bealljk

iTrader: (13)

yeah, like once, like one post...

lets keep it that way...

Frank_White

Tony1M woke up the dragon ^

Justin100

I had a discussion with a forum member awhile back about purchasing his s/c and he told me that he wanted to sell it because he said it was weak all the power being at the red line and it was boring to drive.

Astennu

Yeah i saw that it was a other forum where i made 2 posts :P My bad...

I never said the SC card did 280 HP its the 280HP motor that is charged. its only doing like 350 RWHP. Its not much but a very nice bit of extra punch.


Sir why are you so BM?
I only give my opinion you dont have to agree with it.

I think it depends on what you want.
I want a car that is predictable. I dont like turbo cars when the boost kicks in. Yes its fun and a nice powerfull feeling. But not predictable on the track.

SC comes closer to the NA feeling but with extra power.
Good Turbo setups can close the turbo gap quite a bit. But maybe that insane boost spike is what people like about Turbo setups.

I like a more Linear power band like NA engines produce.
I know someone with a TT 600HP 350z thats a whole different beast. A lot of fun to play with. But its scary on the track. There is a lot of potential but you just do not dare to use it all on a track like the Nurburgring.

I do most of my race driving there. So far i only did laps in my 300HP revup (and some other slower cars). But i want a bit more power for the straights and climbs.

Tony1M

Just for the record, here is the vehicle I was referring to:

http://www.kijiji.ca/v-cars-trucks/e...ationFlag=true
.
.

bealljk

iTrader: (13)

Fan-tastic!!!

Thank you captain obvious!

Thank you captain obvious!

so, is your 280hp supercharged z really putting down 280hp or was that a typo?

Astennu

Again why do you respond in such a bad mannered way? What did i do to deserve this kind of response?

People where stating SC's dont add a lot of power on the low RPM range and that you might not notice it. I clearly notice it with my car.

About the 280HP. I already responded to that question two posts above you. Seems you did not read that one...
The car is a 04 280HP model. With the SC (+upgraded headers, cats and exhaust) it puts down about 350 rwhp.

Tony1M

I see that you live in Nijmegen, so there's at least a very good chance that you are a Nederlander. Regardless, welcome. (My wife emigrated from Slek in the 1950s, thats why I noticed your location.)

If you do not know what "running the gauntlet" means, google it. I suggest that you also read at least the first couple of pages of a recently-started thread in the "general" forum entitiled "Declining expectations for My350Z posts".

Keep in mind that just about every question and comment that it is humanly possible to ask and make about every aspect of the 350Z has already been asked and, in a variety of ways, answered at some point after the day this website was born, so a good procedure for those who have only recently become interested in the vehicle is to search, search, search for information and the answers to their questions. Being retired and having a considerable amount of "spare time", I have followed this procedure as much as possible (for me, anyway).

Before starting and making my first post on this thread, as I mentioned in my first post, I read a couple of forced-induction threads and did searches for various words and phrases whose results may have answered the questions I posed in that first post. They did not, so I took a chance and I think that things have turned out pretty well so far. You have been less successful. That may be because what you have contributed is not strictly "on topic" with my first post, but other commenters' posts were not strictly on topic either, and they were not roasted, so I don't know why you didn't get a similar "pass".

Now more on the original topic, after which I might be doing a little gauntlet-running myself.

For a couple of different reasons (one of which may violate more than one of the inviolable rules of this website) that I hope will soon become clear, I'm going to take a chance and confess that even though I said that I would cross off my list SC vehicles with automatic transmissions, my wife and I went to see that vehicle whose link I posted above.

When I called the telephone number in the ad to get some further information about the vehicle, a very young person answered and carefully told me that this person's father "could not talk" about the vehicle because he had had an operation on this throat. I told this young person that I would answer the ad in writing instead.

That evening the owner's wife called me and said essentially the same thing that her child had said. I asked a few questions about the vehicle and she, in turn, asked them of her husband and she then gave me his answers, which I thought was rather strange, to say the least -- after all, if he could talk to his wife, why not to me? I arranged a time to see the vehicle later that evening.

My wife and drove to see the vehicle and parked a bit down the street from the owner's home. We were a bit early so we just sat in our vehicle while the appointed time approached. But the owner of the vehicle soon emerged from the front door and we left our vehicle to meet him on his driveway. My earlier puzzlement over the phone was about to be erased.

"John", is a young gentleman/entrepreneur in his mid 30s. In short, he can speak only in a "breathy" whisper because he has had several extensive surgeries for a cancer in his neck. (He also has the computerized, modern-day equivalent of the "Etch o Sketch" on which he writes and erases responses to questions.) Because no one else in his family is familiar enough with his vehicle to answer detailed questions about it, John must somehow summon up the physical wherewithal and emotional courage to meet and communicate with potential buyers like my wife and I.

After fully realizing the stark reality of John's situation, even though my wife and I have experienced more than a few of the harsh realities of human life and death, were emontionally cut to the quick. Only the hardest of hearts would not have been deeply affected.

John has been a licensed automotive technician for 15 years and has owned the vehicle in question for 5 years. Of course his treatments have interrupted absolutely every aspect of his life and he now finds it necessary to sell his beloved vehicle.

The vehicle was previously owned by one person who was a mechanical engineer by profession. It was he who had most of the modifications done the the vehicle. These were supposedly completed shorty before the vehicle was sold to John. John added some mods, too, including a very fancy 4-muffler, stainless steel exhaust system that still looks brand new.

I examined the vehicle as best I could on a lowered vehicle. I believe the distance from the floor to the highest point of the fender wheel well was 23.75", but maybe it was 24.75", I simply don't remember which.

I took a mirror along to see details of the suspension. There are indeed coilovers on the vehicle, but the rear is not "true" coilover. There is still a spring and spring bucket next to the new "coilover" shock. As far as I could tell, there are no aftermarket bushings (urethane or solid) at the critical suspension to chassis locations, but my view was limited and I might very well be wrong on this.

The rear tires' treads are worn down to the wear bars on the inside of the tires, so a set of rear tires would be necessary soon down the road. Amazingly, the front tires were just fine -- no feathering, just nice even wear.

In a box, John has a new set of adjustable-camber front upper control arms and rear camber arms. I don't know the manufacturer name, but I know that they are not SPL, Battleversion (rears) or Kinetix. John has not been physically capable of installing them. Because of my reseach on this site, I know that I would be more than capable of doing this myself and adding SPL bushings to those critical locations. That being said, however, the coilovers have plenty of height adjustment to take the height right back to OEM, should the new owner desire.

The vehicle has the HKS supercharger shown the the photo in the ad. The engine internals are stock, I believe. After seeing the vehicle in person and looking at some HKS threads on this forum, I now realize how extenisve all the pipes, oil system, cooler, etc. are in that system and how expensive it is (for example, $400 for a litre of gold-in-suspension oil!?).

John started the engine and no smoke of any kind out the back. Amazing exhaust sound. Amazingly smooth engine that instantly responded to the accelerator.

The cosmetic condition of the vehicle is very very good for a 12-year-old vehicle. The underneath looks very clean with absolutely no rust on anything. The big Brembo brakes look like new. All of the electronic gizmos that I tried inside the vehicle still work.

After all of the examination and difficult communication with John, he actually offered to take us for a test "ride" (he drove, so I don't say "drive"). I was in the passenger front; my wife was behind me in the rear seat.

To say that a vehicle "handles like it is on rails" is an understatement for this vehicle. It is glued to the road ................ until it isn't, then the rear swings outward in the very controlled fashion that only a RWD vehicle can provide, IMO.

If the car leans at all on turns, it is very very little. Acceleration was very fast (IMO, faster than a C5 I drove last week, and the G35 was carrying three people, not 2). Although I am not that personally familiar with how fast a stock NA G35 or 350Z can accelerate from a stop up to say 50 mph, I can't believe that it would be as fast as this SC vehicle. The last experience I had with this kind of street acceleration (and handling and braking) was when I was a passenger in a "stock" MT 2006 Porsche Carrera TT a couple of years ago.

As far as I could tell, the auto trans handled the power just fine. For an owner who is defintely not going to go to the track with the vehicle and only do the occasional stop-light drag-race, maybe the auto trans would be acceptable, I just don't know.

John said that he only rarely drove the vehicle the way he did with us, but felt he had to give us (me) at least some sense of what the vehicle could do. Because this certainly was no "beater", I tend to believe what he says.

In short, I was very impressed with just about everything about the vehicle except the rear tires and the fact that if I were buying the vehicle and wanted to leave it lowered, I'd want to upgrade some bushings, so there would be additional expense for that.

The vehicle is about a thousand dollars, more or less, more than other local 2003 G35s having similar miles and in similar interior and exterior cosmetic condition. But the fact is that even though I was really impressed with that level of performance, I would not buy a NA version and then pay for all of the mods (I understand that the exhaust alone was over $4K) to bring the vehicle to the level of this particular vehicle. And even if I did, I'd be too financially scared to really exploit it to its fullest extent.

John said that because of his situation he is literally forced to sell the vehicle and, even as skeptical as I usually am when buying a used vehicle, I believe him. Even so, I'm still far from certain that I'd want to own a vehicle that I really don't know that much about -- particularly the supercharger "system" and what it takes to keep such a SC vehicle in good operating condition.

Certainly there are others on this great forum who would know perfectly well what they'd likely be getting themselves into and, again, that's why I started this thread. But although I'd still like to read any comments in that regard about this vehicle, most of the reason that I've bothered to write this seemingly never-ending post is that I'd like to do anything I can to help John sell his vehicle.

At this point I feel that it is necessary to state that "John" knows absolutely nothing about me writing any of this. Of course it is possible that he is a member of this forum, but, if he is, he did not mention it to me.

If this post violates a rule of the website, then I hope the moderators will bend a little in this case because of John's situation. If necessary, just delete this post and even ban me. John and his family may very well not get off so easily.

Thanks for the opportunity.

bealljk

iTrader: (13)

If you are really serious about this car you should have a 3rd party independent mechanic look it over. Pay the $200 to have it professional inspected. I still don't know how I feel about the automatic transmission but that's your choice to make (not mine). It looks clean and tastefully modified.

Astennu

Thanks. I'm indeed Dutch and from the nederlands.
You are right it was a bit offtopic since your question was would you buy one second hand.

Well i can answer that one with a Yes because i did. The 350Z with SC i bought already had it installed. I have a 350Z Specialist that helps me and others service there 350z's and he knew the car well. Thats why i dared to take the plunge. I know the engine was fine and had no oil leaks. And the price was nice considering the upgrades.
But my car is a manual and those can handle the extra power with ease. I dont know the automatic transmissions of the 350z's and what they are able to handle. The Automatic version of the 350Z was not really popular over here. With the 370z its the other way around. Its really hard to find a 370z Manual.

About the car you linked and the story of John. Its always sad when you have to sell a car in those situations but i understand the need. Depending on the insurance it will also cost you a lot of money to get good treatment.

It looks like a very nice ride. And i know how that boosts feels i guess mine is similar is also a HKS kit only its "upgraded" with a newer Rotrex Unit.

I hope John will be able to sell the car for a nice price and i hope he will beat his illness.

Syner

Sorry Tony, I completely forgot about your PM.

My knowledge of FI vehicles is limited, so I wouldn't want to provide any misinformation.

Based on your previous post, I would say it sounds like a good deal though.