I know… I know… Many of you have been waiting patiently to hear what has been going on with this 350z project car.  Now I am here to feed you a just a teaser of what is to come!   From the graph below you can see that the car made 500whp and almost 500wtq at 15lbs of boost on our terrible CA 91 octane fuel.  Remember that this car has a built automatic transmission, with a drive train loss of over 20%.   That puts the crank horsepower rating at or above 650hp!!!

If you are wondering why the car hasn’t made more all you need to do is consult the dyno graph again.  Just as the torque converter locks up the numbers seem to go flat.  This is because the car has a mere fifteen degrees of timing in it.  When fully tuned this car will run close to 18 or 19 degrees of total timing which will smooth out the graph and bring this engine to life!

REMEMBER THIS WAS JUST THE BASELINE RUN WITH THE NEW TURBO KIT

After more timing is added and the air fuel ratio is adjusted, we expect to see the graph continue to climb into the atmosphere.  Only time and tuning will tell, and for that you will have to wait just a little bit longer.  Drool away.

I’ve added a sale section (top, center) to the blog that will allow us to offer cars and other parts for sale to all of our readers.  I will post a message like this on the main page whenever I make a major addition or change to the items in the sale section.

Right now there are two cars for sale with more things to come!  If you would like more information on any items in the ‘for sale’ section or if you would like to post an item for sale contact Rob through rob@zcargarage.com.

FOR SALE

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

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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!

The 350z with the built 3.8L VQ, Cosworth cylinder heads, and GReddy twin turbos fired up on the very first try today.  This combination has a super meaty exhaust note that leads me to believe that it will make killer power once we get in on the dyno.  Next are going to modify the exhaust system before we do anything else to take full advantage of the quick spooling GReddy kit.  Currently the car is only running a custom set of 3″ down pipes and 3″ catalytic converters out of a Dodge Viper.  I should have more information on the exhaust sometime tomorrow.

The rest of the car was finished some time ago, so it is really nice for the power-plant portion to come to a close as well.  As far as the interior, the car already boasts the latest in audio technology with an awesome double-din head unit form Alpine with a removable hand held GPS unit that is self contained in the head unit when not on foot.  This 350Z also boasts a host of Defi gauges to keep tabs on the vital engine stats as well as a Tein EDFC unit to control the shock valving in the Type Flex coil-overs.

I will have more pictures and some dyno info in the next few days.  I will also have my first drive in the car with the new twin setup in the next day or two so I will report back with my impressions then.  Good talk.