My Z was purchased in Jan 94 and stayed pretty much standard in its original form until in June 2000 the decision was made to upgrade the car and realize its full potential. If I had known how different this car could be, I would have done these upgrades years ago. The aim was to improve the look and feel of the car but trying to maintain the original concept.

The Wheels, tyres and suspension were basically stuffed....the std nissan gear falls well short of the requirements necessary for a high performance road car, not to mention the short tyre life. The standard gear was turfed and replaced with Kings Progressive Lowered Springs (about 1.5 inch from stock) and Koni Adjustable Shocks set to medium in the rear and medium in the front, along with Kmac Camber Kits front and rear. The rear was set to 2 deg neg camber, the front .5 deg neg camber. Next the search for wheels and tyres which was not easy here in Australia. After many weeks I decided on a modular wheel from the Japanese company Riverside. Rear 17 x 9 Front 17 X 8 . Falken Tyres replaced the expensive factory Dunlop rubber.. Rear 255 x 40 and fronts 245 X 45 , These mods made an incredible difference to handling and steering of the car...gone was the characteristic rear sag on acceleration and the steering is now much flatter with far better turn in, and the ride is definitely more harsh on the real rough stuff, but overall its great...Many thanks go to Donnellans the Tyremen who did a fantastic professional job...something I found very hard to find...check their website at http://www.donnellans.com.au/

With the Handling sorted out next came some extra horsepower, the std turbo engine is good for around 155 KW (200 hp) and this is a fraction of what this fine engine is capable of. The Jap engineers seem to have designed the engine for much greater horsepower but decided to set the std boost to around 5-6 psi. I went about increasing the boost with a Turbosmart Gated Boost Controller. This device is incredibly simple to install and adjust and has to be the best $100 you could spend to increase horsepower. The boost was set at 12 psi and Shell Optimax Premium unleaded go juice combined to give smooth results without fear of detonation. The greater boost required a better in and out feed of the gases, the stock airbox was removed and replaced with an Simota high flow air filter element and a 150mm length of 75mm exhaust pipe (painted black). Not too much cool air is available for intake so the metal and rubber strip between the nose and radiator was removed which allowed copious quantities of outside air to enter the airbox. The rest of the air box was sealed off from the engine compartment (using the discarded rubber strip) finishing off a cheap, but very efficient intake. The removal of the resonator box gave the car a slight burbling sound on deceleration, but its not too loud and along with the louder breathing on gear change sounds pretty good. The original exhaust was too restrictive and now is straight thru but retaining the original diameter, the std muffler was booted in favour of a straight thru sports version with sexy chrome tip fitted. These intake and exhaust mods in my opinion are all thats required with the boost set to 12-14psi, more boost would probably benefit from a 75mm mandrel bent system, but remember that without an intercooler you will be wasting your time. Estimated output is around 230 KW which is a fairly significant difference from stock.

The exterior was starting to get a little tired, so I began restoring what I could before the professionals at the paint shop had their chance. The windscreen surrounds and wiper blade holders were rejuvenated with etch primer and a couple of coats of gloss black. Next the centre piece of the std grille was removed and finished off. The Pro's then set about repainting the front end along with all the "grey" areas around the car, the colour chosen is HSV commodore full gloss grey which I think is much better than the std grey. A piece of chrome plated expanded aluminum mesh was installed in the grille area, which gives better protection and a slimline number plate completes the custom look.

Next the brakes came in for a dress up, giving the calipers a coat of heat resistant red. The hardest part was masking up which took about 30mins per wheel, making sure only the calipers got the paint, a couple of gold "z'" with adhesive backing from the hardware finished the job.

A set of aluminum brake pedals and some blue neon cold cathodes was installed and a matching gear knob will be installed once a match is found. The windows then received 20% film which sort of gives off a green tinge when mixed with the factory tint.

The rest of the car was brought up to standard which included replacing elec window motors, rear windscreen wiper/washer etc so that now everything is working just as it was before leaving the showroom.

Geoff