The 44th Annual Concours D’ Elegance will take place once again at Stanford University in Palo Alto this Sunday, June 26. We had a blast at last year’s concours event. This year ZCarGarage will display several Datsuns to be part of the Japanese car exhibit. Vintage Japanese cars amidst all of the exotic and super-expensive machines on that beautiful Stanford lawn is not to be missed! Check pics from 2010’s event
Show info is located HERE

It is always great to hear stories from original Z-car owners. Joe A came to ZCarGarage to restore his 1974 260z after 36 years of ownership! He had become familiar with ZCG through our local club, ZONC.  After carefully inspecting the car, Rob and Joe sat down and discussed several procedures that would update and improve the car. They decided on a complete engine rebuild with tuned exhaust, and removing all smog devices since the car was over 35 years old.
Here are a few pictures of the engine bay after removing the drivetrain:

The engine was rebuilt with a mild cam and dyno results showed  nice gains of 23 rwhp and 13tq!

The engine bay and underhood had to look just as beautiful as the body so William painted everything back to the original exterior color. ZCG provided zinc plating and powdercoating services under the hood and all wiring harnesses were redone:

Here is Joe with a few words on how the Z became part of his life:

“It was January of 1969 and I had just been discharged from the Air Force. …[read more]

It brings me great joy to share this with you because it marks a major chapter in one of the most epic Z car builds I have witnessed.  ZCarGarage is building this Datsun 240z for Gary S and it is affectionately called the “Behemoth”. If you are not familiar with this project just click HERE for past updates on paint, suspension, drivetrain, brakes, etc.

The stroked RB28 drivetrain was mocked up and test fitted into Gary’s Behemoth. The engine now resides in Rob’s GoGreen 240z for break-in and tuning before going back to that lovely black engine bay:

Here are some quick videos I shot of the car in action. Turn up the volume, you won’t be disappointed! And if I may, please allow me to personally describe the music this motor makes. To me the sound is very distinctive and exotic. It is loud, nasty and ferocious on start-up and idle. It reminds me of a BRE 240z with those twice pipes cackling, only this RB28 sounds much deeper in tone. It totally contrasts with the smooth, buttery noise produced when cruising. Only Nissan inline-6s sound this way. And that turbo whistling as you roll into the throttle…absolutely intoxicating. When the car shuts down one can actually hear the turbo still spinning through the exhaust!
Enjoy!

…[read more]

This morning we drove to Infineon Raceway to participate in the “TurnZ” event hosted by ZONC. Weather was stormy but we made it up to the event five Z cars strong. Only a handful of Datsuns/Nissans were parked at Turn Z  and we were informed that other marques were also parking with us since their spots were too muddy. Rain in June…in the Bay Area…no comment 🙂

It was a great meeting Alex, owner of this ’68 2000 Datsun Roadster:
…[read more]

Scott S ran the GreenMachine at ButtonWillow Raceway 5/13/11 with Blacktrax. Here is some in-car footage from a friend’s Honda S2000. The blue S2000 being chased is supercharged with ~400rwhp!!!

Watch closely here at 5m50s it looks like Scott induces some fear or panic in the S2k driver 🙂

The Green Machine is still tearing it up on road courses throughout California!