My car was finally able to make it to MSA's West Coast Z Nationals held near Anaheim California. I felt the car was in presentable enough condition to justify car show worthiness. I made it for the first time in 2007 with a big showing of people from SinCityZ (www.sincityz.com). As a group I believe we took home 3-4 awards or more! We were there for a few days taking in the California weather and enjoying the Z Cars. The event will be the most memorable of all my events. Just like the first time, you're not exactly sure what you're doing, but it is exciting and thrilling. In the end its all over too soon but you know you want more.
Somehow with my hideous wheels I was able to take 3rd place in the modified category. I was completely shocked I won and to this day dont quite appreciate how surreal that was. Was a great weekend that began my road to car show and (some) awards.
I went for a repeat to the 2008 MSA Z Nationals with much better wheels (Work Meisters S1's) and an overall better looking Z. But, no award this time around. Shortly after the 2008 show the economy tanked, as did our car club. Friends and fellow Z Enthusiast went there own ways and the club began falling apart slowly. I have yet to be back to the show in Cali due to many things, mostly the car being down for 3 years.
My introduction to the Z Car (show) culture was fun. From there I spent the next 3 years scraping to get by and keeping a firm grasp on my Z as she sat and waiting for the day she would run again. My Z plans to make it back to Cali for 2013. Lets see how that pays out.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
The first year: Maintenance, mods and headaches!
The first month or so really showed me what kind of pockets owning a Z would require. I should have known from there on out it wouldn't get any easier. Over the course on the next year I did the typical maintenance and modifications. Well, I did more of the latter as I didn't understand how important maintenance was to these cars. Plus I was young and quite ignorant.
First thing I did was drive! Drove the car everywhere. And why not, it was a joy! I have never had a car that handled and drove so well but was comfortable enough to make a few hour trip out of town. Since it was my daily driver, it got a lot of attention.
I changed out the headlights and foglights for some snazzy Silverstar bulbs. This is before HIDs were affordable. Put in a Sony headunit and got a awesome carbon fiber hood. HAH! It was awesome looking then. I remember how much crap I got on 300ZXClub.com for showing off the hood. I was hounded to paint it on a regular basis.
Did the typical maintenance (oil changes, differential and transmission fluid). I always ran Redline (at the time) in the engine. I thought Race Oil was the coolest thing ever until I realized I was wasting my money!
One day when making a huge ($$$) trip to Meyers Auto to buy more stuff for the car (cases of oil and filters, etc); I see a really nice, shiney all aluminum radiator from CSF. At the time, CSF made a GREAT 2-Row radiator (vs our OEM 1-Row). I knew the Z had a tough time keeping cool in the summer. So I saved up to snag this beauty.
For some reason all my heard earned money got sucked up into maintenance. Some of the maintenance is my own fault, most of it was the Z being cranky.
Countless hours days and nights were spent in my apartment complex parking lot fixing the car. As I have no formal training or knowledge on auto repair. It was a very painful learning experience. I randomly bounce between fixing runability and idling issues like a tennis match. In the process I somehow feel it would be fun to mod more.
In the midst of changing out spark plugs and wiring in new injector clips I send out an upper intake plenum to have it extrude honed. I get the nice, new smooth manifold back in my hands. Before I can even install it I get a dead injector. Being ignorant, I replace just the bad injector with a used one. I then install my upper intake plenum after fixing the injector problem.
Being the fact the plenum was extrude honed, it got a little warped in the process. I had to stand on two corners of the plenum to get it to flatten while my buddy bolts the plenum down.
All this love and attention (though some of it was used parts kind of love) and the Z began to behave....for a while!
First thing I did was drive! Drove the car everywhere. And why not, it was a joy! I have never had a car that handled and drove so well but was comfortable enough to make a few hour trip out of town. Since it was my daily driver, it got a lot of attention.
I changed out the headlights and foglights for some snazzy Silverstar bulbs. This is before HIDs were affordable. Put in a Sony headunit and got a awesome carbon fiber hood. HAH! It was awesome looking then. I remember how much crap I got on 300ZXClub.com for showing off the hood. I was hounded to paint it on a regular basis.
Did the typical maintenance (oil changes, differential and transmission fluid). I always ran Redline (at the time) in the engine. I thought Race Oil was the coolest thing ever until I realized I was wasting my money!
One day when making a huge ($$$) trip to Meyers Auto to buy more stuff for the car (cases of oil and filters, etc); I see a really nice, shiney all aluminum radiator from CSF. At the time, CSF made a GREAT 2-Row radiator (vs our OEM 1-Row). I knew the Z had a tough time keeping cool in the summer. So I saved up to snag this beauty.
For some reason all my heard earned money got sucked up into maintenance. Some of the maintenance is my own fault, most of it was the Z being cranky.
Countless hours days and nights were spent in my apartment complex parking lot fixing the car. As I have no formal training or knowledge on auto repair. It was a very painful learning experience. I randomly bounce between fixing runability and idling issues like a tennis match. In the process I somehow feel it would be fun to mod more.
In the midst of changing out spark plugs and wiring in new injector clips I send out an upper intake plenum to have it extrude honed. I get the nice, new smooth manifold back in my hands. Before I can even install it I get a dead injector. Being ignorant, I replace just the bad injector with a used one. I then install my upper intake plenum after fixing the injector problem.
Being the fact the plenum was extrude honed, it got a little warped in the process. I had to stand on two corners of the plenum to get it to flatten while my buddy bolts the plenum down.
All this love and attention (though some of it was used parts kind of love) and the Z began to behave....for a while!
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