This car needed some serious love and boy is it getting it!!  Many people would have written this car off due to the extensive repair it needed but Z Car Garage and William’s Autobody have been given the job of saving it.  You can see from the photos that every area of this car needed some form of repair.

The frame rails on both sides needed rust repair but the passenger side needed to have the entire frame rail replaced.  The problem with this is that only the frame rails are available from the aftermarket.  ALL the other metal work must be hand formed.

This is most noticeable in the battery box/firewall repairs.  Many many hours of work have been spent getting these parts to look and fit just right, and it is nowhere near finished.  Another tough area of the repairs are the joints between the roof section and the A-pillar and rear quarter panel.  I’m sure many of you have seen rust bubbles that start here after an accident repair of restoration, this will NOT be happening here.  All of the welds were redone to ensure proper alignment and strength.

Other places that received some love were the lower and upper radiator support, the quarter panel just under the rear quarter windows, and the door jams and rocker panels on both sides.  All of these areas had rust holes that needed varying states of work.  The rocker panel just below the battery box had it the worst.  It has now been filled in and will continue to be reworked until it is perfect.

Finally you will see that there is major pitting on the top of the windshield frame.  This too will need to be cut out and replaced with new sheet metal and then blended into the original roof.  Again, this will not be easy.

We do all of this to keep the Zs on the road and in the hands of the people who love them.  This will be one of the most extensive rebuilds that we have done, and we won’t rest until it is done right.  I will update again as more progress is made.

Long Live the Restored Z

All the photos after the ‘read more’.

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We have done a couple of these modifications before to other HR equipped 350Zs with great results.  This round of upgrades differs in two areas.  First off, this is the first set of headers that we have done on an HR car, and secondly, this car is an automatic.

The other changes we made to the car were the tried and true Injen intake system and a pair of Stillen high-flow catalytic converters, both of which we have installed on numerous cars that have come through the shop.  Both of these parts have made nice gains in the past so we pretty much knew what to expect here.

Looking at the dyno graph you can see that the automatic transmission is certainly using up a little more power than in the manual cars but the power gains are more than noticeable.  The car is now more powerful throughout the entire rev range and the torque curve in the middle is now gonna give that push in the back that we all love when you stab the throttle.

I have a feeling that we will be seeing this car again for another round of modifications.  Now that we are an Up-Rev software retailer maybe we will get the chance to play with the fuel and timing tables to get the car where it needs to be.  We can’t wait to get the chance.

Well sort of…

The Boneville Salt Flats are holy ground for a large group of automotive enthusiasts.  One such group of people happened to need a tune up on our dyno before this year’s Bonneville run.  With the help of Rob’s vast tuning knowledge and our wide-band air/fuel ratio monitor we were able to dial in the engine which helped propel the car to a new record in it’s class.  We are super stoked to have played even a small role in helping them achieve their goals.  Congratulations!!!

From the owner:

Tom

I wanted to post this while the everyone was still jazzed from the turn out at last weekend’s Treasure Island caravan.  ZONC will be hosting the annual Monterey/Pebble Beach Meet and Ride this year on Saturday, September 19th.   As usual we will be meeting at MY Nissan in Salinas, CA to gather most of the group before heading into 17 Mile Drive and then to lunch at Poppy Hill in Pebble Beach.

The event itself is free to join attend but there is a charge for the lunch if you wish to attend, there is also as $10 fee to drive on 17 Mile Drive itself but this is included if you decide to buy lunch.  See the ZONC flyer below for further clarification.  This is a really fun drive to make as you see tons of Zs and Gs make their way through some of the nicest beachfront neighborhoods on the west coast.

There will be more info to come in the next week or so as we set up a caravan from Z Car Garage to MY Nissan in Salinas so stay tuned for that.

Make sure you check out the post from last year to see all the photos we took.

Link:  Pebble Beach Fun Run 2008

Link:  ZONC.org  (Z Owners of Northern California)

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Treasure Island meet last weekend.  I was so happy to see the twenty-ish cars at the shop to make the drive together.  Also thanks to everyone who helped set up and organize the event and to Rob who was nice enough to provide doughnuts and coffee for everyone in the morning as well as the raffle prizes (dyno pulls and shop gift certificates.)

It was a real blast to see all of these Zs on the road.  I ended up not driving so that I could ride with Rob and take pictures.  He had taken the T-tops out of his 300zx twin turbo which made for some great photo opportunities and an even better sun burn for me, haha.  Treasure island was a bit chilly but the good conversations about Zs kept my mind off of it.

I will be posting some information on another get-together real soon, so I hope to see you all then.  Enjoy all the pictures after the read-more!!

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