I wanted to get this out there early for all those who check the blog first thing.  We will be hosting a GT-R get together and drive on Saturday the 24th of January.  I’m trying to organize the drive to a very special place in motorsports right here in the bay area.  If I can pull this off you will not be disappointed, if I can’t you might be.

It’s going to be a busy day here because we are getting ready for the Silicon Valley Auto Show presented by Motortrend.  I will hopefully have most of the details sorted out by this afternoon so please check back before the end of the day.  Check back later and keep rockin.

Link:  Silicon Valley Auto Show

There is some good news here for all Nissan and Infiniti owners,  ZONC has made it official that G35, G37, and GT-R owners are encouraged to join the club.  This will allow more of us to join in some of the amazing events that ZONC plans throughout the year.  Joining the club also gives members discounts at some events and grants access to car corrals at race events the club attends.

To comemerate the new year and the new open door policy ZONC has made a video which you can view below.  It has some interesting footage of old Z and G comercials over the years.  Fairly entertaining and worth the time.

Link: ZONC Website

We are back for the new year and rockin as hard as ever.  We hope you all had a good holiday season and are happy to see you back at zcarblog.  On to our regularly scheduled posting….

These pictures are from last years show:

Every year we select a few customer cars and a couple from our own collection to put on display at the San Jose Auto Show.  This year will be a bit different for us due to the fact that most of our normal show cars are taken apart at the moment for upgrades of all sorts.   The ZCG GT-R will be there this time around so make sure to check it out if you haven’t seen it before.  One of the other highlights for us is a recent 240z restoration that features our signature ZCG Big Brake Kit that is due to be released soon.

Other cars at the show will be a pair of Redline red 350Zs, one is a VQ35HR car that makes over 300hp to the wheels in normally aspirated form, and the other is an ’03 with the ’07 and up front end conversion with a Vortech supercharger that makes well over 400hp to the rear wheels.

Our location in the show will be almost the same as in years past with ZCG right in the middle of the aftermarket and tuner building.  The Toyota Driving Experience is usually right down the way from our setup and is a blast if you have the time to drive a few new trucks over various man-made obstacles.

Nissan should be bringing a couple of 370Zs and probably a GT-R (not as cool as ours) to show off in the main building.   Be sure to sit in the new Z and experience all it has to offer.  We would love for as many of you as possible to fall in love with this car just like we have

Let me know if you have any requests for pictures from the show and I will do my best to comply.

Link:  San Jose Auto Show

Even though things have been crazy with all of the R&D work we have been doing lately, time has been found to install a few new items on the GT-R and head off to the track!!  The special thing about this particular outing is that it was ONLY for GT-Rs!  Entry was limited to twelve cars and we were lucky enough to make our way into the group.

I would at this point like to mention that we have been working super hard on getting our own ZCG harness bar made and installed in our GT-R.  This track-day is the first time it has seen battle and it worked perfectly.  Our design is much simpler than the competition’s bar (as seen in the AXIS Wheels GT-R) but there will be more on that later on in this post and a follow-up post with pictures tomorrow.

Our day began with Rob, Fred, and myself meeting at the shop in San Jose at 4:30am.  Not much sleep last night.  We packed up our previously prepared “track-day kit” (tools, jack, spare wheels etc.) and headed on our way to Buttonwillow Raceway.  We got to the track at 7:45 and met with the group for a few minutes before the drivers meeting.  Since everyone in the group knew each other, thanks to the small GT-R community, the track rules were fairly easy going and allowed for a ton of freedom.

The plan was to have six cars go out in half hour sessions but as soon as the cars were warmed up they were all out on track.  With such a small group though no one seemed to notice because we would be running track configuration 13 clockwise which has a length of almost 3 miles.  Nice.

Throughout the day cars would pull in and out of the pits as they pleased.  There seemed to be multiple driver, wheel, and camera equipment changes in a few camps besides our own.  It was good to see owners and drivers out and experimenting with the cars.  We personally went through three or four drivers throughout the day and went as far as inviting a professional out for the day to see what our car was capable of in some truly gifted hands.

As you can see from the early photos of the day we were running our one-off set of HRE wheels but tire rubbing issues (due to limited available tire sizes) sidelined the new Nittos we acquired a week earlier.  So after two sessions we were back on the the stock wheels with the OEM Bridgestone run flats.  These tires held up all day in full beat-down sessions without issue.  It’s amazing how professional drivers know how to take care of tires (anyone remember that scene from “Days of Thunder” with Bobby D?)

We managed a best time of 2:02 on the stock wheels and run-flat tires, quite the accomplishment.

Update:  We went through the lap timer this morning and found a 2:00 lap which took place in one of the very last sessions of the day.  How crazy is this car going to be when we get some real rubber?!

Keep reading for the entire event report and more photos.

…[read more]

At Motoring J Style earlier this year we were lucky enough to be pulled aside by a writer (Telly Sahara) and photographer (Akio Hirano) for Vintage Auto magazine published by Lightning.  They were very interested in shooting both the ZCG RB 240z and 510.  We were happy to oblige and a meeting time for the next day was set!

When we met the next morning they began to take shots of the entire shop along with some of the other vintage cars that we store for ourselves and customers.  We then set out on a mission to find a few suitable locations to shoot the two “Go Green” Datsuns.  They wanted to keep to the green theme and luckily I knew where we could find the most well manicured grass this side of a Montecito golf course.  The only thing stopping us from shooting there were three large concrete pylons made to prevent this exact thing.  Lucky for us, Datsuns are extremely skinny vehicles!  Picture SUCCESS!

Next we went to a nearby condominium complex that has a nice round-about.  We were able to jam up traffic for the next few hours while we positioned the cars in every position possible.  The photos that came out of this set look great and were well worth the effort.

After returning to the shop the photographer asked Rob if he could drive the 510.  Wow, he has more courage than I do.  Rob never lets anyone drive his 510 (usually only shop employees), but he felt in his huge Datsun heart that it was the right thing to do.  And it turns out that he owns a high horsepower N/A SR20 510 in Japan that he uses for drifting.  They came back about twenty minutes later with huge smiles on their faces.

Good times were had by all on this day, and it was well worth the trip from Japan.

Sorry but I couldn’t find any links for an offfical site for Vintage Auto.  Your best bet to find this issue is to go to your local Japanese book store.  Happy hunting.