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My Own Z Surpases 300 WHP...Details Inside!


Adam@Z1auto.com

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Not to dig up old bones but anyone find removes comments to my brother a bit patronizing? :dry: Perhaps just me being a tad sensitive, removes not here to defend so erm.. I wont say anymore :blush:

 

Thats why he's been 'removed' :yahoo:

 

Not really. He's "removed" because he left of his own accord and asked that his personal details were removed from the site.

 

Jumped before he was pushed :D

 

Sarnie,think you will find that your above comment is entirely incorrect, it was entirely Val's decision to leave which we (the admin/mod team) respected :)

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Not to dig up old bones but anyone find removes comments to my brother a bit patronizing? :dry: Perhaps just me being a tad sensitive, removes not here to defend so erm.. I wont say anymore :blush:

 

Thats why he's been 'removed' :yahoo:

 

Not really. He's "removed" because he left of his own accord and asked that his personal details were removed from the site.

 

Jumped before he was pushed :D

 

Sarnie,think you will find that your above comment is entirely incorrect, it was entirely Val's decision to leave which we (the admin/mod team) respected :)

 

Which means my comment is entirely correct. I agreed that he left of his own free will (jumped) :)

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Well said that man.

 

Anyone can follow a crowd but outside the box thinking and choosing mods because YOU want them created this build. Very sweet build I might add.

 

:teeth:

Jay - did you read this? :lol:

 

Cheeky sod, Adam is definatly one to have an individual approach and pulls it off well B)

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we've got some new stuff power stuff planned soon :) Stay tuned!!!

 

In the meantime it was time for an interior makeover

 

1. replace the Kenwood DDX7015 with McIntosh MC406 headunit

2. replace McIntosh MC431 with MCC406M amp

3. new seats!

4. custom alcantera work for certain key interior spots (more on this in pics to come)

5. McIntosh sub bass controller (in the coolest spot ever!)

6. Sirius tuner mounted in factory cubby (my car has no nav) with stealth mounted antennea

7. drill out factory grilles and re-wrap in windsong

 

The red stitching on the seats/knob, etc helps bring out the red stitching in my steering wheel. A new look for 2008 that is much cleaner than previous, and I absolutely love it! I wish the car had come this way to begin with.

 

I haven't snapped any really good pics yet as the weather has been miserable, but this gives you an idea.

 

20060421171825.jpg

 

adamnewpicsfeb11002sm.jpg

 

here you can see the volume knob for the sub:

 

adamnewpicsfeb11door.jpg

 

We used the spot normally used for the power mirror switch. But since I haven't had power mirrors in about 2.5 years (thanks to the Craftsquares), this was really the ideal spot. Very stealth, but very easy to get to without having to take your eyes off the road.

 

The new amp let me convert to a full active front stage vs passive which I had before. The result is absolutely staggering!!! I think what I am happy most with is the headunit. Absolutely no frills at all. No LCD screen, just pure audio goodness :) I first fell in love with the headunit in our other Z (belongs to one of our employees) and I'm really happy to have one myself.

 

 

Here is the picture of the headunit as installed in our other Z (2003 - this is the car we're doing the stroker motor, Ohlins coilovers, etc to)

 

DSCN1367.jpg

 

I didn't get the optional meter module shown above, so now in my car I have a nice little cubby underneath the headunit.

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Nice great adam :teeth:, I was thinking about doing almost the same and now you have done it I will. Couple of Q's for you!

 

Did you get Recaro sliders / frames or did you need to fabricate?

 

I take it the Gear and Handbrake was custom work. Can you get the guys to do the same to ship? And the arm rests!!

 

Looking forward to more pics.

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thanks!

 

I used Bride bases and sliders that we carry that are specifically made for Recaro seats

 

As for the alcantera bits, it was done on my car (ie he took my existing ebrake, arm rests and shift knob (which is out of a Mazdaspeed Miata) and rewrapped/restiched them. I thought about selling them as a service but I think it would be too much effort to deal with relative to the price, but I am sure any good interior specialist can do it. The person that did mine does lots of work on very high end cars, which is why I sought him out. I figured if he can make custom parts for a Lambo/Ferrari, Aston and the like, my Z should be in good hands!

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  • 1 month later...

its been awhile guys, so just some quick updates :)

 

The other night I installed the gauge cluster (speedometer, tach, etc) from a 2008 model. Since my current redline is 8400 and the 03-06 tachs only go to 8000...you can see I had a problem lol. The 07 + cars read to 9000 rpm though, so all is right with the world.

 

We're also working on a 2 new things in house that hopefully will prove worthwhile to those looking for all out NA setups. I don't want to give up any details till we have it all finalized and tuned with backup data, but suffice it to say if they work, it will be awesome!

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  • 4 weeks later...

bit of news to report from last weekend

 

Last weekend I had some free time, so I paid Jermaine at Turbo XS a visit down in Maryland. An uneventful 4 hour drive down...car gets the same gas mileage as it did when new (and unmolested), and was just a pleasure to drive down. Good music, and nice weather with a long distance drive = fun

 

Anyway, got there around 2 PM last Saturday, strapped the car down and made a baseline....306 whp. I have not touched the tune at all since it was done last July (when it made 303.9 whp). The only thing that has changed is I'm now on synthetic oil (20w50 Royal Purple XPR per my engine builders recommendation), and about 6000 miles on the motor total to date (motor had 900 miles on it the first time I dyno'd last summer). Anyway, Jermaine started playing with the tune a bit, and found I was quite rich up top (more than it needed to be). Played with the fuel and timing curves a bit, and cleaned it up nicely. My net result for the day was 320 whp (insert big grin!) Any way you slice it, a 14 whp gain in a given day from just further tuning, on an NA car, is a worthwhile trip in my book! Jermaine would know how many pulls we did in total (maybe 30?), but we didn't really take many breaks to let the car cool, which is another good indicator of real world conditions (plus its not an FI car, so the heat soak issue is not nearly as apparant). I had really looked forward to playing with the timing at this session, but it didn't prove worthwhile. Next time I promise to get some race gas ahead of time just to play around and see if the combo of the gas and increased timing nets any result. I was also hoping to have a Cosworth intake manifold to try too, but we know how that goes.....still no idea when they are coming back in. Oh well.

 

Afterwards we drove the car around a bit on the local roads to fine tune everything, and it pulled like a champ. Noticeably improved pull from ~4500 and up to redline (8400) without any loss in the bottom end...the car just pulls from 2k onwards hard! I don't have the scans, Jermaine probably does, so I'll post them whenever I get them. Torque didn't change from the original tune and is still right around 248-250 at the wheels. After we were all done, we grabbed some really good, authentic Mexican food at a local place, and I hit the hotel for some much needed rest around midnight. Next morning, woke up around 6 AM, got some breakfast, and started the long drive home. By the time I got home on Sunday and brought the car back to the shop, I was completely wiped out. But, it was good practice for the drive down to ZDayz in 2 weeks! All runs were done on std. 93 octane pump fuel.

 

I've got some things in the works that we'll be doing very soon. My main goal right now is trying to further improve the top end peak of the car (I want solid GT3 level power, which I am closer to now), and most significantly, to improve the torque. Right now I am about 10 whp away from where I wanted to be when I started the project, so I'm really pleased with the results overall. I know one thing I will be playing with is some new headers, some hopefully in the next 3-4 weeks, we can get some time to have some new ones fabbed up, and see what we get! I'm thinking long tubes, with a nice merge collector. I also want to put a single cat into the Y pipe, because the smell from the test pipes is just too much for me. I've also got some plans to change things on the intake side of things as well, but more on that at a later date.

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very nice write up Adam, i wonder how much $$$$$ you have put into this project ??? :D

 

Paul

I dont think he wants to though :headhurt:

 

Would love to have a test drive in this beast. I get the feeling it keeps the real soul of the Zed, unlike the big turbo/SC kits.

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I never really go into a project car with a budget in mind. I do the research, align with the right people. If the results prove worthwhile, I don't mind spending the money on it, but it's always a balancing act between real life and cars. The car was fine stock, so I didn't need to do anything to it. But where it is now is a totally different level, yet completely retains the original character of the stock car. I also was careful to make every aspect of the car better than it was when new - there is not a thing I have not changed at this point :) But to be fair, these changes were done over the coarse of a fairly long time (since 2003)...it's a marathon, not a sprint for me, as I completely love the car

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wonder how it will fair up against the new skyline GTR 09?

 

i can either spend $$$$ on improving my 03 Z or wait and spend it on the new 09 Skyline GTR.. hmmm

 

Adam..Just wondering if u might be planning to get one and play about with it? Was just looking at it the other day..looks bit like combo of the Z and old skylines together but with 400+ hp standard..

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wonder how it will fair up against the new skyline GTR 09?

 

i can either spend $$$$ on improving my 03 Z or wait and spend it on the new 09 Skyline GTR.. hmmm

 

Adam..Just wondering if u might be planning to get one and play about with it? Was just looking at it the other day..looks bit like combo of the Z and old skylines together but with 400+ hp standard..

 

not even close to the new GTR - few cars are. So far, we don't have plans to get a GTR at least this year - perhaps next

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Love the idea of keeping it NA Adam B) I would much rather do that than the turbo route.

The jealousy is made ten times worse by the fact that the Z is so hard to tune without spending mega-bucks!

 

Maybe one day.... :D

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