I love seeing new concept cars.  This one especially peaked my interest because it is a Nissan product.  I’ve been sitting on these photos for some time as this car was released at the 2009 Geneva Auto Show.   Nissan is going to be taking the Infiniti brand name to Europe for the first time and was looking to make a splash with the “Essence” concept.

The drivetrain of the Essence concept is what intrigues me the most so far.  Power comes from a twin turbo’d, direct fuel injection, 3.7L V6 that has been paired with a newly designed electric motor called the ‘3D Motor.’

Infiniti press release excerpt:

Essence previews a new type of electric motor, called 3D Motor, that was designed to meet tough requirements on size and power output. The result is a particularly slim, disk-shaped motor that has twice the torque of a conventional unit. Its design was achieved by 3D magnetic field analysis to optimize the layout of the electromagnetic coils and permanent magnets.

In Essence, the motor is positioned between the engine and transmission and provides 160PS (158bhp), drawing power from a compact lithium-ion battery pack in the boot area. Because the 3D Motor operates in both propulsion and power regeneration modes, the battery pack is kept charged up.

With the 3D Motor putting out 158hp, and the 3.7L V6 putting out 434hp, the Essence nears the 600hp mark at the crankshaft.  I’ll take two please.

The exterior design is that of a very liquid and flowing 2 door coupe/hatch.  I can’t help but think that there is some sort of homage paid to the early Z Car with the sloping hatch and C-pillar design, call me crazy.  In the end I really like the design and execution of the Essence and I wouldn’t be surprised if we started to see some of this technology and a few of these design cues in forth-coming Infiniti models.  Traditionalists may not approve, Rob, but that’s why it’s a concept.

I would like to thank Autoblog.com for the photos and some of the info on the Essence concept.  If you would like to read the entire press release make sure that you click the link below to the Autoblog post.

Autoblog.com Infiniti Essence Concept post

It’s Tuesday here at Z Car Garage (and everywhere I guess) and we have another busy day ahead of us.  We are still working on getting some ‘real world’ results on the Cosworth plenum and the full results post will be up in a couple of days once we finish testing and tuning on the dyno.  So far the results have been interesting…

We were able to do a small amount of testing with the new Cosworth plenum at the end of the day on friday and we were showing some nice gains.  Now we are back on the dyno and will be swapping the plenum around to a few cars to see how it performs with different modifications.

Cars to be tested today:

2003 350z: Stock engine, aftermarket cams,  APS Twin Turbo

2005 G35:  Built Engine and APS Twin Turbo

2003 G35:  Stock engine, JWT cams, APS Twin Turbo (ZCG G35)

2005 350z: Stock engine, Vortech supercharger

Testing later this week:

2005 G35: Stock engine, JWT Twin Turbo

All of these cars have other modifications (exhaust, cams, etc.) that will be gone over when I post the full Cosworth report here on ZCarBlog.com.  More good things are coming friends…. Happy Monday

Christmas came to Z Car Garage today as we finally received a pair of the much-anticipated Cosworth plenums.  The new design was created to maximize air flow and to make sure that it is distributed to each cylinder as efficiently and evenly as possible. For right now they are made to fit the VQ35DE, non Rev-Up and Rev-Up, engines.  I’ve been told that there is no plan to build a system for the VQxxHR engines yet.

The main body is made of cast aluminum with machined gasket surfaces for a quality seal and partially machined runners for improved flow.  As you can see form the pictures there are two carbon fiber end caps, one on each side of the manifold, to direct incoming air into the boldly pronounced air horns which lead down to the cylinder heads.  These carbon caps are extremely thick and look to be able to stand up to the abuse that any boosted VQ engine can put out.  They are a far cry from the thin, and almost flimsy, original caps that we saw at SEMA in 2007, could this redesign be part of the 16 month delivery delay?

We will be fitting the two plenums that we received on to a pair of turbocharged G35’s by next week, one with a stock VQ35 engine and a JWT (Jim Wolf Technologies) twin turbo kit and the other on a fully built engine with an APS twin turbo system.  I will have more photos and installation impressions by early next week as well as dyno numbers as soon as we get them fitted to the cars.  Maybe the ZCG G35 will be getting one as well…..  Have a great weekend!!

If you are interested in purchasing a new Cosworth plenum please contact Rob Fuller through email at Rob@zcargarage.com

For those who purchase locally there is even a chance that you could see your car’s dyno results right here on ZCarBlog.com

A week or so ago we received a shipment of parts for the RB28 240z from the car’s owner.  We have become accustomed to him bringing in parts that are top quality, but this time he’s taken it a step further.

This “care package” included fully adjustable, billet control arms for the front and rear, adjustable tension rods, billet bump-steer spacers, new front turn signals and wiring, and a super trick power window set up.  The new power windows feature switchgear that looks like the factory window crank but it is really just a large switch, pull up on the crank, window goes up, push it down, the window goes down.  Sweet.

The new rear suspension is fully adjustable in every way imaginable with heim joints at every pivot point to relieve any binding or slop that standard bushings are subject to.  It also features an extra beefy set of rear sway bar mounts that have been machined out of aluminum as well.  Top notch parts for a top quality car.

I will be headed to William’s Autobody to take some more pictures of the car while it is going through the paint process early next week.  Soon the car will be back at ZCG and then the fun begins.  More updates soon friends.