The Dyno Day scheduled for 9/24 is cancelled. Stay tuned for a new date!

Here are a few pictures and video clips of cars on the ZCG dyno, it’s fun and a great way to gauge your car’s health/performance gains.

The 2011 Japanese Classic Car Show (JCCS) was held this Saturday in Long Beach, CA. Our trip down to LA from the Bay Area included several freeway spottings including a clean Datsun 510 and 240z and this convertible Honda CVCC:

Despite some wet morning weather the show drew hundreds of spectators, some lining up 1hr before the 9am opening.  We were stoked to hear that three S20-powered Nissans would be on display and it was truly a spectacular sight.  You may have seen Tom’s 1971 Skyline KPGC10 GT-R from the Palo Alto Concours, but he also showed his Skyline KPGC110(Kenmeri) and a stunning  Fairlady Z432!

The Z432 was impressive, check out the badging and almighty S20 with its beautiful tubular header:

The Kenmeri SKyline was also a treat to see. This body style and model is very rare, especially stateside 🙂

Still not satisfied with two Skyline GT-Rs? There were two more Skylines in the parking lot: a coupe and 4-door hakosukas both with modern engine transplants:

The great thing about JCCS is the variety of marques including Datsun, Mazda, Toyota, Honda, Mistubishi, just to name a few. We are Datsun nuts at heart but we can still appreciate other wicked JDM metal. That being said let’s start with some highlights of the show from the Datsun crowd 🙂

These two Datsun 510s that caught our eye on the freeway were very sharp in person. Both were 4-doors with ultra-clean engine bays and great wheel choice… …[read more]

Autoblog has a great feature on Adam Carolla’s car collection. It’s no secret that he is a huge Datsun nut but read further into the article and look at the pictures of his super-clean garage…he also loves classic Lamborghinis! Maybe Adam’s foray into vintage racing has got folks interested in what kind of toys the man has.
We look forward to seeing Adam running his Datsuns hard at the track like he did recently at Laguna Seca.

Two rather large Nissan trucks came to ZCG for some tuning! Here is Rob with the story:

Linda N is wife and partner in crime to Mark.  Mark is a long time Datsun Rocker and has owned plenty of Datsuns including an IMSA turbo Z, Datsun 510s, 620 Truck. He still has his 510 from when he was 16 and built a turbocharged L-series motor for it. He also has a daily driver 510 with a KA24DE and A/C!

Enough about Mark, back to Linda. This Datsun family uses the Armada to haul the kids and pets around town while Mark has all the Datsuns torn down in various stages of modification.
Linda was asking me what we could do to give her Armada some extra kick. I suggested the UPREV software. She dropped the V8 powered SUV off at ZCG. Vlad helped me strap it down on the rollers of our DYNOJET 224 LC and we got some baseline runs before tuning.

We were impressed with the results: gains of 17hp/29tq at the wheels…not bad for a truck with 130,000 miles and just an intake! Linda is very happy and reports that along with power and torque increase she is also seeing better gas mileage.

More Nissan Family Madness: Nick’s QX56

Nick is the brother of Matt, you may remember his G37TT, the quest for performance runs strong in the family! Nick brought in his QX56 for some service work and we starting talking cars…next thing you know we ordered a Stillen intake and stainless Magnaflow cat-back exhaust.

Icing on the cake came in the form of some UPREV tuning. On the test drive I could see that performance smile that runs in the family. Nick called me the next day to tell me the QX56 feels like a new machine. The exhaust and intake are just the right amount of rumble and you can see from the DYNO graph below that the power and torque is increased everywhere:

The Nissan hard-drive in my head started buzzing after this exciting few days of SUV madness…VK56DE powered Datsun 510 Stationwagon, anyone?

Long live the NISSAN/ INFINITI performance!
Rob

As soon as Rob told me “It’s here” over the phone I jumped in my Datsun and drove as quickly as possible to ZCG. So what’s all the fuss? Gary S recently acquired a ’71 Skyline 2000 GT and had it shipped overseas from Yokohama, Japan! You might remember Gary from his black BEHEMOTH RB28 240z, and 500whp black G35, and now this black Skyline!

The car is in great condition and will get some ZCG love in the next few weeks. It came fairly modified with suspension and cosmetic upgrades. I absolutely love the way these models have so much character. The pillar-less windows are incredible and make side-profile views sleek. The GT-R style flares are a must especially with larger wheel/tire combos like the Watanabes that the previous owner ran. Gotta love those beefy BFGs in back….

I have never sat in one of these cars, and it is a fantastic interior… …[read more]