Commuter Week continues at Z Car Garage. We take average transportation and make it exciting! Chris C hails from from San Francisco, CA. He commutes in his Infiniti FX35 that we performed several upgrades to last year:

 

Based on our service with the FX he asked us to step out of our comfort zone and take care of his fiancee’s Ford Edge. We happily obliged. With 84k mies on the coloc came in for a little refresh including new tires, springs, shocks, brake pads and address a few nagglish issues she’s had.

 

 

KYB shocks up front/rear with H&R lowering kit. The springs drop ride height by 1.75″/1.5″, respectively:

 
Stoptech brake pads front/rear but not our usual favorite “309” item. Instead we used the Stoptech “105” pad which is made for daily driver usage. Note the huge fender gap at stock ride height:

   

After the H&R lowering kit the Edge looks great, here is a before/after:

 

 

We love to help folks improve their ride so they can Enjoy The Ride!

 

It is no secret that Z Car Garage is known as the dyno house for vintage race cars in the Bay Area. Since 2015 we have been following Glenn Chiou’s heroic restoration of the #39 race car piloted by Loren St. Lawrence in the 1970’s. The best part, to us, is that Glenn is doing the restoration by himself and with the help of several key Datsun folks like Troy Ermish and Les Cannaday at CDM.

 

Being an automotive enthusiast of meticulous nature, Glenn took the hard road of replicating this vintage race car as if it were built in the 1970’s, right down to the exact livery. No easy task! You can follow the restoration in detail on his blog HERE.

 

Glenn’s goal was to run the car at Sears Point/Sonoma Raceway in June. With race day fast approaching and his first time out on the track with his completed Z, he wanted to make sure the engine was running safely. ZCG stepped in with dyno tuning to ensure his A/F and timing were correct:

 

Here is the dyno run, she sounded healthy!

 

Glenn’s first race day at Sears Point was successful and drama-free!

 

 

We are happy to report that Glenn also ran the Z at PIR a few days ago with a podium finish…38 years later on the same track his car was raced in 1977!

 

Glenn, we admire you and your passion to keep the spirit of racing Datsuns alive. Thank you for bringing #39 back to life and thanks for bringing her to the shop.

 

Long Live The Z!

 

 

Daniel M came to ZCG to add a few touches to his commuter: a 2007 Infiniti G35 sedan. With 69k on the clock we installed a Stillen Gen. 2 cat-back exhaust system, UPREV tuning and Hotchkis sway bars.

 

 

Before/after of the Stillen cat-back exhaust system:

 

The exhsust looks and sounds great:

 

UPREV tuning yielded gains of 9hp/7tq to the wheels:

 

Enjoy The Commute, Daniel!

 

The popular classic car insurance provider Hagerty features Z Car Garage this week on their site. Take a glimpse of the shop through the lens of photographer Courtney Cutchen and read about Rob’s history with Z cars in the article HERE.

Big thanks to Hagerty and Courtney and… Long Live The Z!

 

 

Carlos S visited Z Car Garage to supercharge his 2014 Nismo 370z.  At his request, we installed a Stillen supercharger kit with the larger intercooler (frozenboost) and full PLX Devices gauge package. After driving the Z for some time Carlos came back yearning for more power and inquired about a new air-to-air intercooler setup that was all the rage on the forums at the time. Keeping forced-induction limits and CARB status in mind with the 370z we started discussing the prospect of GT-Rs.

 

Within days Carlos was actively searching for R35s. After our buddy Lou S came down to the shop and demo’d his black 2014 GT-R Track Edition…Carlos knew he had to have one and became the owner of a 2015 R35 in Vibrant Red. In addition to being a cool dude Carlos also has a very supportive girlfriend, Amy, and two French bulldogs. And we all know that frenchies are the bee’s knees 🙂

 

Carlos couldn’t wait to start modifying the car and to keep him happy we installed a Boost Logic cat-back exhaust system and 90mm Quadzilla mid-pipe:

 
Our plan for more power included a complete flex-fuel setup for E85 tuning. Shown below are 1300cc Injector Dynamics injectors, DW300 drop-in fuel pumps,  SpecialtyZ 3″ Intakes,  SpecialtyZ Flex-Fuel Set up and AMS Downpipes

 

When increasing boost levels it is wise to upgrade the factory, non-adjustable by-pass or blow-off valve (BOV). Here we used new, adjustable BOVs from Turbosmart:

 

Before/after shots of the new intakes and BOVs:

  

 

Installing the SpecialtyZ Flex-Fuel sensor kit. This key component monitors the ethanol content of fuel for running different octane gas/ethanol blends. Also shown are the ID 1300cc injectors and dual DW300 fuel pumps:

 

Using EcuTek software and help from our good friend Sebastian at SpecialtyZ we tuned the GT-R on 91 octane and ethanol/E85.  On 91 octane we saw gains of 50hp and 62tq above stock for a total of 542hp/507tq at the wheels:

On E85, the GT-R made 632hp/612tq to the wheels. This is a significant increase of 94hp/105tq over the 91 octane tune and a whopping 144hp/167tq at the wheels over stock output!

 

Carlos is extremely happy with his 600whp Nissan GT-R and he has already ordered a Stage 2 kit from Spray Racing with upgraded turbos…to be continued but for now Enjoy The Ride!