Originally Posted by DumpInfo

After years and years that this thread was created I want to thank you Jeff and well as all the other helpful threads created on forum.

DumpInfo

Originally Posted by zland

Tires: The most common tire size upgrade is to a 245 ft tire and 275 rears. Notice the rears are larger than the front to maintain the understeer/oversteer issue. Your stock wheels will not accommodate this big of a tire thus read up on what size wheel works for the tires you want to put on your car. I strongly suggest you use this website http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html This site will tell you how much difference there is between your stock tire and tire you desire. If you increase or decrease your tire size over 3% of stock size (in outsize rolling diameter) it will affect your ABS braking system and VDC. Simply put, your car will sense the back wheels are rotating too quickly for example and the ECU will think you are spinning your tires/losing traction which will possibly cause your car to brake or cut off the throttle. I recommend you keep the margin within 1.5%. I went with larger tires, 265 fronts and 295 rears. This is not as wise a choice for performance if you plan on maintaining the stock motor however if you plan on adding at least 100 hp, it might be something to consider. You need to be careful going with this large a tire combination. Your wheel offset must be just right or your tires will rub against the fenders. Mine don’t but I did my homework.

Originally Posted by zland

After reading and posting on this site for over a year, I think I can make some suggestions to new Z owners that will help them before they begin to modify their 350 Z’s. I believe that if you follow some of these suggestions, you will reach your goals in modifying your Z with less frustration.

1. Define your goal. Are you simply trying to make your car look nicer, building it for street racing, drag racing, autoX, track, or a show car. Maybe it is a combination of more than just one of these, if so, be sure which one is more important because they may conflict each other.

2. Set your budget. You could easily spend in excess of $25, 000 on mods if you went with upgraded suspension, wheels and tires, and a Twin Turbo alone. Someone recently asked himself why he was spending so much money on modifying his 350Z when he could have purchase a Z06 Vette that will out perform his Z and the Vette would still have the factory warranty. Know what you want to achieve and how much you are willing to spend before beginning to modify your car.

3. Determine if you are willing to void your warranty from Nissan. Many suspension mods void anything related to suspension so if you spend $2000 on coilover suspension, be ready to accept that Nissan will not fix your tire feathering problems found on many 350Z after 5000 miles with anything but stock or NISMO S suspension.

4. Determine how much of a risk taker you are. A lot of people would love to have 500hp but how concerned are you about reliability. Your car has been designed stock to provide good performance with reliability. Nissan told their engineers to design the 350Z motor to last 200,000 miles. As a general rule, the more hp, the less reliability although some would argue that fact.

5. How long will you keep your 350Z? In many cases, most modifications do not bring higher resale and in many situations depreciate the cars value. I have already seen several nice 350Z’s with modifications of over $10,000 and then be sold off for parts bringing penny’s on a dollar due to people selling their 350Z months after modifying it. Ask yourself how long you plan to keep a 2 seater sports car. For most young couples, when the baby comes, the 350Z goes.

Originally Posted by Theslug

I just wanted to say thanks as well. Nicely done, you covered a lot of important points. I too agree that the most important mod should be yourself as a driver. You can spend 10s of thousands of dollars making your car look better and go faster, but in the end it means nothing when you wrap it around a tree because you have no clue how to drive it. I've done more than my share of vehicle recoveries and been the one unsticking them from trees so that fire fighters can remove the bodies... Be safe everyone

Originally Posted by i8acobra

I'm curious what you were searching for that caused you to revive an 8 year old thread.

Originally Posted by Theslug

Originally Posted by i8acobra

I'm curious what you were searching for that caused you to revive an 8 year old thread.