So, I've finally decided to start a build thread for my trusty steed. It's (apparently) long overdue. When I first bought the car I had absolutely no intention of making any modifications whatsoever. I was under the impression that drifting was some kind of dark art and I just wanted to see if I could manage a skid. I would have been delighted to just be able to master a figure 8 tbh. So, to start things off, here's a photo of the 350Z I bought solely as a drift toy five minutes after I bought it in October 2011. And a few more when i got it back to base. This was a beautiful piece of kit, and it skid like a dream straight out of the box with the only modification being to turn off the traction control. However, after a week of daily driving and one day on track I became very aware that it was way too pretty to be abused in the way that I had planned. Put simply, I had bought the wrong car for the job. That didn’t turn out to be such a bad thing though as it turns out I had found the perfect (ish) daily I hadn’t even been looking for. Moving on this mean the search was back on for the perfect Z. This time though, I knew the perfect car was not an immaculate example with full service history etc but a bottom of the barrel bargain bin contender and this is the beast in question just after I'd bought it in December 2011. Much more sensible!
So of course the next obvious step is to park it up beside some of the other vehicles in the fleet, take a photo, then be a complete knob and post it on Facebook for all to see. And I thought I’d do it again. The 55 plate Z, Alfa and the Omega have since moved on .
Despite my positive experience with the first Z I had been warned that the VLSD was unlikely to last long so had it welded up as soon as possible. I’ve no pics of this, but use your imagination!
Next up was the fun stuff, learning to do a skid. Apparently not that important to some but it was after all my primary, in fact only goal. The welded diff only made the already manageable car that much easier to predict so happy days.
Then the real build began- with new wheels! Not to everyone’s taste but a better size than the standard 17’s and I actually like them on it, with 25mm spacers of course. The sharper amung you will notice these were fitted in the action shot above.
So that’s it, no more modifications required, this thing was built. Right? Don’t be ridiculous. I spotted a set of HSD’s on eBay for the right price and I couldn’t help myself. Of course I didn’t want things to get out of control with spending on a toy (I have other more important things in my life surely) so I took on the fitting myself but only after giving the seized collars a thorough cleaning. It seemed important to completely strip and reassemble them at the time but I only ever used about 25mm of the thread setting them up. Ah well, they looked clean- for about five minutes. I didn’t even take a photo of them when they were cleaned but here’s a dirty one
Fitted some rack spacers (plus an extra washer) and set the ride height to practical – masking tape on the arches lol.
Then, I decided I needed to make some space to fit in a few wheels behind the passenger seat. Of course you need spare wheels. Skids innit! A piss poor photo but I cut a channel wide enough for two wheels right through the rear compartment. Surprisingly practical.
Next up, some new brakes required. The old ones were a bit buggered! And new. Artistic angle, I know.
So yeah, it seems coilovers mess up the alignment so time for some more suspension work. Let’s start with dropping the lot. You’ll see I painted the back and bottom of the car in Hammerite black for no apparent reason. But it was shiney and clean for a few miunutes.
A spruced up subframe with a solid diff mount (SPL Parts), some new SPL Parts traction links and Eibach camber arms.
looks good! if you need a cage, we should be doing a 350z in the near future, and could possibly sort a slightly discounted price if done at the same time? pm me for info. many thanks nick
