a stock car.  We made a few phone calls to the people that can make things happen and the ZCG 370z turned into a monster overnight.

We decided that the first change to the car needed to be in the suspension department.  Eibach springs was a first choice because of their pedigree in the industry and we shortly had a couple of boxes at our door.  They are advertised to lower the car 0.9″ in the front and 0.8″ in the rear.  The springs are a progressive rate set-up front and rear to help with ride quality and in the handling department.  The looks are vastly improved as the photos show and I’m happy to report that there is a noticeable decrease in body roll and mid corner stability seems to be improved; it’s a nice improvement considering that the ride quality is not any more harsh than before.

The next call we made was to our friends down at StopTech Brakes, and we went for the big boy of brake kits.  You can remember that we ran into problems with the stock brake system after a few sessions on the track so we felt the need to step up here.  It was the week of the MSA show so we needed to request overnight delivery if we were to finish everything that week and when we unwrapped the boxes we were overjoyed.

Before our eyes lay the latest and largest kit that StopTech has to offer for the 370z.  It includes 6 piston front calipers with 380mm rotors in the front and 4 piston calipers and 355mm rotors in the rear.  The rotors are a slotted two piece design to aid in performance and replacement.  I don’t even know where to begin to describe the feeling these brakes give when you slam on the “stop” pedal, it’s not worth testing the limits on the street so we will be heading back to the track with haste very soon.  Bummer, I know, more track days for work.  Where will it end.  Haha

Now comes the time for improved power.  We ordered the Stillen cat-back exhaust and the new Gen-3 intake system to help our car breathe better on both sides of the engine.  Before I even get to any sort of dyno results I need to say that everyone here at Z Car Garage was let down by the fit and finish on these two products.  The exhaust rubs and hits in at least two or three places, its painfully annoying.  The intake system comes with no brackets of any sort and the front part is left to bounce around to rub on and destroy anything it pleases (see video below.)  We have made our own brackets and changes to the intake to prevent any sort of serious damage, we were even forced to wrap the air conditioning lines on the driver’s side to prevent the intake from inevitably rubbing through.  Stillen is a huge company with tons of R&D time in these products, I don’t understand how they could ship a part like this and expect owners to be satisfied.

As far as power numbers are concerned, it is an improvement.  On the graphs the blue line is the car returned to its totally stock form for a baseline.  The red line is after the intake only.  The final green line is with the intake and exhaust.  Each change gains around ten wheel horsepower and a moderate torque increase as well.  Too bad horsepower poor fit and finish.  I have heard from our sources that they have made improvements to the exhaust fitment, and not to defend Stillen, but these were some of the first parts on the market for the 370z.  We here at Z Car Garage just want our customer base to get the the best product they can, and the product that you deserve.

As far as future upgrades to the ZCG 370z are concerned, I will be posting the solution to our other track event failure sometime next week with test data to follow as soon as we get back to the track.

Here is the video of the intake that is supplied without any brackets.  We ended up making our own.  Enjoy the random music in the background.

It’s Saturday morning here in rainy northern California and I am here with Rob at the shop.  I’m tired of getting angry emails about how the blog hasn’t been touched since we got back from MSA last weekend (Just kidding, we love to hear your thoughts.)  I’ve been working out in the shop all week but have dedicated this morning to updating the blog.  The posts that I’m preparing will be spread out over the next week or so.  Here’s what I’m working on, in no particular order:

ZCG 370z: We have performed a full on assault on the shop 370z and we took home first place in the 370z Modified class.  It now has an intake, cat-back exhaust, springs, and upgraded brakes.  The post will have all the details as well as dyno run information.  This will be the first post that I put up today.

Solvang Roadster Show:   This took place last Saturday before we headed to Orange, CA for the MSA show.  This will include photos from the start of our trip and the all the Roadsters and other cool Datsuns at the show.  There were some pretty amazing cars there and ZCG’s own Alvin G. took home top honors in the Modified 1600 Fairlady class!! Congrats!

Motorsport Auto Show 2009:  The largest gathering of Zs on the West Coast!  The show was amazing and the weather was perfect.  We were surprised to see how many people showed up to display their cars with the current state of the economy and all.  I’ll have some neat background stories of some of the people we met and the cars they brought.  Good times.

GT-R:  The ZCG sponsored GT-R came back to the shop last Tuesday and it has left again.  It’s funny how the car we support spends the least time at our shop.  After a few short days of damage control and a whole lot of hustle the car is off to LA to take place in the Gumball 3000 Rally all the way to Miami.  This post will contain information on most of the upgrades that have been performed over the past week.

Laguna Seca 350z Video 2:  The second installment of some track footage of time spent at Laguna Seca.  Enjoy the Video because that will pretty much be the entire post.  On second thought I may post a list of up-coming track events on this post so that all of our readers can find out how and when to join in on the fun.

350z Borla Header Install and Dyno Results:  I will have all the dyno information as well as over-all thoughts on this header install posted.  Some nice results from a well designed product.

240z Engine Rebuild:  The engine came back from the machine shop last week and I have spent a few hours this week prepping and painting the engine as well as gathering parts for the completion of this job.  I will have photos and hopefully a dyno number for this new engine.

G35 Twin Turbo Custom Gauge Install:  This system is awesome!!  I took a video of the gauges at work and it still doesn’t do it justice.  If the ZCG G35 didn’t have navigation this would be going in our car.  We double checked the boost and AFR gauges and they are incredibly accurate.  Good stuff.

Behemoth RB28 Engine Returns!!! After waiting for parts from Japan for the past few months, the stroked RB28 destroyer has come back to the shop.  Now we will be painting the block to give it the “show” to match its “go.”  We will also be installing all of the N1 factory Nissan race parts in final assembly.

370z Intake and Exhaust Modifications:  We had another car come in this week and we were able to perform the same mods that our shop 370z currently has and then some.  I have full dyno comparisons as well as a ton of photos for this car.  Thanks Tom, blue is the best color.

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST!!!!!

Cosworth Plenum Dyno Results!!!!! Some of you may have thought that I forgot about this post but I needed to wait for the proper time to relase the information that we have discovered on our dyno!!  This post is bound to upset a few people….

Last weekend was amazing.  I have so many stories and so many pictures to share with all of you.  Give me some time to upload the pictures and prepare the posts and you will not be disappointed.

The good news is that we took home a couple of trophies from the MSA show and had a blast talking to everybody at the show.  We met some great people and had some good times.  I should have a few things up by mid week.  ZCG