Saturday 10/11 was the last gathering of Canepa Cars and Coffee until they resume in April 2015. We drove our Datsun Roadsters to this final event and there was a superb turnout of cool cars. As in the past, Canepa never disappoints. Here are few highlights and check the gallery for even more pictures.

The brisk run up HW 17 to Scotts Valley is always exhilarating, especially on a weekend sans traffic! We had a blast chasing our fellow roadster owner and friend Mike B in his pretty 1967.5 SPL311:

 

When we arrived, Canepa’s parking lot was already filled to the brim. Mandatory Datsun content: We found another roadster and a 240z with ZCG license plate frame!

 

Mopar Madness! Panther Pink Challenger, Limelight green Superbird and Plum Crazy Challenger remind us of the coolest colors to come from the factory!

 
In an absolute sea of 997 GT3 Porsche’s these stood out: 997 TT on Volk TE37s, RUF 993, and gorgeous 356:

 

Canepa as usual were gracious enough to open their entire facility to the public. Touring the showrooms and shop areas with soft pretzels and strudels in hand was a great way to start the morning!

 

Back in the parking lot, more interesting cars show up. This Ford hot rod had the coolest cup-holder I’ve ever seen:

 

Below L to R: This little Fiat Abarth was setup for dirt rallying. 1 of 2 super clean BMW E30 M3s. Honda N600! My favorite Testarossa, 512TR:

Finally, I had the pleasure of driving back down HW 17 with this Ferrari 250 GT Lusso. The lines on this car are amazing, and it was quite nerve wracking (for the owner too I’m sure) to snap some rolling shots of this multi-seven figure piece of history!

 

I was super stoked to get a peace sign from the driver, Enjoy The Ride!

 

Many more pics in the gallery. See you at Canepa Cars and Coffee next spring!

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George M built his Vortech-supercharged G35 coupe to participate in Hill Climb events while remaining an adept street car.  To ensure he could come back down the mountain we upgraded his brakes with a Stoptech big-brake kit:

 

Up front, the OEM Brembo calipers and rotors were replaced with Stoptech’s 380mm rotors 6-piston calipers:

At the rear, 355mm rotors and ST22 calipers. Note how everything still fit nicely behind the factory wheels:

 

Stay tuned as George will visit us later for power upgrades including a new MAF/injectors followed by dyno tuning.

 

 

Matt found Z Car Garage by referral from a local car wash. He had installed a few bolt-ons and needed a tune so we UPREV’d his 370z. Baseline numbers were 294hp/238tq and after tuning 309hp/253tq:

 

The dyno shows significant gains in hp and tq throughout the entire rev range. We are big fans of UPREV tuning and it consistently works well when optimizing individual mods. We will have more examples this week on both NA and FI cars so stay tuned!

 

Gilbert W wanted a CARB-legal solution for more power on his daily driven G37 sedan.  We’ve had great success with our past Stillen Supercharger builds and this forced-induction kit would be ideal for Gilbert’s needs.

 

Installation of the Stillen kit is straightforward. We use one-step colder GT-R spark plugs and a 19-row oil cooler:

 

 

Better breathing on the exhaust side courtesy of a full Fast Intentions exhaust system:

 

Gilbert wanted improved handling without unnecessary harshness. The TEIN mono flex coil-over system with active EDFC allows on-board and speed-sensitive dampening adjustments! We installed a similar setup on Tetsuya’s 350z earlier this year. SPC F/R control arms were installed followed by a full alignment:

 

A relatively new item for Z/G owners is this trick adjustable clutch pedal box from RJM Performance. It offers improved driveability in terms of clutch-pedal engagement and that annoying shudder we’ve all experienced in Nissan’s Z/G manual transmissions:

 

The PLX Devices multi-gauges are becoming a popular method for monitoring engine vitals. Gilbert is using their Bluetooth “Kiwi” interface allowing display through smart phones. We did a neat install of this unit in Steve’s Vortech G35:

 

With the supercharger and exhaust in place we dyno tuned Gilbert’s G37. Baseline numbers were 283hp/241tq and it is now making 417hp/319tq to the wheels.  This is a gain of +134hp/78tq which once again shows how consistent power output has been with these kits!

Enjoy the Ride, Gilbert!

 

 

 

When you build a car with us sometimes it’s contagious. Doug W is the best friend of Z33 owner Craig K and he couldn’t resist visiting us for a boost upgrade on his sweet 2012 Shelby GT500. Equipped from the factory with a Eaton supercharger, a common way to increase boost is to use a smaller diameter pulley. Shown here (right) is a 2.5″ supercharger pulley designed to look like the stock 3″ unit. To make up for the slack due to the smaller pulley, a larger 90mm idler (left) was used:

 

Installation was straightforward:

 

The smaller pulley is designed to give 3-4lbs more boost. Using an SCT tuner we gained 16hp/37tq for a total of 530hp/519tq to the wheels. The power gains are everywhere!

 

Enjoy the Boost, Doug!