09-23-07: Today I managed to take a few shots of the car as it looks now... I wish I had noticed that the Aerocatches were kind of dirty!

So, this is the "ballin' look" with the unpainted CF hood... I think it looks good though, so it will stay like this for a while!

09-26-07: Another happy trip to the customs office yielded these Berk Technologies hi-flow cats... they are extremely light and have a metallic substrate for better flow.

At only 10 pounds or so, this will shave about 15 pounds from the car when I get them replaced this weekend... can hardly wait!

After this, it is dyno time and hopefully some good numbers :-)

Update 10-05-07: The guys at FlashCar helped me out with the install and in two hours the car was running again with these babies in. It just screams at WOT and sound great at low revs. Best purchase I have made in a while.

Coming next week: Sparco Harness Bar, Takata harnesses and Nismo Short Shifter!!! Can hardly wait!!!

10-11-07: Yet another package comes in and this time is the Nismo adjustable short shifter. This thing has 4 positions relative to the stock shifter( 20%,stock,-20%,-40%)

I already separated some space in the workshop and it is going in tomorrow night. I assume that I will keep it at -20% as I read somewhere that it was the most comfortable for a daily driver, but I am definitily going to start at -40% and see how it performs.

Thanks to Adam at Z1 Performance for finding this out for me.

Meanwhile, my harness bar and the harnesses are still stuck in customs... it will be yet another weekend! I also have a fender roller machine in the customs office (yes, like the ones they rent at the Tire Rack!) and I am hoping to get it tomorrow to work on the rear fenders during the weekend... that rubbing is driving me crazy and I can't really drive the car too hard as is... or I might end with a badly damaged tire.

10-18-07: Finally!!! After weeks of dispair and lost shipment and whatnot, here they are finally on my hands and soon to be on the car! The harness bar also arrived with this shipment. Thanks to Adam at Z1 Performance for another great purchase!

They arrived late 10-18 and I expect that today I will dedicate some time to install the Sparco harness bar (Silver!) and the harnesses themselves. It seems that I have to trick them a little bit, since these are the long versions intended for the 4 seater cars. But every vendor recommends the long versions for the Z in order to correctly display logos (baller!!!)

Can't wait!

Next in line to be added to the car: TEIN MonoFlex (or maybe Tanabe SustecPro7) and Bride seats!

11-21-07: a month went by and the install of the harnesses is still incomplete... I have been on the road for business and have not had any time for this. The Harness Bar is on, and some of the changes needed to put the harnesses are also done, but that's that for the moment.

On other news, I finally got the first version of the ROM for the Osiris uploader (to tune my ECU). I have to say that I was scared brainless the first time I applied the patch, but it turned out pretty well, with only a couple CEL situations coming up and quickly dealt with by the UpRev guys. They are true pros when it comes to these things, fast answers and fast action.

Now I need to run some data for them so they can get my fine tune completed. Let me tell you: the generic tune is working great and you can feel the car pulling stronger. I have not found the time to do a few dyno pulls, but will try to do them as soon as possible, prior to the fine tuning.

There is one upgrade more on the pipe now: DAMD sides in carbon fiber... will look into them early next year!

09-06-08: I cannot believe I have not updated this in almost a year... a lot of things have happened but today I am heading off to finally install the Cusco Sway Bars and to finalize and adjust the Takata passenger side belts.

Some other things have happened. I decided that Forced Induction might be a good thing after all, so I am getting the car ready for a supercharged setup. First step: electronics and oil management.

Next week I expect to receive a Haltech Platinum 350Z, STRI and Innovate gauges and the Altered Atmosphere oil pan spacer with two taps. I will post more about this when I get the goods!

Osiris is officially ditched but I will keep monitoring some stuff live with Cipher, unless the new Haltech software can do the same. We will see if they can work together or not.

We will see how the whole thing works out... so I will update soon with the good or the bad news!

09-06-08: the idea of the DAMD CF sides finally did not catch on with me, so I decided to go for a more conservative look with the INGS 1 Z33 N-Spec sides. Curiosly enough, my original order was for the Type E ones, but due to some terminology confusion I ended up with something different... no problem, these look awesome! The material is a trademarked Hybrid FRP compound, really smooth, flexible but solid.

Around the time these got here some idiot sideswiped me on the highway... I had to work on the paintjob so it was a good time to put these in.

With these I pretty much settled for the 'look' part of the project. Now to the performance and see what can be done.

Another thing that got out and back in was the Top Secret front piece. I pretty much destroyed it on a parking lot, but the guy that did the paint job on the passenger side and the skirts took the mess and helped me to fix it. The final results were awesome, I would dare say it fits better than when I first got it!

09-07-08: the did is done! I went to Taller Frank to finalize the sway bar install with great success... easy install and had the chance to help as usual.

Then we got to the Takata harness adjustments... the install is easy on paper, but kind of complicated on the real life, particularly for the eyebolts that go into the sides of the seats themselves. We saw room for improvement on the setup for the rear anchors and will get to that as soon as we can get a reconfigured set of eyebolts.

One more thing: shipments confirmed for all the new parts (gauges pod, oil pan spacer and Haltech Platinum)!!! Can hardly wait to get them all done!

09-12-08: what promises to be the most complex item in tomorrow's install, this Innovate LC-1 wideband sensor with DB Gauge A/F meter is part of the gauge trio I got on the works.

The water temp gauge got delayed so I will probably mount the wideband and the oil temp and leave the water temp open in the mean time.

By the way, this is some really nice piece of work! The Innovate guys really do their homework when it comes to design and quality!

I will post pics of the finished works as soon as possible!

09-12-08: Thanks to Adam @ Z1Auto.com my new Haltech Platinum 350Z arrived quickly, safe and sound.

The unit looks great on the box, but I can hardly wait to put in the car. This a stand alone but with the included plug and play harness, the install should take 15 or 20 minutes. Adam has supplied me with a base map that I will use until I get tuned, hopefully next week.

So, is this overkill for an N/A car with only minor breathing mods??? Well, of course it is! But I am only getting ready for the big game later this year or maybe early next year. We will see about that...