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Trying this again since my last post disappeared without a trace...
Hello all, I'm in the process of building a 350Z into a track car. For the last decade I've been running a supercharged Audi A4 quattro and while I enjoyed it and the car was fairly quick, I've grown tired of constant engine rebuilds and I wanted to go to a rwd setup. The car I've found is an '06 base model with just 27k miles on the clock. It was almost a shame to tear out the interior as it all looked brand new. I still have all the bits in the attic is anyone local needs anything, just let me know. So the car's been stripped, full cage has been welded in and I installed Sparco seats and 6 point harnesses. The top dash has been re-installed along with a custom 3D printed center console with extra gauges (oil temp, coolant temp, egt), a kill switch and a few extra switches for things like cameras, lights, etc. I've upgraded the radiator and added a large external oil cooler. The fluids have been changed and track brake pads were installed. Besides that the car is basically stock, including stock wheels and tires and I plan to run it this way the first time so I can get an idea how it behaves in the stock form before any upgrades are installed. My goal is to have the car ready for the first event in the next couple of weeks. I'll try to post a few pics in the follow up.
A few pics... As bought
gutted dash gutted back Cage installed and painted Upper dash and custom center console reinstalled As it sits right now after a bit of vinyl
Would you happen to be driving at VIR Oct 26-27? Where did you get the center gauge cluster mount where the navigation was? I was just going to make something like that, but that looks so much better than what I was going to do.
I won't be at VIR until early november. I might do two days with TrackDaze followed by 2 days with the Audi club, Nov 7-10. I might not drive an Audi anymore but I still have responsibilities to the club.
The center panel is something I designed and 3D printed myself. It's not a perfect fit but good enough for my needs. I posted the design on thingiverse, so if you have access to a printer you can make your own
Nice build. The only item I'd suggest replacing is the hand-held extinguisher. If there's ever a REAL fire, it'll be just about useless. With all the trick items you've got in the interior, why not add a real fire suppression system, with AFFF nozzles pointed in the engine bay and cockpit to allow you to escape?
I hear you, and if this was going to be a race car I'd do it, but for a track car I'm ok with hand held. I've had to use it before under the hood of the Audi when a plug blew out on the back of the head and sprayed the exhaust with oil. For "small" fires like that the hand held does a good job without a ton of cleanup. For anything larger, well, I'm practicing my escape procedures :P But point taken, as the build progresses and the mechanics become less stock I likely will revisit this setup.
So here we go with first issue that's all my fault. I put strobe bulbs in the reverse lamps, mostly for giggles, but also sometimes I act as a pace car for lead and follow sessions with students, figured it would be a neat touch. In order to wire the reverse lights to turn on with a switch I looked up the wiring diagram for rear lights in the service manual. The wire coming down the driver's side harness was labeled LG. Yeah... that's *NOT* light gray, that's light green. Light gray is an evap system wire and applying 12V to it resulted in a two fun codes. First was evap system implausible reading, the second was much more ominous P0605 - ECU ROM error accompanied by lack of CEL and no start. So yeah, I fried the ECU by tapping the wrong wire. Fun!
Ended up buying a spare ECU, checking that it did light up the CEL and did scan clean, after which I shipped it to UpRev to do the NATS delete. Hopefully *fingers crossed* that should get the car running again. Should find out sometimes next week, but is my understanding correct? Disabling the NATS should allow another ECU (same exact type) to start the car no problem?
Nice starter car for race use, no surprise I'm sure but better brakes will be needed. Just be careful about adding a lot of unsprung and rotating weight with bigger than necessary brakes.
I'm sure that's true. I need to be especially careful about the upgrade order. I want to go to a square setup, but I don't think it's a good idea to go to 275 slicks with stock brakes and suspension. So I'll probably purchase a pair of rear oem wheels for front use so I can mount aggressive/R tires 245 or 255s all around as an intermediate step. The brakes pads currently installed are GLoc equivalent to XP10s (same compound, cheaper price), which should do ok for street tires but probably not great for much more either. After the initial shakedown day I should have a better idea which of these things will need to be addressed first.
Throwing a wrench into my plans, a buddy of mine has a set of 275/40/18 Hoosiers he's will to part with. the stock rear wheels are not wide enough, so I started to look for possible replacements. Any reason I shouldn't go with the circuit CP32 in 18x9 with 20mm offset? They look good and are very inexpensive, but what's the quality like? Anyone have experience with these?
Got the UpRev modified ECU and the car started right up. Glad to see I didn't damage anything beyond the ecu. Also received new rims, 18x9.5 Avid AV06s, gonna mount some Hoosier R7s tomorrow and probably head to Summit next weekend with TrackDaze.
tires mounted, but not going on the car just yet, maybe after a few sessions
car prepped, washed and ready to go in the trailer for its first track day
Did a few laps at Summit last Sunday. The car did well with no major issues. Very happy with cooling upgrades, both coolant and oil temps hovered around 180 degrees all day. The brakes with Gloc pads did well too, not at all bad for stock calipers. I was expecting a lot of understeer but due to ancient 13 year old street tires I was actually getting substantial oversteer too. Made for fun, but not very fast lap times. Started to rain around noon, so never got a chance to swap to the R7s, that'll have to wait 2 weeks for the next event. I did notice that the stock exhaust is way too quiet, with the helmet on I could barely hear it. Also, the stock flywheel is not allowing the RPMs to drop nearly fast enough. Both of these will need to be addressed soon.
NoVa 350Z track build
