Well the trip started with me leaving the house at 5am on Tuesday morning and heading off to work. I got there early and had a very hard time getting things wrapped up before I left at 10am but somehow managed to get everything buttoned up.

I hit the road at 10:10 and began my 2-1/2 hour voyage to Jacksonville where Daniel (SFLG35) and I were to meet up. Daniel was driving Jason's (G8tor20's) slightly dirty ‘gray’ 05 coupe and we decided to meet up at the first exit North of the 295 Jacksonville bypass. We met at a Wendy's and had a quick bite to eat and then headed on our way to Charlotte. We hit the road and I quickly realized that I needed to update my cell phone coverage to include long distance because I hadn’t gotten off of the phone since I had left work (really good decision on my part) so I dialed 611 and upgraded my cell phone plan as I was entering GA.

After a few hours and a few phone calls with Daniel we made our way into Northern GA and we stopped for gas. We made a quick stop and headed back out onto the dangerous tire re-tread littered roads of Northern GA and South Carolina.

Somewhere in South Carolina I was following Daniel and all of a sudden I saw him driving like he was entering turn #4 at the local auto-cross event. He was swerving and dodging all sorts of debris in the road and I was following his line as best as I could. Then 'it' happened... At 78mph a huge piece of tire tread took out my amber corner on my passenger side. Daniel looked back and immediately put on his hazards. We pulled over (me thinking my bumper has sustained major damage due to the amazingly loud noise of the impact) and we found that there were large black smudges in the c-bra and a dangling amber light. Daniel reached down snapped the light back in and we accessed the damage. Determining that the black smudges could be washed off and after writing off the freebie amber corner that G8tor20 gave me at the Lokey Infiniti meet we hit the road again.

About an hour passed and all was well. At least until Dan flipped up a rock and chipped my windshield. Road scar #2...

We eventually arrived at the hotel and we checked in. From there hunger and nerves had set in and we headed out to a local restaurant, Harpers, which would prove to be our local watering hole of choice all 3 nights we were there. I think Jason had called us about 39 times at this point but after the first 8 or so phone calls we lost count.

Daniel and I stayed up past midnight talking about all sorts of stuff from cars to girls to cars and back to girls and we were really having a good time.

The next morning was drop off time. We loaded up and arrived at CP Racing at 9am sharp. We went in and started talking to DJ, Matt, Eric and several of the other guys. We then went on a tour of the shop only to realize that CP Racing wasn't in the mood to fool around. They had gotten my car pulled into the shop and they had the entire intake ripped apart before we were even done with the shop tour. Their facility in Charlotte is HUGE. They had either 4 or 5 lifts at the shop, way too many fast cars and engines lying around and we immediately realized that we were at the right place!

Matt did the Vortech installs and he was simply amazing. He paid so much attention to detail that it was apparent to even the casual observer. He made custom modifications to our cars to make air filter cleaning easier, he repositioned the BOV's so that the BOV filters would clear and he even wired up the gauge pods perfectly. The only snag that Matt hit with my install was that Vortech conveniently forgot to ship out 3 parts with the kit. Fortunately CP Racing had a spare Vortech kit ordered for us (to make sure our install would go flawlessly) and they grabbed parts from this kit. Matt didn't skip a beat, he headed over to the other kit, got what he needed and kept working.
That same morning Jason found out that his trial was canceled. He made phone call # 126 and informed us that he would be joining us around 7pm that evening in Charlotte so Daniel and I decided to play a little joke on him. We decided to tell Jason that Daniel had agreed to drive Jason's NA car to Charlotte only because he had the opportunity to drive the FI beast all of the way home and Daniel was still planning on driving Jason's car home whether Jason drove up to Charlotte or not.

That evening Jason showed up and we went back to Harpers for dinner. I think this is where Daniel shared the joke with Jason. To our amazement Jason was 100% willing to let Daniel drive his car all the way back to Oviedo! I never thought this would actually happen but thought it was a nice gesture none-the-less.

Well Thursday quickly rolled around and it “T-day”. That’s right, TUNING DAY! I made a quick phone call to GEICO and set up an appt. to have my window fixed on Friday morning and then we headed down for breakfast. I was not too nervous at this point, but this would change after they did my first dyno run. After breakfast we headed off to CP Racing for Jason's install which went even faster than mine did. Matt at CP Racing is a maniac of an installer and took no time to get Jason's car buttoned up.

While Matt was busy working his magic Eric and Ralph (the owner of CP Racing) began tuning my car. The first thing they did was get a grasp of the breathing mods that I had on my car. I told them about the Crawford Package and the JIC Y-Pipe and they decided to take a tune from another Z with similar mods that put down 400.1rwhp and flash my car with his tune. (Big mistake IMO but at the time it sounded like a really good idea) The first run they took the car up to about 3500 rpm's and immediately shut the car down (reads they let off of the gas and pushed in the clutch). On the computer screen my A/F shot up to ~13 and when they killed the run the car hit vacuum and the A/F plot shot up to 16. (I didn't know they hit vacuum and Eric could tell this by the look on my face.) Both Eric and Ralph had this look on their faces like they had just seen a ghost. Eric got out of the car and said "good thing you didn't install this yourself or you would have blown you engine on the very first run". (Not the words I wanted to hear). Well it turned out that there was a bad connection on a wire heading to my FMU and the system wasn’t building up fuel pressure like it should. At this point I was really questioning starting off of anything other than the pig rich base map but they were the pro’s and they obviously know what they were doing. I guess it was 26 dyno runs later my car was "tuned" very conservatively. The results left me shy of the 400rwhp club, but not by much. The final results, which I proudly tout in my sig, were 388rwhp at ~6200rpms and 331rwtq at ~5500rpms at 9.0 psi of boost. Needless to say I was very happy and ready for the ride of my life when Eric took me for a drift session like none other.

We headed off to dinner then back to the hotel. I was pegging 6600rpms the entire way there and was having the time of my life. I was chirping the 3-4 shift like it was nobody’s business!

Daniel struggled to keep up and Jason was beginning to feel the same nervousness that I was just the day before by watching me simply leave them way behind at the tap of the throttle.

The next morning the windshield repair man showed up at 8am sharp, fixed my windshield and we headed off to CP Racing. As soon as we got there they started getting ready to tune Jason's car. Things seemed to be going fine until we realized that it was 10am and no one was doing any pulls. After another 2 hours of trouble shooting it turned out to be a bad split second box sent out by Vortech so Eric and Ralph went back to the spare kit and grabbed the last spare box they had. Thank GOD there was a spare kit to cannibalize or we would have been stuck with both of our installs. Eric and Ralph plugged in the new box and Viola... the problem was solved and tuning began right away. 4 hours later Jason was hitting ~384rwhp and ~315rwtq at 10.5 psi of boost and he was super happy.

Eric also took Jason for a spirited drive and they quickly came back to the shop. We took a few photos and headed back to Oviedo at 5pm, rush hour. To my surprise, Jason actually insisted that Daniel drive his car home all of the way. Daniel was as giddy as a school girl and without hesitation grabbed the keys and encouraged me to take off before Jason changed his mind. To this point, Jason had still NEVER driven a FI car in his life and I couldn't believe that he handed Daniel the keys. What a man of his word.

After an uneventful drive home (yeah right)... raced and beat a 350z, mustang, wrx, and a V12 AMG SUV of some sort... and no tickets or auto damage! Woo Hoo!

The next morning I woke up early, washed the car, swapped out the stock 18's for the OEM 19's, erh um my PIAA's (happy now Jason?) and we headed off to the dyno day.

What a great way to end a fantastic trip. The guys at CP Racing are AWESOME. Sherif was really nice to meet up with and talk to and his ride is sick! We all got free hats, stickers and shirts while we were there so if you see us sporting the "Get Blown" attire, you'll just have to understand. We even got to see them work on Gman’s beast and I can assure you he is in good hands. What ever CP Racing charges him, it’s worth it IMO.

I’m super happy with my install, the team at CP Racing and the people in this amazing car club! Thanks to Dan and J- for going up there with me and sharing this experience. It definitely wouldn’t have been the same without you guys.

As papa-pasta would say... "This is fun stuff".

 

Here are my numbers...

 

ah yes
what a good trip
i have a bunch of pics that ill post later tonight

 

My pics will come tonight as well....

 

sounds like you guys had a blast, too bad i couldnt join in on the fun. but patience has its virtue

 

yeour day will come soon.

 

and when it does i'll make sure to stop by the oviedo area so that u guys can check it out.

 

Stop by on a Friday night and we'll all head out to the track together (that is unless Jason is still looking for excuses...)

 

Looking for excuses? I have about 20 of them stored and ready to go

1. Going to South Florida next weekend
2. No Valve Body
3. No need to prove that I can beat you...just knowing is good enough for me
4. Don't have the money to go to the track
5. I don't want to log the miles on my car to go down there


I could go on and on....

 

Nice writeup, Todd. I'm sure we were all (OK, I was) wondering how things were going while you were up there.

Sounds like you both got great installs. Your car looks like it came with a supercharger... Of course I'll need a ride to tell for sure...

 

Who actually tuned the cars? Was it Sherif, because I thought he was from a different shop.

 

Eric and Ralph (the owner) tune the split second boxes. Eric and Sharif tune the E-manage in the evenings. Sharif actually worked on Gman's car along with Eric's help.

 

Jason, Daniel...

Where are the pics?

 

I went through them last night and there were like 80 that I liked. I'll have to slim that down..but I have to upload them to photobucket......ugggh

Maybe tonight I'll throw a bunch on there....

 

im uploadin all mine to the club website then i link the good ones. i went to bed early last night so i didnt finish uploadin them all. they will come tonight when i get off work.