photographer: E. John Thawley III
To be born as a pre-production car is a difficult thing. The first cars off the line are the product of computer simulation and educated guesswork. They're also the subject of meticulous examination. Welds are scrutinized, panel fit is checked, fastener torque is confirmed. Everything learned from their manufacture is fed back into the system to do better the next time. And then they're crushed.
Now and then, however, one escapes. Like la femme Nikita, this 350Z was snatched from a most certain fate by a dedicated organization with a specific task in mind, developing parts.
The suspension is the cornerstone of JIC's business, for whom Ziel Motorsport is the U.S. distributor, so a range of products has been developed and fitted to the Z. Logically, simple street components are designed first, then more advanced and aggressive pieces come as the chassis is better understood.
JIC-Magic's flagship FLT-A2 RS coil-over suspension replaces the Z's stock spring damper assemblies at all four corners. The RS moniker signifies a custom-tuned part, typically with customer-specified spring and damping rates. For this 350Z, RS should stand for Really Stiff.
A JIC polished strut tower brace supports the upper front unibody. Out back, two of the five links from the rear suspension have been swapped out to reduce vagueness caused by rubber bushings and add additional range for alignment. Hotchkis Tuning Sport anti-roll bars are the only western influence on the Z's suspension. The hollow, three-way adjustable bars measure 35mm in diameter up front, and 23.8mm in the rear.
We're assured by JIC's Jon K. that it's a perfectly streetable setup. When pushed, he admits it's a little stiff. But we know it's gonna be a racecar anyway. And a racecar it is. In our testing, it pulled 1.02g on the skidpad, and an even more impressive 72.4 mph in the slalom.
What's so impressive about the performance numbers is the car is currently set up for drift competition (it competed in the D1 Grand Prix at Irwindale, see SCC Dec. '03.), where it's all about sliding, not sticking. Or maybe that's just an American misconception.
The setup for a drifter is a little different than that of a road racer, according to the guys at JIC. The suspension should be firm and responsive. Since tires tend to loose traction as slip angles increase, you've got to start with an awfully sticky tire. Yokohama Advan A048 Time Attack tires mounted up to 18-inch Volk TE37s fit the bill. Ziel currently imports the tire from Japan for its own use, but look for these tires to be available in North America in early 2004.
The 350 part of Nissan's new Z is a big help when it comes time to tear the hides loose. Alas, neither legendary smoothness nor prodigious low- and mid-range torque are enough to get sideways in a manner that gets a crowd to its feet. Accessible Technologies Inc. (ATI) partnered with Ziel to develop a version of its ProCharger centrifugal supercharger for the newest Z. The complete kit includes the supercharger, intercooler and plumbing, fuel system, plus all the bits to bolt it together. The supercharger is mounted to the front of the engine on a crafty CNC bracket, which locates the required belts, pulleys, and tensioners driving the unit.
Air is drawn from the front fascia through a supplied filter to the supercharger, then discharged down through a large three-core intercooler below the bumper, and finally routed back up through the MAF and into the stock throttle body.
When high compression and high boost meet at low rpm without advanced engine management and real good fuel, the result is usually broken parts. Thus, the quasi-linear boost produced by a centrifugal supercharger is well suited to an application like the 350Z since boost tends to build slowly as the engine's natural breathing abilities taper off with rpm. ATI's most notable contribution to the supercharger world, and the one that made the company a real player in the market, was its advocation of intercooling.
In this application, the air-to-air core allows for 7 psi of boost at 6600 rpm. Looking forward to bigger boost in the future, and noting some leakage in the stock bypass valve, Ziel installed a TiAl blow-off valve on the intercooler discharge pipe. Since the MAF is downstream of the valve, no error is introduced and driveability is unaffected.
Between the supercharger's gear drive and the atmospheric venting blow-off, it sounds as if a laughing hyena with a small chainsaw is under the hood.