My 350z N/A build - Photojournal

[spitalul2bad]

Finally, my mods have arrived (shipping took forever), and I have enough free time and cash to get them bolted onto the car. The build started today and the car is still in the shop because we got into trouble when changing the headers and it will take another work day to finish it all.

Here's the modifications I bought:

Injen CAI (using it as a short-ram for fear of water getting into the engine)DC Sports HeadersMegan Racing CatsHKS Cat-Back True Dual Exhaust (titanium tip one)QAS Lightweight FlywheelQAS Short ShifterMotordyne MREV 2 ManifoldMotordyne 5/16 Plenum SpacerUnorthodox Pulley SetECU Reflash for all the mods (V-Max restriction off, plus knowledge of the installed mods)

For the future, I am looking into changing cams (maybe Tomei) and final gears to 3,9:1. The car will remain N/A.

Warning: The photos are VERY LARGE. I did not scale them down because I thought some would want them at their full size. Hope you like them. It will take some time to load.

So, here goes:

These are the boxes...



Discreet 'megan racing' logo...



Motordyne is present...



Unpackaging the headers...



The MREV2 and the spacer kit...



The Injen CAI and a hood support (to skip using the OEM strut support)...



DC Sports headers...



Megan Racing high-flow cats...



Unpackagin the great "beast" of a box... the HKS exhaust...



Beauty, isn't it?



The titanium tip...



All laid out...



Car is prepped for mods. Hood is taken off.



Easiest job: the MREV 2 and the spacer...



Removing the old one...



Installing the Motordyne one...



Closeup of the almost-finished MREV 2 + spacer...



The screwes have to be tightned and away we go!



View of the injen CAI going in...



The air flow measurement...



Fitment test...



Spacer for the CAI...



Adding the cone filter... thus making it a short ram and not a true "cold air intake". I'm taking the safer route, don't wanna risk water getting into the engine...



Old exhaust going down...



Getting the O2 sensors off the old cats...



The carbon driveshaft...



Removing the gearbox to change the flywheel and the shortshifter...



Getting the old shifter out...



Replacing it with this...



It was wedged in tight...



View of the rear diff...



The gearbox is easily removed...



The clutch assembly...



The old flywheel...



Flywheel comparison. Left (old), right (new)...



Nothing left



The headers are hard to get to... it would have been beter to remove the engine but I didn't want to do that so we had to remove the alternator, oil filter and loosen a lot of things to finally get those old headers out and put in the DC Sports new ones... This took from 11:00 am until 15:00 when we called it a day and went home (we started around 7:00 am).



One of the headers installed...



Left header is the new one, right is the old one...



The day is over. Tomorrow, she'll be reborn...



DAY 2:

The following day the header work finally ended. Added the cats and then the HKS true dual exhaust. The HKS had BIG problems going up... although made for this very 350z model it did not "bolt on", it had problems passing the rear diff. With some 3 hours of labour of adjustments, it finally went up.

I am NOT satisfied with the TIPS of the HKS... the bolts look like crap.

Here are the final two pictures... FULL exhaust:


Modified by spitalul2bad at 1:24 AM 1/22/2009

[Z32 TwinZ]

Sweet stuff.

Did it feel like Christmas again when opening the packages.

[breadbox]

What is suggested improvement from the spacer?

[bmike818]

nice , (actually potatoe chips)

[kks14_302]

nice car...

[dasoupdude]

good stuff. damn what a beast, it took me 1.2 years to get pretty much all the crap you have shown here (some parts have equal/similar variants) minus the exception of the headers,reflash, and shifter.

[Ar878]

So many new parts... This makes me want to add so much more than what I have in my G right now. My poor little popcharger is going to feel insignificant :P

[spitalul2bad]

thanks guys.

just added the final 2 pictures... the final full-exhaust build.

[R350Zz33]

did ur u come withe the finned diff?

[kks14_302]

how much hp do you have after all those mods

[spitalul2bad]

did ur u come withe the finned diff?

yes. It had a plastic shield thing that had to be removed to make way for the HKS exhaust.

no idea on HP yet. dyno test could be tomorrow.

[R350Zz33]

was it hard to remove the plastic thing i plan on putting my exhaust on with the z on jack stands

[spitalul2bad]

no, that's fairly simple to do. just a couple of bolts.

[ZMEDIC13]

I saw that it says you have a 2008, but the pics show a single TB and air intake. Did you change from dual TB to single for the plenum? Im just trying to make sense out of why you have a single instead of the double if its a 2008.

[coleycole]

Great build!!! I am very interested in seeing what the dyno says since I will have a very similar setup in the next week or so minus the ecu reflash which will be a follow up mod.

[RCAnismo]

Wow, Thanks for all the detailed pics! Very Impressive

[spitalul2bad]

I saw that it says you have a 2008, but the pics show a single TB and air intake. Did you change from dual TB to single for the plenum? Im just trying to make sense out of why you have a single instead of the double if its a 2008.

though the car was new when I bought it and registered it for the first time in 2008, it was not built in 2008 and is not a 2008 model It's actually a REV-UP manual convertible from 2005/2006 I think. Bought it brand new (no kilometers) and I am really wondering where it sat in the dealership for a couple of years. At least I bought it cheap.

[dasoupdude]

oh man, does anyone know where i can buy titanium tips? i want to put them on mine (hi power knock off)

the hks ones won't fit though from what I hear.

[kuhan]

Quote » [/quote]Everything looks great! You should get the bumper tucked with HKS Hi Power Exhaust. It is an easy DIY mod that will make your Z look bada$$.

[LovesBigTurbos]

that looks sick carbon driveshaft is awesome. wish i had the money to do all this to my old z..

[rockit181]

can someone tell me what those canisters are for? the ones before the muffler?

[aris_unlimited]

So did you get the dyno done yet?

[spitalul2bad]

Nope, not yet.

Got hit by serious snow... the winter has finally caught up with South-Eastern Europe... no car, no dyno. Just 24 hour sleep in the garage. Probably when the thaw comes in late March/early April.

I won't forget though. I'm dying to see some results.