Project Slicktop

[Honad]

All right, all right. Still haven't got everything together for the full photos of the new wheels. However, I'll go ahead and put up a "teaser" picture of them since I've been keeping everyone waiting so long. I've been so busy at work and that coupled with making sure we're on top of house construction stuff, I just haven't had a whole lot of time to update this thread at all.

The 17" 350Z Base wheels that I had on the car previous:

Front:
Wheel Size: 17 x 7.5
Wheel Offset: +30
Wheel Weight: 23.26 lbs
Tire Brand: Hankook Ventus RS2
Tire Specifications: 225/45/17
UTQG: 200 A A
Tire Weight: 26 lbs

Rear:
Wheel Size: 17 x 8
Wheel Offset: +38
Wheel Weight: 24.14 lbs
Tire Brand: Hankook Ventus RS2
Tire Specifications: 245/40/17
UTQG: 200 A A
Tire Weight: 26 lbs

The new wheels are Enkei Racing RPF1

Front:
Wheel Size: 17 x 8.5
Wheel Offset: +30
Wheel Weight: 16.0 lbs
Tire Brand: Kumho XS
Tire Specifications: 245/40/17
Load Range: 91W
UTQG: 180 AA A
Tire Weight: 24 lbs

Rear:
Wheel Size: 17 x 9.5
Wheel Offset: +38
Wheel Weight: 16.9 lbs
Tire Brand: Kumho XS
Tire Specifications: 255/40/17
Load Range: 94W
UTQG: 180 AA A
Tire Weight: 25 lbs

So, we dropped about 7.26 lbs per wheel on the front and 7.24 in the rear. That puts the wheel weight savings at exactly 29 lbs. Even though we went up in with a full 20mm a side in the front, the tire weight dropped 2 pounds in the front. In the rear, I increased the tire width by 10mm a side yet the Kumhos are 1 lbs lighter apiece. So, tire weight savings is 6 lbs overall. The lug-nuts used were the same weight down to the ounce, though I am looking at getting some 19mm lugs instead of the 21mm because they are a little too snug for my comfort when trying to take the wheels of and on. Sockets barely fit in the space given.

So, overall weight savings for the new wheel and tire setup was 35 lbs. The turn in is noticeably different. Much like going from the 17" 350Z wheels to the 16" Twin Turbo rears x4 that I used to use for my race tire setup.

I absolutely love the Kumho XS's. They are top notch and they love the heat. The hotter the stickier. I'm extremely excited for Autocross season this year. With 3 events already under my belt, I can absolutely tell that the car is in a better place already. Since I'm racing in the street tire class this season it should be very interesting. Even though ESP PAX is super tough.

I'm going to realign the car here soon and adjust the corner weighting so exciting enough I will have new official weight figures for everyone. I'm pretty sure we're getting really close to being at that magical 3000 lb mark if we are not already under it.

And in other news... I've lost now 22 lbs off the spare tire attached to the front of my body. I didn't quite keep up with the car here as I'd like to do, but we're getting there, I'll whip this flabby a** into shape soon enough!

Onto a few pictures!

It's cool to see how the tires flex to hell in high G cornering. It almost looks like I'm in the Hella Flush crowd.


Taking the wife for a spin.


Pulling some G's.

[tg]

that last pic is epic ;D

your car should be sponsored by slimfast.

[takethewall]

You make na owners like me proud.

[Honad]

that last pic is epic ;D

your car should be sponsored by slimfast.

I assure you the sidewalls are very stiff. It took some serious muscle to get the damn things mounted to those wheels. Had to use "the big machine" that they use to stick rubber bands on 22" wheels and stuff. It was almost as bad as a R-Compound tire install.

That being said, it looks like the damn tires are going to snap off in that picture!!

I'll try to get a picture of me pulling that front wheel this year on street tires. It gets pretty close and does it just about every time I'm in a high G corner and full on the accelerator as long as the car is on full stiff (15) I generally run (10F, 8R), but will get a bit more aggressive this year since our new venue has VERY nice pavement (not the place in this picture). Once I add the Strut tower brace up there it will be inevitable.

[DCaff300ZX]

You make na owners like me proud.

No doubt about it, Honad proves the NA can still be a force to reckon with!

[Honad]

The new tires are fantastic and it shows! Grip, grip, grip.

Check out that street tire section!

http://www.kcrscca.org/results/solo/201 ... 04_fin.htm

[evildky]

boo for pax

you did however raw time an elise....someone obviously can not drive

the XS did just win the street tire shootout in GRM again, now image propper R compounds

[Honad]

I out raw timed everyone in the street tire class last Sunday! The Elise guy is decent, it's his 2nd or 3rd year iirc. I think the car can certainly go faster.

Either way, I'll take the win. Notice how there are no G-Stock or H-Stock cars. That's what did it. Normally I have to beat those guys by something like 3-3.5 seconds to make up for the Pax difference in our course length. I did decent overall pax wise too, I think i was 30th (95 entries). About With about 25 Nationals trophy winners in the Kansas City Region, Top 50 is doing all right, especially for street tires.

[AchilleZ32]

Hey man, great build! I saw your car is running in the E class? Last month, I went out for my first time ever and I was put in GS. I really don't think that's right and I couldn't find the SCCA handbook classification on my clubs site.

[evildky]

ESP is a soft pax, I run EM, not thats a pax

beast, unless it changed recently the TT goes in BS (your car does have the TT spoiler) if you r car is an n/a then the spoiler puts your car in ESP, if you have a completely stock* n/a then id's FS (again these are acording to my 07 gcr and they might have moved a bit)

* stock allowed modifications are limited to: drop in air filter, cat back exhaust, aftermarket shocks/struts, front sway bar, R compound tires

in addition to stock allowances Street prepared allowances are: cone air filter, lowering springs, rear sway bar
camber botls, aeoro mods (such as spoiler), drilled and slotted rotors,headers, urethane bushings and a bunch of other things but you get the picture

coil overs put you into the Prepared class

at last check you have to buy the gcr they don't publish it online (unfortunately) as it's a fund raiser for the clubs, generally they have a copy on hand at the registration table to look such things up


stock in theory is the slowest class for a given car, the lower the alphabetical class the faster that class should be

[BigTDogg (MA)]

Honad:

Sick build, great work, looks like a blast of a car.

[DCaff300ZX]

Nice to see action in Honad's thread, any plans for more upgrade work on the car??

[z32pilot62]

http://www.kcrscca.org/results/solo/201 ... 04_fin.htm

Checked out the webside and noticed that you are making cars now days for others too, lol.

[Honad]

ESP is a soft pax, I run EM, not thats a pax

beast, unless it changed recently the TT goes in BS (your car does have the TT spoiler) if you r car is an n/a then the spoiler puts your car in ESP, if you have a completely stock* n/a then id's FS (again these are acording to my 07 gcr and they might have moved a bit)

* stock allowed modifications are limited to: drop in air filter, cat back exhaust, aftermarket shocks/struts, front sway bar, R compound tires

in addition to stock allowances Street prepared allowances are: cone air filter, lowering springs, rear sway bar
camber botls, aeoro mods (such as spoiler), drilled and slotted rotors,headers, urethane bushings and a bunch of other things but you get the picture

coil overs put you into the Prepared class

at last check you have to buy the gcr they don't publish it online (unfortunately) as it's a fund raiser for the clubs, generally they have a copy on hand at the registration table to look such things up


stock in theory is the slowest class for a given car, the lower the alphabetical class the faster that class should be

Rules have changed a bit. Coil-overs are now okay in Street Prepared as are camber arms and such as long as they have grease fittings and aren't solid pieces. You can also do big brakes kits and the like in Street Prepared now. The Twin Turbo class may have actually changed. Since the RX-8 and similar cars moved down to C-Stock, it may have moved as well. I'm going to have to check.

Rule book is online now. 2010 Solo Rulebook

[Ace2cool]

ESP is a soft pax, I run EM, not thats a pax

beast, unless it changed recently the TT goes in BS (your car does have the TT spoiler) if you r car is an n/a then the spoiler puts your car in ESP, if you have a completely stock* n/a then id's FS (again these are acording to my 07 gcr and they might have moved a bit)

* stock allowed modifications are limited to: drop in air filter, cat back exhaust, aftermarket shocks/struts, front sway bar, R compound tires

in addition to stock allowances Street prepared allowances are: cone air filter, lowering springs, rear sway bar
camber botls, aeoro mods (such as spoiler), drilled and slotted rotors,headers, urethane bushings and a bunch of other things but you get the picture

coil overs put you into the Prepared class

at last check you have to buy the gcr they don't publish it online (unfortunately) as it's a fund raiser for the clubs, generally they have a copy on hand at the registration table to look such things up


stock in theory is the slowest class for a given car, the lower the alphabetical class the faster that class should be

Rules have changed a bit. Coil-overs are now okay in Street Prepared as are camber arms and such as long as they have grease fittings and aren't solid pieces. You can also do big brakes kits and the like in Street Prepared now. The Twin Turbo class may have actually changed. Since the RX-8 and similar cars moved down to C-Stock, it may have moved as well. I'm going to have to check.

Rule book is online now. 2010 Solo Rulebook

TT is still B class. I ran mine this past may and was in BS class. Now I have coilovers so I'm either gonna run in BP or BSP. I'm really starting to get into this, haha

[Ace2cool]

Triple post

[Ace2cool]

VVV I tried to delete them but my phone is being epicly gay right now.

[raremotive]

Holy Triple Post Batman... hit the x by the edit to delete them before you can't

[Honad]

TT is still B class. I ran mine this past may and was in BS class. Now I have coilovers so I'm either gonna run in BP or BSP. I'm really starting to get into this, haha

In the odd event that I race my Twin Turbo, I'll run in SSM (the new SM2) or SSM-ST.. talk about a rough pax. :

Divisionals coming up! I don't believe I'm racing the Z this year. Probably going to co-drive my buddies RX-8 in C-Stock.

[Honad]

Wish I would've raced the Z, I would've done much better than in the old Rotard.

[Ace2cool]

Wish I would've raced the Z, I would've done much better than in the old Rotard.

How did you do? Got timesheets?

[Honad]

Race season is officially over, time to start wrenching.

[DCaff300ZX]

Glad to see some "real" z-board stuff coming back to NICO again!
We need more build/upgrade/technical threads like in the past such as Honad, Gino, TG, SBC300...stuff that inspires us and shows what CAN be done with our cars!
'Specially for us NA guys...

[Oh Em Zee]

Looking forward to updates!

[Honad]

Mass update time. I've missed the last several over here at Nico. I will try to remember to post stuff up over here too.

Since my last big update, I built a house and moved in. I scrapped for a while to get the funds together for the house as you have to put a LOT more down than standard when you build, plus there's all the incidental stuff that comes along with it. Unfortunately I had to sacrifice the slush fund and Z upgrades money, so I haven't done squat to the car in forever save regular maintenance.

So, the new house has a 3 car garage, but in the plans of the house we had the 3rd stall built double deep, with it completely flat in the back and with 11" ceilings in the front part and in the back just a bit higher.

My buddy Chad standing in the garage. He is 6'3" for reference.


The two girls in their stall. You can cram 3 cars in here if you get some angle going or they are Mini Coopers.




So the car is still running great. Had a great time at Branson Z Fest this year in her, though I'm a little disappointed in myself for not doing any drag racing while I was down there to get a current baseline on the 1/4 mile time.

So, here begins the long overdue update.

My right rear speaker finally quit on me, leaving me with just one, blown, makes popping and fap, thud and booming noises when you adjust the volume, totally fantastic front right speaker. I only really listen to the radio when I'm at autocross (yes, they broadcast over FM) so it has never really been of importance to me to have music. It's not like you can really hear much over the loud as **** exhaust anyway. But, I decided to bite the bullet and finally replace the OE head-unit and speakers in the car.

I went with Infinity for the speakers, cause they were on sale, buy one get one 50% off at Crutchfield and they were recommended as "great for the price" by my resident "stereo guy".

Here are the rear speakers.




Stock crap left


Stock crap right


Had to pick up these bad boys from Concept Z so I could fit the new gear in the factory location.


Went with a Kenwood KDC-X395 (whatever the hell that means) for the Head Unit. My buddy was sort of on the fence about Kenwood, but the price was right and it had the features I wanted.


Installed Left Rear


Installed Right Rear


We utilized the factory plug and just clipped the wires off the Boze crap to hook up to the new speakers.


Right side of the same


I picked up some plastic pieces to go in where the tonnau cover goes since I never have the thing in the car.


Yes, it is quite dusty in there!


So, we called it quits with the rear speaker install and head unit. Though I ordered fronts already, I had not yet ordered the non-Bose front brackets so, I'm waiting on those and listening to extremely treble heavy music through those small rear 4.5" speakers and a little tweeter.

My little brother (on here Z-nigma or enigma, I can never remember) sold his daily driver and was sans a car to drive every day, so I lent him the Slicktop to use a daily driver for a few weeks until he picked up something.

He was nice enough to get the car all shined up.

Cleaning the exhaust with the cleanliness master in the background




With Zdad's Nismo


Arrived @ Fast Fridays, w/Abe's Z32TT peaking out


Our group for the evening













Then this happened...


More to follow.

[Honad]

Back to the story!

So, while at autocross a few weeks ago, when I was driving my pops Nismo 370, my brother got a phone call from his girlfriend's mother. The car was parked out in front of her house. The neighbor guy backing out of his driveway plowed right into it. Thankfully, probably because he was an older gentleman, he owned up to the wreck immediately and presented his insurance information.

Here are the wreck pictures from the scene.

[Honad]

The car is currently at Pirrello getting worked over. First of all, I can't even begin to express how these guys are my one and only body shop. Not only are they huge into cars and racing, they do an absolutely incredible job. Second, they treat my Z with all the care and respect of the extremely high caliber cars that they work on. It's sort of crazy when your Z is parked next to a mangled up Aston Martin or Ferrari, but it certainly gives me piece of mind knowing that they work on my car with as much attention as they do with cars where the owners demand absolute excellence at all times.

Here is my trip to check on progress. I'm actually pretty floored at exactly how much of the car they are painting to make sure it's right.







The brand new Nissan OEM replacement


Backside of the door


Another front


Door handle section


Part number


The door off the car


The new rock guard stuff


Right side quarter


Right side

[Honad]

The body shop and I have been searching for a window the better part of a week when we finally got word from Nissan that there are absolutely no more OEM windows. Though all the other parts are brand new OEM, the window was going to have to be used. I was planning on buying one from Z1 or somewhere similar, but found one locally used (Thanks Jared!).

So, the car is basically done save the window install, trim, interior and final inspection and detail before delivery back to me. Should be this week, I hope.

Needs more 99 Front! Someday, perhaps.

[Honad]

Well, the Slicktop is back in Personal Tag form after finally switching it over to Kansas even though I've lived here about 8 years now. The biggest plus is no more front plate, though I didn't really run one when the car was tagged in Missouri either save the first couple months after I bought it.

I'm not a huge fan of the new P-Tags, though they are absolutely better than the old ones which looked like a huge brown s*** beast behind the lettering.

[Honad]

Finally time for an update. It seems like it's been forever since I've posted in this thread. Since my last update, I finally replaced my shifter bushings with bronze ones, replaced dust boots, bolts, etc. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the install as I was under a time crunch to get it done as I got my parts Friday afternoon and was racing on Saturday.

Tonight was more of the same. Received my shipment from Concept Z on Friday evening, had to put the stuff in today as I race tomorrow morning.

Here's the parts spread shot. In there are 12.75" slotted rotors, the caliper relocation bracket, Stoptech pads for the front and rears (rears not in the picture), Stoptech steel braided brake lines and new caliper retaining springs and such.



Here's the comparison to stock.


Rotors, pads installed.


After bedding the pads in, seasoning the rotors. I love the smell of new brakes in the wee hours of the morning. The dead stop from 80mph was brutal.


I'll put more pictures up when I slap in the lines and bleed the brakes. I plan on doing the steel braiding clutch line and the remote clutch bleed delete at the same time. It'll be steel braided day for the next update, most likely next weekend.