Awesome write up and great photos!

Had a silly idea to film the sounds this car makes and I made an ASMR video.

A bit of updates on the Z. Stock suspension allows virtually no adjustability which sucks, so a few weeks ago I installed adjustable rear camber arms and adjustable rear toe arms. I first did only camber arms, but they were heavily closing the toe, so it was necessary to add those as well.

Sorry for very dirty pics...

https://i.imgur.com/plMFkqqh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/hSZfyL7h.jpg


This allows me to set alignment a bit more than what stock allows, so right now the rear is set at:

Rear:
Camber -1°20'
Toe 0°02'

The front comes in at
Camber -2°
Toe 0°00'

This alignment seems very good to me, perhaps I'll close the rear toe just a bit more to about 0°04'. But I'll do this next season.

This season was full of great adventures, driving, we did quite a bit of mileage in the Z, about 7000km in total (~4500miles). Most of the mileage (almost 2000 miles) was spent on the trip to the Nürburgring, which I'll repeat in a few years for sure. Otherwise there were several trips to the local tracks, including Grobnik (the track in Croatia) during rain, which proved an awesome challenge to practice driving with all electronics switched off. The tires are completely busted, which is funny, as I put on a complete new set in the beginning of this season...but that's what they're for.

So today I gave the car a thorough wash and concluded the season

https://i.imgur.com/3Xw0qOnh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Itr9Ff9h.jpg


This winter's plans are quite humble, as the car is almost completely done in the way I wanted it to be. Plans are:
1. change oil and fluids
2. install a servo oil cooler
3. install brake cooling ducts
4. replace the final drive gear with a shorter one (3.69 out, 4.08 in)

What factors made you decide on the 4.08?

I recently went with the 4.08. Debated back and forth between a 4.08 and a 3.90, but after deciding that I was primarily looking to use the car for back country twisty roads and some autoX, I went with the 4.08.

Makes the gears pretty short ngl.. lol

70mph in 6th, the engine is somewhere near 3500rpm and 80mph encroaches on 4krpm. Might want to keep that in mind depending on how much highway driving you do.

Hey, thanks for the input. Two factors played a key role in my decision.
First I watched many different videos with Z owners, as well as read through the forums here to hear what people have to say.
Next I played in my simulator (Assetto Corsa). The stock Z in it has 3.9 ratio and while it's definitely shorter than mine, it doesn't seem short enough. I then tried similarly powered cars with shorter ratios, as well as even shorter ones (drift cars) and they are surely way too short. This 4.08 to me seems like the perfect fit for driving. The only thing that might be different is higher gearing on the highway....but seeing as this is primarily my fun car / road trip car, I'm OK with that. I'm not in a rush, I can drive it slower on the highway with the cruise control. So yeah, I really do appreciate your input. I'll post updates next year once it's installed and I make a drive with which I can then compare and comment.

One question tho, do you think you'd rather go to 3.90 if possible now, or you think you've made a good choice?

For what I use the car for, it's perfectly fine. I take it to work, 30 min back roads and quick elevation changes and then weekends around town. Once I get to a certain point I plan to do some light autoX and such.

My main focus when I chose gearing was weight, braking, and handling. Z's really do have enough power after flow and tune mods unless your really going crazy.

Only you truly know what you want from the car and what the likelihood is that youll drive it on the highway a lot. Another consideration, if you ever plan to really start making power, you'll quickly "overpower" (for lack of a better word) the 4.08.

Alright, I think I completely understand what you're saying :) thank you!

My idea behind the shorter diff was also the fact that I do like the gear spread to be 2nd gear to ~60mph, third to ~93mph etc. After very much thought, I ditched the idea of any forced induction to get more power - maybe a tune to get a few extra hrsprs, but nothing more. We have super strict car policies here and there's virtually zero chance of me having a street legal car if I do any forced induction. Shorter diff will, I believe, liven the car up just that tiny bit more to get rid of the sluggish low rpms in second gear with the stock 3,7 diff. I can't wait to try the Z with the shorter drive...

Winter action again - changed the oil, filter, put a new oil pressure sensor in, as the old one wasn't always precise. Blew one fuse, replaced that too.

Next upgrade I installed was the servo oil cooler. Not an upgrade that I ever thought about doing, but last time I went to the track for some fun driving, I opened the hood to let the car cool quicker and I noticed my servo oil boiling :confused: so apparently althought Z's have servo coolers, they're not big enough.
I bought a universal Mishimoto transmission oil cooler kit: https://www.driftshop.com/universal-...ooler-kit.html and installed it in place of the old one. No problem, not too much hassle - I even managed to do it without removing the front bumper. I do recommend removing it, as it will be much easier - but it's not a must. I then filled with oil, did some air bleeding and now it's good.

I also did some minor adjustment to the handbrake. So, whoever tried to actually use the handbrake, knows that it's pretty dreadful. Just tightening the screw inside the cabin will not resolve the problem. But what will resolve it, is to remove the rear wheels, open the porthole on the disc, and spin the disc until you see a small screw that preloads the brake shoes within the disc. Spread these out until they almost touch the rotor - and then tighten the handbrake to also engage on the first notch. And that's how you get an actual really good working handbrake :tup:

One tiny little update more.....so, as soon as I purchased the car, I wanted the ability to turn off all electronic assists. And I installed the drift switch....but it was a "close-enough" switch. It looked OK, but it wasn't 100% fitting in the interior design. So.....in the meantime, I got a Nissan switch, not sure from which car or for what, but now my drift switch looks completely OEM. Here's the before and after:

https://i.imgur.com/K7cYjFoh.jpg

Click here if you want to see a high resolution photo

Nice switch upgrade. Even the little things count.

Yesterday finally had some time to work on the car so I installed the differential back in the car. Before installing it, as I had the broken breather tube, I fixed it with JB Weld. I was skeptical if the fix was OK or not, but then I figured out there's a simple test I can do to check....

I blew into the breather hose and it built up the pressure inside the diff. When I removed my mouth, it blew all the air out again. I then removed the oil filler cap on the diff, covered it with my finger and I again blew into the breather tube. Again built up the pressure but this time removed the finger - and it relieved the pressure immediately. So - the breather tube is still very much operable, nothing is blocked and I believe this should be OK.

Completely unrelated - my battery died - AGAIN. I changed it exactly 1 year ago, and the car has been sitting for the last 4 months - what the heck? I will go to the shop tomorrow and ask for warranty to cover it, I can't imagine this being normal.

Did you have the battery on a tender?

I didn't (yeah I know, i'm a dumbass) - but I usually run the car every month, so it doesn't just sit, and I do a few laps around the garage (I live in a building) and there's no problem...unless when there is lol.

.