Project350z.com STU Build
Link to blog post with all the pictures
So here we are, another month has gone by since the last blog post, time for an update here on the status of @Project350z.
TL;DR: Crap
So at the end of April I headed to Peru Indiana for the Gateway Autocross Association event at Grissom, I stuffed 4 tires into the 350z and headed on my way Friday afternoon.
How did the event go? It was darn cold, and I didn’t dress for darn cold. I ended up leaving Sunday morning and driving home on the RE-71Rs (drove up on the Hankooks) because I was worried about hitting some rain on the way home, and knew that the Kooks would try to kill me with some water on the ground.
The following weekend I headed off to Wilmington Ohio. This time I wasn’t taking an extra set of tires with me, I found out on Wednesday evening that the 285/30-18 RE-71Rs I ordered from The Tire Rack came in, I was fortunate enough to be able to have them delivered to Wilmington Friday afternoon. I spent a couple of hours at the Tire Discounters there in Wilmington as they got the old tires off and the new tires on. The event didn’t go so well, I just didn’t feel like I could get the car as fast as it needed to be, compared to other cars, I was off the pace for sure.
After Wilmington was a local event in which I ran the 275 tires again on the XXR 531 wheels. Tom S. drove with me for the event. Before the event I decided it was time to put the rear sway bar on the car, when I got the car it was removed.It felt much better, Tom and I finished 4th and 5th respectively on the PAX for that event (#4).
From there it was time to head to Lincoln, Nebraska for the Spring Nationals, both the ProSolo and the Championship Tour events. I managed to talk my father into driving out to Lincoln from Tucson, Arizona in his RV, mom flew on to Boston and her 50th college reunion, so dad and I got to spend a few great days together on the tarmac in Lincoln.
The events didn’t do so great, the ProSolo I finished 5th out of 7 in the class. The only saving grace was my final run, after a red light of course, I managed to run the 2nd fastest class time on the right side. It wasn’t worth anything, would have moved me up 1 spot, still out of trophies, but to me that made the whole weekend, I finally proved to myself that the car can do it,. The weekend ultimately was a story of me not being able to do it, but the car was capable. Rust, lots and lots of rust in the head.
After the ProSolo they held the National Tour (Champ tour). I finished better overall, there were 14 drivers in the tour, versus 7 in the Pro. I finished 7th, 2 out of trophies. Though I never did get the feeling I got on my last run of the ProSolo, the fast feeling.
After the poor showings in the National events I decided it was time to tear the car apart and see if change is what I need. I decided it was time to put the “old” suspension back on the car. What is the old suspension you might ask, well you can read about it here, I never did sell the suspension off the old car, so I decided it was time to try that out. The car has been up on jack stands for a month now, I finally got around to getting, everything finished up today.
One additional thing I installed, there was a little issue with the potential legality of the previous camber arms on the rear end of the car. The arms came on the car when I purchased it, but I decided I didn’t want to run the risk of them being challenged with a protest at a future event. So I ordered the Kinetix Racing Rear Camber/Traction package, though before installing the Toe arms I reread the rule book, at the encouragement of Greer, and realized that the toe arms are illegal in STU. So as part of the work today I installed the Camber arms. Later this week I’ll get the alignment done, and see how the change works at the next local St. Louis event on the 17th of July.
Additionally I made a few changes to the suspension, I left the rear springs on the car, the setup there, with hypercoils, will allow me to swap them out easier to a heavier spring. The other thing, also in the rear, is that the Konis use the OEM upper mount, and unfortunately when I put the OEM suspension back on #2, I used the OEM mounts, so I tried to use the mounts from ISC setup, but the shaft of the Koni is smaller than the ISC, so the bushing doesn’t work properly, I ordered the OEM bushings, and cut down the metal spacer to fit in the ISC mount. I remounted the Konis with the ISC setup and tried my best to get the alignment close to where it was when I started the process.
Next on the car I would like to do a full header and exhaust install, but we’ll see if I get there or not this year, we’re looking at another $3500 I believe to make that happen.
So here we are, another month has gone by since the last blog post, time for an update here on the status of @Project350z.
TL;DR: Crap
So at the end of April I headed to Peru Indiana for the Gateway Autocross Association event at Grissom, I stuffed 4 tires into the 350z and headed on my way Friday afternoon.
How did the event go? It was darn cold, and I didn’t dress for darn cold. I ended up leaving Sunday morning and driving home on the RE-71Rs (drove up on the Hankooks) because I was worried about hitting some rain on the way home, and knew that the Kooks would try to kill me with some water on the ground.
The following weekend I headed off to Wilmington Ohio. This time I wasn’t taking an extra set of tires with me, I found out on Wednesday evening that the 285/30-18 RE-71Rs I ordered from The Tire Rack came in, I was fortunate enough to be able to have them delivered to Wilmington Friday afternoon. I spent a couple of hours at the Tire Discounters there in Wilmington as they got the old tires off and the new tires on. The event didn’t go so well, I just didn’t feel like I could get the car as fast as it needed to be, compared to other cars, I was off the pace for sure.
After Wilmington was a local event in which I ran the 275 tires again on the XXR 531 wheels. Tom S. drove with me for the event. Before the event I decided it was time to put the rear sway bar on the car, when I got the car it was removed.It felt much better, Tom and I finished 4th and 5th respectively on the PAX for that event (#4).
From there it was time to head to Lincoln, Nebraska for the Spring Nationals, both the ProSolo and the Championship Tour events. I managed to talk my father into driving out to Lincoln from Tucson, Arizona in his RV, mom flew on to Boston and her 50th college reunion, so dad and I got to spend a few great days together on the tarmac in Lincoln.
The events didn’t do so great, the ProSolo I finished 5th out of 7 in the class. The only saving grace was my final run, after a red light of course, I managed to run the 2nd fastest class time on the right side. It wasn’t worth anything, would have moved me up 1 spot, still out of trophies, but to me that made the whole weekend, I finally proved to myself that the car can do it,. The weekend ultimately was a story of me not being able to do it, but the car was capable. Rust, lots and lots of rust in the head.
After the ProSolo they held the National Tour (Champ tour). I finished better overall, there were 14 drivers in the tour, versus 7 in the Pro. I finished 7th, 2 out of trophies. Though I never did get the feeling I got on my last run of the ProSolo, the fast feeling.
After the poor showings in the National events I decided it was time to tear the car apart and see if change is what I need. I decided it was time to put the “old” suspension back on the car. What is the old suspension you might ask, well you can read about it here, I never did sell the suspension off the old car, so I decided it was time to try that out. The car has been up on jack stands for a month now, I finally got around to getting, everything finished up today.
One additional thing I installed, there was a little issue with the potential legality of the previous camber arms on the rear end of the car. The arms came on the car when I purchased it, but I decided I didn’t want to run the risk of them being challenged with a protest at a future event. So I ordered the Kinetix Racing Rear Camber/Traction package, though before installing the Toe arms I reread the rule book, at the encouragement of Greer, and realized that the toe arms are illegal in STU. So as part of the work today I installed the Camber arms. Later this week I’ll get the alignment done, and see how the change works at the next local St. Louis event on the 17th of July.
Additionally I made a few changes to the suspension, I left the rear springs on the car, the setup there, with hypercoils, will allow me to swap them out easier to a heavier spring. The other thing, also in the rear, is that the Konis use the OEM upper mount, and unfortunately when I put the OEM suspension back on #2, I used the OEM mounts, so I tried to use the mounts from ISC setup, but the shaft of the Koni is smaller than the ISC, so the bushing doesn’t work properly, I ordered the OEM bushings, and cut down the metal spacer to fit in the ISC mount. I remounted the Konis with the ISC setup and tried my best to get the alignment close to where it was when I started the process.
Next on the car I would like to do a full header and exhaust install, but we’ll see if I get there or not this year, we’re looking at another $3500 I believe to make that happen.
Last edited by christoc; Jul 10, 2016 at 08:56 PM.
Quick update:
Since the last post, I've had 1 local event, and then the Wilmington Summer Pro.
The local event I hit many many many cones, wasn't sure why, but the car definitely felt different. I'm not great with "feeling" so I couldn't quite put my thumb on the issue.
Wilmington Pro I went out on Saturday and had red light issues in the morning, then a cone on the right in the afternoon. I finally figure out what was wrong.
The car was LOOOOOOOSE, to the point of not having faith in it, or being able to put power down in a corner/slalom. So Sunday morning I disconnected one of the end links on the rear Sway bar.
Sunday morning the car as MUCH better. Finally started putting down some times with the rest of the Zs, though still not close to Martin in the STI.
Looking forward to honing my driving a bit more at Blytheville this weekend. Not sure if I'll get any more car prep done before Nationals. Possibly will try to get a tune so that I can at least get a higher rev limit.
I've got a 2nd pair of 285s for Nationals, just need to mount them, need to order the other 2 tires though to make a set, I'm considering ordering 275s for the rear, for the extra 2.5mph (or whatever the math works out to)
Since the last post, I've had 1 local event, and then the Wilmington Summer Pro.
The local event I hit many many many cones, wasn't sure why, but the car definitely felt different. I'm not great with "feeling" so I couldn't quite put my thumb on the issue.
Wilmington Pro I went out on Saturday and had red light issues in the morning, then a cone on the right in the afternoon. I finally figure out what was wrong.
The car was LOOOOOOOSE, to the point of not having faith in it, or being able to put power down in a corner/slalom. So Sunday morning I disconnected one of the end links on the rear Sway bar.
Sunday morning the car as MUCH better. Finally started putting down some times with the rest of the Zs, though still not close to Martin in the STI.
Looking forward to honing my driving a bit more at Blytheville this weekend. Not sure if I'll get any more car prep done before Nationals. Possibly will try to get a tune so that I can at least get a higher rev limit.
I've got a 2nd pair of 285s for Nationals, just need to mount them, need to order the other 2 tires though to make a set, I'm considering ordering 275s for the rear, for the extra 2.5mph (or whatever the math works out to)
New Member
Joined: Aug 2015
Posts: 173
Likes: 18
From: Chicago
At really grippy concrete like Wilmington and Lincoln, most RWD cars act the same, the increased grip of the surface allows the front tires to bite more than a lower grip surface does. Thus causing oversteer.
We had to dial out some rebound in the front shocks to get the rear to settle down.
We had to dial out some rebound in the front shocks to get the rear to settle down.
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