We do quite a few restorations here at Z Car Garage but this one holds a special place in our heart and I would like to share it with all of you.  This 280zx has been a few years in the making and will be coming to a close soon once a couple of the nearly impossible to find parts are sourced.

Most of the parts that we are still searching for have been out of production for a decade, so you can see why this has taken some considerable effort to close out.  Almost all of the interior pieces needed to be repaired and redyed to match the new dash and the newly upholstered seats, but no expense has been spared to get the highest quality items available.  As these parts slowly trickle in from around the country (and world) the car is being re-assembled to better than original condition.

I have over a thousand pictures that have been taken over the course of this project so here are a few of the significant ones that show what lengths we have gone through to make it one of the cleanest restorations around.   It has truly been a labor of love to restore this car and it will be a sad day when it gets delivered to its owners once again.  I hope that they will enjoy it once completed as much as we have while building it for them.

Click on the pictures for the full-size and click the read more for more…

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We were up at the paint shop today and I grabbed a few photos that Rob took while there.  As you can see the entire engine bay is being smoothed out to match the paint quality of the exterior of the car.  All unnecessary holes have been filled in the entire engine bay along with the battery tray on the passenger side of the engine compartment.  All welds that weren’t critical were smoothed as well to complete the look.   Bodywork is due to be completed in the next couple of weeks with paint beginning to be sprayed after New Years.  I really wish these pictures could show how sharp our paint shop has made the body-line,  words don’t due it justice.

I’ll try to get some pictures of the RB 2.8L engine up soon so that you can drool over that too.  Wheels and camshafts are on the slow boat from Japan and should be here fairly soon as well.   We can’t wait to see this car come together.  BOOOOOSSSTT!!!!

I’m also going to throw in some pictures of the car before it was torn apart and sent to the fabrication shop for the roll cage and then to paint.  (The roll bar in the photos is an old bolt-in.)

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Happy Tuesday everyone!  I have obtained a couple of videos of the wonderful ZCG GT-R for your viewing pleasure.  The first clip was done to demonstrate the exhaust sound of the HKS Kensai Ti Exhaust with the stainless cat-delete mid-pipe. Sounds pretty amazing huh?  Contact us if you would like any further information on GT-R parts or service.

The second clip was filmed by our Z Guru Rob Fuller while driving a new 370z to Las Vegas on the Follow the Nissan Z tour.  We were on the freeway going at a good clip when this took place so it really shows the overtaking power that our GT-R posses after we finished phase one in our long list of planned modifications.

We are going to be making a few more videos of the car with a chase car or two so keep an eye out for those.  GT-Rs rule.

I was finally able to go to the powerder-coater today to pick up the remaining parts for the Kurtzee RB project.  All of the parts were done in a high gloss black to make all of our hard work stand out.  The struts were shortened and we added a Ground Control coilover kit with custom spring rates to handle the added weight of the turbo RB.

Also seen here are some new pictures of the suspension that belongs to the Fairlady RB car.  It is done in a “near chrome” finish to pay respect to the silver suspension of the almighty Skyline GT-Rs of the past.

The black “Behemoth” 2.8L is set to come out of paint after the first of the year so get ready for some new photos of it in the near future.  These cars are going to start coming together really fast so expect to see some more updates relatively soon.  Z Car Justice!!

There are a few more photos after the jump.

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Baseline dyno and stock pictures:

We are all aware that the HR version is at the top of the hill as far as the 3.5L engines go.  But now we have some hardcore proof of how strong this engine is with just a few bolt-ons.  This car belongs to a good friend and customer of ours and it is now starting to put down some serious power.

Earlier this year Z Car Garage installed a Bassani cat-back exhaust system with cross-over pipe.  The baseline dyno for the new mods (high flow cats and intake) was done with the exhaust system installed.  The Bassani exhaust post on My350z.com can be found HERE.

The Stillen high-flow catalytic were first on the list to be installed after today’s baseline dyno.  They installed in about a half hour with no real complications.  Then our Innovate wide band O2 sensor was then installed to monitor the air/fuel ratio.  Off to the dyno!  The gains we saw were a pleasant surprise and we are very happy with the overall result.  This mod also brought out some more roar in the Bassani system.  It sounds mean…

Next on the list for this morning was the new Injen Intake System for the VQ35HR engines.  This new system uses twin POP style filters and drastically moves the location of the filters all the way down and into the front radiator opening in the front bumper.  This move ensures that tons of fresh, high pressure, air will be crammed into the filters.

As you can see form the graph above we also picked up some massive whp gains from the intake as well!  In uncorrected form this car put down over 300hp to the rear tires, WITH ONLY A FEW BOLT ONS!!  All of the dyno graphs listed here are SAE corrected to even things out.

This post should brighten the days of more than a few HR owners who cringed when they heard of the imminent release of the new 3.7L engine.  Only time will tell how much more normally aspirated horsepower we will make with this engine but you better believe that we have more HR parts on order as I write this.  Can you say experimental ECU tuning?  Ummm… I love the smell of power in the morning.

All three runs below: (click for larger)

More Photos After the Read More

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