The Modified Nissan 350z – A Baby GTR? – Boost And Camber

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Big boy toys like the Supra and the Skyline are always the talk of the town when it comes to JDM and serious power houses for cars. But what about the little guys that have that crazy potential to be like big boys? What about a modified 350Z? Would you own one of them?

In this post, we will walk you through what the 350z gets from standard, what the best engine mods are to extract the most power, how much power you can expect, including top of the top and why it’s just a baby GTR.

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From Standard

The 350Z is a seriously punchy car, bags of power and noise, all pumping through the back wheels. Brilliant, loads of fun. Even from a standard form these little beauties really are fast cars and will dominate most cars in their path.

The standard 350Z comes with a 3.5 liter V6 running between 276-308 bhp depending on which model you go for. Weighing in between 1446 and 1634 meant these cars aren’t a heavy car, giving them a decent power to weight ratio, meaning the 350Z could do 0-60 in 5.6 seconds.

From standard these cars really hold their weight even against modified modern cars, a fantastic future classic that screams fun, and sideways action.

The Best Engine Mods

Unfortunately the 350Z is pretty much maxed out for power and as it is an NA engine, there not a lot you can do to make huge gains. Your only real options are your basics like air intake and stainless exhaust. Although this might not sound like a lot you’ll probably bring your power up around 20 bhp.

Even still 300bhp from 1500kg of car is tremendous. Mix that with the stiff suspension and low Center of gravity, gives you a great car.

If you really aren’t happy with the power, there are the more complicated routes you can go down to extract the most out of your engine, two of these are forced induction or super charging. Super charging your engine will bring you up to 400 bhp, which is a huge difference, it’s just so god damn expensive.

But if you really want to get the power out of this car and make it a gtr killer, you gotta spend the money, in the long run it might cost half as much as buying a gtr and be just as if not faster.

How Much Power Can I Get?

If money isn’t an option or you genuinely want to know what you can realistically get out of a 350Z, you will need to do these things to get the most out of your baby.

  • Turbo / supercharger
  • Air intakes
  • Full exhaust upgrade
  • Remap
  • Forged pistons
  • Upgraded cams
  • Upgraded fuel pump

Not to mention a load of other stuff that accompanies the joys of upgrading parts, like bigger brakes and race clutches. With power increase comes other upgrade problems.

With all this work and if you get good parts and a good mechanic, you could potentially create a 500bhp car. Not to mention it’ll sound absolutely awesome.

Why Is It Like A Baby GTR?

So you know you can get a fair bit of power out of the 3.5 v6, but the GTR pulls around 600bhp out of its 3.8 v6 twin turbo. Which in perspective isn’t much difference from our potentially 500bhp, plus ours would be lighter! Not much but it makes a difference.

Although it won’t keep up with a GTR it still holds the v6 roar, the power and Nissan technologies and styling. Something about the 350Z just says baby GTR. Especially if you don’t have the £50k to buy a GTR.

With the 350Z slowly dropping in price, it makes sense to buy one while the price is good, as it’ll return in the future. Easy to say you won’t be disappointed with the roaring v6 and RWD, giving you fun for days and even years.

If you really don’t believe me, check out this video on car throttle, Alex tells it well.

Buying A 350Z

Going out and buying a 350Z isn’t too bad either as a lot of the owners keep these well looked after and sometimes garaged for weekend cars, but some things to look out for if you are on the cautious side would be

  • Check the service history
  • Check for hard use, rough idle
  • And corrosion or rust
  • Curbed alloys are a good sign of bad care
  • Clutch wear

Other than that these are solid and reliable cars, fun to drive and a mean little drift starter if that’s what your into. Not only that they look absolutely awesome stanced and lowered.

What are you waiting for, get on auto trader and get looking for your baby GTR today!

Kevin

Kevin@boostandcamber.com

Founder of Boost And Camber

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