DavidL

Hi , I bought my 370 in march and its a platinum ,sport ,touring, nav, auto, with black interior.
First I think this model is the best looking Z ever by a long shot . I had a 84 300zx and enjoyed it til kids came along. I have put over 12,000 miles on my Z now and here is what I think of it.
Stock the power is decent and the sound is to subtle for my tastes, I love the ride and the overall way it handles. I plan on trying to reduce the road noise at some point but its low on the list right now. I have driven a lot and a lot of cars and this is my favorite both in normal driving and in very aggresive driving , to me its very controlable in a slide and in the twistys , it just seems to aks for more . The interior is overall very nice I think the fuelgauge is fine and very accurate, it could have a better sunsheild at times though. I do not like the armrest/door handles , I wish the grab handle was more upright to naturally fit your hand better, would like two usable cup holders in console, but other than that its perfect for me . The sound system is good but not exceptional, i am sure that it would be better with less road noise, but these are little things. I will go on record saying that I really like this motor from idle to redline and don't agree with any of the "its to rough over 6000 rpms" comments , its music to my ears. I broke it in carefully and have never had it burn any oil or give me any doughts. I absolutly LOVE this transmission.
Now , for the mods I have done I will list them and give my findings and opionions of all of them. I have done all the work myself except the reflash. My goal for the car is this to look as stock as possible, lose as much weight as I can without conpromising comfort,and get all the power I can without touching the motor.
First I installed the stillen gen three intake and found the following , it sounded better , I could not tell a huge gain in power but felt it improved. Stillen could have done a lot better with supporting the intake tubes and I hope everyone that has them will be very carefull to protect against rubbing holes in them or the ac lines. the front faciea removes and installs very easliy and nicely. I was happy with the intake overall a good rating.
I then installed the stillen under drive pully . This was a little tougher but I was very impressed with the quality and the weight savings ! this gets an excellent rating in my opionion. I have had no issues with charge or cooling ( ac ) with the 20% reduction and I feel it can only help this car.
I then installed the stillen headers, berk high flow cats and the stillen exhaust . The stock headers and cats are a chore to take off . I had one sensor freeze in the header and had to get a new one (ouch!) Header quality is ok but I wouldnt call it fine craftmanship, I cleaned a lot of slag and burrs off before installing. The berk hfc's are excellent crafted pieces and the welds are awesome , the quality is really there with these !!
The stillen cbe exhaust is really a mixed bag , when ordering I was told they were much lighter than stock ,they are actually MUCH heavyier ! The welds are bulky and sloppy , the sizing of the tubes didnt make since to me and for my taste I don't like the large tips , a little to ricer looking for me. This system did not fit well and to me its clear the peice over the crossmember was fabricated curved down instead of up and there was no way I could keep it off with out shimming the brace and rasing the hangers slightly . The sound was great the power much better after installing these three things. The cbe exhaust..... overpriced for what you get , come on guys this car is already to heavy !
Next I took a road trip to California and visited Technosquare while there and had a reflash done leaving the rev limit alone but taking away the speed limiter. I liked the guys at this little shop and this did pop some more zing into my car, on their dyno they gave me a cool 20hp more.
l tryed a top speed run on the way back to texas and hit 165 fairly easy but wondered if the air filteres were getting enough fresh air and desided the get them more , so i took off the front faciea and carefully cut two flaps in the upper black section of the grill 2.5" by 8" and heated and bent these flaps back at a 45 degree angle to throw air directly at the filters. I then carefully cut this angle out of the styrofoam in th bumper and painted the cuts black. I then installed a screenprotecting the filters and put it all back together. It looked great and it really worked !!! Two things i noticed from these mods stock I never got better than 26 mpg at 70mph average, I now get 30 to 31 mpg at 70 on cruise ! I gained 2 mpg just getting air to the intakes !!
Other things I have done is installed a Odessy battery beside the spare and removed a lot of usless things from the front of the car, and am fabricating an aluminum strut brace, and have reduced the weight of my car by 73 lbs.
I have ordered a fast intentions cbe exhaust with 18" res,and carbon fiber cans (27 lbs lighter than stillen) and am waiting for 2pc rotors to come out .
When I do starts i now really light up the tires through 1st and 2nd and a small chirp hitting third , at the top end 170mph is the fastest Ive been , the car is very stable at high speeds. the hottest Ive seen my oil temps is 235 since letting more air through my grill .
I am tired of writing and will post pics when I figure out how , I plan on hitting the strip to see what I can do in the 1/4 soon also , by for now!!