Adam@Z1auto.com

white socks and sandals are a fashion faux pas I only rock black dress socks when wearing sandals - Miami Beach style

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!

lololololol at all the ribbing.....good everyone can take jabs at each other and not get their panties in wad as is the case here in the US I've GOT to get myself over to London this summer for sure...I could certainly use a few days of vacation, work has been madness (in a good way!) Hmm.....F1 @ Silverstone in July right? How about it guys?

looks fantastic!

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. here you can see the volume knob for the sub: 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) I didn't get the optional meter module shown above, so now in my car I have a nice little cubby underneath the headunit.

nothing new to report yet. The first/next time we post about the car is once it's all completed. We have many months of work to do to it before its ready still.

But what fun is that? Everyone and their brother here has a turbonetics kit on the car. It is not an out of the box install, as there are other parts needed to make it work properly, and a mailorder reflash is not my idea of "state of the art tuning". I see single turbo and Vortech cars every day....to me they are boring. No real thought goes into them, its just bolt on this and that and have a go. I've been doing this so long that I want to learn something when I do a new build for myself...this car has taught me a ton as its the first NA build I've ever done for myself (all previous cars I've built to this level were turbo). And while all those others have to make due with a std. 6800 rpm redline in order to keep their bottom end together, I've got an extra 1200-1600 of rpm to play with (depending where I shift)...where the car actually makes power I've run against a few local cars with the Vortech and the Turbonetics. Between my gearing, and broad power band, I can easily hang with a 400 whp Z. If I want to play with the bigger boys, I need to only grab the keys to my Datsun Sure, I've got tons of parts on the shelf I could just install....I could have just as easily gone to a Greddy kit with a stroker and had 600 + whp as well. But, to me, big power numbers were not what was important. This Z is not my only "toy". My whole goal from the beginning was to make a well rounded, reliable daily driven car that made good power, with a massive power band, and all the creative comforts I wish it had from the factory. I didn't want to be working on it everyday, I wanted to build it and enjoy it. I'd venture to say that while there are plenty of Z's posting bigger hp numbers, there are few, if any cars that are so absolutely well rounded in all aspects of their build. The road it was filmed on was deserted..it was shot on Thanksgiving here so no traffic

endlinks are a known issue on these cars, but tends to reveal itself on cars that see lots of rough roads and have aftermarket sways fitted. However, we have seen them on some nearly stock cars around here as well. It's a bit of a hard thing thing to diagnose, but it usually manifests itself over uneven pavement at lower speeds. If you hear any knocking coming from underneath the car (almost a popping noise), then there is a good liklihood its a faulty endlink. We offer a really strong and beefy replacement set, though we're currently out of them (more are arriving soon though) I had this exact issue on my own car, and it drove me nuts till I figured it out. We had been looking for a quality set of replacement endlinks for a long time, even going so far as to starting CAD design work on our own. We tried all the various aftermarket sets out there (there are 3 or 4 companies that made them), and came across one firm from the US that had lots of motorsport experience behind them. We got a set and put them through their paces, and as a result, we ceased development work on our own and became the exclusive distributor for these new ones. The owner of the company that makes them for us has years of experience with Roush Racing here in the US, and all they make are linkage systems. These things are absolutely fantastic - true OEM quality, but with full adjustability. Here is a quick pic: description from our site: "We've all heard the complaints about the stock endlinks on the Z and G platform, especially when mated to aftermarket, stiffer swaybars. The stock links were designed around stock swaybars, on a stock height car. They are a simply dog bone design with a pivoting head, but over time they tend to get quite noisy, and slopping, causing unwanted movement of the bar, which reduces the effectiveness of the swaybars in the first place! How do you solve the issue? These Powergrid endlinks. They use OEM level components in a simple adjustable configuration. For those running lowered cars, wide wheels and tires, stiffer swaybars, coilovers, having the ability to adjust the endlink is invaluable. It allows you to safely and carefully adjust the handling characteristics of the car in a quick and easy fashion. These links allow for up to 50 degrees of articulation, meaning that their ability to deal with stiff sways, stiff springs, and various load chores are seamless. These links use a genuine THK ball link end joing. Each THK Ball Link is composed of a high-precision ball bearing, a die-cast holder, and a shank connected to the ball by a special welding method. Through a unique production process, the mirror surface of the ball bearing is copied onto the inner mounting surface for perfect contact between them, achieving outstanding wear resistance, exceedingly smooth motion, and high strength. Unlike the other, more common heim joint style units, these are fully sealed, never require greasing, and are completely water tight and dust tight. In addition, you never have to worry about these links developing noise issues down the road due to the design of their ball joint ends. The dual lock nuts on either end of the link means that the length of the link will not change over time, which can happen on other style endlinks which only use 1 lock nut. In addition, the other style links on the market are not sealed units, so dust, grime, sand, and moisture is ever present, and leads to increased NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) and limited articulation. If you want the absolute best swaybar endlink on the market for your Z and G, the search is over! " We've got more arriving end of this month or first week of March and still have sets that are not yet spoken for. We offer them in pair (front or rear) or in sets as well.

what type of style?

Thanks Adam Were they any good - quality and performance etc? I'm sure they were quite good, but at that price, none of our customers were even bold enough to try them

NISMO high flow cats were discontinued a long time ago - they were around $1200 US a pair (metal substrate)

Thats one thing I've never been accused of You gotta admit, your comment was a little vague. Are you saying you do or don't like it? take a guess

only partially true a lower gear knob gives a slight change to the throw because the lever is now shorter. A true short shift kit changes the actual fulcrum point. A proper short shift kit should not increase shifting effort at all....that is strictly due to the install of the shifter. You can even "tune" a stock shifter to go from butter smooth to absolutely impossible we've got our own that we developed over the course of the past 5 months, and I'll be posting details about it shortly!

V1 for the 2003-2005 cars come in urethane, frp and carbon. My experience is the frp and carbon fitment are about 85%-100%....it varies piece to piece I had the urethane on my own car for awhile and had no fitment issues at all

Hi Jamie - what material are you looking for it in? The ONLY one I can personally recommend is urethane. I had it on my car, looked great, fit great. The fiberglass and carbon ones are hit and miss in my experience as far as fitment

I think Sarnie was being too diplomatic in his comments.....

NISMO kit....several members here have it, we've sent over quite a bit

granted, but yours takes 4-5 weeks you said...ours takes 5-7 days

a genuine Greddy front lip is urethane, and is priced at $465US delivered to you

why so long?

just a point of correction, the ARC oil pan has no baffling to it...and quite honestly, doesn't need any, as the stock windage tray, and lower pan assembly is quite robust. I have the ARC pan on my car as well (came with the donor motor!)

we are a Stillen dealer, though it takes approximately 1 week to arrive from Stillen to us, then shipping from us to you (an additional week). They will not send it directly to you. Price would be $540.00 for cats + $30 inbound shipping from Stillen to our office, + $150 or so shipping from us to you. I've never used these so have no first hand experience, but their products are always very nicely made. May I refer you to the "." again or this ebay advert: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... =p3907.m32 no problem at all...you asked, I offered, simple as that we are an authorized Stillen dealer, but we do not stock any of their products here. I am sure if you look hard enough, you can find them even cheaper.

No good mate for my requirements - pipes are not mandrel bent. (sure they are good for other peoples needs though ) correct there are no bends whatsoever, it's a constant diameter series of piping welded together

we are a Stillen dealer, though it takes approximately 1 week to arrive from Stillen to us, then shipping from us to you (an additional week). They will not send it directly to you. Price would be $540.00 for cats + $30 inbound shipping from Stillen to our office, + $150 or so shipping from us to you. I've never used these so have no first hand experience, but their products are always very nicely made.

he's a sage! while on topic....what are the better Top Gear/Clarkson DVD's to buy? We don't get BBC on our cable television service here so I'm reduced to watching episodes on youtube, but I'd love to own some of the dvd's.