Which Direction for Good Handling, Forgiving Z?

wheelspeed

Hi folks,

I sold my Mazda 3 in late 2019 with plans to get a sport RWD car. I loved that '09 Mazda 3 just fine for my 4.5 mile, curvey-road drive to work, except for the FWD nature. I slid it almost every day I drove it to work... sometimes a little mid-corner push, but mostly just plowing as I came out of corners with the gas on. (Had All-Season tires that leaned towards the snow-traction side (Extreme Contact DWS), so plowing and stuff was nothing scary. I'd just ease off the gas and it'd stop sliding right away. Also, these little back roads only let me get up to 40-50mph at the high end, so it's not like the car's mass was going to get away from me.) I put a stiffer RSB on the back and put decent suspension on it, which made it even more fun, but I still got tired of the FWD push and knew there was no way around that except to change cars.

Now, I mostly take a motorcycle to work on nice warm days, and have an AWD Ford Flex for bad winter days, but could use a car for non-motorcycle weather or that my wife could use if I take the Flex camping for 4 days.

I drove the convertible and soft-top Miatas and didn't like them.
Drove a '19 BRZ and didn't care for the lack of midrange.
Drove a '12 370Z and liked the seating position. I can never pick up on the finer details of a car's handling just from a test-drive through suburb traffic though. But a local one never seemed to fall into my lap.
I think BMWs took a downturn in the '00s, so am not interested in them anymore. I did enjoy about 4 old BMWs that all had LSD and I drove them through rain/snow etc. so I want to get back to that kind of RWD behavior.

When the new BRZ came out, I was set on getting one of those, but it turns out you can't get them.

Do you think the 370Z could be made into a fun car for low-speed twisties on cold days / rainy days? I believe I heard that they're not perfect stock (like no car really is), so I wonder which direction you think is better if I decide to pick up a used 370Z and have all-season tires on it?

A. Sport version manual, and then- What kind of suspension mods / what kind of cost am I looking at in order to make it a fun, forgiving car for lower-speed twisties? I think I would probably look into a square setup also.

B. Nismo version always seemed outlandishly expensive for the mods you get. But I guess most of the mods are suspension related, so do you think that's the direction I should look for a go-kart type thing that's fun and forgiving to drive with all-season tires? Please leave looks out of your mindset... I know it's blasphemy but I like the standard looks better than Nismo. I just mention that so your advice isn't swayed by "looks" or the body package. I'm just asking about handling only. Like if you really need all the Nismo stuff for lower-speed roads, or if just a few changes to a Sport model suspension would get me what I'm looking for.

P.S., if any of you here are general car fans, I'm open to other suggestions. But I think I thought of most of them...
Lotus Elise- Prices shot up recently and doesn't seem worth $45k.
Camaro SS 1LE - Still in the picture, but wife doesn't like them. I can live with that and still considering it, but kind of sucks to spend $50k and of course it'd be like a 'date-night' car and knowing my wife hates it is a bit of a downer.
Porsche Cayman- I wouldn't mind to own a Porsche once in my life, and at 52 my next car purchase might be my last chance, but really I heard the Cayman is overly capable on smaller roads and doesn't feel fun except on a track. (I worry about this with the SS 1LE also.)
Corvette - Wife loves them and is on board but I heard they're not very forgiving when you're driving fast. (?) I think it'd be a C7... but honestly not too interested in going over $50k for anything so these days, C7 might be a challenge.
'23 BRZ - I could hold off and order one, but it may cost me ~ $1,000s in rentals so my wife has a car while I take our SUV to do guy stuff on a 5-day weekend.
NOT interested in any AWD sportscars at all. NOt interested in automatics.

Sorry for the novel. I wish I knew of a good sports car forum where people just shoot the crap about things like this, but I don't.

EP370z

The 370z sport so you get s mode (Rev match) and the bigger brakes and back up cam. Then do suspension the way you want it. Or Nismo and get all above plus suspension and body kit.

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JARblue

Just get the Sport model unless you like the Nismo body kit. The suspension differences aren't enough to worry about. Frankly, the car is pretty fun out of the box. And the rabbit hole gets pretty deep. Better brake pads and fresh Motul RBF fluid are really all you need to get started.

Fortune Auto coilovers are popular, but there are a lot of options. You can do a full coilover in the rear or you can keep with the stock divorced setup with separate strut and spring. SPL suspension bits are by far the best - get all of them if you can afford it.
Common square setup is 18x10.5 +18 with 10mm spacers in the rear.
Grab a Hotchkis front sway. Leave the stock rear sway. Or you might even decide to remove the rear sway altogether.
Make sure you budget for a ZSpeed CMAK kit to replace the stock CSC which is prone to failure.
Sustained high RPM driving in warmer temps will likely necessitate a proper oil cooler (stock one is worthless when the coolant gets hot).

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wheelspeed

Thanks for all that info! Sounds good.

Mkawas

Base Caymans are awesome cars, very balanced, however the Z Sport or Nismo give it a really good run for the money. Just get better and bigger tires and you can really make Caymans ashamed on the track.
Cayman GTS is a surprisingly good car, GT4 is one of the best cars i've driven and worth every cent. Both on the expensive side though.

Camaro 1LE is a great car but its on another league, never driven one though.

C7s Corvettes, again on another level, sometimes scare the sh*t out of you and thats cool, but not for everyone. Stingrays are drivable, Z06 needs good hands and ZR1 is just mindblowingly fast and scary to drive.

BRZ are fun to throw around but are way underpowered. I personally got annoyed after a few minutes driving it.

that being said, have you considered a manual BMW M2?

cv129

Don't need to push a Cayman @ 10/10 to have fun. The forward visibility in the Cayman is about 10x better than that of 370z, 12x the Camaro (exaggeration, but you know what I mean).

Having that much more visual connection to the road front end's placement can add much to the driving experience too. Drove a TPC turbo'd Cayman briefly, although powerful, I was far infatuated by the heightened sense in everything else. Visual, how much lower and closer I felt to the road, engine sound (instead of exhaust sound).

Go test drive a Cayman. There are plenty of subjective measures that don't show on paper.

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SeeThruHead

cayman or maybe m2 cs if you can get one?
Both way more expensive than a z. Z is the ultimate value buy still.

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EP370z

If you're looking for another fun low cost car the mr2 spyder with 2zz swapped with 6 speed (lotus Elise or celica gts motor and trans) then add monkey wrench racing turbo. But watch out for snap over steer. All that cost about as much as a 370 sport convertible but no fruck space for say luggage. Parts are also not expensive to get. I might get hate on this tho ��

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wheelspeed

Interesting feedback. I'm definitely not looking to spend over about $60k, tops. Even 60k feels silly to me for my 4.5 mile drive to work that I never get over about 50mph. You mentioned a couple cars are "on a different level". I get that but it's okay as long as they're also fun to throw around. Yes, I liked the M2 when it came out. Still think they're cool but I just don't trust BMWs any more. I feel their reliability went downhill around mid 2000's. I had a few mid 80's 325s and even a '90 e30 M3... bought all of them with at least 140,000 miles on them and kept one 325 to over 300,000 miles. Those straight 6s of the old 325s just went forever. Those cars are where I learned that good-handling cars on weak tires are a hell of a lotta fun. They're like go-karts. Back to current... I didn't think about a new M2. But I don't know about $60k... I feel like $30k - 50k is the sweet spot. I'd think about a new 400Z also, but don't really want to wait until August. Crazy that '18 or '19 370Z prices right now are near what a 400Z will be. That's frustrating also.

wheelspeed

Good point. I should try to test drive one. If I buy something else, I'll never have an excuse then to at least drive a Porsche. I do remember liking the nice forward visibility from my old GTI I had many years ago, so I know what you're saying.

wheelspeed

Well, you lost me at snap oversteer. But also to be honest, I'm not a match for replaced engines and added turbos. I like cars, but not enough to want to spend time on various little niggles that could come up from mods on the wild side. I'm jealous of the people who know how to deal with those things but not me.

Shoeshear

I guess it depends on what your ultimate goal for the car is (hard to know sometimes). If you plan on sticking to twisty back-roads and not doing any track days/HPDE or road racing, probably any of the cars would be fine.

I do think the Z, and all the other 300+ hp cars do come alive more on track because you are fairly limited by public roads (laws, banking turns, road surface, traffic).

Since you don't like Miatas, I'm not sure you would like S2000s, but those are another solid choice with a little more power than the MX-5. Great car to track as well if you ever go down that route.

Of the bunch the Corvette and BRZ are probably more friendly mixed duty cars with semi-reasonable trunk space. They both have a ton of aftermarket support and pretty decent track/race scene, again if that's your jam. The Corvette is probably the most capable on the list in terms of lap times.

The Cayman, BRZ, Elise, and 370z are the best sized for backroads on your list. Having driven a C7 Z06, the Chevys will feel super wide.

IMO, the Z is a car to pick if you like the slight oddball. On paper, comparable to an E46 M3, with slightly less weight, slightly worse weight distribution (55/45), and without the pedigree.

Another oddball option would be a 135i. You can get a lot of power out of that motor with relatively light mods. They need suspension and some wheel/tire fixings to get them to not understeer.

At the ~$50k mark for back-roads only, I would probably be looking at M2 competition or a Cayman, maybe an S2000. The 370Z would be a semi-distant third tying with the S2k. The new Supra is a potential contender (I am not sold on them personally).

If you plan to dabble in more than back-road weekends and might do some track driving, I would consider the Vette, Shelby GT350/R, M2 comp, and the 370z and S2000.. The Elise will be a great track car, but has high running costs. The corvette is a super common track car, especially the C6.

And the curveball, a post-facelift Acura/Honda NSX (late model ~1996). Could tick all the boxes. Just say'n.

That being said, the Z was the right choice for me, and obviously most/many of us on this forum. It served me well as a daily and backroads car and as an instrument for me to grow as a driver (and hopefully will continue to do so).

wheelspeed

Your comment about a Corvette Z06 feeling super wide is very interesting, because that's been a concern of mine. I hate that companies just throw on a wide package to get easy, higher g's on a skidpad for the magazine tests, and meanwhile it's so wide you can't avoid a Pittsburgh pothole without leaving your lane. I've suspected the Vette and SS 1LE might irritate me that way, and your comment supports that.

People keep mentioning the M2. I guess I should drive one. The company I work for is German owned, and the main bosses all own German. Maybe it'd do me well to have a German car. But after having 4 BMW's in the 90's and 00's, I'm kind of past it. I still watch for E46 M3 and old Z3 M Coupes, but no so into the new BMWs. I did like M2s when they came out and thought I'd look at off-lease M2s around now, but meh. Plus, with a nice '18 Ford Flex, I'm finally in a position to get a 2-seater. Getting a car with more practical interior feels like a waste. There's a lot of room in the Flex. I can fold the seats down flat and sleep in it. I haven't had a 2-seater since I was like 20 years old. ($2800 '84 Fiero in 1990 ha ha.)

Not a fan of S2000s. It's like my peeve with mfrs throwing on wider stance to chase skidpad results... making a small engine rev to 9000 rpms to get a decent hp rating seems like cheating. It's fine for the track where you can hold it between 6-9k rpms, but F that for driving to work. Just seems like a stupid car to me and I'm tired of people liking a stupid street car that revs to freakin' 9,000 rpms. Like I'm gonna drive around my local streets at 6k rpms like an a-hole. No, 97% I'm driving around 3-5k rpms and the car's gonna suck like that. Sorry... obviously some kind of trigger. :-) Plus bald guys don't like convertibles.

I would like to do some HDPE stuff, but I didn't get into that because I feel any car will be fun for that. I even took my '09 Mazda 3 on a couple "Track-cross" events that were a Wednesday night kind of thing with just one car at a time and only 1/2 course, timed. It was still fun as hell with all of 150hp/150 torque on all-season tires. And anyway, I suspect 75% of cars that are rated good for track days kinda suck for street driving on crappy Pittsburgh roads, so I really prefer a "drivers car" instead of track car. It's what I meant by "fun and forgiving" car. You know, spirited corner-attacking, across frost-heaves and tar snakes and the car can handle it okay without going nuts. Drives me nuts that magazine reviews drive a car on the roads and comment about interior, but no comments about handling until they take it on the track. NO, I don't wanna know about a cars handling on a track... tell me how it is on the roads. If it does well on a nice smooth track holding the rpms at 8000 rpms like the goofy S2000, then I'm probably not going to like it on northeast roads.

But okay, now my test-drive list is expanded to M2 and Cayman. I'm not one to waste people's time joy-riding their stuff, so I better do that before I buy something or I never will. And maybe one will make me fall for it. And another 370z of course. I do remember that my test drive of a '12 about 2 years ago felt like 'home' to me from the inside. But couldn't get any concept of handling from that little slow ride through the 'burbs.

EDIT- Above was posted at 10:30pm and there may or may not have been a little drinking before posting.

EDIT2 - Holy moly NSX's from like '90 are about $90k!!! Did you miss my $60k cap? No way doing that. The closest thing to my "emotionally illogical dream car" is a 1984 Porsche 911 Carrera with whale tale, which I found one in North Carolina for like $50k with zero warranty. I'd do that way before a $90k 30-year old NSX. Dear lord.

EDIT3 - Might be reason for my love of 350/370Zs is that they resemble '84 911s to me.

SeeThruHead

you could also consider the lotus emira.
pickings are pretty slim for newish drivers cars.

The manual supra is coming. but that's also a bmw.
and it didn't fair well in a comparison with the m2cs
it does have a huge push in aftermarket support going on right now tho so who knows.

the miata and the GR86, 400z, 370z, supra, emira, audi ttrs, cayman are my shortlist.
maybe try to drive those?

everyone is raving about the new brz now that the torque dip is solved.

the problem with the c8, camaro, and mustang is they are all like 3800 lbs.

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wheelspeed

Agreed on that weight question at 4,000 lbs. I haven't driven one "with vigor', but imagine it takes away from fun on smaller roads. Plus the width I complained about a little earlier.

Emira is expected to be around $70k for a 3,000 lb car. Nah. Lotuses are supposed to be light. I imagine Elise values will be climbing since there apparently is no replacement. (Elise weighs like 2,000 pounds.)