Hey all! New G37x (sedan) owner here! First-time Nissan/Infiniti product. Have been tinkering with all kinds of different cars my whole life. I've owned modified (sometimes heavily) Hondas, BMWs, Jeeps, Subarus, Fords etc. While I'm not a stranger to car modifications, I am very much a stranger to this G37 platform. I have been "out of the game" for the past 2-3 years, only living vicariously through friends' project cars. I finally needed to buy another car recently and stumbled upon the G series and VQ series engines. I am sort of surprised I had no idea this was much of a platform (or had much of an aftermarket). I just came from a Cadillac CTS (non-V) and I am pleasantly surprised with this Infiniti/Nissan aftermarket!



So, I have a few initial questions I was hoping my new Infiniti owner friends would have the answers to In no particular order:

• My car is 2010 with just under 120k miles. Anything to specifically be aware of with these cars, outside of normal maintenance stuff? i.e. fairly sure I'll need new shocks soon FWIW.
• Best initial (or initial few) "bang for the buck" mods? Bolt-ons before an ECU tune, or ECU tune before bolt-ons? I know cars vary in what they respond to over factory settings. So what's the G37's biggest bottleneck if you will?
• Short vs long air intakes… not that I'm scared to take the bumper off and install one of these brand-name $600 cold air intake systems (with the filter behind the grill in the front), but if the short ram intake systems can be purchased for half that cost, is it really worth double to get the longer intakes? I know the air will be cooler and arguably more "forced" than just sucking from the engine bay, but every car/engine is different. Many cars don't see any benefit to aftermarket intake systems. It seems the G37x however is not one of them.
• Exhaust: worth just replacing the factory catted "downpipes" with straight non-catted pipes? Or better to save up and do headers/full exhaust system altogether?
• Best ECU tuning options? Does it seem "Ecutek" is maybe the best? It doesn't seem as plug and play as say, a Cobb Accessport that comes preloaded with OTS maps for different mods. It looks like I have to purchase it specially from someone local and then work with them on tuning?
• Aftermarket suspension upgrades: I'm having trouble finding much outside of upgraded sway bars and control arms and camber/caster adjustment bits. Are there no good coil overs or just some decent Bilstein shock upgrades out there? Or Eibach or H&R springs?
• Anything I should do to ensure transmission strength and longevity? i.e. upgraded valve body?
• Suggestions on spark plugs, or just stick with OEM? i.e. stock heat range and gap size etc or is there anything better out there? Staying normally aspirated for the foreseeable future…
• BRAKES: sadly I realize my non -X model doesn't have the larger wheels and rotors and calipers from the factory. Can you simply swap a G37x-S front brakes onto a regular G37x? Or will the stock 17" wheels on the regular G37x not accommodate the larger calipers from the G37x-S?
• BODY PARTS!? Maybe a weird question, but where are some good sources for like replacement interior trim pieces or exterior engine splash shield or fender liner pieces? For example, a site like rockauto(.com) has pretty much everything you could order parts-wise for your car mechanically speaking, but not "cosmetic" i.e. body panels, plastic trim pieces, clips, etc.

Alright, those are all my questions for now. If there's anyone who can answer even a handful of these, I'd greatly appreciate it! And in the meantime, I'll get to browsing different threads on this forum and see what knowledge I can gain



Thanks in advance

 

Here's some answers but you will probably get a lot more traction over at MYG37.COM which is the sister site for this forum and it's dedicated to your G37 platform.

-Check out your rear diff bushings, they were a problem on the G35 chassis and I suspect it's still an issue on the G37.

-Not sure about intakes on the VHR engine but the HR benefitted greatly from a true dual cold air intake and tune, I suspect the VHR will too but I rarely touch that platform so check with the MYG37 folks.

-Exhaust, all Nissan cats are pretty restrictive, HFC will be the least obnoxious, but sometimes adding a resonator to the exhaust will tame down test pipes enough to not drive you insane. More questions for MYG37.

-Best tuning is probably Uprev.

-Aftermarket suspension, being an X model is going to severely restrict you I imagine since no one tracks the heavier AWD chassis, it does share the rest of the suspension with the 370Z though and there might be some manufacturers for the X front end.

-Tranny maintenance is mostly fluid changes, you don't have a drain plug though so you need to use a gear oil pump from the upper tranny fill plug and suck the old fluid out, it's not bad, just replace with the same amount of fluid that gets sucked out. Or pay Nissan to do a drain/fill.

-Spark plugs, yes OEM

-Brakes, the sport equipped brakes (Akebono) are basically a bolt on ordeal but I don't know about clearance issues on the 17" wheels, more questions for MYG37.

-Body parts, I stick to either local pick-n-pull stuff or eBay for used OEM components.

Hope this helps get you on the right track.