California Bound…..

By Eric

Before I leave tomorrow I thought I would throw up a couple of shots of what has been keeping me busy here lately at JDM Legends.  As some of you may know JDM Legends is affiliated with Cobb Tuning and I have had the pleasure of serving as the lead mechanic on the R35 GT-R and also prepping the 370Z for the Redline Time Attack series.  We have decided to step our game up a bit with the Z for the next round.  First up is better tires, we were previously running on 19″ Volk ME’s with some pretty mild Advan street rubber.  We decided to make the change to some Hankoook Ventus RS-3’s and because there isn’t much in the way of good 19″ rubber we had to downsize to some 18″ (9.5″F-10.5″R) EnkeiNTo3’s.  Not usually the biggest NTo3 fan but this looks pretty good.

Unfortunately I can’t keep it that low due to the enthusiast class minimum 3.5″ ground clearance.  Bummer.  We have also had to do some spring changes to the prototype AST coilovers, and some heat management.  We had an oil cooler on previously but decided some ducting was necessary to increase the efficiency.

To help keep the driver a bit more planted in the seat I also installed a Kevlar Recaro out of our old JDM R35 which required some custom brackets and relocating the fire extinguisher as well.  I get to drive 1400 miles in this tiny thing…..  yippie!!!!

We had also noticed the factory 370Z’s limited slip differential wasn’t really limiting any slip if you know what I mean   We had OS Giken send us a new unit which we had to rearrange the discs in to be a little more street tire friendly before installation.

Next up is a cooler to preserve our new diff due to the fact that the Z’s differentials are notorious for overheating due to a serious lack of airflow. I decided to use the non-functional rear foglight as vent to expel the hot air.  It was either that or a flashing LED F1 style rainlight and this seemed a bit more important

Shots of the ducting…

Here is the pump and plumbing, If you plan on using this on a street car take note that this thing is seriously loud, even with a 1/2″ piece of rubber in between it and the chassis.

In and out of the diff….

Finishing up the corner balancing.

Now I am just waiting on Fed Ex to get me another axle flange to use in the OS Giken unit ( you have to use 2 right side ones) and then we shake it down on the 650 mile drive down to Fontana.  I hope I put everything together right   wish us luck!!!   Next week it’s back to classic  JDM business I swear!