09-16-2006: Everything changes and so do priorities... through a great chance, I managed to get a hold on some wonderful wheels: Volk TE37 Time Attack Limited Edition 2006!!!! These things have been in order to arrive to the States for months, and I managed to secure a set on 19x9.5 +22/19x10.5 +22 with Toyo T1R rubber for a great price and they were in stock to booth!!! Got them from http://www.injectedperformance.com

So, I headed to the nearby mountains to do a quick shoot on the Z with the current shoes and some motion shots I have been intending to do since I got the car. I recruited my friend Luis Orias for the driving part of the job, while I handled the shoot. Some of the results on my new 350Z shots only gallery, here: http://charlie-cr.smugmug.com/gallery/1898345

09-21-2006: I finally got the wheels and tires out of the customs office (after a hefty duties payment, of course!) and they lasted about 2 hours before I took them for the install... everything was pretty good during the process, the guys at AutoPits really know their stuff! The final product was as I expected, a less flashy and quite unique look... I really like it! Please take a look at this gallery for some shots of the new wheel setup:

http://charlie-cr.smugmug.com/gallery/1898345

10-22-2006: Well, the front rotors are here now... fresh from the production line at the StopTech facility. The guys at Valverde Racing have done what they could to have them around as soon as possible, but our Customs Office is a real PITA.

Anyway, these look awesome: 332mm diameter, two-piece construction with solid billet aluminum hat and iron drilled disc; floating system to reduce the chance of warping. The bill on the pic is the same size as a dollar bill (is worth about $9.50 or so as of today!).

and are heavy as they can get... I wonder how much do the stock ones weight. I will probably try and weigh them before I install them and see what the gain/loss in that sense would be. The community agrees that there are some gains in stopping power (less than 10%) but huge gains in cooling (about 40% faster cooling). I just hope that the saying 'you get what you pay for' applies for this!

Now, to wait for the rears, still a month out!

10-29-2006: The work is done and the rotors are installed (I replaced them at home with no issues at all, a friend helped me out). The install took less than an hour, doing it very carefully.

I got to weight the stockers versus these and here's what I found: Stocks = 19.8lbs StopTechs = 17lbs.

Forgot to weight the front tire/wheel assembly... will do that later at some point.

Anyway, the break-in of the brakes was pretty interesting too... lots of smoke coming out after the first run... and even an offer for help as some kids thought there was something wrong with the car :D

I just got word that the Motordyne spacer is now on its way and that will probably be the last performance mod for this year. We will see how it turns out.

01-06-07: The new exhaust system is now in! I got an HKS Hi-Power Ti, currently one of the most sought-after cat-backs. The change in power is still unknown (will wait at least a week to take it to the dyno) but the sound is wonderful! Here's a link to a small video I made... not director quality of course, it is the first video I have posted in my life!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilxqlpEnKyo

By the way, the spacer is collecting dust in my room, as I have not found the time to take it to the shop for install... sometimes I think I should do it myself as it does not look too hard :-)

My EVO-R titanium shift knob has been also collecting dust... and now gained some company from the Redline Goods leather boot I just got on the mail... only thing keeping me away from the install is the lack of a ring or grommet to put between the boot and the knob... need to think about something fast!

01-20-07: The rear rotors have finally arrived after pretty much 4 months of wait... easy swap with the help of my friend Johnny and away we go. Now the car feels as if it could stop on a dime. I just started thinking about a CF wing and I am pretty sure that the V1 is the style I need for my car. Evo-R... here I go again!

01-28-07: Today I went downtown for a shoot in places where I can't normally take the car to. I found some nice places and still have to do more exploring. As a highlight of the day, at some point a couple of cops on a little car stopped by and asked me what I was doing... not a major incident, I just told them that I was taking some shots of the car and that was pretty much it :-)...

Here is a link to the rest of the shots I took (please go to the end of the gallery, those are the new ones):
http://charlie-cr.smugmug.com/gallery/1898345#P-4-9

Anyways, I ended up ordering the CF wing Nismo V1 replica from Evo-R... the base will be painted redline with a little black, Leemik's style! I can't wait for it to arrive, and then I won't be able to wait to have the time to install it!

02-01-07: The wing is here!! That was amazingly fast!! I picked it up and then headed home to examine it closely. It looks great, excellently finished and the color matches very well with the car :-). I expect the fit to be just as good too.

Not a scratch on it, by the way, and considering the long trip that is remarkable. The packaging was very careful, an A+ on that to Jay at http://www.evo-r.net -- I can't wait to have it installed... maybe this weekend!

02-06-07: The wing is now installed and it looks great! It goes well with the flow of the car and the install was particularly good... the guys took their time though: I left the car on Monday morning and got on Tuesday afternoon. They actually scratched a bit of the trunk lid while taking the stock spoiler off, so they repainted and clear-coated the thing. Happy with the results!! (car was dirty as hell on this photo, sorry about that!)