Here is a video of the first red group (most experienced) session in our ZCG 370z last Saturday at Thunderhill.  This isn’t me driving but you will see my helmet bounce in and out of the screen a few times from the passenger seat.  There isn’t anything too exciting here as it’s the first session but I thought some of you might like to see it

Also remember that we are in a stock 370z on stock tires here.  Almost all of these cars are on “R” compound tires and some are making huge horsepower, ex: both Dodge Vipers.  We’ll be able to keep up with them soon!

Hopefully next time we get the ZCG 370z out on track we will be a bit more successful with completing the entire day.  Enjoy and be safe.

Note: If any of our loyal readers have footage of their Zs on track at Laguna Seca on Monday please let me know.  Alvin and Scott this means you two.

Zs are at home on the race track.  The Z was thrust into the public eye back in the early 70’s when they were winning every event that they could be entered in.  So when Z Car Garage picked up a 370z a couple of weeks one of our first goals was to get the stock car out on the track to see what it could do.

We were at the track fully loaded with a greasy breakfast by 6:30 and by 7:30 we had finished registration and tech and were awaiting the driver’s meeting.  The meeting began close to 8am and our large group went through all of the usual track event propaganda.  The Speed Ventures crew was super down to earth and very upfront about what they expected from all of us and the thorough meeting took place without a hitch.

We registered the car in the Red (fastest and most experienced) and White (most novice) to ensure that we would get as much time on the track as possible.  The red group came up right after the driver’s meeting so we geared up and got on track with me riding shotgun.  After everything was warmed up we got to the task of seeing how far we could push the car in it’s stock form.

We figured the tires would be the limiting factor for the car today but we were out to test the limits of every part of the car, and boy did we ever.  We finished the session and pulled the car into the pits to record our test data and then let the car cool down for one session.  Then I got behind the wheel to go out for my first session.  Which leads me to what you are all waiting to hear.  The car had issues.  Two and a half laps after I went out I was back in the pits with a frown on my face.

I’m not going to go into what happened until we have a solution to offer all of you.  After we determined that the issue wasn’t detrimental to the car or our safety we went back out in the next few sessions, and then we ran into our second problem.  This time on our standard post-session inspection we discovered that the front right brake pad had begun to degrade and was grooving the rotor, check out the pictures.  At this point we decided to call it a day because we had to drive the car two-and-a-half hours back to San Jose.

On further inspection today our suspicions were confirmed, it looks like we’ll be calling Nissan to have it replaced…. under warranty.  All the other brakes looked fine and were functioning normally and in fact I didn’t notice any change in performance in the brake system in the session before the failure.  Strange.  Looking back we could have risked it and stayed for a few more sessions to see if the situation would change but because of the first issue we headed back to the bay area.

Even though the car wasn’t perfect, I had a blast testing the car and would encourage all of you to get out on the track and have some fun.  Everyone that I spoke to at the event was amazing.  Car people are the best and always seem to go out of their way to take car of fellow enthusiasts, thanks to all who attended the event.  We will see you soon, and we’ll be bringing the 370z.

ZCG is committed to making the 370z an efficient track tool and will go to any lengths necessary to solve any issues that come up.  As soon as any progress is made it will be released here on ZCarBlog.com first so make sure you keep coming back to get your fix.

There are over a hundred photos after the ‘read more’ so make sure you check them out. One of the cars that I was most interested in was a Mazda FD RX-7.  This car is simply amazing.  Nothing on the car was left untouched.  Check out the photos and I’ll try to get some more info from the owner.  Wow.  I tried to take photos of as many cars as I could so I hope that yours made it.  See you out there.

…[read more]

I’ve decided not to post all of the Convertible and NISMO pictures because they can be found in all of their High-Res glory at www.Nissan370zNY.com.   Here for your viewing pleasure are two videos from Nissan that feature both cars.

Here is the video that can be seen at www.Nissan370zNY.com that was filmed before the unveiling to the press tonight in New York city.  It contains a quick overview of the convertible 370z as well and the new 370z NISMO edition.

To me it really seems like Nissan has finally realized that owners want a bit more luxury in the convertibles that they have purchased.  This is apparent in the fact that they have made the coupe’s entire buffet of options available in the roadster version.  They also made the top 100% automatic by getting rid of the semi-annoying manual cowl latches on the 350z.  Another nice touch is the option to lower the top using only a button on the key fob.  After all isn’t real luxury having other people, or your car in this case, doing tasks for you?

There is no word yet on structural rigidity numbers or anything of that sort but it looks like Nissan has really taken its time with this car so the performance and solid feel should come close to matching that of the coupe.  I’ll let you know as soon as I get behind the wheel, hopefully headed somewhere sunny.

As for the NISMO edition, most speculators were predicting that the US car would resemble the S-Tune 370z that has been released in Japan.  They weren’t far off.  Luckily for us Nissan has toned down the styling a bit from the JDM S-Tune and thrown in some traces of the outgoing NISMO 350z styling cues.  The wheels look to be a slimmed spoked Sport Package wheel that doesn’t really knock my socks off, but who will really keep the stock wheels and tires on these things?

Now, onto the power.  Nissan claims in the short video above that the new NISMO is putting our 350 crank horsepower, some 27 over base.  Wicked.  I’m thinking that most of this new found oomph is found through refined “cam” timing and possibly small intake or exhaust modifications.  The word “cam” is in quotes because as you may know the new 370z engine, VQ37HVR, carries Nissan’s new VVEL technology which replaces standard camshafts with solenoids that car computer controlled to allow the car to have infinitely variable cam timing and lift.  A rundown of this technology can be found on 370z.com. Interesting stuff.

I’ll have more information for you on both models as it becomes available so keep coming back to ZCarBlog.com for your Z fix.  For now you’ll have to simply enjoy the pictures that I’ll be putting in the TWO posts above this one.  ZCG

EDIT: I put up our Birthday post above this one so that we could enjoy it for the rest of the day.  Happy Birthday ZCG.  WE LOVE YOU.

The photo and spec posts for the 370z and 370z convertible will be up tomorrow.  Have a great night.

EDIT 2:  Yes, I took the video on this post from our friends over at GTRblog.com’s Viddler channel.  There was no point in uploading it again.  Enjoy their watermark in the video and their awesome GT-R website.

The little touches that no one notices at first are sometimes the coolest modifications.  In this case a customer wanted the blinking side-marker lights off of the new 370z on his 350z.

Okay, no problem.  Well one problem.  The stock 350 “Z” non-flashing side emblems only use two small clips to locate the plastic part.  The new 370z flashing marker has cylindrical extrusion that is about 1.5 inches tall with a 1.5 inch diameter that needs to go through the fender and be wired to work properly.  We used a small hand saw to make the cut and everything turned out perfect.  The electrical connections simply required us to source which wire was the running light and which was the blinker and then the simple wiring changes were made.  All connections are a quick release style so that the new bulbs can be serviced when the time comes.

I’m not going to go into too much detail about how we secured the light because we need to be able to offer this as a service to customers.  I will mention that we used a couple of custom brackets to make sure that nothing moves around.  This modification is quite simple after all is said and done and I think that it bridges the gap between the new and old car nicely.  Added safety and style are always a good combination.

Please be careful if you are thinking about attempting this yourself because a new fender is not cheap from Nissan.  Feel free to contact us if you would like ZCG to handle it.  rob@zcargarage.com

See the video of the new parts flashing below!