Looks good, glad you enjoyed it and took the G. Imagine those pictures with the Cruze instead.

 

Beautiful photos, beautiful car. Thanks for sharing

 

Looks great! Nice to see the other Superspeed wheel car in action

Out of curiosity, why do you have the license plate bracket, but no plate? On a related note, I wanted to relocate my plate, but the dealer screwed the mount directly through the bumper cover. So removing it leaves 2 huge ugly holes in the bumper cover.

 

There's such a thing as hole plugs, which would look a lot better than the holes, but still kind of odd.

 

Huh, didn't know that was a thing....I'll do some Googling

 

So, not G related but tangential, as it involves an R35.

Last Christmas my wife gave me one of those 'drive a supercar' experiences, and decided I'd prefer a GT-R over any of the real exotics. (she's right BTW - I don't want my first time in a Lambo etc to be 9/10ths on a racetrack, no matter how 'controlled' an environment). Originally scheduled for May, had a lot of life stuff come at us and had to reschedule. Closest date near us was this past weekend.

I will say that the Xtreme Experience folks run a well organized and safe event. I've seen worse at sanctioned SCAA races - so props to them for that. I was a little disappointed that they nickle-and-dime you on option packages (that really shouldn't be optional) but all industries are going that way, and that's just me being a curmudgeon.

So what did I get out of it? 4 progressively hotter laps riding in a Hellcat to learn the track (the last driven at about 8/10ths with proper braking transitions, trail braking, and complex apexing the one compound corner). Then, 3 laps in the GT-R with an instructor. First lap he was pushing safety rules (stay 3' from the edge of the track, there's a 'coasting' period between accel and brake application, early apexes) to letting me get away with kissing the FIA curbing where appropriate and no coast period - straight from gas to hard braking.

Man, this thing is fast in a very subtle way, and smooth. Only mods that I could see were track tires and race pads. I was very surprised that the auto trans actually downshifted where I would have done, were it a manual.

In-car vid looks like I was hitting similar speeds to the hellcat (short straights) but felt like I was just driving *slightly* more aggressively than I would on the road. Not sure if that's the car or it says something about me, TBH.




I feel like I'd have a maintenance nightmare if I bought a used one, but there is a lot of appeal.

 

Sounds like a sweet time. To your last point, I've always heard they were fairly reliable as long as you kept on maintenance with them? The speed of exotic without the repair bills. Except the early transmissions anyway.

 

It's getting to be time for brakes on my S sedan. I've used EBC for the last 2 brake jobs on my R51 Pathfinder and been impressed with the fit, quality, and performance of EBC pads and rotors. They have been quiet and vibration free. So, I am leaning towards EBC Greenstuff pads and EBC USR slotted rotors for the G.

However, I see Z1 has their house brand pads and rotors on sale. Going the Z1 route would save ~$125. Thoughts?

 

I have never tried their pads, but did have their 2pc. slotted front rotors and they worked great.

 

Same as 4DRZ - I've been a fan of Hawk pads for at least 1 forever.

However, Hawk doesn't seem to make pads for my wife's CX-5 so we went with EBC greenstuffs. They seem to last about 18 months, good bite and no fade even in bad rev & brake traffic, and the dust is the same as the Mazda pads honestly.

I do have an opinion question for the hivemind. Z1 has G37 and G35 ported upper intake manifolds on decent sale. I'm already running a G35/VQ35HR UIM, I'm wondering if going to their CNC ported one would hurt the midrange gains I installed the thing for, or if it would just open up my top end a little more. Anyone with experience with these?

 

I'll be bringing in my wife's Forester next month for snow tires and a NY inspection. I'm also going to suggest it's time for the front brakes. Almost 80K miles on the original front rotors & pads. Each of the last two years the shop has told me they're still worthy, and not to replace them yet. I think they're getting really soft, and it's time.

Man... 80K miles out of OEM front brakes. That seems pretty good.

 

You are only getting 18 months out of brake pads on a CX-5?!? How many miles?

And on the opposite end of the spectrum- 80k on stock brakes. Yeah, that's pretty good. Have you replaced the brake fluid recently? Usually that leads to a "really soft" brake pedal. But if you notice a long travel in the brake pedal then I would agree that your pads and rotors are definitely worn.

 

Two years ago, when they said the rotors and pads still had plenty of life left in them, I had the shop drain & fill the brake fluid. It made them slightly less soft.

Yeah, 80K on stock brakes feels almost odd. If they tell me again they're fine as is, I don't know... I might just instruct them to go ahead anyway.

 

around 30K? We have a lot of panic-braking traffic that is either at 60 or 0 around here.

OK hang on, I can check my amazon history for the actual months. March 2019 through October 2022 - of course, since 2020 all years are the same year is what I'm going to blame. 43 months. About 60K miles in that case. Keep in mind that for most of 2020 the car sat - no one was going anywhere except the grocery store.

 

Do the wheel spokes have enough clearance to see the brake pad thickness? If not, I'm sure you can manage taking off a front wheel to take a closer look. Most stock pads have a wear indicator that squeals when the pads are worn down pretty low. Maybe you guys are just really easy on the brakes.


Ok, 60,000 miles makes a lot more sense. For me 18 months equals about 7-8,000 miles.