We are really happy to see our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes and Z Car Garage CV Axles installed on this Datsun 240Z from Supermachine in Yokohama, Japan.

Supermachine purchased and installed our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes (for small wheels), complete with parking brake. They added a custom touch to the Stoptech calipers too:

ZCG Big-Brakes

    

As fellow S30 owner/racer Glenn C mentioned in his review, on top of braking performance, pedal feel is extremely important and our Big-Brakes deliver. This is a direct result of working with Stoptech to create a totally bolt-in solution requiring no M/C change or additional proportioning valve/adjustments. All fitting behind a 15″ Watanabe or Panasport wheel and retaining factory emergency brake lever! A few details below:

Calipers: Stoptech ST42 4-piston front & rear race calipers (Alum 6061 mil-spec Type III anodized)

Rotors: 280mm x 20.6 with Alum 7075 hats

Pads: Stoptech 309 sport street pads

Blog posts documenting all of our customers running the ZCG Big-Brakes can be found HERE.

A few closer detail shots of the calipers, rotors and hardware:

 

ZCG CV Axles

Supermachine installed a set of our ZCG CV Axles, including a photo of the factory half shafts for comparison:

Over 150 sets of our ZCG CV Axles are installed in client’s cars all over the world. For more information please visit our detailed post our HERE. Below are just a few examples of race cars running out CV Axles:

Race car driver, restorer and Datsun Historian Glenn Chiou is running our ZCG CV Axles in this IMSA GTU 260z race car!

 

Racer Brad H is running ZCG CV Axles in his IMSA GTU race car:

Race car driver and restoration specialist Jim Froula of Racecraft is running ZCG axles in several of his cars:

Set #246 – installed May 2018 on the “Harry Stewart #52” Datsun 510:

 

Set #247 – installed April 2018 on the 260z

 

Set #248 – installed on Adam Carolla’s “Greg Sorrentino #90” Datsun 510.

 

Thank you for your support Supermachine! We are proud to be a part of your build with solid parts choices like the Jenvey ITB EFI-fed L28 with Kameari header, Haltech ECU, Sachs coil-overs and Techno Toy Tuning suspension.

Can’t wait for the finished product. You can see more of this build on Instagram.  Long Live The Z!

We love to see our parts installed and used on client’s cars. Race car driver and restoration specialist Jim Froula of Racecraft is running our ZCG CV Axles in this Nissan IMSA GTU 300ZX race car!

Jim installed CV Axle set #269:

The George Alderman Z31

Over a 49-year competitive career, George Alderman was one of America’s most successful sports car drivers, racing in Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) and International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) events.

In the 60’s and 70’s George would race a variety of cars. He won the IMSA Baby Grand championship in 1971 in a Datsun 510 and in the 80’s he drove Z cars in the Camel GT series. His Z31 would run both turbo and NA classes for IMSA.

Out of 70 starts he had 50 top-tens, 27 top-fives, and 5 wins, all while successfully running his Datsun/Nissan franchise. (Below) a 1988 promotional photo of the  Z31 in front of Alderman Nissan, in V6 IMSA GTU class trim. Find more history on this Z as documented on Alderman Machine.

Restoration at Racecraft

Jim and the RacecraftNW crew restored the George Alderman 300ZX. As usual, Froula’s painstaking efforts and diligence result in a faithful restoration. Original frame (left) and restored with chassis parts:

ITB induction on the NA VG30E powerplant:

Bodywork going on, and look at those Panasport C8 wheels!

Jim Froula also built this Bluebird SSS Coupe and Hakosuka Skyline, both are running ZCG CV axles on the race track:

 

 

 

Z Car Garage CV Axles

Over 150 sets of our ZCG CV Axles are installed in client’s cars all over the world. For more information please visit our detailed post our HERE. Below are just a few examples of race cars running out CV Axles:

Race car driver and restoration specialist Jim Froula of Racecraft is running ZCG axles in several of his cars:

Set #246 – installed May 2018 on the “Harry Stewart #52” Datsun 510:

 

Set #247 – installed April 2018 on the 260z

 

Set #248 – installed on Adam Carolla’s “Greg Sorrentino #90” Datsun 510.

 

We love to see our parts installed and used on client’s cars. Race car driver and Datsun enthusiast Brad H is running our ZCG CV Axles in this IMSA GTU 240z race car!

Brad is preparing his Z for the next race season and a half shaft failure is not something he wanted to worry about while racing so he replaced them with ZCG CV Axles. He installed set #312 with ease, stock half shafts (left) and ZCG CV Axles (right):

“The rear end is a LSD R200 with a 3.70 gear. I’m not really sensitive to the rear gear ratio because of all of the variability I have in the gear box. It’s connected to the rear hubs by Z Car Garage CV axles. I had been looking for options on axles simply because the thought of going into Nascar 4 at Daytona with 50 year old U-Joint technology made me nervous. I heard about Z Car Garage from Randy Jaffe. We are both in Atlanta and I was at his shop one day because he was kind enough to let me borrow a rear diff to carry as a backup to Daytona. While there, he showed me the CV axles and I reached out to Rob to order a set the next day. We have kept a great relationship ever since.”

 

Check out Brad’s installation of the ZCG CV Axles and see the Z in action in the video below!

Brad’s IMSA 240Z Build

Let’s hear how Brad found and built his 240Z race car:

“The story of my car starts with a poster I had on my wall as a kid of the Bob Sharp Racing GTU Z that was campaigned in 1976. We raced ITS Z cars back in the late 80’s, but I had always said that if the situation presented itself, I would build a tribute to that car. The original was destroyed in ’76 at the Camel GT at Road Atlanta when Sharp blew a tire coming up to the bridge and hit the embankment hard on drivers left. That left a tribute as the only option.”

Brad found a solid chassis that was running as a track day car in Ontario Canada. Peter Skillins had built the car (www.datsunzcars.com) and had done a fantastic job. The cage was done by Blaise Csida (www.bcracecars.com) who is a well respected Trans Am driver/car builder. In addition to a very robust cage, several additional reinforcements were installed like additional shock tower structures and additional stiffening structures on the front frame rails.

“The car was then sent to Burtin Racing (www.burtinracing.com) here in Atlanta for final assembly and installation of the IMSA GTU body kit that John Washington at ZTrix puts together. It’s a great kit that requires minimal modification to the body panels themselves, but the fabricators at Burtin when a bit further by putting together some additional components to support the kit under my application. Specifically was a new nose frame and airbox set up as well as new customer rear fender inner liners. All body panels are removable with 1/4 turn fasteners and the car can be stripped in less than 3 minutes. The Burtin fabricators (Terry and Damon) work daily preparing/maintaining a top tier Trans Am team (Tomy Drissi and Simon Gregg), the work they do is top notch and highly recommended. All along the way the fabricators at Burtin Racing made small suggestions on performance and safety ideas.”

The motor was built by Steve Nelson at Top End Performance in CA (www.racetep.com). It’s an L28 with a 2MM stroke add that runs at 13.1:1 compression.

“It has a race cam and is fed by 3 Mikuni 44PHHs. Steve and team do a great job on the bottom end, but the reason I went with TEP was that they use Slover head porting. Slover has long been one of the best head preparers in the L series motors going back to the origins of L series racing engines. If you’ve ever seen the work they do you would quickly understand why. Steve also recommended running the Electromotive crankfire ignition system. I was hesitant at first, but was sold very quickly when you get to see ease of timing adjustments and the complete elimination of timing slop you get at over 6-7,000 RPM. That was a great call.”

“The gearbox is a Hewland STA wide the came out of one of Burtin Racing’s TA cars. They upgraded to sequential, so Claudio (the team owner and good friend) recommended we install the Hewland behind the L28 because of its reliability and optionality with gear sets. To do so required a custom adapter that the Burtin guys made on the CAD and removal of the existing tunnel. We went with a Quartermaster dual clutch set up that connected to the 28 spline shaft of the Hewland. With this box installed, I have access to no less than 50 gear sets which lets us gear the car for each track we go to. For Road Atlanta, which is my local track, we run a 2.20/1.88/1.44/1.23/1.09 configuration with a 1:1 spur gear.”

Brad enlisted Andrew at Wheelflip (www.wheelflip.com) who was able to find him 2 matching sets of late 70’s BBS centers with the stock 4X114 bolt patter. After taking many measurements they ended up with 2 sets of gold 16X11 fronts (5.5 outers/5.5 inners) and 16X12 rears (6.5 outers/5.5 inners). Brad runs Goodyear Eagle slicks with the 430 compound:

“The car was fully wrapped in the Bob Sharp Racing livery from 1976 by the same folks that wrap the Burtin Racing TA cars, AAA SignCrafters (www.aaasigncrafters.com). Huge thanks to the folks at Harris Decal (www.harrisdecals.com) for putting together all the special decals that were required to get the look correct”

In mid 2021, Brad moved to his own shop in Buford, GA under the operation of BPH Motorcars, LLC. The car is currently maintained by Jason Howe of Howe Custom Fabrication. Jason was a former fabricator at Burtin Racing as well as for the Panoz racing operation and does fantastic custom work. You can follow Brad’s racing efforts on Instagram. More pictures in the gallery below!

Thanks for your support Brad! We look forward to seeing you on the track for the 2022 race season, LONG LIVE THE Z!

Z Car Garage CV Axles

Over 140 sets of our ZCG CV Axles are installed in client’s cars all over the world. For more information please visit our detailed post our HERE. Below are just a few examples of race cars running out CV Axles:

Race car driver, restorer and Datsun Historian Glenn Chiou is running our ZCG CV Axles in this IMSA GTU 260z race car!

Race car driver and restoration specialist Jim Froula of Racecraft is running ZCG axles in several of his cars:

Set #246 – installed May 2018 on the “Harry Stewart #52” Datsun 510:

 

Set #247 – installed April 2018 on the 260z

 

Set #248 – installed on Adam Carolla’s “Greg Sorrentino #90” Datsun 510.

 

This is Greg S’ 1970 Datsun 240Z in Monte Carlo Red. We have known Greg for a long time, actually preceding the opening of Z Car Garage. It’s always been a pleasure to see Greg with his beloved Z plus he’s a Nissan enthusiast with a few Patrols and mint RL411 wagon. His Series 1 S30 received our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes, Z Car Garage CV Axles and Panasport wheels.

Our relationship with Greg goes back well before social media and our photo documentation. Greg performs his own work on the Z, and we finish the small extra things that let him Enjoy The Ride. Let’s take a look at how Greg became a Z car enthusiast.

History

“My old man purchased the car for me in 1992. I was 19 and we had been looking for a decent 240z for about a year. We found this one in one of those auto traders printed on recycled paper. It was basically  ‘Original owner, runs great, 83K miles $3,500 OBO’. It was bone stock, totally straight, unrestored and completely unmolested. The original sales receipt for $3,300 was in with his service records. Seemed like the car had spent its whole life in northern California.”

“The photos with the basket style 14” rims were after a trip to the junkyard for said rims, new tires and some elbow grease polishing and waxing it. It cleaned up pretty nicely. I went to college in Santa Clara and first ran into Rob when he was a mechanic working at the shop I would take the car…I did most of the general maintenance work but had that shop put in a set of Suspension Techniques sway bars, springs and Tokico struts. At the time I didn’t know enough to appreciate what a good shop that was.”

 

The car was repainted in 2000 by Lakeville Auto Body in Petaluma, matching the original #905 Monte Carlo Red. At about 150,000 miles Greg decided to replace the motor, even though it would have happily ran for a bit longer:

“Nissan was selling remanufactured L28 280ZX long blocks for $1,400 which seemed like a smokin’ deal. It was about the same price as you could buy the parts to rebuild the L24. I had moved back to Sonoma county and my dad and I did the motor swap in his garage.
I took the opportunity to add the Redline triple Weber 40 DCOE kit, a sportier cam and a set of headers. I worked with a speed shop to sort out the jetting. It ran decent, but was pretty rich down low, would stumble at times and got poor gas mileage. I drove it like that for several years, replacing the intake manifold, fabricating the heat shield and air filter assembly.”  

The Z Car Garage Touch

 

“As expected, Z Car Garage did an excellent job re-jetting carbs. The car idles perfectly, pulls cleanly, makes more power and gets a respectable 18-20 mpg. Now anytime I need help sorting out a problem with the Z, advice on an upgrade, part availability or just need someone to sing some ballad rock to me, I call Rob.”

Greg is really happy:

“Since then Rob has set me up with:

• The correct 16″ Panasports that saved me the hassle of getting wheel sets that rub or rims that just look OK.
• ZCG CV Axles axles that were a joy to install, run smoothly and don’t make the racket that the other (hateful) CV kit did.
• Recaro seat that is actually suitable for driving long distances and keeps you from sliding into the footwell.”

ZCG Big-Brakes and CV Axles

    

As fellow S30 owner/racer Glenn C mentioned in his review, on top of braking performance, pedal feel is extremely important and our Big-Brakes deliver. This is a direct result of working with Stoptech to create a totally bolt-in solution requiring no M/C change or additional proportioning valve/adjustments. All fitting behind a 15″ Watanabe or Panasport wheel and retaining factory emergency brake lever! A few details below:

Calipers: Stoptech ST42 4-piston front & rear race calipers (Alum 6061 mil-spec Type III anodized)

Rotors: 280mm x 20.6 with Alum 7075 hats

Pads: Stoptech 309 sport street pads

Blog posts documenting all of our customers running the ZCG Big-Brakes can be found HERE.

A few closer detail shots of the calipers, rotors and hardware:

 

Greg brought his Z down on May 20 and with a one-day turn around we installed our ZCG Big-Brake kit with parking brake assembly. We also replaced his brake M/C with a new OEM Nissan unit, bleeding the system and setting it all up. He’s super impressed and he also had fun visiting us:

“While I was down at ZCG, Rob took the time to show me around. The shop is clean and even the parts storage container is expertly organized. The quality of the cars and race cars in the shop were a joy to see.”

Front brake installation:

 

Z Car Garage CV Axles

Our Z Car Garage CV Axles help transmit power to the ground and ensure smoother operation compared to your standard half shafts. We have over 140+ CV axle kits on customer cars and we are stoked with all of the positive feedback.

Greg was experiencing significant vibrations in the back of his car. In February 2020 we sold him a set of ZCG CV Axles and installed it himself…he loves them. Standard half-shafts shown on left:

Greg is having a blast in the Z and sent us this video he made from a recent drive in Petaluma, enjoy!

Panasport Wheels

In 2014 we sold Greg a set of Panasport wheels which were finished in a slick, gumetal shade. Our ZCG Big-Brakes also look great behind Panasport wheels in our offset allowing 225/50/16 tires (Bridgestone S-007a). The Z was fully aligned afterwards.

Interior

The stock seat was replaced with a single Recaro Specialist, we love these seats for the S30. Time for another seat, right Greg?

 

Bluebird Wagon

“I have only called Rob to cry about the 411”

In addition to the Z, Greg has had a few Nissan Patrols and still have this 1967 WRL411. A true labor of love, this little wagon showcases Greg’s work/fabrication and aesthetic. It was also stock, complete and unmolested when he acquired it 15 years ago. The 411s are close to our heart as they share some parts with their Datsun Roadster siblings. We have also helped out client Kevin M with his SSS Bluebird.

Greg freshened up the interior, replaced the headliner, carpets, front seat covers and made the gauge cluster insert.  Originally it had a 3 speed automatic that was replaced with a Roadster 4-speed.  The front brakes and hubs were replaced with larger units also from a Roadster.  This required fabrication of new steering arms.

Under the hood is what make this 411 wagon a true sleeper: with a little machine work you can use the crank out of a U20 and turn the R16 into a 2.0 liter:

“The motor barely fits into the 411 and it’s especially tight near the radiator requiring a special shorter water pump. The exhaust exits through the fender well and all the stock units have long since rusted out so I was forced to weld up a new header for it. The SU’s were replaced with flat slide Mikunis and I made a new 3-D printed airbox and throttle assembly. I am still working out the final tune with some updates to the exhaust system likely required.  I want it to run as perfectly as the Z.  Maybe I need to put  a set of 40mm DCOEs on it and have Rob re-jet it.”

 

Greg made the CAD for the exhaust header and welded it up himself. CAD was also used to make a new gauge cluster to accept a tach and modern signals. It’s the icing on the cake on a sweet build:

“The gauges out of the early roadsters are beautiful so I was originally intrigued with them. They are expensive if you can find them and the diameter is too large to fit nicely in the stock cluster housing. I ran across a few images of this SSS cluster in a car but it appeared to also have a larger cluster housing. Both seemed impossible to source. The new electronic tachs  and speedos are way easier to get working than fussing with MSD tach adapters or speedo gears etc. If you look at the CAD image you can see that I gutted the original speedo housing and added the toothed wheel and sensor to it. It’s driven from the stock cable running to the transmission. 

We admire Greg’s ingenuity and determination to keep his cars on the road. Thank you for your support Greg, and keep Enjoying the Ride in your Z! More picture in the gallery below…

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