First off this forum is awesome- so much information available! I picked mine up yesterday, and had a 6 hour drive home, which was such a nice ride. I had never driven an Infiniti before, but had always liked the 350's since they came out. The price was excellent as the body has the typical Nissan paint issues for those years. Living in Vegas (car came from UT) the sun here is brutal. Literally melts the information off street signs lol.

The car is completely stock and seems to of been well taken of. I look forward to hopping it up, yet keeping it's sleeper status

 

Congrats and welcome! Throw up some pics if you can. I absolutely love my 6mt sedan. Let us know what your plans our, we might be able to point you in the right direction c:

 

Plans are the usual, moar powa! But first will be maintenance. I need to get it up in the air and have a good look underneath to see what's happening. The engine purrs away very smoothly with no noticeable tick that the VQ's seem to be famous for. It now has 124k miles after my drive home. Aside from control arm bushings, what else should I look for? I don't plan to lower it, though plans can change lol.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/MUWtm46e27rvnNgf9

You can see the paint on the hood isn't great, and the roof is much worse. But considering what my last car was, (a hyundai tiburon that while sounds amazing is slow AF and was spray painted with rattle can) this is a major upgrade.

 

Sweet! Same color and wheels as mine c: (pic attached below).

Good call getting under there. If the car didn't come with records, I'd recommend changing all the fluids while you're at it. As you probably know, you have to check the oil levels religiously as these rev-up motors drink it pretty quickly.

When you're under the car, check out the diff bushing in the rear subframe. There are a lot of threads about it if you search around, but basically the OE bushing was filled with silicone, which leaks out over time making it pretty loose. If yours has leaked, you'll see a stain on the subframe below it when you're looking at it from the rear of the car. It's a bit of a bitch to get it out if you don't have a removal tool (I didn't, took me ~3 hours), but throwing a poly busing in there it tightens up the rear end and cuts down on a lot of the wheel hop on hard launches.

For power, the best bang for your buck is going to be test pipes, but they sound pretty awful on stock exhaust (and are not emissions legal) so I'd recommend saving that until you're ready to get a full exhaust system. The OE intake system is pretty well proven to make just as much power as a CAI, so don't bother unless you want a little more sound out of it, otherwise just get a drop-in K&N or similar filter.

The OE intake plenum on the other hand, has some room for improvement. Plenum spacers are great way to make usable mid range torque by increasing the volume of the plenum, and there are a variety of aftermarket plenums or plenum modifications (ie Motordyne MREV2) that have shown to make more power. It's also not a bad idea to install a oil catch can to help keep your plenum clean (since burning oil also reduces power!)

In addition to the plenum spacer, the MotorDyne Iso-Thermal kit will helps insulate the throttle body and lower intake plenum from the block, which helps keep the intake charge cool -> more dense.

As for suspension, OE 350z shocks/struts will bolt right up and lower the car ~1", so if you do decide to go that route it's a fairly cheap, easy option. A set of swaybars are a night and day change for the handling of the car, so I highly recommend looking into a set.

Sorry for the wall of text, I learned pretty much everything I know about these cars reading these forums and watching Youtube. Let me know if you have any more specific questions I'd be happy to try and answer them.

Here's my G c: (I've since added OE Brembo brakes but don't have any good pics, woe is me)

 

I definitely appreciate the wall of text haha. Lots of information is great. I've been shopping around for exhaust systems the last day or so. Given the fact my car was fairly cheap, it's hard for me to justify the expensive ones, so I think I've settled on Megan racing with some berk tech hfc's. Unfortunately living in Vegas they require smog. If I lived 20 mins out I wouldn't have to