GaryK

Well, just got back from a local PCA autocross today. It was raining all day, but I figured I'd try the z out for the first time anyway since I try to hit the local autocrosses just for fun. I've heard a lot and read a lot about the 350z not working all that well for autocross, so I didn't expect much. But I was thoroughly impressed!

The car is pretty well balanced with a slight push in low speed turns under power. It transitions beautifully, and the braking was phenomenal in the wet. Feedback from the tires and brakes is much better than I expected. The 3.5L makes good enough torque to leave the car in second gear and just drive it. The diff seemed to work pretty well as I never had any single wheel spinning out of the turns. A lot of the Porsche guys were impressed as well as surprised.

I was having a blast with the z, so it didn't really matter how I finished. It was icing on the cake though to end up with the fast time of the day....by nearly 3 seconds. There isn't a tremendous amount of competition at the local PCA autocrosses, but there are a few guys that are good. I was just very surprised that the z worked as well as it did.

BTW, I started the tires at 36 psi front and 34 psi rear. I didn't touch them the rest of the day, and it looks like that was optimum for the wet conditions. I'd say it shouldn't change much for dry conditions based on my previous experience.