Here is another amazing example of Motorsports bringing a family together. Rob’s wife Astrid had a birthday coming up so it was time for their Daytona Blue ’07 350z ‘vert to get some B-day love. Living off a mountain road Rob and Astrid needed a car that could be both comfortable and sporty. The couple have had their fair share of track days and Astrid has driven in the 24hrs of Lemons race while Rob has a G37 Sport coupe has his daily driver.

The Z came to ZCG for a 30k service with some upgrades to add some excitement to Astrid’s commute. Like most upgrade sessions at ZCG we started with a baseline dyno to see what we were working with:

Once the services and baseline was complete we installed a set of the Injen intakes and a Bassani exhaust system. These 2 bolt-ons gained 20hp/13tq!

Rob and Astrid wanted this Z to be able to handle any curvy road and  the occasional Track Day. A combination of braking and suspension upgrades were installed, starting with TEIN Flex coilovers with EDFC control unit. This allows the driver to pick from 16 levels of dampening force:

A nice compliment to the coilovers is the adjustable sway bar set from Hotchkis:

We installed our favorite brake pads for any sport driving, the STOPTECH 309 in addition to a full brake and clutch bleed with Motul 600.
With the power mods, brakes, and suspension Rob and Astrid should be able to enjoy a track day or drive on any curvy road with a smile on their faces:)

                    

ZCarGarage is performing their first Stillen Supercharger installation for the 370Z. You might recognize this sharp Z from its great power gains with the Stillen exhaust system and Berk high-flow catalytic converters. It also received several suspension and cosmetic upgrades since last year.
Here are a few pics of the supercharger kit, note  how the dual throttle-bodies are oriented compared to the stock location:
      

        

Keep an eye on the blog for more install updates and you can count on some dyno action too as this boosted 370 makes some serious power!

Once again I’m here to proclaim how a few small changes will increase your affection for your Z ten-fold.  This formula of parts has been proven time and time again on the Zs that we have worked on.  Here’s the rundown:

• Bassani true dual cat-back exhaust with X-pipe
• Jim Wolf Technology (JWT) POP charger
• Eibach Pro Kit springs
• Hotchkis adjustable swaybars front and rear (4-way adj. in the front, 3 in the rear!)
• VOLK Racing GTS wheels
• Toyo Proxes tires
• LED tailight swap
• SPC adjustable front upper control arms
• SPC adjustable rear lower control arms

Having done all of these changes in a short time frame this car has transformed drastically from it’s former stock self.  It now has the looks, performance, and handling that the Z deserves from the start.  This car is ready to be the partner in crime the owner has always wanted, until he catches the “boost” bug…

See more photos after the jump

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You might remember this 370 from awhile ago when we installed a set of Berk high-flow catalytic converters as well as a Stillen exhaust system and the car put down over 300 wheel horsepower.   Well it came back last week to add a few parts to help it handle as well as it accelerates now.  We started off with the standard Eibach Springs Pro Kit and then added upper front control arms and rear lower control arms to keep the excessive camber in check.

The adjustable SPC Performance control arms are high quality pieces that will allow for a perfect alignment on the track or the street.  The front arms are of a hybrid tubular design which allows for increased strength and reduced flex over the cast aluminum pieces.  They come with all the bushings pre-installed so installation is a snap, for the most part, and they are finished in a semi-gloss black which is a shop favorite.

To stiffen things up even more we also installed a set of new sway bars from Hotchkis suspension.  We have been using these for years on most of the newer Zs and Gs and are always satisfied with the decreased body roll and planted feeling that they provide in the corners.

Not wanting to leave things looking stock, the owner opted for a couple of exterior paint changes.  Now the car was sent over to Williams Autobody to have the front “fangs” and the rear exhaust surround painted in a semi-gloss black.  This is a nice and easy way for the owner to set his Z apart from the crowd (unless the ZCG 370 is around), but to take it one step further we also sent the factory “Sport” wheels out for a quality powder coating job.  What color?  You guessed it, semi-gloss black.  I think it looks awesome.  No one will be mistaking this car now.  (We put the car on our spare R35 GT-R wheels until the stockers came back)

In the end, the tasteful modifications done to this 370z will allow the owner to enjoy his car to it’s fullest, or until he comes back for more anyway….  The 370z just keeps getting better and better.

The full gallery is after the “read more” from beginning to end to show you the ride height change and such  ENJOY!!

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First off we would like to congratulate the owner of this car on it’s (now not so recent) purchase!  He traded in his ’05 35th Anniversary edition with the VQ35DE engine for this ’08, it turns out he just couldn’t resist the call of the HR!!

This build started off some time ago when it came into Z Car Garage fully stock with plans for a simple Injen intake system, a new-to-the-market ARK cat-back exhaust system, and a set of high flow catalytic converters.  It turns out that we saw nearly zero gain from the ARK exhaust (we tested it on it’s own with no other modifications) and the fitment was beyond terrible so it was packed up and sent back immediately.  Bummer I know.

Not willing to accept defeat we decided to go with the tried and true Bassani cat-back system in search of actual power.  The new exhaust came right back at us with a nice gain and the Bassani exhaust note can only be described as GLORIOUS!

Now that the car had a little bit of get-up-and-go the owner decided to upgrade the rolling stock, and with a set of VOLK wheels it is hard to go wrong.  A hard to find, and very expensive, set of VOLK GTS wheels (with a killer looking matte black center) was chosen and wrapped in Toyo Proxes rubber which I’m pretty sure are 255′s in the front and 285′s in the rear.

This list of mods was able to hold him over for awhile-ish.  Actually the need for more power and a killer stance on the Z33 was eating away at him… as it does all of us.  Now a set of Stillen headers were ordered and added to the mix.  More exhaust flow means more power… within reason of course in a normally aspirated engine.  To up the ante one more level we also contacted UPREV and decided to do a computer re-flash so that we could form the timing and ignition maps to a higher level.

All of the hardware changes without the re-tune netted us 18 horsepower and 12 ft/lbs of torque at the rear wheels.  From here on out we started to play with the UPREV re-flash system.  You will see from the dyno graph that it took us quite a few runs to get the tune to where we were happy with it.  We were able to gain 8hp and 1 ft/lb of torque and we still think that there may be a little more in the Z.  We have the software to re-tune the car anytime we wish now so we will be taking another crack at it in the near future.  Plus I have a feeling that there will be a few more modifications done which will require further tuning magic.

Now to obtain the proper stance for the car a set of PSS10 Bilstien coil-overs were delivered to the shop.  It even says on the shock that they are tested on the Nurburgring, how cool is that? (see photos after the jump)  The issue here with a Z or G is that camber becomes an issue when the lowering gets aggressive.  Once again a preemptive strike was made before any problems arose with by installing front and read adjustable control arms from SPL Parts.  One look at the pictures of these parts and you understand why they are so special.  Furthermore we also installed a new set of Hotchkis swaybars just so that we left no suspension stone unturned.  Looks and awesome handling should always go hand in hand.

You can see from the final picture here that the car now has that killer stance and a good amount of new found power to go along with it.  But, like the title says, I’m pretty sure this car will continue to be built up in the constant pursuit of the perfect Z.  Will the owner ever reach it?  Only time will tell, and we are certainly willing to help.

There are quite a few more photos after the ‘read more’ at the bottom so check them out!!

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