phunk

There has probably been dozens of 370z that could have run 9s on the stock engine, had the owners put forth the effort to do it.

The biggest difference with the new Z is that tons of tuners immediately started drag racing it with records in mind, straight to a drag pack and using the auto trans. Compared to the 370z, where all but a few shared timeslips were done by casual street car owners who just stopped by a track a few times at most, and it took a decade before anyone got the auto trans to handle the torque well enough.

The aftermarket and tuning solutions for the new Z to run 9s mostly existed before the car did. A factory boosted car is treated a lot different in the aftermarket.

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