Stailey's Build Journal

Stailey

Hello All!

So the time has come to put together a build journal of my Z, and I'm excited about the future for it!

Current State (September 13th, 2014):

The Story

I used to own an 03' 350Z Touring 5AT back in the day while in college in Georgia. After graduating, paying the car off... I ended up moving to New York for a career opportunity. I ended up selling the car to help aid my family during a tough time... selling it was really hard, but you have to do what you have to do.



Fast forward to July 4th of this year... While in a visit with my family and friends back home I made an impulse decision and decided to buy a 370z The day after.
Bought her... 2011 7AT 370z Sport Touring - Black Cherry, her name is Violet.

Purchasing day (July 5th, 2014):

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A couple days later, I drove the 15 hour journey from Atlanta to New York where I live. I enjoyed every minute!
Scheduled to get the tint done first...

Tint day (July 26th, 2014):

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After frantically searching the interwebs, I stumbled upon the instagram account of Killjulez who produces a Brushed Titanium 7AT shift knob for me and another vender he connected me with to produce a suade shift boot to match the interior. Looks great... even if my friends do make fun of me for it. Thanks Jullian!

7AT Shift Knob and Suade Boot day (August 2nd, 2014):

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Got in contact with Alex at ONEighty designs and scheduled an appointment to get the headlights done. They're located in Brooklyn, so it was an easy drop off and pick up and the headlights looked great! Thanks Alex!

The package I got from ONEighty was:

Dual Orb LED Rings
Matte Black Housing
Graphite Projector Shroud
Graphite Turn Signal Shroud
Carbon Fiber Reflector Strip

Headlight day (August 6th, 2014):

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I'm making a trip at the end of this month to go down to Atlanta and install a group of parts that I've ordered and shipped down there. It's going to be a great weekend with my best friends. Getting under the car to install these parts, a party, and fantasy football draft... Looking forward to it.

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Install weekend (August 28th-31st, 2014):
Big Weekend! I drove down to Atlanta where I had my parts shipped to have a build weekend with one of my best friends, Joe. We cleaned up his garage, transported all of the parts and tools to his place, and got to work. It took us 2 1/2 days to do everything and everything turned out great... Oh, and we made the demon bolt our bitch - broke both off within 20-30 minutes with a regular ratchet and a shitload of extensions... not bad for a car that had 24k miles.

Parts Installed:

Motordyne E370 Shockwave CBE
Berk HFC's
Stillen Gen 3 Intakes
Stillen Underdrive and belt
Stillen Grounding Kit
Hotchkis Front and Rear Sway Bars

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Tune Day! (September 13th, 2014):
Drove back up from Atlanta and had an appointment set up with Real Auto Dynamics in Oceanside, NY for my tune. These guys were great from the get go. They have exciting projects going on and overall I had a great experience with these guys. A couple shots of the day... a video Kevin made... and my dyno results from the parts install and tune.

273.5 hp - 265.1 ft/lb

The UpRev tuner Rodney set the a really smooth feeling throttle curve, shorten the AT shifts and the lag time from gas to go. I was really impressed with how different the car feels - everything just felt.... smooth.
Thanks again to the guys at Real Auto Dynamic for a great experience. I look forward to coming back again for the next big things!

To Be Continued!!!