Actually moving to Houston, Tx
 

Ok, taking a new job with jp morgan chase bank that was originally gonna be in NJ but they stated I could work out of Houston also for this position so I jumped on the hance to go back to the midwest and the additional bonus of not having to work for the government anymore. Few questions:

I need to find a0a good performance shop to trust with the z in houston or surrounding area? Anyone from the area have any suggestions?

Appears to bean MSR road track8 in the vicinity. Ill search youtube for some vids of the track but it lloked like from their site it was 600 for a day. Thats damn expensive and hope just a regulat track day isnt that much.

Since ill still have mortgage here in MD I'll be paying for an apartment in houston for a it. Anyone who lives in houston or the surrounding areas have any advice on places to rent for the short term. Id like to keep my combined rent under 2500 if possible tomake the transition easier. Im looking to rent in the 1k area and should be feasible because houston is alot less expensive than here.

Any input is appreciated. Illcheck on here to see if theres any 370 meats ;)

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Local Houston group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/HoustonZCars/
I try to keep the weekly meet updated on the forum but sometimes forget: http://www.the370z.com/texas/52170-h...ning-meet.html

Local shops that are good:
-SSP
-Jtran
-AwesomeZ

Good Dealerships:
-Baker Nissan
-Clear Lake

Living can be a broad question, do you want to commute? Do you require anything specific for your apt, garage, pet friendly, near bars, etc?
MSR is a good track, straight rental is expensive but sign up with some of the driving groups and a day event can be 150-300 bucks which is a lot better. Plus there is also Texas World Speedway nearby to Houston.

First of all, fùck your life.

Second, Baker Nissan... I'd trust them with my life...

Third, joing the FB group, look up Chris Coronado (guru)

Fourth, Chuck, is a great guy

Houston is considered "midwest"?

http://cavemanwines.com/blog/wp-cont...erica-29-1.png

nevermind, i looked it up.. :P

Dude, Houston is BIG. What area are you looking to live in?

Yea is big be ready to put some miles on youre car. and houston is in the midwest time zone Soo...

Houston is in the Central Time Zone.

Moving here in the middle of summer? Stock up on Gold Bond.

Welcome to Houston!

Also just FYI the majority of the highways here are under construction (lane expansion) so expect to be stuck in traffic a lot. I noticed I'm starting to run over debris whether it be small rocks, dust clouds, construction material, ... even a mattress. Got some rock chips from that. It might leave a bad first impression on you but we have many Z owners here and you'll grow to love it.

See you at the meetings!

thanks for the information everyone. I still don't have all the specifics, right now I know they'll put me up in a hotel or somewhere in Houston for first 2 weeks and help me find a place. I have the address of work somewhere I'll dig up to see it's exact location in the city. Pet friendly would be nice, I'd probably be willing to pay more just to stay in the city so I can avoid the commute from outside the city. also going to need a furnished apt as there is no way I'm gonna deal with the hassle of moving my stuff when I'm not even sure I will sell my place here yet.

anyway, like I said all the info so far is very helpful and my track days and stuff like that will probably be on hold for a bit until I can get settled in but definately gotta find the other Z's for some fun in the sun (hot as chit from what I hear). Good thing I already have a 34 row oil cooler.

and yeah DE, if I was only paying one rent then I might enjoy my life a lot more. ;)

this may be difficult initially but I really don't want to live in MD anymore, and MD is just a GOVT JOB central or becoming that. I'm sure Houston isn't perfect by any degree but I think I'll be happier and not working for the govt should be really refreshing. hell, I may even be working with people who are competent in their jobs, that'll be a change. I'm still a colts fan so being in cowboy territory should be interesting. Guess I'll learn to like watching the cowboys games every week!

It's Houston, not Dallas. Leave that cowgirls stuff at the border.

Make sure you learn how to properly pronounce words such as Humble and Kuykendahi before you get there and the locals laugh at you. Houston, well much of Texas, has their own way of pronoucing words. I remember when I first got to Houston it was tough to figure out what the heck people were talking about. After a while it becomes second nature.

Get the address of the building and we can definitely help more. Chase is a huge company. Do they have anybody who helps employees with relocation?

oh yeah. I'm waiting to hear from her early next week but figured I would start getting as much info as possible for the move. I'll get the address of the building where I'll be working.

Again, thankx.

this is the address of the building I'll be working out of:

1111 Fanin Street Houston TX 77002

already looked it up on google earth and did some walking around. Looks pretty clean, compared to Baltimore it looks amazing ;)

You will be working basically the exact middle of our downtown.
This gives you a few options on where to live, you can live just East of downtown on the other side of 59 (near BBVA stadium). This is a growing area, still 50-50 on old v new, but modern living townhouses and apartments. After that you will start moving into West of 45, this is the heights area, river oaks, montrose, etc. Some of this is older but also being rebuilt and can be a bit pricey for the location.

If you do not want just a little commute I would suggest around the 610/I10 area. This puts you in or near the Galleria, can do near Memorial Park & Washington Ave. Mostly modern places to live, still a bit pricey but you are pretty central. Can get to work quickly, can get out of town fast and plenty to do.

If I was planning on working downtown, I'd be looking at areas inside 610, or just outside. If you look in the Montrose or Heights area, you can make it downtown on surface roads, which is a huge plus. The catch is that you'll get less for your money. I wouldn't even bother looking outside of Beltway 8, even though prices are more attractive. You'll spend your life in traffic.

Welcome to Houston! I don't know if I'd consider it the Midwest though! :tiphat:

We're located here, make sure to stop and say hi if you see any of the iSS Crew at local events. There is lots of events and meets to hit up locally and in Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio.

Performance shop wise: I recommend D3 (pricey but amazing) or JTran. I personally go to Deviate Autosport for all my maintenance, wheel mounting, alignment, etc. CVT if you're bagged. Any of those shops will take good care of you!

It's not the Midwest. It's almost not even the South. Texas is pretty much it's own planet.

Kevin was going to do the z1 headers + aam test pipes + retune to see the gains promised by these headers however with the work situation that left us on a serious time crunch and still have no ETA on the headers (at least our set...)

Would need a trusted shop to install the headers/test pipe, they also must be a reputable UpRev licensed tuner so he could get a retune, or fresh tune :)

Baker Tuning recommended Kosmic to me for any tuning needs. My buddy has had good luck with JTran for tuning, but sometimes the quality of the physical work can be hit or miss depending on who's actually doing the install.

I will be hitting Kosmic soon for a complete retune on my SC setup.
Install you have Jtran, SSP (Jason from Baker Tuning is there now) who are both solid.

He's the first guy I'd go to for anything on my car. And it looked like SSP was cutting Z owners a deal on the Houston Zs FB page.

Yep, they are working with HZ members on a discounted shop labor rate to show people the quality work they do since they are new.

Makes me wish I had something I needed help to install so I could throw some work their way. Unfortunately (fortunately) I'm down to the DIY stuff now.

SSP has a huge name for themselves, here's their intro thread for the Houston location on the GT-R forums. Impressive!! New South Side Performance Houston, TX Location - South Side Performance - GT-R Life

Yeah this is a real bummer as I hoped I would have the headers and test pipes installed and the re-tune complete prior to heading to Tx. Khoi, thanks for your efforts. It was great having a shop that was trustworthy and that I could count on to do everything right. Hopefully I can find the same where I'm headed.

Just an extra task for the relocation I guess.

Khoi, good luck on your new job. Can you explain how to unlock the tune again so I won'tneed to purchase another uprev license? I assume have to bring it by and then we can square up on how much back from the deposit that was over from the cost od parts. Later

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It's not a bad thing that you'll get tuned down here. That way you'll know it's set up right for the heat and fuel.

Since you're located in Downtown I suggest looking west and onwards. I live in Clearlake area which is Southeast Houston and I always go west (Galleria, Memorial, Washington, Midtown, Montrose, etc) to meet up with friends. There's barely anything on east side and to be honest I find it a bit uncomfortable driving over there.

Not sure if anyone has tried AwesomeZ but I'm planning to take my Z there to get it lowered and other stuff done to it.

As to what Chuck said, forget the Cowboys, we are Houston Texans. (But I do have a pair of Colts flip flops) :happydance:

welcome! i have those headers and i love them. u wont be disappointed. jtran did my install and they did a great job!

Shoot Mike an email, he will have more info on that process mikem@aamcompetition.com

this is an extended stay location about 15 miles outside of downtown:

720 N. Sam Houston Pkwy. E.

http://www.intownsuites.com/location...ontinental-xhi

thinking about just going ahead and locking this up for 1 week just to see if the commute is ok during the first week.

It's a little far if you're going downtown every day. It's ok for a little while, but it would get old. Plenty of people do it, but I'd be looking closer in.

Ha I trained at that location when I was a teller at Bank of America years ago. I now work literally 5 minutes from there. We def need to meet up and show off our Z's :)

Lol go figure. Mine still looks totally stock.

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Maybe one day during the week of 8/5. I wa dowtown today getting fingerprinted and all that good stuff.

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Been here about a week. Job starts 8/5 but its taking the backgrounds checks along time for some reason. I mean my last two places I worked: USDA and the library of congress both more stringent background checks than this job but ill live.

As for this area its seem im the only white guy around here, literally id like to see at least 1 other white dude but I don't.i will be moving closer in as suggested. Gonna drive down to jtran tommorow since its only 10 miles away to check out theirspeed shop.

This extended stay blows.ho9efully after moving into a regular place in a neighborhood that doesnt have prison bars and bulletproof shields in almost every store ill feel better about being here.

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I'll talk to a client of mine and see if she knows a good apartment locator. There's a lot of areas in Houston you don't want to be in.

Go ahead and PM me your contact info and what you're looking for and I'll get you in touch with someone who can help you find a place.

As mentioned in an earlier post I was going to stop by AwesomeZ to have springs and camber installed on my Z however they are booked until Aug 12th and are closed on weekends. Our buddy Chuck here referred me to South Side Performance (SSP) on Beltway/West Little York and Baker Nissan North instead. Jason at SSP did a fantastic job installing the springs and camber and their shop is packed with GTRs. Baker Nissan aligned my wheels within an hour on a busy Saturday.

I would highly recommend both these locations if you're looking to have work done on your car. Thanks Chuck for the good pick! I can't say much about JTran since I haven't been there but as of now my first choice is SSP.