GTM Power – Tuned Z For The Street

The term street tuned car to us is when you take a good car and make it even better and at the same time as practical to be as a daily driver.  The Nissan Fairlady Z (Z33) has been one of the cars i had always admired on magazines and in movies. What drew me towards it was its body lines and then it was that glorious torquey motor.

The car we have here is in fact rare. When i said rare, its not often does a convertable come with a manual transmission. When the car was taken out that morning, the weather was just perfect as the sun loved to shine its rays on the car.

Look a little bit closer and see if you spot it..
In the appearance department.. the body of the car is left stock, with the wheels being the only aftermarket items. Here again i’m refering to the appearance and not the performance.
One of the many things I like about this car is the way it sits.

Just look at that stance!
Heres a better view of  wheel and tyre fitment. In the wheels and tyre department, the Advan Racing RS wheels measuring 18″ are wrapped in Potenza S001’s. Notice the big AP Racing 6 Pot brake kit? Well thats there for a reason!
From a distance thats how good they look.
The body lines
Just flows…
The look of intemidation
The owner had opted to go for a facelift with getting a pair of front and rear lights from a newer Z.

The nice thing about this location is that, this happens to be the AMW Nissan worshop that
worked on the engine for a fresh rebuild to handle the new add ons on the engine. Capacity still remains at 3.5L , but when theres 3″ pipes running across the engine… It could be one thing!
Its turbocharged! This beast of a car runs on a GTM Twin Turbo kit which is good for 500+whp @1.4bar of boost. The Tial bovs are also part of the GTM Kit and they sound out of this world.
The HKS EVC Electronic boost controller ensures boost pressure is kept the way the owners wants it. At the moment its run at 1bar which puts the power figure to about 450 to the wheels.
Cooling hoses are from Samco to ensure a tight fit for the coolants to the heart of this beast.
What i liked about the engine bay was that of how it was nicely fit and neat..
Nows the interior deparment.

The stock voltage meter on the left which is then followed by the Oil temp and finally its the multi info display, where it shows your track lap time, the option to set your rev limit and also your digital speedometer.
The owner has also added his personal touch on the interior. Notice the Orange stiching on the wheel and on the gear shifter? It gives off a nice ambience in matching the exterior color with the interior. What you see on the top right is the  HKS EVC unit. The owner insisted he wanted the car as clean as possible when the power upgrade was been carried out. He’s just like us, he too hates having guages sticking out of the usual places and therefore with the help from the boys at Raptor Performance, it was made sure the EVC unit was tucked into the center console, to give that stock look to the car.
Naturally the cars a 6 Speed. Eventhough running the twin turbo setup, the car behaves like stock in the very low rpms.. not saying theres lag.. infact there is lots of torque, but the way that power is put down.. its put down in a very smooth way. Infact the owner says he likes to cruise in 5th as the low end torque gives enough omph to cruise in mild traffic.
I must say that when we went for a couple of spins in it that morning.. the TC switch was On and each time the pedal was pushed 30% and when the car comes on boost, you get pulled back on the seat and your bottom becomes a sensor where you feel all that power been thrown to the back wheels and then feel the TC cutting that power and then releasing it accordingly.

We put the top down so

that the sun would do its thing on the interior.


The standard seats just hugs you in place!

I knew I had to give you all a shot of the transition from top up to top down!
Looks outright deadly with those wheels and the top down.

The colombo skyline in the back ground

A drop top street tuned car in the heart of colombo’s business district.
One last shot of the front AP Racing 6 Pot brake kit.

So if you were to ask me to say one word that best describes this car… i would say Sleeper! you would never hear it sneak up behind you.. but you would only know it when its passed you 😀 Hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.

I would like to thank the owner for the opportunity in allowing me to feature it and all the very best goes out to him for what he has in store for it in the future!

– Ramien

Specs

Engine:
Built VQ35DE (Built by AMW)
GTM Twin turbo kit
GTM Piping
GTM FMIC
HKS EVC Boost controller
Stock ECU – Running GTM Reflash (Final Touch ups by Raptor Performance)

Gearbox:
6 Speed Manual

Braking:
Front AP Racing 6 Pot big brake kit

Wheels & Tyres:
Advan Racing RS 18″
Potenza S001