Hope everyone had a great July 4! It is great to see Datsun owners taking their cars out to shows and driving events. It is even better when you can be part of getting these cars back on the road so they can be driven 🙂 ZCarGarage restored this pretty 240z several years ago and the owner was kind enough to send this update. Congrats Andru!
Hello Rob,
This is Andru Peters from Lake City, MN (formerly of San Jose) whose 240Z
you restored back in 2003. I entered into a car show over the holidays and
took 2nd place in the class I entered in. Have attached a photo, trophy and
yours truly.
Dual at DeAnza annual autox
The 43rd annual Dual at DeAnza autox was held May 16th, 2010, at DeAnza college in Cupertino, CA. The Smitty Racing / Z Car Garage 350Z took 1st in the OSP class out of 13 cars, and 16th overall out of 242 cars. The 2003 Nissan 350Z was driven by Scott Smith. Complete results are posted here: Duel at DeAnza May16 Results 2010
NorCal UFO autox
Scott drove the Z to 1st in the OSP class and 4th overall out of 156 cars at the Northern California United 510 Owners Club (www.norcalufo.org) autocross held at The Marina Airfield on June 27th, 2010. Scott leads the OSP class for the year, and is currently in 3rd in PAX out of all the cars that routinely show up for the NorCal UFO autox series.
More and more Zs and Gs are showing up! Most recently, Tiffini Clark, the ZONC President, autox’d at this month’s event for her first time with Scott providing instruction. Tiffini piloted her 2006 350Z and dropped over 16s from her first run to her fourth and final run – way to go Tiffini!
The next NorCal UFO event at The Marina Airfield will be held on August 1st, 2010. We are trying to organize this event to include any ZoNC member that is interested in driving. Those interested can meet at Z Car Garage between 6:20 and 6:30 for a 6:30am departure, or meet us at The Marina Airfield by 8am. Entry details are here: NorCal UFO AutoX Event9 August 1
The skies were cloudy for the Z Car Garage 6th Anniversary Dyno Day and ZONC General Meeting, but that didn’t stop Z fans from gathering to help celebrate.
I live a couple of hours away and this was my first trip to the shop.
This is one cool place. The waiting room has hundreds of car magazines, Datsun and Nissan motorsport posters, plaques with magazine articles about many of Rob’s cars, and plenty of Z car memorabilia. My favorite is an original 240Z race car model kit in the original shrink wrapped box. I assembled one of these very kits over 35 years ago at the start of my love affair with Z cars (I still have the model). The waiting area is completely open to the main shop area. Customers get to see and hear the work taking place. Beyond the main area behind large windows is the dynamometer bay.
The place is CLEAN. It’s one of the cleanest, tidiest shops I’ve ever seen. Even the bathroom is nice.
The ZCG technicians – Fred, Joshua, Vlad and CJ – spent much of the day jockeying cars in and out of the dyno bay and lying on the floor to strap them down. Despite having to work, the guys seemed to be enjoying themselves. Dyno runs were only $40 in honor of the Z car’s 40th anniversary.
The car show in the parking lot was great and kept changing during the day.
Monday the 1st of February was an amazing day for a couple of reasons. For one, Fred of the ZCG crew turned 40. And secondly, Fred gave me the day off to play with the shop 370Z. The day started off at ZCG in the early morning hours where I met the other two cars in the pack, Scott with his Z33 and Gia with his Nismo edition Z34. We drove down to Laguna Seca to start our track adventures for the day. Once we arrived at Laguna Seca we prepped our Z’s with numbers and a double check of our wheel torques. After a brief driver’s meeting, we were off to drive our first session. It’s been a while since I have been able to go to the track and hone my skill set. Years ago, before ZCG, going to the track was a regular event in my life. Driving on the track with Scott really made me appreciate the value of seat time. Scott’s many track days and autocrosses have paid off and he and his Z33 looked great out there. A few days prior to the event, we fitted Gia’s Nismo edition Z34 with a test ZCG oil cooler and some upgraded front brake pads. The oil temps were in range for moving forward with our next round of testing. The brakes, on the other hand, weren’t able to keep up with Gia’s driving style. I have shared my data with Stoptech and they say help is on the way in the form of a pad that should help us on the street and allow us to push the limits at the track. Once Gia’s Z34 brakes were unable to continue, we double teamed the ZCG Z34 with back to back sessions. During these sessions, we were able to keep our oil temperature under control with the help of the ZCG oil cooler. The highest oil temps were in the 250F range. For those of you just tuning in, this is the 3rd test version of our oil cooler. We feel after the next set of tests that we will be able to serve the Z community with a product that will allow you to keep your Z’s oil temps within reason and out of the famous limp mode. We will be returning to Laguna Seca on February 25th to complete the shake-down on our latest mods. The track organization we are running with is NCRC, nice guys with great organization which leads to lots of track time.
These days, it seems like everyone has a Facebook page. This amazing media allows us to catch up with old friends, keep current on new ones, and update the world on what we might be doing at the moment. ZCG wants to keep you in the loop on our status of helping spread the Z car gospel. Please click on the icon below to check out the Z Car Garage Facebook page.
The next part of our “two for” post comes from our friends at Auszcar.com.They did a nice write up on my 1970 240Z. The website is full of cool photos and write ups of various Z car projects. Bookmark them in your favorites and keep checking back on what’s happening in the land down under.
