Hey, I`m a 25 year old student from germany and would like to show you my project.
The Z was my first car which I bought slightly damaged when I was 18. After fixing it I drove it for a few years and did some mods to it.
It was nearly stock, only a strosek front bumper and an air intake.




After two years and few more mods (lmgt4 wheels, full exhaust system, stripped interior, recaro pole positions, kw clubsport suspension, omp wheel, ecu tune, small stuff) I took it to the track for the first time. I had really bad tires at the time (different front/rear) which brought me a small moment in the adenauer forst (3:25min ). This was was my second lap on the nordschleife and my first day on a race track. After four laps my front brembos were absolutely trash, but the track was closing anyways so it wasn´t a problem.
(with stock suspension and interieur)

(with mods listed above, without the steering wheel)




Because I needed a new front brake I went all in and bought 378mm AP-racing floating brake disks with AP-racing pro 5000+ (CP5260) calipers and let manthey racing design the brackets and brake pots. I also got an mocal oil cooler kit, toyo 265 r888 tires and made a custom brake cooling for the front.
I took it to my second trackday and was surprised how much better the tires are. I was more than 30sec faster a lap and the grip level was not comparable. Because I had no adjustable suspension parts I had to drive with only -1° camber in the front and -2° in the rear. That resulted in very bad tire temperatures and left a lot of potential on the track (outer tire temp was hotter than the inner tiretemp).
I`ve some videos on my old channel, here is my most popular one:





Now the the real fun began. I got in contact with schirmer race engineering and planned my future project. If you don`t know them, they build extremely fast track- and racecars. Most popular are their e92 m3s which lapped the ring (BTG) in under 7 minutes on street tires (dz03g), street registered and with a NA engine. The guy who welded my cage also build the first 350z and r35 GTR racecar for nissan in germany for the VLN racing series and the 24h race. He also constructed the cages for all SLS AMG GT3s and much more, basically he knows what he`s doing and has some amazing welding skills. He really helped me, but of course it was still really expensive so for the preparation I did everything I could by myself with the help of some friends. That meant I had to take the car completely apart. There was not a single bolt, line, wire or part left on the body. I also had to remove every tar mat and every sealing between the sheets. The worst part was to carefully drill out every single welding point and cut out all the unnecessary metal sheets (which were a lot, around 800 welding points). That included the basis seat console and much more. Here are some pics before the car went to schirmer.





After SEVERAL year, many visits and some complications the car was finally ready to take home. Because I`m a tall guy it was really a challenge to make me fit perfectly in the car. The cage had to be embed into pillars (much to grind out and the cage is welded directly to the pillars), the seat console had to be "outboxed" (basically under the original floor) and the footwell had completely redesigned to fit me and the AP-racing pedalbox. The frame had to be opened, redesigned, reinforced and so on. He also connected all domes, reinforced them and directly connected the front and rear subframe (cut the body, welded in some bars and welded the metal sheets back on). The part behind the seats is cut out and framed to fit in a FT3 fuel cell. All in all a very elaborate build. Here are some pics:



(fully welded the a pillar, grinded out the "roof")

(fully welded b,c pillar, grinded out)

(supported rear dome)

(footwell boxed out and reinforced for the pedal pox)


(front mountings for the air jacks)

(reinforced front dome and connection to the front subframe)

(cut out to weld the support for the front suspension and welded back together, that on both sides of the bar)

(same for the rear subframe)

(basis seating console boxed out to make it lower)

(for the seat railing to get it even lower)


Now the next fun part began. I had to sand the whole body and had to remove every sealing, protection and much more from the underbody, rear wheel arches and so on. After that my father could paint the underbody and engine compartment (thanks again). The interior was painted by a friend of mine in a professional work shop. It turned out pretty good.





And here is the finished product:

















To get the heat mat in this good was also a real pain:




Currently the engine, fuel system, rear subframe, interior and much more is back in the car and the engine is running fine. I just have some problems with the instruments, but I´ve another thread for that. Of course I don`t just put the car back together. Every single piece is cleaned, painted, sandblasted (actually glass blasted) or replaced. It`ll take a bit more time to get it back rolling, but I`ve sorted out everything and just need to place the last orders. Of course there are some parts that needed much planning. To set up and calculate the brake system, master cylinders and so on took some time. I also have to make custom brake lines to each wheel and many more custom jobs.

Current setup (not everything):
engine:
-plenum spacer
-itg jc60 air filter
-full exhaust system with 200 cats and invidia n1
-koyo radiator
suspension and brakes:
-kw clubsport
-cp5516 ap racing pedal box (big money) with cp6465 master cylinders
-378mm ap racing brake disks front
-cp5260 brake calipers front
-pfc 01 brake pads front and rear
-braided brake lines
interior:
-omp hte-r driver seat
-omp wrc-r passenger seat

I´ll buy some spl products (front and rear camber arms, traction rod, solid diff bushings, solid subframe bushings,...), a lithium battery, new wheels and tires in the next few weeks. Also I`m going to buy a TRW race abs system, which is all well planned and only needs to be ordered. I´m not so sure about the wheels yet. I can`t decide between enkei rs05rr and volk te37sl. The volks are 300gr lighter, maybe have better brake clearance and should be a bit stronger than the enkeis, but will cost me 700€ more. I`ll not buy rpf1, because they are not strong enough and flex too much. Dimensions will be 18*10.5 +15 for the front and 18*11 +18 for the rear. Before race slicks I`ll drive 285/30 direzza 03g tires (when I get that combination to fit, otherwise 265/35).
Because schirmer will enable me to get this car street registered (pretty insane for german laws), I`ll have to buy some street tires (direzzas) anyway. Thats also why I have the possibility to hang in the original fuel cell, because it`s not possible to drive a ft3 cell on the street.

The car is build for the RCN (and maybe VLN in the future) racing series on the nordschleife. Of course I`ll take it to some trackdays, occasionally take it to some country roads and do some tours through norway, italy and so on. I`ll get to the aero in the near future (first splitter and rear diffusor, then underbody and rear spoiler) and much more to do (nitron race suspension, rear brake system, hr engine swap, itbs,...), so it´s gonna be a long project. Surely someday it won`t be possible to drive it on the road and track anymore (ft3 cell, aero, itbs,...), but I still have the possibility to change the fuel cell, take of the spoiler and so on.
Does anyone know if Sasha Anis is on this forum? I`d like to contact him regarding to the engine tuning.

Finally I want to thank everyone who helped me over the years, particularly the owner of the black Z in the picture who also spend countless hours on this build