It’s raining GT-Rs at ZCarGarage! Owner Kevin K had a blast driving his GT-R at Thunderhill recently. You might remember seeing his car at ZCG for several mods including an exhaust system, wheels/springs and a few other items. Kevin also displayed the GT-R at the SJ Auto Show in January. These awesome on-track pictures are from Gotbluemilk.

How cool does this R35 look at speed?

Kevin had an impressive list of parts installed including:
-Deatschwerks 750cc injectors
-Cobb AccessPORT, Custom tuned by HorsePower Logic
-Clear Bra by Premier Protective Films
-Downforce Carbon Fiber body kit by none other than Williams Auto Body
-Go Fast Bits blow-off valves:

Check out the AMS Catted Downpipes, compared to the OEM units:

The stock rear section of the exhaust was replaced by this beautiful HKS Legamax Exhaust:

The center section leading up to the downpipes was replaced by a GTM Challenge Race Spec non-resonated midpipe:

It looks and sounds amazing!

Kevin has great taste and chose some very sharp Volk Racing TE37 G2 wheels finished in Flat Black: 20 x 10 F, 20 x 11 R. Combined with Swift Springs and carbon fiber lower trim this GT-R looks sinister on the street and on the track!

This beautiful ’06 350z belongs to a good friend of the shop and he has been taking it to the track for a couple years now.  The time finally came last week to make the brake upgrade that it desperately needed as this car had the base brakes and not even the optional Brembos.

Fred has installed about a hundred-thousand of these (rough estimate, ha) and it flew right on the car with no hassles.   I have included a few of the before photos to see how the kit compares to stock.   We stuck with one of their new street pads for now because of the expected rain on the track day and the Volk CE28s are still shod with street tires.

Besides the newly added StopTechs, this car sports a Jim Wolf POP charger on the intake side and a NISMO system on the exhaust side.  The Volk CE28s have also been color matched to the car for the perfect look.  Now all we need to do is get Alvin to put some slicks on this mother and give some of our other friends the beat down at the track!!

I’ll have some more info on this car when we get to the actual track day post at the end of the week!  View all of the photos from the install after the read more.

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Our friend Scott was nice enough to get some footage for the latest installment of our summer track event posts while he was at Thunderhill Raceway last Friday.  Please find a reputable track event organizer, like Hooked On Driving, and get your car out on the track to have some fun!

This video shows what a well set up Z can do in the right hands, and I especially love all the little comments he added about all the cars he passes, wicked.  Also, if this car sounds different to you than in previous posts then give yourself a high-five.  It received a new Motordyne “Shockwave” single exhaust.  I will have photos, dyno numbers, and more info on the new exhaust this week.  Enjoy!

Here is a video of the first red group (most experienced) session in our ZCG 370z last Saturday at Thunderhill.  This isn’t me driving but you will see my helmet bounce in and out of the screen a few times from the passenger seat.  There isn’t anything too exciting here as it’s the first session but I thought some of you might like to see it

Also remember that we are in a stock 370z on stock tires here.  Almost all of these cars are on “R” compound tires and some are making huge horsepower, ex: both Dodge Vipers.  We’ll be able to keep up with them soon!

Hopefully next time we get the ZCG 370z out on track we will be a bit more successful with completing the entire day.  Enjoy and be safe.

Note: If any of our loyal readers have footage of their Zs on track at Laguna Seca on Monday please let me know.  Alvin and Scott this means you two.

Zs are at home on the race track.  The Z was thrust into the public eye back in the early 70’s when they were winning every event that they could be entered in.  So when Z Car Garage picked up a 370z a couple of weeks one of our first goals was to get the stock car out on the track to see what it could do.

We were at the track fully loaded with a greasy breakfast by 6:30 and by 7:30 we had finished registration and tech and were awaiting the driver’s meeting.  The meeting began close to 8am and our large group went through all of the usual track event propaganda.  The Speed Ventures crew was super down to earth and very upfront about what they expected from all of us and the thorough meeting took place without a hitch.

We registered the car in the Red (fastest and most experienced) and White (most novice) to ensure that we would get as much time on the track as possible.  The red group came up right after the driver’s meeting so we geared up and got on track with me riding shotgun.  After everything was warmed up we got to the task of seeing how far we could push the car in it’s stock form.

We figured the tires would be the limiting factor for the car today but we were out to test the limits of every part of the car, and boy did we ever.  We finished the session and pulled the car into the pits to record our test data and then let the car cool down for one session.  Then I got behind the wheel to go out for my first session.  Which leads me to what you are all waiting to hear.  The car had issues.  Two and a half laps after I went out I was back in the pits with a frown on my face.

I’m not going to go into what happened until we have a solution to offer all of you.  After we determined that the issue wasn’t detrimental to the car or our safety we went back out in the next few sessions, and then we ran into our second problem.  This time on our standard post-session inspection we discovered that the front right brake pad had begun to degrade and was grooving the rotor, check out the pictures.  At this point we decided to call it a day because we had to drive the car two-and-a-half hours back to San Jose.

On further inspection today our suspicions were confirmed, it looks like we’ll be calling Nissan to have it replaced…. under warranty.  All the other brakes looked fine and were functioning normally and in fact I didn’t notice any change in performance in the brake system in the session before the failure.  Strange.  Looking back we could have risked it and stayed for a few more sessions to see if the situation would change but because of the first issue we headed back to the bay area.

Even though the car wasn’t perfect, I had a blast testing the car and would encourage all of you to get out on the track and have some fun.  Everyone that I spoke to at the event was amazing.  Car people are the best and always seem to go out of their way to take car of fellow enthusiasts, thanks to all who attended the event.  We will see you soon, and we’ll be bringing the 370z.

ZCG is committed to making the 370z an efficient track tool and will go to any lengths necessary to solve any issues that come up.  As soon as any progress is made it will be released here on ZCarBlog.com first so make sure you keep coming back to get your fix.

There are over a hundred photos after the ‘read more’ so make sure you check them out. One of the cars that I was most interested in was a Mazda FD RX-7.  This car is simply amazing.  Nothing on the car was left untouched.  Check out the photos and I’ll try to get some more info from the owner.  Wow.  I tried to take photos of as many cars as I could so I hope that yours made it.  See you out there.

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