After hearing the news that the ZCG 370z made some pretty nice power gains, a new customer came in and wanted to do the same for his blue 370z.  To up the ante a bit he also ordered a set of Berk high flow catalytic converters (HFC’s) to replace the stock units and hopefully make some more power, let’s find out.

We knew exactly what to expect from the install and everything went off without a hitch.  We obviously had to perform a few minor tweaks with the Stillen pieces just like we did on our shop car to get the fitment to be acceptable.  After all parts were installed the car was strapped to the dyno and we went about our business to get some numbers.  After all was said and done the car picked up 27whp and 14wtq for a total of 302whp and 247 ft/lbs of torque.  Which means the Berk HFC’s add roughly five to six horsepower when you compare the numbers of the ZCG 370 which goes without the HFC’s, for now….

The really nice thing about these simple bolt-on modifications is that the performance of the engine is increased over the entire power band.  I don’t know of anyone in their right mind who would turn these gains down for the price.  300+ whp with THREE bolt-ons, not too shabby for a couple hours work.

Special thanks to Ken at Roost Billet Products for making those killer ZCG plates for all of our show cars and cars without plates.  You rule Ken.

I tend to check my mail every second or third day on average but in this case I wish I had done it sooner.  Why, you ask?  Because my Monterey Festival of Speed tickets at Laguna Seca have arrived from the great people at the Z Owners of Northern California (ZONC).

The packet came with a three-day ticket to the event, a three-day Z Owners Corral parking pass, as well as a track map and directions.  All for $65!!!  What a deal!  But wait there’s more… on Sunday the entire Z Owners Corral is scheduled to do a parade lap around the full circuit.

I’m unsure if there are still spots available but it is very worth checking into over at ZONC.org.  I will post up any new info as well as a time to meet up if there is a convoy down to the track (probably leaving from Z Car Garage.)

Long Live the Z

Official website:  Monterey Festival of Speed

I want to start this post by saying that I don’t drag race very often and we only got in four runs.

I left the shop around 2:15pm on my solo tip to Sonoma.  I was hoping to get a better turn out of our customers and friends for the afternoon trip up to Infineon Raceway yesterday but hopefully there will be a better turn out next time.  The drive was overcast with a few sprinkles here and there but no serious rain on the horizon.

The hour and a half drive was fairly uneventful and I even pulled out the camera to take a picture as the 370 and I passed by the San Quintin State Prison on highway 580.  I pulled into the gate at Infineon around 3:45, paid my $25 racing fee (thanks to Rob for spotting me), and proceeded to wait in line for tech inspection.

The track staff, seeing that the car was brand new, waved me through without a fuss and I went directly into the “Street Performance” group’s staging lanes.  Apparently I have perfect timing because there was barely time to turn off the car and say hello to a few people before we were headed up to make our first runs.

I happened to be parked next to a ’71 2.4L turbo Datsun 510 for my first run so I was pretty excited (I own a turbo’d 510 myself, again thanks to Rob.)   I get to the water box to do my burnout and a second or two after the tires start spinning the car begins to wheel-hop pretty badly.  I cut the burnout short and roll to the lights.

Now here comes the part where you realize how little I drag race.  I’m saying out loud to myself, “Leave on the third yellow.”  I thought I did.  NOPE.  I launched the car at 5,000 rpm and I cut a .539 light.  Bummer.  The tires are cold from the crappy burnout and I leave the tree with the wheels spinning which again turns into wheel hop.  The tires spin pretty well on the shift into second again and I am on my way to turning a 14.672 @ 100.83mph.  At least this leaves plenty of room for improvement, right?

Well… our next runs would have to wait a bit because it did start to rain a bit for a total hold time of around 45min.  Now back to racing.

Over the next two runs I alter my burnout and launching techniques to get down to a 14.077 @ 101.28mph.  Now it’s time for eliminations.  At this point I am way more confident in launching the car and in my staging strategies so I dial in a 13.95 for the first round.  Now the problem is that I ended up lining up next to one of our good customers in his supercharged 350z.  This is bad for two reasons.  First, he has been drag racing for a long, long time.  Second, since we are racing each other, one of us is going to lose in the first round.

After a decent burnout, finally, we stage up and put the hammer down.  I cut a .158 light which isn’t too bad and I run through the top end with a 13.930 @ 100.45mph.  I ran faster than my dial-in time.

If you are new to bracket racing here is a very short tutorial.  You initially set a dial-in time of the fastest you think your car will run, mine was a 13.95.  The goal then is to get as close to that number as possible without going faster.  Sort-of like Price Is Right rules. If both racers go faster, or “break out”, then the person who goes over by the least wins.

So I broke out by .020 of a second which means that Walt had to go quite a bit quicker than his 12.95 dial in time to give me the victory.  He didn’t, but boy was is close!!  He ended up running a 12.933 at 104.28mph.  That means he was .003 closer to his dial in time than I was.  You really couldn’t ask for a better race.

I know that we will be going back to the Wednesday Night Drags as soon as we get a chance, and maybe someone with higher skills than yours truly will be doing the driving to make sure that we get the most out of the 370z, it should be good for low 13’s.  All I want is another piece of Walt and that supercharged 350z.

Enjoy the pictures below and click the read more for the full gallery.  Unfotunately none of the videos I took of the Zs turned out well but I will try to scan the time slips so that everyone can have a chuckle at my expense.

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We will be heading up to Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, CA tomorrow May 6th for their seasonal Wednesday Night Drags series.  This will be the first trip to the strip for our car and we are very interested to see what sort of time slips it will turn out.

We will be running the car with all the current intake and exhaust modifications so this won’t be an actual “baseline” run.  As of right now I think that we will be running the standard street tires instead of any sort of drag radial which we do have if the time comes.  If we decide to run the drag radials I will make note of it when the final times are posted.

The gates open at Infineon around 3:30pm so I will be leaving the shop around 2pm or so, feel free to join me for the drive up if you plan to attend.  We hope that some of you are able to make it out to the event and see what your car, and the ZCG 370z, can do.  This is a good time with some really cool cars.  There is some more information from the Infineon website below.  Check it out.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT DRAGS

This is a two part series because we attended two different shows on the same trip.  I simply have too many pictures for one huge post.  This first installment includes the drive from Z Car Garage in San Jose, CA to Solvang, CA where the annual Roadster show is held.

This year we decided to take our new 370z on it’s first road trip along with the recently completed 1982 Datsun 280zx 2+2 non-turbo restoration car.  Both cars were still receiving their finishing touches right before the trip so we were anxious to get them on the road to see how they would perform.  The ZCG 370z had taken on some massive changes in an effort to enter it in the Modified 370z class at MSA, all of the modifications can be found HERE.  The 280zx restoration is a completely different story.  This is a car that has been taken back to completely stock in almost every area and better than stock in all the others, and it was up to me to get it through the weekend in one piece and maybe even bring home a trophy for the owners.

We left the shop pretty much right on time, strange for us, and got on our way with a group of six cars: the ZCG 370z, the 280zx restoration, two nicely modified 350Zs, and two 240Zs that have been shown love in all the right places.  Three old and three new, good to go.  The weather was perfect on the ride down and all the cars performed flawlessly all the way to Solvang.

A restored 1982 280zx 2+2 non-turbo isn’t what you would expect to take on a road trip of this sort, especially if you know anything about Z Car Garage.  We love turbos, torque, horsepower, high revs, and the smell of an uncorked exhaust on 100 octane.  This car is about none of those things.  First, the car is totally stock. Stock engine, stock suspension, stock brakes, everything.  So it goes without saying that it won’t be setting any sort of records around Nürburgring.  Second: Included in the stock parts list is a 3-speed automatic transmission, great.  This puts the (rev limited) max speed  of this car somewhere in the range of 105-110 mph, not that I could really tell at that point because the speedo is limited to 80.  How in the world am I going to keep up with all of these other modified cars.

In reality I had nothing to fear.  Everyone in our caravan was quite responsible on the way down and it allowed me to relax a little and enjoy breaking in the 280zx.  This car is a roadtripper’s dream!  It drives so comfortably that you have no trouble seeing why these cars were so popular when they came out, they truly were one of the nicest cars on the road.  On to Solvang.

The Solvang show is one of the largest gatherings of Datsun Roadsters in the country and you can always expect a few crazy innovations every year.  2009 was the year of the turbo’d Roadster.  There were turbos bolted onto everything from the stock U series engine all the way to the newest SR20DET engines out of S15 Silvias that were never even brought to the case.

Many of you know that Z Car Garage had a hand in restoring and modifying one of our good friend’s Roadsters and placing a modern SR20 engine in it some years ago.  I am happy to report that he once again brought home a 1st place trophy in the “Modified 1600” class.  Congrats Alvin!!!

The best of show honors went to the Michael Spreadbury built SR20DET monster of a car.  As always he and the Spriso crew have brought new technology and innovative engineering solutions to the Roadster world.  Nice job gentlemen.

Back to the trip…
After walking around the show for awhile and talking to some of you loyal readers we headed into town to grab some local grub.  Eye spy with my little eye a Nissan R32 GT-R, the real deal.  I walk up to the car and instantly recognize it as a car that I have seen at a few events in years past at Laguna Seca.  We take pictures and move on with a smile after seeing a beautiful GT-R.  Next on our rare car sightings list is a late fifties Ford Fairlane with the RARE “Skyliner” retractable hardtop option.  The owner was even nice enough to put it trough its paces for us.  Very cool, and the engineering alone is worth the price of admission.

We then gather our group of now four cars, the 240Zs were going to stay awhile longer, and we get on the road towards LA and our hotel for the night.   MSA 2009 is waiting for us on the other side of dawn….

Part 2 is coming soon….  click on the ‘read more’ below to see all of the pictures.

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