McLovin's Build/journal
 

Where to start....I have always been in love with the Z's for a long time every since i laid eye's on a 350 i knew i had to have one, only i was in highschool and had no means of that kind of income for one at the time. I had to settle with my 2004 civic. Jump forward a few years, i followed my fathers foot steps into the Air Force in 2012, hopped on a deployment in 2014 and that's when my dreams of owning my own Z came to life. I thought I loved the 350z, but the 370z is just a perfected artwork. Step one on this deployment lose the girlfriend/aka she left me mid deployment so made this decision a heck of a lot easier:rofl2: her loss. Hit up USAA and their car buying service for deployed members because i knew nissan was one of the options. An email later and picking my options i had a solid quote under MSRP. Delivery date mentioned would have been the beginning of 2015 and wasn't going to wait that long. So i got a hold of a stealership in my city sent them an email asking if they could match my military special quote. Surprisingly they did! signed some documents and got my order put in for my 2015 sport pearl Z delivery of december straight from japan's factory 33k no tax/Ohio state perk. Okay enough of the boring read time for pictures!

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Car came in December 14, 2014. Two month wait for build and shipment which wasn't too bad. This was my first purchase of anything this big in my life so i was super stoked to see single digit miles on the car such a cool experience.

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Did an oil change on the fresh motor just for OCD reasons and within 200 miles on the car the mod bug already bit me hard and good, had to let her breath with the best intakes out there for our cars.

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Didn't take long to hit 1k miles and another oil change after driving her like a crack addict, in the mean time I had put in an order with the best customer service I have ever had from a company, Tony/Kevin at Fast Intentions you guys rock! Full headers back setup wasn't going to wait 24weeks so just bit the bullet on both at the same time.

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Cat back installed and loving the rich note of this exhaust, next up some added parts and header install.

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Figured if im doing the install of the headers myself might as well go all out while im in there. Shout out to scott from the facebook Z pages and his porting work on the lower and upper Z manifolds along with the TB. Some Z1 mounts to keep the motor planted, and some silicone to brighten things up.

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Getting the headers put in and the extras, i think i only had about 3-6k miles on her at this time, thankfully the demon bolt hasn't had a chance to rust and seize on the cats so it was a smooth removal. working on a brand new car saves so much headache.

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Z1 mounts in their place, loving the simple clean look over the bulbous OEM black one's not that you can see from the engine bay anyways.

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after the header install, and other nick nacks time for my tune. I wish ecutek had been out by then but unfortunatly I was stuck with simple uprev. I was tuned up in columbus Ohio I forget the shop name but they had so many expensive cars in one place than i have ever seen before. In the picture you can see one of the three lambos that where there 1400hp pump gas. also a truck that looked like it came from ironhide the transformers with over 60k lift. Tune came out to 324hp 270tq after I did the ported manifold swap on the dyno and picked up another 10hp in a 4th gear pull.

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Oil catch can install

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Some suspension upgrades, heard everyone loves the way whiteline compliments the feel of the Z so I followed the Z bretheren and couldn't be happier with the feel, i also did some swift springs later. While i was under decided to replace the diff cover and install some whiteline diff mounts.

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out with the plastic in with the zspeed shield love the new protection and look.

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Figured since eveything else got a new mount the Transmission needed some love too.

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at one time I had 100 or more so photos of the other work that i did but i lost them when my phone took a crap, backup lesson learned lost 1400 photos total. anyways got the front and rear bumpers painted with black pearl accents and I took a crack at opening the headlights up and did a dual halo/dual glass projector and custom switchback turnsignal to fit behind the new projector lens/ Aka dimiond drill bit and cut an inch into the back of the glass to make a pocket for the bulb so i didn't have to compromise bulb sizing. sand blasted and frosted the turn lens, hard to see in the picture but only one I have of the headlights and the lambo is a nice touch too.:tup:

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Now with bolt ons done I dived into the audio after I made some money from a Air Force training exercise in vegas for a month. I had a lot more photos of all the work I did with the audio sadly a chunk of them got lost with the messed up phone. I did a lot of research going into this because i wanted to keep an OEM and clean look as much as possible and I know the z sucks for extra space. I'll go back and take pictures of what I did when i get back to the states. Come to find out the space between our trunk and the rear strut bar in our Z's are pretty damn perfect for tucking away a sound system

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Im running FX 165 Focal componant speakers, which if you have never heard of the brand or heard these in person you know how crisp and amazing these speakers are. They come for your pocket at $600 and some change but absolutly worth it if you love your music. I sound deadend all of the trunk and both doors with Focal brand material similar to dynomat but with an extra layer of sound foam on top the aluminum. The speakers got paired with a JL1000 watt 5ch amp so i could run the speakers and tweeters in a correct crossover set up seen in the picture and give them the power they need along with powering the 10w3v3 JL sub that sit's in a wickedcas fiberglass box that fits in the corner of the trunk and again maintains that OEM look and i keep my trunk space.

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This picture is out of order but wanted to tease what I added two years after this audio install, can anyone guess what else I bought along with this meth kit:p

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all the audio tied up with a 4100nex head unit and a new TWM short shifter and ghost knob.

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some clean pics, and perks of working for the Air Force:driving:

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everything up until this picture has been about 2 1/2 years of progress along the way getting bored of 324hp and tired of mustangs kicking my butt. The entire time through those 2 years I have been drooling over Fast Intentions beautifull TT kit. So I started getting prepared because I bit down on their Stage 2 kit!!!!:yum:

More pictures coming once i get off of work. Then I'll post up my dash removal and what i did to swap out our OEM gauges with some Defi Advance ones. definitly an undertaking:icon14:

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Tearing apart the dash to gain access to the OEM gauges.

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Dash pulled:eek::icon14:

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My entire car was gutted while I did my Meth kit and gauge install at the same time.

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I went with the Defi Advance series because of the simplicity of wiring just the controller and daisy chained guages and they look clean and have a similar sweeping motion like the Z

Just Awesome! :tup::tup::tup:
Can't wait to see the pictures of the TT install.
Don't forget to do the Yaw Sensor switch while you have the center console out.

I've had that center console out a few times lol, may i inquire what the yaw switch is about? Is that the burnout shortcut rather than pulling the brake fuse?

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This bracket is what the top hats click into, so i am adjusting it for reuse, this way i don't need anything extra and the gauges can get installed fairly close to how the oem ones did.

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so this is when i tore out the guts of our factory OEM gauges, i know a few others on here who attempted and used there own hardware and make the gauges stay. I figured out a way to use the original hardware to remount my gauges which always me to service them as well once the dash is back in the car. The black bracket i opened up some more with the dremel so i could run the gauge wires throughs. This bracket will also retain the OEM hats so they will just click back in place with the gauges, boom no extra hardwhere, though i did have to dremel carefully on the white bracket so i could have more than just one screw holding the gauges back in.

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The original bracket back in with my modified corner piece, you can see i need the space as the defi gauges arn't the most compact things in the world.

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Dremeled the hats down to make room for the longer gauges

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Fitment after i took off a lot of excess plastic to get the hat to hug the gauge nice and close.

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The key to not having to use any extra hardware when installing new gauges is to dremel the OEM rings only a hair bit smaller than the diameter of the gauges takes time and lot's of back and fourth checking, once i got real close and a nice bit of resistance putting the ring on i make sure the gauge is oriented how i want it in the car and carefully and slowly push the ring all the way on for a nice tight fit, once the ring is all the way on it should be pretty hard to hand turn the gauge-boom tooless install, rinse and repeat for all three.

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all three hats and rings finished up, whipped up some JB weld and set the rings in their place

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gauges set in place and set aside to let the rings and the JB weld to harden overnight.

Getting the dash ready to go running the daisy chain wires, what i love about these is they plug into one another and the command module runs all three so you only have one set of wires which was a time saver:icon17:

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Defi gauges in place and hooked up, very minimal wiring, super clean install and in my opinion if you have time, worth it to remove the dash instead of resorting to vice grips and destruction lol.

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Cat not amused...gauges in their final resting place, literally snap the hats back in and play. I couldn't be happier how this turned out and reusing the OEM brackets and hardware with just a few little tweaks. What do you guys think?

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Shout out to galeforce and his handy work on his kick butt gauge pillars that helped me tie all this together. it will be home to my Auquamist methenol gauge and my AFR gauge, thanks again for the awesome piece!

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Ran my aquamist and defi computers into my glove box for easy access, all the wiring for the meth kit looks like a lot but wasn't too bad with instructions and pictures.

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Last but not least, the finished product for your viewing pleasure. Everything fit back the way it should no rattles no surprises. If a gauge ever goes bad in the future i can now simply pull up on the hat slide the gauge out and replace in 30 seconds and be up and running again.

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all of that work so i can monitor my motor when the treats inside these boxes get installed;)

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By treats i mean the beautiful stage 2 twin turbo kit that Fast Intentions has put together that i'm thankful for and get to install and have the pleasure of enjoying, and none of this could have been possible without their countless hours and dedication, thanks again for such a beautiful kit and I cannot wait to get back from my deployment in october so i can throw this beauty on my car and take her for a spin. I promise to take all the pictures so i can add it to this build and share my info for those who would like to know more. :driving:

Very Nice!! Looking forward to the finished product!!:tup:

Holy crap! Energetic little bastage ain't ya?

And since you've pulled your dash a few times, wanna pull mine and put in my replacement gauges. :tup:

Nice work!

About time you started a build thread. :tup:

I wouldn't be against helping out, and meeting up some day for those who are against pulling their entire dash out lol. Since i have it under my belt now any install after this should go a bit quicker, it's the dremeling that takes up a lot of time. But I would definitly be down to help anyone that wants to do it.

Better late than never right:rofl2: I figured people would enjoy the detailed pictues of the dash pull. Sucks I have to wait till i get home to start on this turbo install.

I know this is a dumb question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Is it possible to "partially" pull the dash?
The reason I ask is that I'm going to do a straight gauge swap with new OEM. I messed up one of the gauges and I've got a replacement for all three.
I'd love to put in a TPMS reading guage like the 350s had. Don't have a clue if the computer carries than info anymore. Pretty much has to I would think to warn you when it's low.
Anyway, curious since you have experience.
Thanks for the offer BTW. Pretty awesome of you.

awesome build and awesome write up...looks like you take care of your baby very well and look forward to the TT build

So I’ve been back from my deployment since October 21 and been slaving away for a month installing Fast Intentions amazing TT kit in my garage. I’ll be dumping all my build photos in here for everyone’s viewing pleasure as I finish up the car over the next two days. My tune is December 4th with SOHO and I couldn’t be more excited!


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My new townhouse and it comes with a garage finally!

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Not sure how I’ve gone this long without a garage but I’m loving my setup. She’s all prepped and ready for surgery.

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Hood and bumper off, time to dive in.

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First up for modification is the factory fuel pump and pump basket to make home for the new 450lph pump.




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:tup: