At Z Car Garage we specialize in performance modifications and tuning for the Nissan/Infiniti sports cars. Dyno tuning with UPREV or EcuTek software can maximize power gains from individual modifications like intake/exhaust upgrades. Josh M visited Z Car Garage for a dyno tuning session on his Nissan 350Z following an engine swap and we were happy to help him. Let’s hear about his Z-car story…
Josh’s 350Z V.2
“I bought my car back in 2007 after graduating high school. I first heard about the shop shortly after I joined my350z.com back in 2008. After a few years and acquiring a full set of Motordyne bolt ons I finally called up the shop and met with Rob in 2013 to get it tuned. He wisely advised against it with how much oil I was consuming back then and suggested I come back with a fresh motor or rebuild (I’m thankful for his honesty and integrity).”
“Last year when that motor finally gave up around 200k it was time to swap all my mods to a new engine and call Rob for a dyno tuning session. My car made great power and surpassed my own expectations when it made 288whp and 274wtq on this swap from an ’04 G35. It’s always felt like a strong DE with a solid powerband and the dyno tune proved it. My main goal for the car is overall balance between drivability on the streets and performance on the track, and using our beautiful Santa Cruz mountain roads as testing grounds has helped me kind of find that happy spot.”
“As far as the exterior, a mix of KH3 super black and seibon carbon keeps it stealthy but also distinguished in the right light. I’m serious about the overall balance thing and reducing this 2 seater cars weight is a top priority, currently sitting at ~3100lbs and ideally want to be under 3k lbs.”
Dyno Tuning at Z Car Garage
A typical dyno session begins with a road test and full inspection before hitting the roller. We found a failed inlet hose and loose plenum bolts so we tightened everything up to ensure a successful dyno pass.
We dyno tuned the Z with UPREV and ARC license. Z Car Garage offers this ARC (Advanced Racing Controls) license add-on service to the existing UPREV Flash, allowing adjustable launch control, burnout mode, and flat-foot shifting for $150. This is for cars with manual transmission, VDC/cruise control. Call Rob for more details! Josh’s Z made 288hp/272tq to the wheels, a significant gain over baseline of 274hp/261tq:
Turn up the volume and enjoy this video of Josh’s 350Z on the dyno. Thanks for your support Josh and LONG LIVE THE Z!
Interested in dyno tuning your Nissan/Infiniti sports car? Contact Rob at the shop for more information and scheduling 408-452-0350 or e-mail Rob: robATzcargarage.com
Tony K sent us a few photos of his 1972 Datsun 240Z on a gorgeous Sacramento evening. This Z has a long history with Z Car Garage having received upgrades like a 3L with triple-Mikuni ph44s, 280Zx 5-speed transmission, suspension refresh, our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes, Z Car Garage CV Axles and Z Car Garage Heat Shield. You can read all about it HERE.
WE LOVE RACING! Classic Sports Racing Group (CSRG) hosted the 20th Charity Challenge at Sonoma Raceway on September 8-10. Z Car Garage raced and supported several client’s Datsun 510 race cars running in the B-Sedan Group (John Morton Cup). Everyone had a blast, enjoy our race report with in-car video and photos below.
Z Car Garage Supports Five Datsun 510s!
It is our pleasure to bring more enthusiasts into the world of vintage racing. Our services include full race support and car-preparation to help make client’s race days seamless and worry-free so they can focus on driving. One of our specialties is dyno tuning. Before a race weekend we confirm that your car is running well and make necessary adjustments while on the chassis dyno:
#88 Todd Rueppel
Todd enjoyed his Z Car Garage trackside support experience with us at the Laps For Laguna event!
#7 Kelvin Tse
Kelvin and his brother Kenny are regular ZCG trackside support clients…
Gabe and his Dad Jeff’s B-Sedans:
#7 Rob Fuller
ZCG owner Rob Fuller, Bay Area Datsun Dealers tribute car
Rob recaps the Charity Challenge races from Group 3: B-Sedan and John Morton Cup…
“Over the last 20 years, CSRG has raised money for children’s charities and every Fall Z Car Garage tries to attend the Charity Challenge. We had a strange summer with Laguna Seca canceling our summer event, so it had been many months since CSRG was on the race track. In the B-Sedan group we were happy to support Kenny, Todd, and Gabe’s Datsun 510s. We also had newcomer Jeff Rothman, who is father of Gabe. Jeff’s no stranger to vintage racing with serious Alfas and a Formula Ford. One of Gabe’s fondest early memories is when his Dad took him to the historic races at Laguna Seca. And now they are racing together at Sonoma.”
“First session out Kenny had a transmission issue, so Nick and Cooper went to work making sure everyone could stay on the track. We got Kenny’s car back together and I lost 4th gear in my 510 so I decided to start from the back. I was proud to still click off a fast time despite losing 4th gear. Gabe and Kenny shared the front row and both got their personal lap records! It was Todd’s first time with an Elite box, he kicked ass with no issues while improving his times. We had just done a bunch of prep to Jeff’s car and he had a great time. Not as many cars in our run group but it was super fun.”
Enjoy these in-car videos from the Group 3 Race from Rob’s Datsun 510:
“No 4th gear but still trying to get to the front. At the start of the race a Mini hits me in the right rear but I am able to recover and keep racing till the end . Thanks for CSRG for another great weekend. Z Car Garage kept me safe and on track all weekend long. Do it in a Datsun! Note: My steering wheel is off since my car is toed in the rear and you can hear the right rear tire howling.. Good times!”
Race 2: Rob was missing 4th gear all weekend so he tried starting in the back to see if he could work his way to the front:
The 2023 Nissan Z as Pace Car!
Z Car Garage was happy to have our 2023 Nissan Z as Official Pace Car at the Charity Challenge. Rob was happy to wheel the New Z around the track:
“One of the coolest things about the Charity Challenge was driving the new Z as pace car and give charity rides. In its 20th year the Charity Challenge has raised millions for children’s charities and they allowed me to be a driver on Sat/Sun to give 4-5 rides which included a warm-up lap, race lap and cool-down lap. Yes, that’s actor/director Seth Rogen!
Paddock Action
Experience the sights and sounds from our paddock and the race track in this video below!
“My IMSA car has pretty good history at Sears Point (now Sonoma Raceway); it came from the Bondurant School and actually held a record there. I really enjoyed driving it, and had a good pace. Super fun race with Jim Froula of RacecraftNW in his GT3 240SX-bodied car. Stoked on the ZCG crew and thanks to Roger Kraus for the tires: first time running Goodyears and I love them. The Joel Anderson IMSA Z was on display all weekend and people remembered it from back in the day. A couple came over and showed me a photo of the Z from 1980. I let a young person sit in it. Made me happy to see folks appreciating Joel’s creation.”
Enjoy these in-car videos from Group 8 in The Joel Anderson IMSA GTU Datsun 240Z:
Sunday’s race:
“Thank you CSRG for another great event. It was so awesome to get the Joel Anderson GTU 240Z out on track. Great driving by Jim @racecraftnw in his GT3 car. Thank you Z Car Garage for keeping us safe and on track all weekend. Long live the Z.”
Saturday’s race:
“Starting from the back in Anderson 49 car… @ the 13 min mark Dr. Phil waves me by and I come up on a waving yellow caused by a spun out car in Turn 4. I clear it and give Phil back his position and we race to the checkered flag. So cool to be on track with some Nissan History. Thanks for CSRG for another great weekend. Z Car Garage kept me safe and on track all weekend long. Do it in a Datsun!”
Thank You!
The Charity Challenge was fun with the usual group of folks, Oliver, Meghan, lots of snacks and good times. The ZCG crew kept all of us safe and on the track to enjoy the weekend. We got to have dinner in the turn 11 clubhouse for the first time and the vibe was incredible. Excited for next year’s event! Huge shoutout and thank you to our star photographer Meghan Fuller for capturing all of the paddock and track photos in the gallery below.
The racing continues! We are racing at Laguna Seca this weekend for the GRIDLIFE event. Race reports from the Laps For Laguna event and SVRA Double-header are coming soon. You can see our report from the 2022 Charity Challenge HERE
Join us for the 2023 Vintage Racing Season!
Z Car Garage is amped for more racing this year. Here is list of events we will be attending in 2023, including CSRG and SVRA . Please join us!
March
March 3rd to the 5th SVRA Thunderhill
March 24 to 26th CRSG Sonoma
April
April 27th to 30th SVRA Sonoma
May
May 4th to 7th SVRA Laguna Seca
June
June 23rd to 25th CSRG Laguna Seca
August
August 12-13 Monterey Pre-Reunion
August 16-19 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion
Z Car Garage is excited to race at GRIDLIFE Laguna October 20th – 22nd, 2023 at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. This is the final festival of the season, with multiple races including the GRIDLIFE Touring Cup, final round of the NOS Energy TrackBattle Time Attack, and demonstrative drift on track. Off track, a music festival experience highlights the weekend with headlining artist T-Pain.
Rob Fuller will be racing his Bay Area Datsun Dealers 510 in the GRIDLIFE Touring Car Cup (GLTC). This is a wheel-to-wheel sprint racing series that focuses on single-class sprint racing. Typical entrants are modern cars like the S2000, Miata, Corvette, Cayman…so we are really excited to throw our hat in the ring and show everyone what a 50-year old Datsun 510 can do. It’s a great opportunity to introduce this crowd to vintage racing!
Rob will be running a treaded-tire on the 510 which should make this a really interesting race to watch. We practice and race on Friday with Races 2, 3 and 4 on Saturday. All races will be livestreamed:
Other highlights include professional drift drivers from all of the over the world. Our friend Larry Chen will be drifting and running chase car duty at GRIDLIFE, you can see the race schedule HERE. We can’t wait to be a part of the festival. See you in a week at Laguna Seca!
On September 22, Nissan invited Z Car Garage to drive the new Z from San Francisco to Los Angeles along the famed Pacific Coast Highway (PCH). The event, dubbed #NissanAdventuresPCH, was an an all-expenses-paid trip with overnight stays in SF and San Luis Obispo.
Geared towards social media content creators, Nissan hosted a cocktail hour with tips and tricks from a professional photographer/videographer and even provided personalized drone footage during the drive. It was, as promised, an unforgettable roadtrip experience with amazing company. Enjoy our report with photos and video…
My Z Car Story
Dear Zcarblog readers, while most of you know me as a die-hard Datsun Roadster owner/enthusiast, I also have a strong connection to the Z car. Most, if not all of my Z-car experiences have been possible through Rob and Z Car Garage. When I was dating my girlfriend back in 2005, Rob lent me his 1991 Nissan 30ZX Twin Turbo to enjoy. In 2007 I purchased my very own Nissan 350Z 6MT Enthusiast (above) with Stoptech big-brakes, VOLK CE28N wheels and a Nismo exhaust. My wife and I did everything in this Z from epic roadtrips to track days. In 2011 we were expecting our first child and we roadtripped down to the Solvang Datsun Roadster Show in the ZCG Nissan 370Z…
…And of course I’ve been lucky to drive the first generation 1970 Datsun 240Z on many rallies and weekend fun runs. This bring us back to the current generation Nissan Z (RZ34), and all of my Z-car memories started to come full circle in 2021 when Nissan invited us to their headquarters in Tennessee to view the pre-production “Z-Proto”:
Our journey with the current Nissan Z has been tremendous. When Nissan sent us the invitation for the PCH drive I was beyond excited for the opportunity to enjoy another roadtrip with my wife, in a Z. Like old times. So, from seeing that Ikazuchi Yellow Pearl prototype Z at Nissan HQ in 2021 to having one delivered to our driveway in 2023, Z-car karma really did come full circle:
The Drive
Day 1: San Jose to San Francisco
Nissan flew all attendees up from LA to SF to begin the drive, ending back in LA with the Z in each person’s driveway. Since I am based in San Jose, Nissan had a 6MT yellow Z delivered to our home, from LA! The adventure began with my wife and I driving up to SF to meet at our first venue, the 1 Hotel. On a rather serendipitous note, this is the same hotel we stayed in back in 2011, just prior to our first child when it was called Hotel Vitale:
After check-in we enjoyed a nice stroll by the Ferry Building and returned to the hotel for cocktails with the event group. Led by Nissan’s PR-rep Stephen O’Neil, the unifying theme for the PCH event was accessibility: The Nissan Z is an attainable sports car and social media can also be accessible. To drive this point home they enlisted the help of director/cinematographer Steven Moreno to offer tips and tricks on smartphone photography.
He even showed us his professional gimbal for shooting smooth video and each attendee was gifted a DJI OSMO 6 for smartphones. Dinner followed and this would be the start of some fascinating discussions with a wonderful group of people from all walks of life.
Day 2: SF to San Luis Obispo
Saturday’s drive would take us to San Luis Obispo via HWY 1/PCH with photo stops along the way – about 240miles. The morning started off with drivers getting a tour of the Nissan Z. The sight of 6 Z cars outside the hotel garnered attention from passerbys. As I was taking photos I noticed the yellow 6MT Z we drove up was no longer present…
…we were pleasantly surprised to find it was replaced with a Boulder Gray 9AT Performance. You may recall that we took delivery of our very own 2023 Nissan Z earlier this year. Despite having driven our 6MT Performance model extensively, I could not pass up the opportunity to drive a 9-speed automatic trim (more on this below) down the PCH. Like the 9AT, the Blue interior really grew on me with the Gray exterior:
Each Z came with the route print out and pre-programmed GPS, but all drivers were free to explore en route to the first stop ~45 miles south along PCH. We jumped in our Z and headed straight to Fort Baker for a few beauty shots with the iconic Golden Gate Bridge:
The Z drew plenty of attention in the parking lot. A gentleman named Tony chatted with us and took photos while expressing his memory and admiration of the Z car. Check out his walk-around video with narration below…it was like he was a professional content creator!
After navigating out of SF city we finally hit HWY 1 to enjoy some beautiful coastline driving. Arriving at our first photo stop/drone opportunity was one of our favorite destinations, Pescadero Beach. We’ve done many group drives out to this spot with fellow Nissan/Datsun enthusiasts:
Each driver got their own drone/video session with cinematographer Steven Moreno. For “chase” video he mounted his Gimbal to the back of a Nissan Armada (support vehicle) and our task was to follow it as close as possible. This was really fun and we had 2-way walkies to communicate with Steve while driving. The results from the drone footage were super impressive, you can see the footage in the video below. Huge thanks to Steve for sharing his passion with us!
People love the new Z and the beach lot was no different. A family visiting from NY had to check it out and we happily obliged. After a good 45min of video/photos we hopped back on to the PCH. Yeah, this Boulder Gray paint on the new Z has really got me…I took many photos 🙂
Enjoy this video we put together of the PCH drive:
The weather was fantastic along HWY1 so we stopped by Monterey to visit my favorite race track, Laguna Seca! Yes, this was just before the Rennsport Reunion and we will have a full race report on zcarblog.com soon!
While the PCH does continue past Monterey down to SLO we took a more direct route to avoid road work on HWY1. Driving the long stretch on 101S really made me appreciate the Z’s 9-speed automatic…the gearing allows for ultra-low engine revs for relaxed cruising…2000rpm at 85mph is nice. Thumbs up and lots of love from this G35 owner on HW 101:
We arrived at our 2nd overnight hotel, the Apple Farm Inn in San Luis Obispo just before 7pm. Another fantastic evening of drinks, food and conversation ensued.
Day 3: SLO to Los Angeles
After a casual breakfast we left SLO and headed south towards our final destination of Los Angeles. Taking 101S allowed us to stop in the small town of Solvang, the sight of our favorite Annual Solvang Datsun Roadster Show. Lots of memories with our family here. A welcome excursion from 101 was Painted Cave Vista Point. This twisty road took us high above for great views and looped back to 154-E.
Driving Impressions
This was the most time I’ve spent driving the 9-speed automatic Z. Having driven the ZCG manual transmission Z previously up my favorite winding roads…the 6-speed manual is the perfect-and only transmission of choice for me..but the 9AT has its merits. Cruising along the freeway at a paltry 2000rpm while offering blistering acceleration in full automatic mode is a nice compromise. It’s enough to simply haze the rear tires…even from a roll!
If I could find one criticism it’s the paddle shifters. They do not seem to offer quick upshifts or downshifts any faster then being in full automatic mode…I see them as ‘fun-to-have’ feature. Have no fear as it sounds like Nissan improved the shifting performance in the 2024 Nismo Z-kudos to the team! Also, as we mentioned before the sound alone of the 9AT -equipped Z is better than the 6MT…a by-product of current sound restrictions. Either gearbox will serve you well behind the new Z.
We made one final stop at The Getty Museum in Los Angeles before dropping off the Z near LAX. What a cool car. Nissan flew us back to San Jose Sunday Night so we could get back to work on Monday. A quick shoutout to Page One Automotive…Benjie and Austin provided excellent service during the trip. Each car was detailed and filled up with gas for the drivers and we really appreciated it. Also, thanks to Nissan for the $500 gift card to cover roadtrip odds and ends!
The People
Mr. K said, “Love cars. Love people. Love life.” The NissanAdventuresPCH connected us with an amaZing group of people. Content creators, all talented at their craft. Artists, maybe not in the literal sense, but each one continuously strives to perfect the craft in their respective fields. It was humbling and fascinating to learn from them. I also appreciated their candid feedback on the new Z. Please, give each one a moment of your time by checking out their social media channels below:
Huge thanks to Nissan for the invitation and gathering an immensely engaging group of people to enjoy the drive with. We love that you are still keeping the spirit alive for our beloved sports car. Long Live The Z! More photos in the gallery below.
