Hi everyone! I'm Nick, the proud owner of a 2004 6-speed g35 coupe with, get this, 20,400 miles. And it was garaged; so the red looks as good as it did on day one. My Mom bought this car 17+ years ago, and recently gifted it to me for helping them move to their new home. She can't really drive it anymore; the clutch is just way too much for her as she's getting older (mid 60s). I recently installed a new intake and plenum spacer, and intend to dive into these forums to get perspectives on exhaust and much more. Excited to be here!


My G35

 

Wow, what a clean looking car.

Tell you mom she has immaculate taste in vehicles, courtesy from all us here at G35DRIVER.

Any future plans for the car? Personally I think it would look amazing with +15mm wheel spacers front +25mm rear, only look at bolt-on hubcentric spacers. That and the 350Z revised springs with adjustable front upper control arms and adjustable rear suspension like this set would make for a very good looking stance.

https://www.z1motorsports.com/z1-pro...t-p-12166.html

Street kit, not the race kit, but add the adjustable toe bolts.

Is it a black interior?

As for your exhaust question, the best of the best is the Motordyne Shockwave cat-back. Couple it with either the ART pipes if you don't have emissions inspections, or the Fast Intentions resonated HFC's if you do have emissions inspections (or just want it slightly quieter).

Lots of exhaust options but you get what you pay for so don't go cheap.

 

Thank you! And that she does. I'm blessed, HA.

Regarding the kit - I'm not too familiar with the purpose of spacers and new upper control arms. Can you point me to a resource or before/after so I can better understand what I get from it?

Yes, black interior.

I've been looking at the shockwave. But holy smokes that price tag. I was thinking HFC and shockwave, but that's well over $2k. A bit more than I can afford at this time. The HFC, however, is doable. Would I feel a noticeable difference adding a HFC on stock exhaust (for now), which I save up for Shockwave? Or makes little sense?

 

The wheels spacers just bump the wheels out a bit so they look more flushed. It improves the look of the vehicle and it does add a marginal performance improvement due to a wider stance.

However it DOES come at the expense of added wear to the wheel bearings, imagine holding a weight close to your body, now hold that same weight at arms-length. It's more difficult yes? Same concept when talking about wheel spacers, it adds force to the wheel bearing, but the car looks so much better with them.

The FUCA and rear adjustable suspension would be to allow for proper alignment when lowering the vehicle which the 350Z revised springs will do. 1/2" in the front on a coupe, rear stays the same but you should trim down the rear spring perch 1/2" to compensate for the frontal drop. Thus the needed alignment adjustment provided by the adjustable front/lower components.

It basically gives you the clearance of a 350Z, some sidewalk entrances will need to be hit at an angle like the 350Z does. Retains a stock suspension feel though and doesn't feel overly stiff like most lowering kits will.

 

Does that Z1 kit contain everything needed to do this? I'm wrapping my head around how to do the work, what's needed, etc.

 

Yeah, the only part that's even marginally "difficult" is removing the front upper control arm. Personally I like to unbolt the strut at the top and use a service jack below the steering knuckle to gently lower it enough to slide the bolts on. Helps if you take some small rope/twine and tie around the spring, then feed up through the hole as the spring lowers, then tie that rope off to something up top like the strut bar to limit how far down the spring can travel since it wants to swing out towards you as it lowers.

The other item that might be considered "difficult" is the rear suspension forward transverse link bar (traction arm one), where it goes into the chassis you can't just pull it back out you have to grab the edge of the chassis flange with a pair of channel locks (or crescent wrench/pliers/etc) and slightly BEND the chassis metal outward to get the arm out. It's just a 1/8" thick piece of metal that bends VERY easily and you bend it back when it's done. It is a painted piece of metal though so I would hit it with some paint if you scuff it so it doesn't rust in the future. If you just tape it up with some masking tape it's not usually an issue.

 

The SPC toe bolts in the rear can be a bit tricky if you don't have a dremel tool. a dremel with the right angle attachment and a burr bit makes quick work of it though.

 

This is very good advice... I actually got stuck at this point when doing mine and Cleric gave me the same advice and the arms then came out nice and easily after that.

 

Any serious concern with just installing the spacers and waiting on the suspension parts? This is not a daily driver / commuter vehicle. I work from home and drive maybe a few hundred miles a month, so feel like adding spacers won't risk damage or undue wear/tear given the low driving mileage. Thanks!

 

Nope, you'll be fine. Nice car and good to see you won't be racking up a ton of miles on it. Good condition, low-mileage coupes are getting tougher to find.

 

Nice car Man!

I bought my 05 Sport coupe in the same condition and mileage as yours but this was back in 2008!

You have the same condition car in 2021. Let that sink in!!!!

Whatever you do, please don't follow the crowd and rice the car out. Also please preserve it as best you can and if possible, store it in a garage.

Basic mods you can do for now:

5/16" ISO Plenum spacer
Ztube (not sure if you've already upgraded the intake)
06 coupe projector headlights
07 coupe rear taillights
Decent window tint
05-06 OEM 19 Ray's. (Best cheap wheel you'll ever get...you can even powder coat them a nice gunmetal or black with gray flakes color)
If you like the Brembo gold/bronze color calipers great! If not, consider having them powercoated a nice color to accent your Laser Red coupe...

Instead of springs, save up and get good set of coilovers for your next round of mods. Brands like HKS make the Hypermax 3 which will probably be the only coilovers you'll ever need for this car. If you don't want to spend that much, you can do what I did(search my threads) and get a set of Tokiko D spec adjustable shocks and match them up with a good set of springs. I had the Tein HTech and let me tell you, the ride was incredible!
MUCH MUCH better than stock.

​​​​​​When you tackle suspension, I would consider getting some upgraded sway bars as well. I had Hotchkiss sways for the front and rear (both set to medium) and the handling was as good as this car will ever get!

Once you get past that and decide you'd like to touch the exhaust, like the others said above, save up and look for a good used exhaust to go with. Back when I had my coupe, the Holy Grail was the Amuse exhaust. Not sure if anyone around has these BUT the only alternatives I would consider are the:

Motordyne model someone above me mentioned, ARK Grip
Or
Fast Intentions Intimidator (which I had and loved).

You'd be set there but if you want to eek out the last tiny bit of breath from your exhaust, you can consider adding ART Pipes or HFC (High flow cats). I had Berk HFCs and let me tell you combined with my Fast Intentions exhaust, it was loud but in a very exotic car way not your typical loud G35 or 350z you hear running around with a Muffler delete....No way...it was a fantastic sound everyone complimented my car on.

You can achieve a similar but quieter exhaust noise without the HFCs or ART pipes if you're concerned about it.

Welcome to the forums!
Any other questions please ask😊

 

If you go with the hubcentric bolt-on wheel spacers just make sure to torque them properly, either to the manufacturers recommended specification or to 80 ft/lbs which is the torque for the wheel lug nuts.

To keep the brake rotor from spinning while tightening/loosening wheel spacers just put a screwdriver in one of the vent holes for the rotor and wedge it up against the brake caliper like this.

Proper spacer and wheel torque is critical, don't just eyeball it, use a torque wrench.

 

This is amazing and so very helpful. THANK YOU!

Curious - I see almost NO ONE mentioning headers. I recognize they're not only expensive themselves, but labor for install might be just as much if not more.

But isn't that the true bottleneck once you've got exhaust and a HFC? (I don't want to go ART pipes; I don't want the car too loud and wish to pass emissions).

 

The headers from the HR engine are a bit of an upgrade, more so if you have the rev-up engine due to the higher redline where the OEM headers become a bit restrictive.

HR header are cheaper than aftermarket DE headers but you will also need HR cats or test pipes to go with them due to the different flange at the header-cat connection.

So if you can't find both at a good price it might be more cost effective to just get some aftermarket DE headers.

It is a pain to swap them with the engine in the car but it is definitely possible, creative use of swivels and make sure to PB blaster everything good before you get started.

It's a pretty minor gain though. Some folks like the long tube headers, personally I'm not a big fan. Gets to be a bit of a mess under the car.

 

So I'm hearing spending money on upgrading headers really isn't worth it (given the cost/complexity vs. gains), right? I'm not trying to eeke every last horse out of this NA motor; I'm more looking for the easier/cheaper gains first. Exhaust will be next for me, along with HFC, but simply trying to inform whether I should tack headers on as well when considering the full exhaust upgrade.