We all knew it was bound to happen and I’m happy to announce that as of last Thursday Z Car Garage has an official ZCG 370z.  The car is going to be used as a platform to show everything we offer for the latest Nissan Z.  We will be bringing the car to all upcoming Z events and as many other shows as we can get to, and don’t think for a minute that we aren’t going to put the hammer down on the track!!

We decided on “Solid Red” to make the car stand out in the sea of bland colored vehicles and to let everyone know as soon as they see it that THIS IS THE ZCG 370z.  As you can see from the photos we can’t ever leave a car alone.  Our crew immediately added a set of stock R35 GT-R wheels to our car to set it apart from all the others while we wait on building a custom set of wheels.  We have so many amazing plans for this car and we can’t wait to share it with all of you!  Can you tell that I’m excited!?

ZCG took control of the car with 150 miles on the odometer and it is close to 350mi already, and yes we have already had the car on our dyno.  The car will be dyno’d every few hundred miles so that we can monitor how the engine is loosening up.  You can see the attached dyno sheet for the for the power curves but we are happy with the base numbers of 272 rwhp and and 233 rwtq.  I realize that the car isn’t broken in yet but it was good to get some super early baseline numbers to see what we are working with from the factory.

We have plans to offer the 370z community ZCG exclusive modifications and performance parts in the near future and are really excited to begin work on this new project.  More updates will be here at ZCarBlog as they happen!

There are more photos after the ‘read more.’  Enjoy!

…[read more]

A week or so ago we received a shipment of parts for the RB28 240z from the car’s owner.  We have become accustomed to him bringing in parts that are top quality, but this time he’s taken it a step further.

This “care package” included fully adjustable, billet control arms for the front and rear, adjustable tension rods, billet bump-steer spacers, new front turn signals and wiring, and a super trick power window set up.  The new power windows feature switchgear that looks like the factory window crank but it is really just a large switch, pull up on the crank, window goes up, push it down, the window goes down.  Sweet.

The new rear suspension is fully adjustable in every way imaginable with heim joints at every pivot point to relieve any binding or slop that standard bushings are subject to.  It also features an extra beefy set of rear sway bar mounts that have been machined out of aluminum as well.  Top notch parts for a top quality car.

I will be headed to William’s Autobody to take some more pictures of the car while it is going through the paint process early next week.  Soon the car will be back at ZCG and then the fun begins.  More updates soon friends.

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 just got back from William’s Autobody where I was taking pictures of the interior work that is taking place right now.  All of the sound deadening has been removed as were all unnecessary brackets and other parts.  Stripping the car is a very tedious process and most of it must be done by hand to guarantee that nothing important gets damaged.

As you can see the car has been extremely well taken care of throughout its life as there appears to be no patches or any signs of rust in the tub.   A good starting point is crucial in a build like this RB28 car and it’s becoming hard to find cars as clean as this one, especially without paying a hefty price up front.

The next step after this striping stage is a smoothing process to make the floors and interior appear more uniform.  This is followed by a few coats of primer and finally a deep black to match the rest of this amazing car.  Rest assured that I will be back to take more pictures of the car as soon as more is completed.

Rob just got back from William’s Auto Body (check his site out and support one of our own) where the car is getting painted and all of our jaws dropped when we saw the pictures he took, and he says it looks even better in person!!  When you look at the photos it almost seems as if the inner fenders have been sent to a chrome shop.  This is where the many hours of tedious preparation show and pay off.

The engine bay is all that is painted for now, but the finished shell is just on the horizon and we can’t wait to get it back to the shop and begin the mechanical work!  I will have some pictures for the blog when the next coats go on so stay tuned.  Have a great weekend.

Oh yeah!  There are a few more photos after the ‘read more.’

…[read more]