so I had today off and am killing time while the emanage ultimate is being installed on my Z and tuned.

I'm driving around in my GF's jeep and decide to stop at this nissan dealer i've never been to. I go in and act like a total newbie off the street driving his beat up old jeep who wants a Z.

The sales guy goes on how fast they are and how much performance they have. He tells me a bunch of somewhat wrong figures. Says his buddy has a Z with 350hp. Ask him if it has a turbo or something on it, says no just exhaust intake and ECU and maybe something else - big 19in wheels of course. Anyway I act like that's just amazing even though I'm pretty sure my Z is one of the strongest NA Z's in phoenix and I'm not quite making 350 crank hp.....yet

so we go on a test drive.

I really do like the 05 (and 04) suspension better than the stock 03 suspension. Not bouncy, fairly planted. Anyway I felt like a newbie trying to learn stick (which helped the illusion that I'm new to the Z) because my Z has the tilton and 3.9 final drive. All rpm's were a little off from what I'm used to driving and the lower idle etc. The stock clutch compared to the tilton though...wow it's a huge difference. I can't believe how LONG it takes to downshift with the stock clutch. The car overall felt pretty slow to me compared to mine. The stock clutch pedal feel is so light feeling compared to the tilton. I don't even remember my 03 when it was stock feeling that light. I just wasn't comfortable with it. I couldn't feel it cause it'd just click to the floor and I'd have to be really light footed on it to feel the engagement point.

Of course there was a 200 lb guy riding shotgun with me too, but still everything felt like it was in slow motion - shifting, downshifting, reving, accelleration, etc

The other thing that of course was way different was you damn near couldn't hear the car. It was so quiet compared to mine. I guess I forget how loud my car is sometimes, but damn it was like driving a sedan or something.


anyway, just thought I'd share my observations. It's nice to see how far your own car has come from when it was stock. And yeah I did feel a little guilty taking up the sales guy's time, but he was feeding me so much misinformation, I just didn't care if he lost 20 min on me

 

Sounds like a good ole time. How's the emanage coming along?

 

How would compare this run, with your first run for your '03?

 

I've been thinking about doing this too just to see what the stock Z was like.

What did you tell them before you left, that you'd be back later? heh

 

said "I'd talk it over with my GF and might be back later that day"

cause you know, $28k for a base model Z is such a smoking deal



when I first drove the Z for the first time I thought it was pretty quick - coming from a nissan frontier crew cab

 

Mike, who's installing the e-manage for you?

 

vivid racing - edit (DON'T GO HERE FOR EMANAGE ULTIMATE INSTALLS - big nightmares. I only go to Dynocomp now in the phx area)

 

Anyone who's modded and wants to fondly remember the feeling of a stock Z, feel free to stop by Virginia Tech, you can go put around some and I'll take care of your modded (NA or FI) Z while you're out.