I understood his comment to refer to a dedicated, full-on, track car. I'm not entirely sure what the flaws being referred to are, but the G will require a lot of work to get there. For the time and money spent, i think there are better alternatives.

I echo stockae's comment, however, that the G is a good well-rounded car and can do serious track time if prepped right. Still no Miata though.

 

Hahaha I love the Miata references. A little off-topic but here's another hypothetical question. Would you rather have a track-built Miata plus turbo or a track-built e46 M3 if you had a good amount of money to put into both. I understand that the Miata will come out a lot cheaper, but I was wondering also about the merits of what both cars can bring to the table.

 

If the turbo doesn't mess with the balance, i'd go for the Miata mainly due to the weight (or lack thereof). It's just more tossable and fun that way, IMHO.

Although, i think the choice really depends on your idea of fun and the type of track you frequent. If there are a lot of turns, that Miata will be a better corner carver and you'll be grinning wide from here to Pluto. If you delight in brute force, the M3 might be a better choice. You won't go wrong with either, i'm just a fan of smaller and lighter cars.

I once thought about making the G my track toy, then getting something smaller for daily like a Golf, Miata, S2000 or one of the FRZ twins until i realized i'm doing it all wrong. Why turn a heavy and relatively nice daily into a track toy, then getting something else for daily, when i can just start out with a lighter and better platform for track and keep the G as-is.

... or somewhere along that line of thought. Although, if the family requires it and i end up with an SUV of somesort, then the G will have to be the toy.

 

Thinking about it now, I do miss driving the NA. It was so light and tossable, but the lack of engine power was a big disappointment for me. But every time I drove a different car, it felt like a boat compared to the Miata.

I wanted something more practical, refined and definitely more horsepower. The G definitely did it for me in this stage of my life. I do love how balanced it is and not one performance aspect outperforms the others to give it a good sense of synergy. I like that the power on the car complements the suspension and so forth.

But to answer your question about a car being light or brute force, I prefer brute force. Power can be so very addicting .

 

I had rides in supercharged 1.8L NB miata before. I think the the supercharger makes the power to be decent (not great, but more fun), that would set you back $3.5 - 4k (with installation) on top of whatever suspension and brake upgrade you are looking to get done.

 

LOL, I pretty much expected some kind of backlash from that post.

But first off, you've totally misrepresented what I said. Please compare this:
"while sufficient for aggresive street handling, has significant fatal flaws in its suspension configuration that just cannot be overcome for full-on (competitive) track duty."
with what you inferred that I posted . . . BIG difference! Since when did full-on competitive track duty equate to useless as a track car??
As for what the guy actually said, I can't remember exactly; truth be toId, it's been a number of years and I pretty much didn't care to hear it at the time either, but the man was a pro with sucessful (winning) builds under numerous chassis as I recall. Anyway,I recall him saying the shop had wanted to design a track car with the 2nd gen car and had tried and tried, but in the end couldn't tame the ill behavior.

You mention the Z34, but I took a look the V36 sedan specs and they are a far cry from theirs. Our wheelbase is 12+" longer, yet a full 3" narrower, in addition to being 20" longer and 5.4" taller in overall dimension, and that not even mentioning the extra 400lbs. weight difference. Just because they share similar components doesn't necessarily mean they are similar dynamically. I don't quite see how you figure these chassis are the same.

I'd be interested to see all these examples of V36 sedans, in full dedicated racing form, that are competitive in their class. Please . . . I love to see them?!


Yep, all that and "competitive" to boot!



Yep, me too.

 

If you are referring to the G's weight and dimensions as being the flaws then you are correct, compared to a Z34 it's a pig which is why I added "other than size/weight".

 

Call it what you like, but there are plenty of cars that are equal to or even much larger/heavier than our sedans, yet which have suspension systems designed to perform remarkably well right out of the box ( CTS-V, M5, C63 AMG, Panamera, etc.), Granted, they may cost more, but the point is they're designed to perform. You could throw all the expensive bolt-on parts on our sedans you want, but they're still not going to be able to compete with them.

But again, just to be clear, that doesn't mean our cars are useless by any means; they can be loads of fun on the track, they just won't be terribly competitive, and the whole point of this thread was asking about building a dedicated track car which, to my mind, introduced competition as a primary factor of consideration.

 

Funny, in my case, the "driver" is always the limitation on how fast the car can go around a track. LOL

 

^^ I know the feeling

 

to the OP, I don't see the point of buying a G and making it into a "dedicated" track car by stripping everything, adding a roll cage, etc, etc.

If you like the power of the G, why not get a 370z and make that into a "dedicated" track car?

 

x2.

 

Well, the reason I posted this question was purely out of curiosity. I have tried to do some searches and read the forums but I never came across a full-on track build of one of these sedans, so I wanted to see if you all could provide better insight. The reason I asked the question was to gauge where the G sedan stands in comparison to other performance-oriented cars in its class.

I have to admit I am not very familiar with the 370z. What I have garnered so far is that it is better suited for track duty and I think I read that it is about 300lbs lighter than the G sedan? If I were to ever entertain such a project, I think I would get away from the Nissan/Infinity platform.

 

Yep. I'm not hating on these cars at all (heck, I love my car), but neither have I, and perhaps neither have the folks who've been riled by my (honest) earlier posting about it. Who knows, maybe if there are good examples out there, they'll still offer some up to support their position. I hope, because I still love to see them.

 

So I have been looking at some 370Zs and its intriguing. Would a 370Z be a great candidate for a track-built car?