- In the 1970s
import cars were really starting to make their appearance
in the United States, especially the Japanese import cars.
The sporty coupes and roadsters at the time were
unlike anything else the U.S. market had seen before.
And one car in particular, that really became a staple
for the Japanese import car at the time, was the
Nissan Fairlady Z.
As decades on, the love for the Fairlady continued,
and the car itself saw multiple new generations being
brought to the market.
One of those generations, I'm sure
you're pretty familiar with since it's arguably one
of the most popular sports cars of the early two thousands,
of course, we're talking about the Nissan 350Z.
Whether it was introduced to you from the cover
of Need for Speed Underground Two,
or from DK and his crew whipping them in Tokyo Drift.
Either way, 350Z has become a staple
for car enthusiasts to want to get their hands on
as a V-6 rear-wheel drive coupe tends to be a lot of fun.
So whether or not you just picked
up a 350Z or you're looking to do some odds
and ends of modifying it, I mean, why wouldn't you?
And if that's the case, you found yourself
in the right spot, as today, we're gonna break
down every thing that you should know, as far
as what modifications you need to do to your Nissan 350Z.
(electronic music)
Peanut butter chocolate flavor.
Of course, before we go ahead and dive
into all the fun stuff and talk
about what cool car parts you can get
and what you can do to make these cars faster
maybe sound a little bit better,
or maybe look the best, we should first go
over a little overview
of what the Nissan 350Z actually is.
Stuff you should know before jumping straight
into modifying them.
Any weird quirks they may have
or anything that is an absolute must-do
when you get your hands on one of these cars.
First things first, be glad we did not get anything
remotely close to the concept of this car.
Like, seriously, look at this.
I'm not sure what the a whole idea
behind bringing retro styling to modern cars was
all about in like, the early 2000s, but it just wasn't it.
This thing was also powered by a KA24.
Could you imagine all the 350Zs today running
around with like KAs in them?
Pretty wild.
Anyway, the real 350Z that we do know
and love isn't horrendous looking at all.
And it hit the U.S. market in 2002-2003,
powered by the 3.5 liter VQ 35DE engine,
in the beginning, paired with either a five-speed automatic
or six-speed manual transmission, provided the 350Z
with right around 287 horsepower.
Not bad for an early 2000 sports coupe.
Later years brought a newer, upgraded version
of the VQ 35 in the form of the HR variant in 2007,
which gave a car a little more bump in horsepower
to right about 306, and a higher red line of 7,500 RPM.
The car itself saw a minor facelift as well,
as years went on most notably in the hood
of the later years to make room for the added height
of the HR engine.
Of course we have the Nismo trim level as well,
that saw sleeker body design for the bumpers
and things, upgraded brakes and suspension,
and was only available in a manual transmission.
As far as common issues with these cars.
The biggest one has to be, of course their oil consumption.
The VQ does love its oil.
And even though it doesn't really show itself
in the form of like leaking or burning
it does use quite a bit, especially in the 2003 years.
So keep an eye on your oil level.
Other common issues have to do with things
like the camshaft and crankshaft position sensors.
Even though Nissan did issue a recall for those,
they, not everyone does it, especially,
they just didn't, they were just selling the car anyway.
As far as adding power goes, the VQ is a decent motor,
I would say.
I mean, you're talking about a naturally aspirated V6
that's crammed into its tight engine bay,
which can also be a little bit irritating to work on,
which we'll get into.
Your bolt-on mods and a tune won't really be
any worry to the reliability of the engine.
It's more when people start slapping some spooly boys
and stuff on that, you start playing with fire,
which again we'll talk about just a second.
Because now that we have some general information
under our belt let's talk about getting into modifications.
What you can do to your 350Z to not make it only
more fun to drive, but look good too.
What we're gonna do is kind of break it
down to a few different categories.
So first being wheels, tires, and suspension
what are people running on these cars?
What looks good?
And of course, what sizes fit?
Next we'll move into performance side of things
and talk about some bolt-ons for these cars
and any other performance modifications
that are worth it or needed.
To close it out,
any other modifications that we would recommend
to make the driving experience more enjoyable.
A new set of wheels can really make or break the look
of your car.
It can be like, the best thing,
and it can be the worst thing that you can do,
depending on how you do it.
So let's make sure that
you do it the right way the first time.
First thing you're gonna need to know is your bolt pattern.
Luckily Nissan chose like, the best one out there.
5X114.3 makes things really easy,
as it's the most popular bolt pattern,
has the most options for aftermarket wheels.
We went and picked out some of our favorite choices
of wheels for these cars
that do a few different things well.
First off, they look great,
second, they aren't going to break the bank,
and third, they come in on the right sizes
and good finishes and they perform well.
First up on the list would be the Konig Dekagram.
A 10-spoke flow form wheel that's absolutely killer
on these cars.
They're lightweight, they're strong,
and they come in the right specs for the 350Z.
Konig has a good amount of options
for these cars and is a really well trusted name
in the aftermarket wheel industry.
The higher spoke design really isn't your jam and
wants something guaranteed to perform well and look good,
you can't really go wrong with NK, either.
The NKRPF1 now, and like RPF1, right?
You know, just everyone has it, whatever.
But it's still an incredible wheel, especially
for the price that you are paying for them.
RPF1s do a really good job on pretty much any platform
that they go on.
And the 350Zs is no exception.
Our third option's, of course, gonna be the Anovia Elder.
Not just because it's our very own wheels
that we spend thousands of hours of blood, sweat,
and tears on, but because we were designing them
specifically for the 350Z in mind.
Using the same process as the other wheels mentioned
before, the Elder stays incredibly lightweight
while maintaining all the strength and performance
that is needed out of an aftermarket wheel.
Big brake clearance and ensures
that you can put these wheels, that they're going
to clear the Brembos if you have them,
or if you have big brake kit that you decided to go with.
They're also directional, but unlike directional
in the past, the Elder has a left
and right side design to it.
Make sure that most sides of your car look the same.
Something that was really only offered
in a forged wheel option before
that you're gonna pay a lot of money for,
but we really like you guys so we decided
to bring that into like a rotary forged option
that doesn't cost nearly as much.
Some other great options, as well,
to look at would be of course, the Kansei K&P.
Any of the 57 series wheels from the gram lights line
of wheels, and of course, if you really wanna
ball out and go and snag yourself a nice set of TE37s.
Of course, sizing is really what's going
to be important here to make sure
that your wheels look good.
Fitment is key.
And as far as size go for these cars
18s are pretty much the go-to size.
And it's almost always going to see
these wheels being in a staggered setup.
These cars can fit some pretty big wheels
and some pretty aggressive offsets,
and 18x9.5 +22 up front and 18x10.5 +22
in the rear works really well.
And if you want to go a little bit more aggressive
with things you can even go down to something
like a +15 offset.
If you're gonna need some new tires
with your new wheels, we would recommend going
with something like Falken or Michelin or Continental.
They all have some really great tire options
that are going to offer both performance
and comfortability for daily driving your car.
It's almost like, if you want to take car to the track
and just drive it to and from the track,
you can do that as well.
Or if you just want something that performs good,
looks good, and is comfortable to drive,
they make some great options, too.
So you got your wheels and tires.
Now, how about some drop in ride height
and set of aftermarket suspension can
really add a ton to your car, as far as like overall feel,
driving experience, and looks.
You get rid of that horrendous wheel gap,
dial-in your Fitment.
So if you're looking for a set of coilovers,
we recommend BC Racing has got a ton of options
for the 350Z platform,
and along has different series,
you get some different adjustabilities on things
as you go up those series and get external reservoirs
and all that sort of stuff.
If you're looking at tracking the car, drifting the car,
whatever you might wanna do,
you can find a BC Racing coilover for you.
If you wanna go to air route, Air Lift Performance
almost always the option here.
3P System, super easy to install, works great,
looks really good when you air the 350Z out.
It's a good setup and it comes with everything you need.
Instruction's super easy to follow.
If there's any car group out there that loves
their aftermarket exhaust it, of course,
it's you Z guys and gals.
I'll just leave it at that.
But honestly, exhaust modifications are some
of the most fun modifications you can do.
A Cat-Back exhaust is like the best route to go.
Maybe a test pipe or something in there, too.
And Invidia ISR and Tomei are among the top brands
for Cat-Back exhaust that we see people go with
for the 350Z and Stillen, HKS also up there as well.
What about other bolt-on mods, what else can we do headers?
Hell yeah.
Why not?
From the factory, I mean the 350Z
already has a decent set of headers on the car.
Not gonna lie, it's really not that bad.
But you can always benefit from an upgrade,
especially to your exhaust system.
Just keep in mind, this process,
kind of a bit of a nightmare.
Space is really limited in engine base of these cars,
but brands like ISR, Tomei and DC Sports again,
coming in on the top of that list.
As far as tunes go,
UpRev seems to be the standard flash tune
that you can go with for pretty much everything
in the Nissan community, especially for the Z platform.
When it comes down to going the route
of adding some forced induction on these cars,
the amount of aftermarket support out there,
or essentially, bolt-on kit is pretty good.
Vortech Supercharger Kit,
pretty much the most common thing
that we see out there, as far as adding forced induction.
While a bit pricey, it's a pretty trusted kit
to go with if you're looking to boost your 350Z.
General consensus brings us to believe
that right around 400 horsepower is that limit
that you want to cap out on, on stock internals
of the engine.
But I mean, of course, providing any boost
to like any NA platform can be a risky game
and have different outcomes for each person.
General thumb, if you're on stock internals don't try
to push anything crazy.
You don't want to push it one more PSI.
Don't wanna do that.
As far as other modifications go
to make the driving experience more enjoyable
for the 350Z, a lot of owners go the route
of dialing in their suspension a little bit more.
From the factory, the 350Z handles pretty decent,
but it is prone to a good amount of body roll.
Things like upgrading your sway bars
and upgraded strut bars to help mitigate that,
can really go a long way.
This is already on top of a set of aftermarket suspension
like coils or air.
Brake upgrades are also fairly common
in the form of upgraded pads and rotors
or even just swapping over to a big brake kit,
if your car didn't come with Brembos from the factory.
You're pretty lucky if they did.
Aesthetic wise, I mean, it's really all
across the board from simple lip kits
to wide body kits, duck bills to chassis mounts.
I mean, you see these cars being built every which way.
We see people get pretty crazy with these things
and in my opinion, less is kind of more
with these cars right now.
They have some really body lines to them
and something like a simple body kit can really
go a long way when it comes to the overall appearance
of your car.
So hopefully this helped guide you in the right direction.
If you're looking to modify your Nissan 350Z.
Get you a good starting point,
especially if you're looking for some aftermarket wheels,
tires, or suspension.
And don't forget, you can check out all of those options
that we listed, plus many more over
at FIMENTINDUSTRIES.COM.
We'll package those wheels and tires together for you.
We'll mount-balance and ship 'em for free.
You can get 'em the same day that they arrive.
You can put 'em on your car right away.
You don't have to mess with anything.
You get suspension over there as well.
We got it all.
So you can go check it out, FITMENTINDUSTRIES.COM.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
I'm Gels, we'll see you the next one.
Peace.