Photo: Patrick Lauder

Matt O is the lucky owner of this 1991 Skyline GTR finished in (TH1) Midnight Blue Pearl.  When we first met he wanted to bring the car in to ZCG for a quick checkup. We looked over it, ran a compression check and also made a plan for his next visit.

Matt acquired this California-legal R32 from our friend Sean and his team at Toprank International Vehicle Importers. It goes without saying, if you are in the market for a vintage Skyline (or any JDM car) IVI is the place to go.

  

In March of last year Matt came in for a Haltech Platinum Pro. We have installed many of these and it’s a great foundation for adding power to the R32.

We performed all the prep work and ran a the boost sensor to install the Haltech.  Whenever we take on these cars we always run a smoke test to ensure there are no intake leaks present.

 

On the dyno, results for the baseline run (left) followed by Haltech on 91 octane. Despite having a healthy engine/turbos the power levels were fairly low on this car. The culprit: weak actuators not allowing the car to hold boost. Matt will visit us again for new turbos and acuators so it will get a big jump in power. We are big fans of Haltech and now he’s prepared with the right engine management system.

 

Next, we installed a few suspension upgrades supplied by Matt followed by a full alignment:

Cusco T/C rods, rack bushings and toe-link/rear control arm setup:

   

T/C rods

 

 

The R32 had a set of SSR SP1 wheels and Matt wanted to change the look with a fresh set of new wheels: 18″ Volk TE37 finished in bronze.

 

We mounted/balanced his RE071R tires and the Skyline looks sweet:

Photo: Telstarlogistics

Matt has been Enjoying The Ride in the R32. Here he is at Laguna Seca:

 

We even caught Matt out on a local drive! Here he is parked next to Naveed’s R32 (story coming soon):

Thanks for bringing your Skyline to us Matt. We look forward to more boost! Catch more of Matt’s Th1 R32 on his Instagram

Neal D brought his 1972 Datsun 240z to Z Car Garage after being restored by a shop in SoCal last summer.   He wanted us to get this 918 Orange beauty running correctly and double-check the workmanship performed so we happily obliged.

The Z had several issues that we resolved after a thorough inspection. Starting with the braking system, we corrected and re-routed all hydraulic lines. The front and rear circuits were swapped on the brake master cylinder, we corrected this as well. The pin from the brake booster to the M/C was adjusted to enable a good initial “bite” from the pedal. Our usual ZCG brake services included Stoptech 309 pads. Finally, we bled the system and adjusted the rear brakes correctly.

 

 

The transmission had to be removed to correct issues in the clutch area. We found stripped bolts, a mis-adjusted clutch pedal, and incorrect T/O bearing collar hardware:

 

 

Moving down the drivetrain, we found and corrected improper hardware on the half shafts:

 

We nut/bolted the entire car, correcting all suspension issues like improperly lubed bushings. More detail work: the wiper system beneath the cowl was setup incorrectly being 180 degrees out.

 

A critical part was missing from the fuel system: the vapor tank. We removed the fuel tank and replaced all vapor lines with our ZCG aftermarket hose kit:

 

The missing vapor tank was re-installed and the entire system was smoke tested to confirm proper sealing. A full fuel tank was also included in our testing:

 

Neal wanted the car back on the road in top driving condition. We installed an O2 bung into the exhaust and street tuned the Z after adding a Pertronix ignition. The Z was dialed-in and ready to rock:

Neal has owned this Z for many years but also loves his Porsche 911. When we met at Rennsport we gave each other that look: P-car or Z-car we both Enjoy The Ride! Thanks for bringing your Z to us!

We met Kenin in 2012 when he visited ZCG with his Infiniti G37 IPL. After working on the G,  years passed by and Kenin reached out to us having purchased a 2018 Infiniti Q50S sedan. He saw that we were working with other customer’s Q50s and asked if we would be down to tune his. We happily obliged, especially since Kenin’s Q50 was rear-wheel-drive.

Straight from the factory, the VR30DDTT is an impressive motor. The Hi-Output version is rated at 400 hp and 350 ft-lbs tq, underrated as we have seen with dyno testing. With a few bolt-ons and tuning, even more power can be unlocked from the VR30. Kenin’ Q received several parts from AMS Performance including their AMS Heat Exchanger, AMS Coolant expansion tank and AMS Air intakes. We also intalled his strut tower brace:

The new heat exchanger compared to the stock unit and installation:

 

 

AMS air intakes compared to OEM:

 

AMS expansion tanks compared to OEM:

Intakes and expansion tank installed:

Rob was eager to tune the Q using Ecutek. Baseline power was 359hp/374tq at the wheels. With the AMS parts and tuning final numbers were 400hp/449tq, gains of +41hp/75tq:

Enjoy the Boost Kenin!

Special thanks to Seb at SpecialtyZ for helping us!

 

The Stillen supercharger kit for the Z34/G37  is an install we are intimately familiar with here at Z Car Garage. Here are two customer cars that got supercharged and tuned for nice power gains while maintaining CARB-legal status.

Vince’s 2012 G37

Vince hails from SSF and heard about us from friends with Z’s and G’s. He wanted us to install the Stillen supercharger kit and we added our favorite upgrades like the the Concept Z performance 25-row oil cooler.

 

Vice had upgraded clutch/flywheel that was really hard to drive on the street. We fitted him with a JWT clutch/flywheel and the troublesome internal slave cylinder was switched to an external unit using the CMAK upgrade from Z-speed.

 

With the supercharger installed we started the tuning process.

A relatively new approach, we move away from the stock MAF system and use ECutek tuning with a MAP-based system. Final numbers were 407hp//321tq to the wheels:

Thanks Vince, Enjoy The Boost!

John’s 2011 370z

John has been a ZCG customer for 10 years and we used to work on his S30. He came in for a Stillen supercharger install on his 370z and added the Concept Z 25-row oil cooler and Automatic transmission cooler.

After Rob’s tuning session on the dyno John’s Z made 407hp/300tq to the wheels:

Being a base model, an LSD is next on John’s list. Enjoy the Boost!

We tuned Maximus’ 2014 370z on his last visit to ZCG with gains of 30whp using bolt-on parts. Power can be addicting, and soon Max told us he was ready for boost. We chose the Stillen supercharger kit for its CARB-legal status and straightforward installation.

With only 28k miles on the odometer we installed the Black Edition Stillen kit and our standard ZCG supporting mods like a Concept Z performance 25-row oil cooler and automatic transmission cooler. A few pictures of the installation:

 

  

The completed supercharger install:

Max’s Z had an open diff so we did installed an OS Giken limited-slip diff and gearset from the 370z 6spd MT:

 

 

On the dyno, Rob performed an ECutek tune yielding 383hp/304tq to the wheels:

Enjoy The Boost, Max!