Like I said earlier, this was a great event.  Let’s start from the beginning.

I had picked up the ZCG 370z from the shop on Friday night so that I could have it all packed and ready to go in the morning and maybe sneak in a few extra minutes of sleep.  Fail.  I had forgotten the camera and the spare battery at the shop.  I needed to be in Saratoga to pick up my friend Torey by 6:45am so I was at the shop by 6:15ish grabbing the required gear.  Off to a good start.

We are on the road to Sacramento by 7:00 and are making amazing time to the meeting point at a Panera bread location near the arena.  Even with stopping for gas, and breakfast at Jack-in-the-box, we arrived fifteen minutes early for the suggested 9:00 meeting time.  I was happy to see that there were already a few cars there including the two 370Zs of Curtis and Hal who had a major hand in setting up this drive.

Five or ten minutes after we arrived Zs were flowing in steadily and Roy even showed up in his GT-R.  Sweet.  I was also really excited to see Chris joining the group in his 1973 240z that we recently put new carburetors and an exhaust system on.  I love seeing the old cars being driven as much as the new ones.   After mingling for a short while were given the usual safety briefing and a rundown of the days schedule.  Then it was off to the cars for the fun part, driving.

Being able to drive the ZCG 370z on an event like this is just about as good as it gets.  This car has just about everything that you could want from a modern sports car.  Go buy one, seriously.

After driving for about an hour and a half we stopped at a small place called the Western Pacific Brewery in Oroville for lunch.  It is located directly on the tracks that run through town and it was pretty cool to see the train come through a few times during our meal.  We also met up with a few other Z Car owners here, two 240Zs and a Z32 twin turbo bringing our total to around twenty cars.

Once we were back on the in the cars we headed out of Oroville and onto the scenic and winding back roads of Highway 70.  We started out high in the hills and made our way down some very steep grades with HUGE drop-offs that lead to the canyons that were carved out by the Feather River.  There are all sort of neat bridges and tunnels along this stretch and we made the best of it by stopping for pictures fairly often.  By we I mean the two cars of Curtis and I, we would make sure to get ahead of the group on certain parts of the trip so that we could pull over and setup for photo opportunities.  I know that he took some amazing shots which I will have for you later this week.

After driving on these great canyon roads for a couple of hours we came out into a quaint little town that I think was Quincy, CA (please correct me if I’m wrong here) to fill up gas tanks and drain others.  We pretty much took over the Chevron station that we stopped at, I guess a group like this would make a scene anywhere we would go, haha.  Okay back on the road.

Driving through this town really reminded me of when I was younger and driving through the central parts of Wisconsin, it really had that sort of comfortable feel to it.  Leaving town we began to notice that the ground was growing increasingly damp but we were all prepared to slow the pace down so there weren’t any real concerns there.  After another half-hour of driving we started to enter the open plains between the individual mountain peaks.  There were neat little farm houses with cattle all around here and blasting the Zs through here may have given the locals quite the afternoon wake-up call.

Now we are coming up to our final stop before the final push to Truckee and dinner.  We made the stop near Blairsden right where HWY 70 and 89 meet.  We choose this place because Roy and his beautiful GT-R were going to break off from our group and continue on to Reno instead of heading to Truckee.  The place we pulled over there was a cool old barn with a scenic mountain backdrop which made for some great photos.

After we said our goodbyes we continued on to Truckee and when we arrived around 5:00 we were treated with some good local BBQ.  It was nice to know that we really didn’t have to do anymore driving, well for me anyways.  Some of us had made plans to stay the night it the Truckee/Tahoe area but a good majority of the group was going to drive back home, talk about committed.

I was stuffed full of food and needed to wind down from all the driving so we said our thank yous and good byes and made a break for the door.  I was able to convince Chris with the 240z to stay at my place up there because Torey and I had already made plans to go out in the Cal/Neva area of North Lake Tahoe.  Good times.

The trip back down the mountain on Sunday was basically uneventful but I did make it all the way back to San Jose on just a half tank of gas.  Downhill fuel economy rules.  All in all it was an amazing trip and I can’t thank Curtis, Hal, and the entire ZONC organization enough for setting this up for us.  I’m looking forward to attending the next event and I hope to see more of you there!  Happy Z-ing

If the photos here don’t blow your skirt up then I would suggest that you make this drive, I’ll even go again!  Just let me know.

There is a full gallery after the ‘read more.’  Check it!

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The drive from Solvang to our hotel in the LA area was fairly uneventful except for the hour of inexplicable traffic that we sat in for no apparent reason on a Saturday afternoon.  After we checked into the hotel we went out for some dinner at a sports bar so that we could watch the San Jose Sharks game, they won in OT.  Most of us then decided to turn in so that we could be rested for the show on Sunday.

We checked out bright and early and made our way to one of the quaint little towns that speckle the LA area, if you know where to look, to get some breakfast.  With our tanks full we venture on.  When we finally arrive at the venue we are not surprised to see what seems like hundreds of cars in line waiting to get in.  Good thing we ate.  After a good forty-five minutes of inching forward (some of it just coasting down hill with the cars off) we arrived at the front gate.  Every car in sight was a Z.  All years, every possible combination of mods, mild to wild paint jobs, you name it and a Z had it.  This was like a pilgrimage that had reached its destination.

The entire event report and a ton of photos are after the “read more.”  So click and read more.

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After hearing the news that the ZCG 370z made some pretty nice power gains, a new customer came in and wanted to do the same for his blue 370z.  To up the ante a bit he also ordered a set of Berk high flow catalytic converters (HFC’s) to replace the stock units and hopefully make some more power, let’s find out.

We knew exactly what to expect from the install and everything went off without a hitch.  We obviously had to perform a few minor tweaks with the Stillen pieces just like we did on our shop car to get the fitment to be acceptable.  After all parts were installed the car was strapped to the dyno and we went about our business to get some numbers.  After all was said and done the car picked up 27whp and 14wtq for a total of 302whp and 247 ft/lbs of torque.  Which means the Berk HFC’s add roughly five to six horsepower when you compare the numbers of the ZCG 370 which goes without the HFC’s, for now….

The really nice thing about these simple bolt-on modifications is that the performance of the engine is increased over the entire power band.  I don’t know of anyone in their right mind who would turn these gains down for the price.  300+ whp with THREE bolt-ons, not too shabby for a couple hours work.

Special thanks to Ken at Roost Billet Products for making those killer ZCG plates for all of our show cars and cars without plates.  You rule Ken.

I want to start this post by saying that I don’t drag race very often and we only got in four runs.

I left the shop around 2:15pm on my solo tip to Sonoma.  I was hoping to get a better turn out of our customers and friends for the afternoon trip up to Infineon Raceway yesterday but hopefully there will be a better turn out next time.  The drive was overcast with a few sprinkles here and there but no serious rain on the horizon.

The hour and a half drive was fairly uneventful and I even pulled out the camera to take a picture as the 370 and I passed by the San Quintin State Prison on highway 580.  I pulled into the gate at Infineon around 3:45, paid my $25 racing fee (thanks to Rob for spotting me), and proceeded to wait in line for tech inspection.

The track staff, seeing that the car was brand new, waved me through without a fuss and I went directly into the “Street Performance” group’s staging lanes.  Apparently I have perfect timing because there was barely time to turn off the car and say hello to a few people before we were headed up to make our first runs.

I happened to be parked next to a ’71 2.4L turbo Datsun 510 for my first run so I was pretty excited (I own a turbo’d 510 myself, again thanks to Rob.)   I get to the water box to do my burnout and a second or two after the tires start spinning the car begins to wheel-hop pretty badly.  I cut the burnout short and roll to the lights.

Now here comes the part where you realize how little I drag race.  I’m saying out loud to myself, “Leave on the third yellow.”  I thought I did.  NOPE.  I launched the car at 5,000 rpm and I cut a .539 light.  Bummer.  The tires are cold from the crappy burnout and I leave the tree with the wheels spinning which again turns into wheel hop.  The tires spin pretty well on the shift into second again and I am on my way to turning a 14.672 @ 100.83mph.  At least this leaves plenty of room for improvement, right?

Well… our next runs would have to wait a bit because it did start to rain a bit for a total hold time of around 45min.  Now back to racing.

Over the next two runs I alter my burnout and launching techniques to get down to a 14.077 @ 101.28mph.  Now it’s time for eliminations.  At this point I am way more confident in launching the car and in my staging strategies so I dial in a 13.95 for the first round.  Now the problem is that I ended up lining up next to one of our good customers in his supercharged 350z.  This is bad for two reasons.  First, he has been drag racing for a long, long time.  Second, since we are racing each other, one of us is going to lose in the first round.

After a decent burnout, finally, we stage up and put the hammer down.  I cut a .158 light which isn’t too bad and I run through the top end with a 13.930 @ 100.45mph.  I ran faster than my dial-in time.

If you are new to bracket racing here is a very short tutorial.  You initially set a dial-in time of the fastest you think your car will run, mine was a 13.95.  The goal then is to get as close to that number as possible without going faster.  Sort-of like Price Is Right rules. If both racers go faster, or “break out”, then the person who goes over by the least wins.

So I broke out by .020 of a second which means that Walt had to go quite a bit quicker than his 12.95 dial in time to give me the victory.  He didn’t, but boy was is close!!  He ended up running a 12.933 at 104.28mph.  That means he was .003 closer to his dial in time than I was.  You really couldn’t ask for a better race.

I know that we will be going back to the Wednesday Night Drags as soon as we get a chance, and maybe someone with higher skills than yours truly will be doing the driving to make sure that we get the most out of the 370z, it should be good for low 13’s.  All I want is another piece of Walt and that supercharged 350z.

Enjoy the pictures below and click the read more for the full gallery.  Unfotunately none of the videos I took of the Zs turned out well but I will try to scan the time slips so that everyone can have a chuckle at my expense.

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If you have been keeping up on our 370z exploits, good for you.  If you haven’t then HERE is some mandatory reading.

We were planning on taking the car to the Motorsport Auto Show (MSA) from the beginning and if you know us then you are aware that there was NO WAY that we were going to take a stock car.  We made a few phone calls to the people that can make things happen and the ZCG 370z turned into a monster overnight.

We decided that the first change to the car needed to be in the suspension department.  Eibach springs was a first choice because of their pedigree in the industry and we shortly had a couple of boxes at our door.  They are advertised to lower the car 0.9″ in the front and 0.8″ in the rear.  The springs are a progressive rate set-up front and rear to help with ride quality and in the handling department.  The looks are vastly improved as the photos show and I’m happy to report that there is a noticeable decrease in body roll and mid corner stability seems to be improved; it’s a nice improvement considering that the ride quality is not any more harsh than before.

The next call we made was to our friends down at StopTech Brakes, and we went for the big boy of brake kits.  You can remember that we ran into problems with the stock brake system after a few sessions on the track so we felt the need to step up here.  It was the week of the MSA show so we needed to request overnight delivery if we were to finish everything that week and when we unwrapped the boxes we were overjoyed.

Before our eyes lay the latest and largest kit that StopTech has to offer for the 370z.  It includes 6 piston front calipers with 380mm rotors in the front and 4 piston calipers and 355mm rotors in the rear.  The rotors are a slotted two piece design to aid in performance and replacement.  I don’t even know where to begin to describe the feeling these brakes give when you slam on the “stop” pedal, it’s not worth testing the limits on the street so we will be heading back to the track with haste very soon.  Bummer, I know, more track days for work.  Where will it end.  Haha

Now comes the time for improved power.  We ordered the Stillen cat-back exhaust and the new Gen-3 intake system to help our car breathe better on both sides of the engine.  Before I even get to any sort of dyno results I need to say that everyone here at Z Car Garage was let down by the fit and finish on these two products.  The exhaust rubs and hits in at least two or three places, its painfully annoying.  The intake system comes with no brackets of any sort and the front part is left to bounce around to rub on and destroy anything it pleases (see video below.)  We have made our own brackets and changes to the intake to prevent any sort of serious damage, we were even forced to wrap the air conditioning lines on the driver’s side to prevent the intake from inevitably rubbing through.  Stillen is a huge company with tons of R&D time in these products, I don’t understand how they could ship a part like this and expect owners to be satisfied.

As far as power numbers are concerned, it is an improvement.  On the graphs the blue line is the car returned to its totally stock form for a baseline.  The red line is after the intake only.  The final green line is with the intake and exhaust.  Each change gains around ten wheel horsepower and a moderate torque increase as well.  Too bad horsepower poor fit and finish.  I have heard from our sources that they have made improvements to the exhaust fitment, and not to defend Stillen, but these were some of the first parts on the market for the 370z.  We here at Z Car Garage just want our customer base to get the the best product they can, and the product that you deserve.

As far as future upgrades to the ZCG 370z are concerned, I will be posting the solution to our other track event failure sometime next week with test data to follow as soon as we get back to the track.

Here is the video of the intake that is supplied without any brackets.  We ended up making our own.  Enjoy the random music in the background.