When I made the decision to turbocharge my G37S Sedan I started accumulating some of the parts needed for the project while deciding on what shop to have all of the work performed as a one stop shop type of situation.

The goal was to make the car as reliable as possible with forced induction on the stock block, stock heads, stock pistons and stock rods while keeping as much stock drivability since I drive this car very often in all types of traffic, different climates with both super unleaded fuel and E85 while using the VR transmission.

A year before this project was started, I visited Specialty Z while visiting some friends in California (I’m from New York). During the visit Seb was able to give me a shop tour, took me for a ride in a turbocharged 370Z that he just finished working on and drove to Fast Intentions to check them out. We discussed what I wanted performed on my car. The reason I’m starting with this backstory and bringing this up is because I cannot stress enough to many performance enthusiasts out there to take the time to look into the shop and who you’re giving your car to be worked on. When visiting/researching a shop you’re considering, you should be checking things like how clean and organized the shop is, how tools are cared for and being put back in place, what’s being done to protect the cars that are and aren’t being worked on, the attention to detail on the work being performed, do the techs have their heads into their work, who’s answering phones, the professionalism of the people there, do they sound knowledgeable, etc.

In short, Specialty Z was in very good order when it came to all those things, so I decided to have them perform the work on the car. We discussed when they would have time to fit me in the schedule and so I started getting things organized in advance before it was time to send the car to Specialty Z. I gathered the parts that I had purchased for the project, put them in organized numbered boxes with an itemized list of what was in each box so nothing would get misplaced and to make it easier for the technicians to find what parts were needed and placed them inside the car for shipment to California.

Communication is so important from both sides when doing something like this. It makes things so much easier for all of the parties involved. While the car was at Specialty Z, Seb or Edgar contacted me with anything they needed me to authorize on the car as well as the progress from beginning to end.

Things come up sometimes when doing projects like this that may be expected or unexpected, make sure to keep that in mind. With my car having 90k miles on the original motor, I knew there would be some items that would have to be refreshed in the middle of all this. Those “while you’re in there” parts (gallery gaskets, water pump, timing chains, valve stem seals, gaskets, broken retainers to new style, engine mounts, etc.). were performed to make sure there was a good base to start with.

After all the parts were installed, the car was tuned by Seb, gone over to make sure there were no issues and it was shipped back to NY.

Since I’ve gotten the car back, I have put some miles on it out around town, to and from work, went out of state to Cecil County Raceway, tested it on the dragstrip as is with the stock tires to just test it out and drove back home. The car did pretty good on the strip and put up some good MPH. Traction was limited due to the stock tires. I plan to go back to the track in the summer with some drag radials and/or some slicks to see what times I can run with it.

I had some questions about a few things since I’ve gotten the car back and I was able to email Seb, he responded as soon as he had some time, great to see the customer support!

Thanks again to Seb and everyone at Specialty Z. This was a very enjoyable experience from beginning to end in every way.

I’ll u​​​​​​pdate with some track times when I go back to the track in the summer.

 

That's a great, well-written story.

Sure must be a labor of love, because the car is worth a fraction of the expense to ship it cross country twice, the 5-figure cost in parts, and likely north of 100 hours in premium labor.

respect

 

Thanks! I've had the car since new and thought now was time to have some fun with it. I've owned a lot of performance modified cars in the past. You know how it is when doing these things, it's all about your personal goals and having fun.