David Q is a new customer and came to Z Car Garage for some bolt-ons on his 370z.  We installed a Berk cat-back exhaust:

 

Stillen intakes and Motordyne M370z intake manifold:

On the dyno the motor dyne intake increased mid to upper rev range torque:

With the Berk exhaust and UPREV tuning even more low and high rpm hp/tq gains were seen:

Final results of 308hp/263tq to the wheels are improvements of +6hp/18tq. More importantly than peak gains, check out the significant gains in hp/tq from 3krpm all the way to redline where the Z makes almost +25hp/tq!

10 years! Z Car Garage wants to thank you for your business and support with a party at the shop April 5, 2014. In addition to the open house we will have food, games and giveaways throughout the day. Bring the family and spread the word!

 

 

Interested in a fun cruise through beautiful backroads in March? ZONC fun runs are great and we have enjoyed running them many times. You can find more details on the official CruiseFlyer and also on the ZONC homepage.

SpeedSF/City Tech is hosting another great track day event at Buttonwillow March 15-16. They’re running the course counter-clockwise on Saturday and clockwise  on Sunday! The early bird rate is $225 for both days or $125 for one day. Register ASAP at SpeedSF.com.

This 1973 Datsun 240z has a colorful history. Despite being in the hands of several owners it always finds its way back to Z Car Garage. Rob has worked on this Z since moving here to California from Georgia in 1998. Bought new in Buffalo, New York, this Z was originally owned by a doctor named Bill L. Bill had to leave the country abruptly and wanted Rob to sell it for him. Christian C. was looking for a project 240z and purchased the car, bringing it back to ZCG for a bunch of work. We removed the 32/36 downdraft webers and added triple Mikuni’s and exhaust with nice results. Christian was then called to duty and moved to Korea. Current owner Paul G bought the Z and brought it back to us for more upgrades and maintenance, again!

 

Paul’s Z needed new clutch hydraulics and tranny fluid. A common wear item on these cars is the hole for the clevis pin to operate the clutch master cylinder. Over time the pin enlarges the hole making shifting difficult. We welded up the holes and re-drilled so the clutch pedal feels just the way it should. In the engine bay things keep getting better for this sweet inline-6. The standard Mikuni manifold wasn’t the ideal setup for flow when running the triple Mikunis so in anticipation for more power we installed a TWM manifold:

 

Here is the old Mikuni setup compared to the TWM:

 

With the new manifold in place we were ready to extract more power on the dyno, however there was a problem with Paul’s carb linkage making synchronization difficult. The traditional solution is to fix the rather intricate linkage system and move on but we thought why not simplify it? The Z’s carb linkage, like many old cars consists of several plastic pieces, caps, levers, arms and bell crank…all parts that fail or gain excess slop from repeated adjustment and years of abuse. Linkages do look cool (or complex) but a much more straightforward solution is to use a throttle cable.

 

We are stoked with this setup because it clears up the engine bay, makes throttle response more direct and tuning easier. We are especially proud of this mod because of its total reversibility…one can go back to the OEM linkage setup say for that concours restoration or car show.  No holes are drilled. Win-win! More pics of the single throttle setup:

 

With the carbs sync’d we dyno tuned with excellent mid-range gains and peak numbers of 152hp/172tq to the wheels!

Paul we hope you like your new go-pedal and rest assured if you need more upgrades ZCG will be here to help!