I’ve been away from the blog for over a week to concentrate on a few other things around the shop but do not worry, WE ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE, in fact we are doing everything we can to make our customer cars the best they can be.    I’m going to try to get all of you back up to speed on the recent shop happenings today.

I also have a ton of new, and AMAZING, parts for the Behemoth 240z with the RB28 stroker here at the shop.  This will deserve it’s own post so look for that either late today or tomorrow.

Let’s see… where did we leave off?

We installed a Vortech supercharger on  350z last week.  The blower assembly in this project was a sealed unit from Vortech which means that all the fluid required to lubricate the supercharger is self-contained and does not use the engine oil what-so-ever.  This reduces the install hassle greatly on a Z and there seems to be no performance difference.

The only annoyance with this setup is that you now have to change the supercharger oil separately from the engine oil every 7,500 miles.  The normal Vortech kits use engine oil for lubrication so you end up servicing the supercharger every 3,000 miles when you do a standard oil change.

We also installed gauges to monitor the engine vitals and one of our custom ZCG oil cooler systems to keep things in check.  The car has a few other bolt on modifications such as an Apexi exhaust, upper intake plenum, etc. and the new power curve is right where it should be for an early VQ35DE with a Vortech.   The best part about this car was the customer’s face after he came back from the test drive.  He had an ear to ear grin and kept saying to himself that he needed to be careful while he adjusted to the new power.  Awesome.

Another car that we have been plugging away at is a VERY SPECIAL 300zx Twin Turbo.  This car is pristine inside and out and out and has enough one-off modifications to make your pocket book wince.  The engine let go awhile back due to an ignition system failure and over the past few months we have been building the power plant that this car deserves.  The old engine made over 600 wheel horsepower and the new engine should make a decent improvement over that.

This car has so many cool little (and big) things about it that I wouldn’t be doing it justice to leave them out, so there will be more pictures, info, and dyno graphs once this phase of the project nears completion.  We can’t wait!

And last but certainly not least is the Red 280zx restoration….

The interior parts that we have been waiting to get back from the dye shop were picked up last week and they came out great!!  We are planning on clearing part of our week out to focus a generous amount of our attention on finishing this car for good.  As it goes together I’ll be adding pictures right here on ZCarBlog.

I’ve put two new cars up on the ‘For Sale’ page to help any of you in-need of a Z.  Now is a great time to look into a new (to you anyway) Z or G car  because driving season, and summer, are just around the corner.  Give them a  look!

350z Roadster Touring Edition

1977 280z

I have posted the ZCG G35 twin turbo in the For Sale section of the blog.  We are sad to see it go, but it is time to share the ZCG wealth with all of you.  We hope it goes to a great home.

I should also have a super clean 350z convertible up in the for sale section sometime tomorrow (Thurs.) so check back near the end of the day.

Fresh in from Japan are the five sets of Panasport 3 piece lightweight wheels that were ordered for the on-going RB project cars.  We are now one step closer to making all the cars rollers.  As you can see from the photos there are three black sets and two silver.  The craftsmanship and appearance are going to suit these highly modified 240Zs perfectly.

These wheels are ordered in a custom offset just for Z Car Garage and will allow us to fit as much as a 255/40/R17 tire without flaring the fenders.  With the large diameter of these wheels the cars will need to receive coilovers because the stock spring and strut combo intrude fairly deep into the wheel well, of course this will be getting done anyways to allow us to change the spring rate to best suit the new drive train and the owners requirements.

As soon as a tire choice is made and we get them mounted on a car you should expect to see some more pictures of these works of art.  There are some more pictures after the “read more.” Enjoy

…[read more]

Happy Monday to everyone!

Today we are putting the finishing touches on the 3.8L 350z with the GReddy twin turbo kit and I am getting very anxious to take that beast out on the road.  All that is really left is some fine tuning on the Haltech EMS.  On the initial rundown and test drive the fuel map turned out to be quite rich and needed a touch up in the mid-range.  Even with the rich condition, the car is very powerful and has immense amounts of low-end torque.  I don’t have any dyno figures yet because we are updating our Dynojet hardware to make sure that everything is as new as it can be to give our customers the best and most reliable results.  We’ll have to settle for street tuning until the new dyno tower arrives.

Also on the war path for today is the red 280ZX restoration car.  I’ll be picking up the newly dyed interior pieces a little later today and the car should really start flying together.  This project has been with us for a very long time and it’s going to be a little strange once it all comes together.  I washed it this morning and ended up standing there admiring all the work and time that we’ve put into it.  It’s really a special car and we can’t wait to deliver it to the owners.

I have a few more things to fill you in on so check back a bit later in the day!