I just found this over on the ZELE site and I’m in love.  It looks like they are offering a real life kit of a G37/V36 Skyline that Polyphony Digital designed for the highly anticipated Gran Turismo 5 racing simulator.  This kit combined with the Volk TE37 G2 wheel just hits so hard.  Looks like I need to start saving for a G37.

Happy Friday and look for another post before the end of the day, we are crazy busy here at the shop.

Link: ZELE Performance G37/V36 Gran Turismo Edition

This GT-R came into the shop back in January to get a lower stance by way of an Eibach Springs Pro-Kit.  That post can be found HERE.

Last week it came back to us to receive it’s first engine related upgrade, a new HKS mid-pipe that removes the secondary cats from the system.  This upgrade has been shown to pick up a few horsepower by way of less exhaust restriction but the best part about this change in my opinion is the few extra decibels that the VR38DETT makes now.  Sometimes the ear dyno can be more rewarding than the butt dyno.  A nice upgrade for a super-clean car.  I’m not sure what else the owner has in mind for his GT-R but if we do the work you better believe it will be up here on ZCarBlog.

As a side note, the owner of this car recently got rid of his highly modified Mitsubishi Evo VIII in favor of a new Nissan 370z!  Way to keep it in the family.  I’ll try to see if I can get a few pictures of both cars.  Happy Wednesday.

There are a couple more photos after the ‘read more.’

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Like I said earlier, this was a great event.  Let’s start from the beginning.

I had picked up the ZCG 370z from the shop on Friday night so that I could have it all packed and ready to go in the morning and maybe sneak in a few extra minutes of sleep.  Fail.  I had forgotten the camera and the spare battery at the shop.  I needed to be in Saratoga to pick up my friend Torey by 6:45am so I was at the shop by 6:15ish grabbing the required gear.  Off to a good start.

We are on the road to Sacramento by 7:00 and are making amazing time to the meeting point at a Panera bread location near the arena.  Even with stopping for gas, and breakfast at Jack-in-the-box, we arrived fifteen minutes early for the suggested 9:00 meeting time.  I was happy to see that there were already a few cars there including the two 370Zs of Curtis and Hal who had a major hand in setting up this drive.

Five or ten minutes after we arrived Zs were flowing in steadily and Roy even showed up in his GT-R.  Sweet.  I was also really excited to see Chris joining the group in his 1973 240z that we recently put new carburetors and an exhaust system on.  I love seeing the old cars being driven as much as the new ones.   After mingling for a short while were given the usual safety briefing and a rundown of the days schedule.  Then it was off to the cars for the fun part, driving.

Being able to drive the ZCG 370z on an event like this is just about as good as it gets.  This car has just about everything that you could want from a modern sports car.  Go buy one, seriously.

After driving for about an hour and a half we stopped at a small place called the Western Pacific Brewery in Oroville for lunch.  It is located directly on the tracks that run through town and it was pretty cool to see the train come through a few times during our meal.  We also met up with a few other Z Car owners here, two 240Zs and a Z32 twin turbo bringing our total to around twenty cars.

Once we were back on the in the cars we headed out of Oroville and onto the scenic and winding back roads of Highway 70.  We started out high in the hills and made our way down some very steep grades with HUGE drop-offs that lead to the canyons that were carved out by the Feather River.  There are all sort of neat bridges and tunnels along this stretch and we made the best of it by stopping for pictures fairly often.  By we I mean the two cars of Curtis and I, we would make sure to get ahead of the group on certain parts of the trip so that we could pull over and setup for photo opportunities.  I know that he took some amazing shots which I will have for you later this week.

After driving on these great canyon roads for a couple of hours we came out into a quaint little town that I think was Quincy, CA (please correct me if I’m wrong here) to fill up gas tanks and drain others.  We pretty much took over the Chevron station that we stopped at, I guess a group like this would make a scene anywhere we would go, haha.  Okay back on the road.

Driving through this town really reminded me of when I was younger and driving through the central parts of Wisconsin, it really had that sort of comfortable feel to it.  Leaving town we began to notice that the ground was growing increasingly damp but we were all prepared to slow the pace down so there weren’t any real concerns there.  After another half-hour of driving we started to enter the open plains between the individual mountain peaks.  There were neat little farm houses with cattle all around here and blasting the Zs through here may have given the locals quite the afternoon wake-up call.

Now we are coming up to our final stop before the final push to Truckee and dinner.  We made the stop near Blairsden right where HWY 70 and 89 meet.  We choose this place because Roy and his beautiful GT-R were going to break off from our group and continue on to Reno instead of heading to Truckee.  The place we pulled over there was a cool old barn with a scenic mountain backdrop which made for some great photos.

After we said our goodbyes we continued on to Truckee and when we arrived around 5:00 we were treated with some good local BBQ.  It was nice to know that we really didn’t have to do anymore driving, well for me anyways.  Some of us had made plans to stay the night it the Truckee/Tahoe area but a good majority of the group was going to drive back home, talk about committed.

I was stuffed full of food and needed to wind down from all the driving so we said our thank yous and good byes and made a break for the door.  I was able to convince Chris with the 240z to stay at my place up there because Torey and I had already made plans to go out in the Cal/Neva area of North Lake Tahoe.  Good times.

The trip back down the mountain on Sunday was basically uneventful but I did make it all the way back to San Jose on just a half tank of gas.  Downhill fuel economy rules.  All in all it was an amazing trip and I can’t thank Curtis, Hal, and the entire ZONC organization enough for setting this up for us.  I’m looking forward to attending the next event and I hope to see more of you there!  Happy Z-ing

If the photos here don’t blow your skirt up then I would suggest that you make this drive, I’ll even go again!  Just let me know.

There is a full gallery after the ‘read more.’  Check it!

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I had an absolute blast with everyone on this trip.  The organization, the amazing roads, and the attitude of all who attended was top notch.  More events should be like this one.

I will have all the photos and a full report by sometime tomorrow.  I hope you all had a great weekend!

P.s. I’m in love with the 370z

Time flies when you work on awesome Z cars for a living. The ZONC sponsored cruise from Sacramento to Truckee is already here.  I have put down the keys to my usual shop car so that I can take out the ZCG 370z on this drive and I’m excited.  I will be picking up my co-pilot and then leaving the bay area around seven so if any of you see a red 370z on 680 or 80 towards Sac then it is a safe bet that it’s me.  Feel free to drive with.  See you out there!