I bought a 2006 G35 coupe in early July: black exterior, dark gray interior, matte black plasti-dipped 19" oem Rays.

When it's clean it's a really nice car. People stop me ALL the time to compliment it. But it is hard to keep a black car clean living in the city without a garage.

I purchased a bunch of the mods that the seller had on the car and have already modded it a bit more.

Bought from the seller and installed or had installed:

- Motordyne Shockwave TDX2 cat-back exhaust
- Motordyne MRev 2 lower intake plenum
- 5/16ths plenum spacer
- Cross-drilled brake rotors
- Z-tube intake and K&N filter
- Front and Rear Motordyne sway bars

Some of the mods I added after extensive research on this forum:

- Southbend lightweight flywheel and stage 2 daily silent clutch
- Berk high flow cats
- Back windows tinted at 35% (at least 25 horsepower!)

Short term plans:

- Lower it: will probably go the coilover route.
- TWM short throw shifter
- Aftermarket rims, 370z sport rims powdercoated GTR gray, or keep the OEM Rays but have them powdercoated satin black
- Osiris tune
- tint the side windows (easily another 10 HP).

Longterm plans:

- build a NA motor with street cams and headers (if I decide to keep the car that long).

Mods look good man but regardless if you did it or not, lose the dipped wheels.
Well keep the wheels-lose the dip. They're pretty enough as they are without rubber paint on them

Destroy all the Plasti-dip!

Nice car man, absorb the compliments while they last !

Welcome!

How's that southbend treating you? I'm ordering one next week

Thanks for the compliments on the car.

I've kept the rims dipped for a couple of reasons, both of which have to do with "hiding" something:

1) I haven't had the money to lower the car properly. The wheel gap is probably less accentuated when everything is black.

2) I'm not a big fan of the look of the OEM Rays. Though definitely a great lightweight, forged 19" rim, I don't think they do enough to accentuate the wide body coupe. I'd prefer something a bit more aggressive.

If I do keep the Rays I would give them a go without the dip. I'd be interested in seeing the car with that look, but I would wait until I lowered it to do so.

I really want to get new wheels, but wheel weight and price... hard to beat what's already on the car.

Hey Jookyshank,

I really like the Southbend clutch and flywheel so far. I have about 250 miles on the break-in and it feels like a huge improvement over the stock flywheel/clutch.

After reading clutch and flywheel posts on this forum as well as the 350z forum, I decided to go with either the Nismo clutch and flywheel, the Exedy stage 1 kit, or the Southbend 24 lb or 19 lb flywheel.

I wanted minimal chatter and didn't want my acceleration out of the hole negatively affected as it seems an ultra lightweight aluminum flywheel would.

Once I realized that I may have to wait a while for a Nismo flywheel, I narrowed it down to the Southbend or Exedy.

I consulted with Joe at zspeedperformance.com... great guy, actually knows and loves the Z, and he pointed me toward the Stage 2 quiet clutch for my needs.

I went with South Bend DXD Black Race Flywheel, which is something like 18 or 19 lbs. My speed shop (installer) said it seems to have been manufactured by Exedy.

I don't know exactly how to describe the setup YET, so I'll say that the car feels more driveable. It grabs better from a stop, revs quicker, and feels like it has more stable acceleration when cornering.

When paired with the quiet disc, the lightweight flywheel is pretty quiet. The only noticeable chatter is minimal - between 1500 and 2000 rpms and a little in idle with the windows down.

For me it's been well worth the tradeoff!