After graduating college in 2003, I decided I could afford a more exciting vehicle.  As an owner of a 1990 Nissan 240sx for many years, I became a fan of Nissan cars so the car I went shopping for was the 240sx's big brother, the 300zx.  I purchased my 1990 300zx twin turbo in late 2003 with 109k miles on it after my loving wife, Heather, found it for me.  It was close to stock at the time, but did have an intake, catback exhaust, and was running 13psi (3psi more than stock).

 

The Z next to our first house in Deltona FL.

 

After enjoying commuting in the car unchanged for a couple of years, I decided to take it to the track to see what it could do.  My first trip to Orlando Speed World was in 2005 and I just barely broke into the 13s with a 13.963s @ 102.61mph.  Even with my modifications, this was about the time a stock TT should run.  The 15 years of hard running showed.

 

Staging at Orlando Speed World.

 

A couple of years later, I started racing with coworkers and became much more motivated to go faster.  After adding test-pipes, down-pipes, drag radials, and an engine pull to fix various leaks and clean things up, I managed a best of 13.285 @ 106mph after a total of 21 1/4 mile runs over 5 separate trips to the track over 2 years.  The biggest difference by far was the drag radial tires.  I was thrilled with the progress, but had a goal of sub 13s.

 

Then due to the announced retirement of the Space Shuttle Program (my former employment), I decided to move to South Carolina.

 

Z at the new house in SC along with my WRX and Camaro.

Unfortunately, at this point, the Z really started to show it's age.  It started to smoke and struggle to build boost.  Nothing ruins the Z experience like having an embarrassing stinking cloud following you around in traffic. I did a compression test and found that two cylinders had about half the compression they should have had, and three of the other four were also below the minimum given by Nissan.  Time and hard running had caught up to the VG30DETT.  I then embarked on a full engine rebuild and upgrade.  The cause of the low compression turned out to be badly worn down intake valves.  The source of the smoking was likely old turbine oil seals.  During the rebuild I decided to take the opportunity to upgrade as well.  This included larger turbochargers, larger fuel injectors, a new better flowing catback exhaust, and a remapped ECU.

 

New GT525 turbo installed on the passenger side.     New Nismo 740cc/min injectors

 

The rebuild and new parts allowed an increase in boost from 13psi to 18psi.  The increase in boost combined with proper compression made a tremendous difference in the power and excitement of the car.