Codenamed Z33 and marketed as the Fairlady Z in Japan, the 350Z was an instant hit with sports car enthusiasts and – of course – aftermarket companies. The succeeding 370Z was also championed for being an easy platform to modify, but the Nissan Z polarizes opinion. Why is that?
For starters, people aren’t exactly satisfied with the old underpinnings. The FM vehicle architecture of the Z dates back to the V35-series Nissan Skyline for Japan, a D-segment car that debuted in 2001.
More importantly, sports car enthusiasts are genuinely fed up with Nissan’s cost-cutting measures. The Z is far inferior to the Supra in almost every respect, a Supra that also received its fair share of criticism for sharing a platform and powerplants with BMW.
Even so, certain peeps bought Zs with the sole purpose of modifying them for quarter-mile glory. Based in Houston, the folks at Racebox tuned a 2023 model year Nissan Z to a simply ridiculous 490 ponies and 601 pound-feet (815 Nm) of torque at the rear wheels. How did they do it, though?
For starters, the Z NISMO-shaming build produces the aforementioned numbers with corn brew rather than 93-octane gas. The mods list includes an intercooler from AMS, a heat exchanger, SOHO Motorsports front-mounted intakes, a Spool FX-200 high-pressure fuel pump, DMS full downpipes, a custom 4.0-inch exhaust system with a single outlet, and engine control unit remapping via EcuTek.
In case you’re wondering, the 3.0L twin-turbo V6 hasn’t been cracked open. Racebox didn’t touch the turbos and nine-speed transmission either. Pictured at Gainesville Raceway in Florida, the Z further boasts a set of drag radials on beadlock wheels.
Photo: Racebox on TikTok / edited
Care to guess what happened right after the driver brake-torqued the Japanese coupe in preparation for a drag race? As you might have guessed by now, the rear differential decided to grenade itself to bits.
With that much torque and that kind of rubber on that kind of surface, that’s only natural. We also have to consider that the diff may have been already hot from the previous drag race. At the end of the day, however, said rear differential can be replaced with an aftermarket unit that takes more torque.
As for the elephant in the room, the nine-speed automatic isn’t the finest transmission for quarter-mile racing. Essentially the Mercedes-Benz 9G-Tronic built under license by JATCO, the JR913E can take up to 516 pound-feet (700 Nm) of twist.
The FS6R31A six-speed manual isn’t as beefy, hence Nissan’s decision to make the 2024 model year Z NISMO an exclusively automatic affair. It’s a rather expensive affair as well, with prices for the United States market starting at $64,990 (plus another $1,095 for the destination freight charge).
It’s a ridiculous amount of moolah compared to the Supra with the B58 engine. While it may not be as powerful or torquey as the Z NISMO, the six-cylinder Supra is known to make a few more ponies and pound-feet of torque than Toyota says it does.
Lower down the spectrum, the Z does make plenty of sense from a financial standpoint. $42,210 is good value in this particular segment, especially if you consider the Mustang GT a competitor. The Ford Motor Company wants $42,495 for the most basic of GTs, which comes with a worse manual gearbox than the Tremec sixer in the Dark Horse.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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