2003 Nissan 350z Track - CL Score

I've been looking for a 2006-2008 Miata PRHT for the last year, and frankly, I couldn't find what I wanted (Much less in my price range).

Random Craigslisting found me this:

2003 350z, Track trim level (VLSD, Brembos, lighter 18x8" and 18x8.5" forged wheels), 90k miles, Lived in TX most of its life.

Asking price was $7300, but included some massive monstrosity stereo system.

I messaged the seller (who lives about 3h from me) asking for more details and if he'd be willing to sell without the stereo setup. He replied with "Absolutely, I can accept $5500 if you want no system in it at all".

So I setup a time (after the stereo was professionally removed) to go view it, my fiancee and I drove to Springfield, MO and inspected in person.

Seller had disclosed that it "needed balljoints" so he'd lower the price to $5300.

When I drove it, all the mechanicals checked out, he'd bought it in Texas and drove it back to his parents house before a deployment (military guy). Body is clean with no rust, tranny shifts smoothly, carfax came back clean (unheard of on a 12yo car!). VLSD seems to be as healthy as they are new (works decently well on all seasons, we'll see on RE-71-RA2BGT-RType-R's)

I paid his asking price of $5300 (he'd bent over backward to deal with my hectic work schedule)

So here she is (and yes, it's already pulled apart in my garage for the balljoint issue)...

Made the 200mi drive home to STL just fine.

Known issues;

• Muffler has two holes, suspiciously round shaped, right next to the corners of the main canister (it's LOUD but actually sounds decent?) - to be replaced with OEM ish or something lighter... Ebay HKS Knock off - $250ish - ORDERED

• Brakes need a refresh - Brembo rotors on Rock Auto are $26 and probably some kind of aggressive pad - ORDERED

• Misc interior pieces are missing (ash tray, deadpedal and cupholder) - ORDERED

• Tint is a mess, will be removing. - REMOVED

• Air filter was a cheap fram and nearly clogged shut, already replaced with a K&N Drop in - FIXED

• Stereo (as stated above) absent, - Replaced with Pioneer, see page 2

• Balljoints seem to have been driven through a minefield, absolutely Zero rubber left keeping the grease in. - REPLACED

• Steering rack is leaking like a sieve - REPLACED

• Door handle on passenger side was broken completely off of the mount, and then hotglued back into place. - Already remedied by completely rebuilding it with a band of aluminum and quite a dose of JB Weld - FIXED

Plans for 2016 (winter work)

• Gigantic front sway bar and beefy end links, - Hotchkis seems like the answer here, Whiteline endlinks on the car now.

• Change all fluids, add friction modifier to rear end.

• Shocks are probably going to be replaced by Bilstein B6 (HD) since the Oem ones have 90k miles on them. - REPLACED

• Whatever the new Jesus tire is released from bridgestone/hankook/dunlop/whoever in the springtime, i'll mount 255/40-18's out back and 245/40-18's in the front

Drive in C-Street Autox and windy roads on the weekend.

Any thoughts/feedback/musings/slander/insults?

Alex

Nice pricepoint for these at this point. What does the track version have again that the regular one didn't?

Autolex wrote: 2003 350z, Track trim level (VLSD, Brembos, lighter 18x8" and 18x8.5" forged wheels)...

since I own basically the same car, I want to say you stole that car, and its awesome you got it so cheap....but then, I really want people to be paying more than that for these still. I'd have jumped all over that deal too. Nice!

Looks super clean.

Wow that is a whole lot of car for that money. I think I'm going to start looking at those for my next DD.

Wow, that's a deal and a half. Didn't realize that they had gotten down to this price point. May have to keep my eyes peeled.

Great buy! Looks really nice

I've not seen that combination of cheapness/niceness in a 350Z or G35 before, great score!

Yeah that is super cheap. Well bought despite the issues. I just bought a 2005 for almost twice the price.

Autolex wrote:

Autolex wrote: 2003 350z, Track trim level (VLSD, Brembos, lighter 18x8" and 18x8.5" forged wheels)...

Oops, missed that. Reading impaired.

You did well. I had he same car and year for quite a few year and when i bought mine i stole it too. The car is a blast to drive and is very predictable when you want to drive sideways or when you want to keep the rubber connected. I sold mine when i knew that i would still get a good price for it but would totally buy one again to thrash for cheap like you did. As a daily its not the best, its noisy, harsh and eats tires like mad. the seat is comfy though and i still think the 350z is dead sexy. I think this car makes a better track car than a daily.

My dream daily is a Honda Odyssey, not kidding!

Well then off to Craigslist I go....

Great score.

Thats an awesome score! I really like these cars and want one bad but they arnt that cheap here.

Update: pulled the whole front end apart for Dave at Solo Performance to press some new balljoints into the uprights.

Both sides now look like this: need to buy a pickle fork to get the tie rod ends out.

This is serviceable right?

Interior (pretty clean actually)

Nasty Tint

Drop in K&N (pretty nice intake path routing for OEM)

badfrogg wrote: ...eats tires like mad...

Isn't this largely attributed to worn bushings? I plan on doing new OEM bushings in all the control arms to remedy it (motoiq had an article on this a while back pretty much confirming so)...

i had a 2006 track with 20k miles on it. teh 19x10.5 wheels ate tires at around 10k miles...

the suspension setup was such that the inside would be GONE on the tire very quickly.

Autolex wrote:

badfrogg wrote: ...eats tires like mad...

Isn't this largely attributed to worn bushings? I plan on doing new OEM bushings in all the control arms to remedy it (motoiq had an article on this a while back pretty much confirming so)...

yep. Properly aligned with good condition components, it shouldn't consume tires. I pound about 15-20k on a set of rear tires and 25-30k or so on the fronts. Considering how my car is driven, as well as the typical 150 tread wear rating of the tires I choose, that isn't bad at all.I have even, normal wear across the entire tread of all four tires. I suspect if I was easy on it, I could get 30k miles or more on a set....but what fun would that be.

edit-My Z's suspension is stock except for Whiteline radius arm bushings, and energy suspension rear subframe/ dif bushings. And a very fine tuned alignment.

Score for sure! Nice.

It wasn't that it wore the tire down so much as it would cause cupping in the tread and then the road noise was outrageous. Mine had 28K miles when i bought it. Supposedly if you got the alignment just right it would not be a problem but i was never able to achieve that magical alignment. I always though of just putting some semi slicks on it to make it not so noisy.

Oh the other thing, and i hope it was just me, but i would go through window motors at a rate of about two per year. I would get so furious with that. If it happens to you just give the door panel a couple of good whacks while holding the button. That will at least get you by a few times.

It had to do with the brushes in the motors getting dirty.

In reply to Autolex:

That's a hell of a deal. Nice job.

That looks like a great deal.

I never paid much attention to these cars but I will now. Does the Infiniti suffer from the same tire wear issue?

Autolex wrote:

I've always wondered in passing why people cut the hole in the front bumper cover but never bothered to investigate. That seems like an awful restrictive place for the stock inlet.

What a steal! I love these cars and I would do the exact same mod path you are going to do. Great job man.

before your first track day, look up pad knockback on my350z.

the brembo's were notorious for it. (the pads get pushed away from the disc, so you have to "pretap" the brake pedal to get the pad on the disc and get descent feedback when applying brakes on the track"