What a busy day here at ZCG.  We went to William’s Autobody around lunch today and took a few photos of the first exterior paintwork to be done to the RB28 240z.  The paint looks amazing and there are still more coats to go with tons of color sanding in between to make sure the finish is perfect.  I’ll have more photos soon!

Rob and I were also out driving the ZCG 370z and a white 240z that is here to get triple Mikunis (see above photo) and we decided to stop by the scales and weigh the newly acquired 370z.  The car tipped the scales at 3,320 lbs with no passengers and almost a full tank of gas.  Not too shabby.  (For reference the ZCG G35 Twin Turbo came in at 3,600 lbs.)

More to come tomorrow.  Long Live the Z

Photos of this horrendous Nissan/Lamborghini conversion were on the first page over on the Jalopnik blog this morning and I had to share it with all of you.  It made Rob (owner of ZCG) speechless for a few seconds before breaking into tears.

We’ve all seen terrible body kits in the past but this is taking it to a whole other level.  I’m going to let the pictures speak for themselves from this point on because I’m afraid this cars is going to affect me negatively if I keep writing.  Please DO NOT enjoy…

I was pointed towards a link on the Edmund’s Straightline Blog the other day that gives us a view into one of the 370z designer’s mind.  Randy Rodriguez penned the original 370z sketch and it turns out that he grabbed some inspiration from a few exotic Italian motorcycles.

While the 370z was in it’s early design phase Randy was piecing together a MV Agusta F4-750 and it is easy to see how one beautiful two-wheeled machine was able to lend a few design cues to a four-wheeled one.  There were also influences from a Ducati 749/999 upper triple clamp that was morphed into the final design of the sport-package wheel.  His MV Agusta motorcycle now sits behind his desk at Nissan Design America in San Diego when he isn’t out putting it through it’s paces.

Many of you know that we here at Z Car Garage ride motorcycles or have close ties to them and it is always nice to see our two passions come together in a car that we get to enjoy, the 370z.  In a side note, I’ve had the chance to own a few Ducatis and still own a 2006 749s, small world…

There are a couple more photos after the ‘read more’ including one of the Ducati 749s that I own.  Enjoy and thanks to Edmunds Insideline for the Nissan info and a few of the photos.

…[read more]

Here are the results from this morning’s plenum swap.  The results are… ummm… about what we expected.

This car is a 02/06 350z with an automatic transmission.  There is an extensive list of aftermarket components on this car ranging from a carbon fiber diffuser to a custom painted roll cage, but this post has nothing to do with any of these mods, it is about the before and after dyno numbers.

The plenum install went off without a hitch and the car was back on the dyno in no time.  This mod was a straight plenum swap with no fuel or timing changes made (the owner did not want to install a Uni-Chip or other tuning hardware at this point.)

Run 003:  Stock Nissan Plenum (BLUE)
Run 005:  Cosworth Plenum (RED)

On to the dyno graph you can see that the Cosworth plenum LOST a healthy amount of horsepower and torque through the entire rev range except between 5,800-6,000 RPM where it gained two, yes two, horsepower.  The design of the plenum just doesn’t seem to work on lightly modified normally aspirated cars.  Unfortunately this is a loss that will really be felt when driving the car.  This plenum is so beautiful that we really wanted to make a ton of power with it so that we could improve the looks and performance of the engine.  At this point I would find it really hard to recommend this to a customer.

Mind you that this is the first normally aspirated car that we have installed the Cosworth on.  My full post with all of the boosted car tests is still to come this week.  That post will include all of the dyno results and all other pertinent test data.  Very, very interesting….

We are working are a few updates this week for all of you Z-car fans:

Behemoth RB28 240z: I went to William’s Autobody on Monday and saw the progress on this car and i was amazed.  The entire interior of the car has been painted gloss black to match the under hood and exterior.  As of yesterday the exterior paintwork has begun and I will be headed up there to check out the progress.  I will have photos up by tomorrow evening.

Cosworth Plenums: I’m still gathering more information for this post to make it as accurate as possible.  We will be installing one on another customer’s car today and I should have some dyno numbers and graphs by tomorrow.

240z Upgrades: We are doing work on a 240z here that is currently equipped with an odd dual down-draft Weber carburetor setup and will be swapped over to triple 44mm Mikuni carbs.  We are also installing a Motorsport Auto 6-into-1 ceramic coated header.  These modifications will remove all of the performance robbing SMOG equipment and will also enhance the engine appearance greatly.  The baseline dyno showed that this car has a really strong torque curve and we will be hoping to keep that intact while bringing the horsepower up to match it.  I should have the final numbers and photos by the end of the week.

Hot Import Nights in San Mateo: There is an import and tuner show in the bay area this Saturday night from 5pm-11pm at the San Mateo County Event Center.  We were going to be showing off a couple of our cars but the show has sold out and we couldn’t pull any strings to get us in the event this time.  Come meet us at the show and check out what the aftermarket scene has to offer.

HIN San Mateo website

There are a few other things on our plate this week so check back soon.  Happy April FoolZZZZZZ.