I'm sad for you man. Very very sorry. You're rightfully very proud he was your dad, and that's not nothing. Many people don't get as cool of a guy as that for a dad. I pray you find some peace after such a loss.
I'm sad for you man. Very very sorry. You're rightfully very proud he was your dad, and that's not nothing. Many people don't get as cool of a guy as that for a dad. I pray you find some peace after such a loss.
Sorry to hear about your loss. My Dad was my best friend and we spent a lot of time together racing when I first started. I spent a Thursday evening with him watching Thursday Night Thunder on ESPN. Told him I loved him and went home. Got a call around noon the next day he was gone. I understand the sudden loss. I 'll be praying for You.
In reply to drock25too :
Thanks man. This means more to me than you know. I will take all the prayers I can get.
I'd been slow to respond because I'm never really eloquent at these times. Just know that I'm thinking of you!
Very sorry Jon. I never met your dad. But from what I've read of your writing about him, it seems like you've inherited a lot of his great traits. He lives on through you!
Legend has it that there was once a Green Infiniti Q45 that hurt a lot of feelings along the east coast.
My dad has had a very cool collection of cars over the years. My Dad loved ALL cars. Early in his life it was all about American muscle and European stuff. But shortly after 1990 my dad bought his first Japanese car... a 1990 Toyota Camry. He couldn't get over how great the car was. Then, shortly after that he purchased my mom a 1993 Nissan quest minivan that we had around until the mid 2000's. It was mint green - I hated that color - but again, my dad was impressed by the quality of the Nissan. One year later my dad got his first big promotion which came with a pay raise. He felt like it was time to get back into a "fast car" that he could drive to work and back. It was 1994 and there were some cool offerings out there. He was interested in the 1994 Z28 SS, Mustang GT and the BMW M5. He did all the research and test drove them all. My mom liked the idea of the M5 the most because she would of course love for him to have a "family friendly car." So that was that, my dad set out to buy a BMW M5. My dad was a great guy. But not the most patient in the world. I guess the salesman at the BMW dealership was rubbing my dad the wrong way as they were trying to get the deal done so my Dad took his money and left. Shortly after that he stumbled onto a used Q45 at a different BMW dealership that must have been traded in. He test drove the thing and couldn't get over how quick it was for a car of that size. My Dad would later write:
"When given gentle input the car yielded a quiet, comfortable, luxurious ride. This is all nice for a time, but when you want to put your foot to the floor you would think that Dale Earnhardt's 600 horsepower V8 was under the hood. This was even stock. The engines just howl with four valves per cylinder and four cams. The first time I test drove a Q45 and put my foot into it, I was going 140mph before I knew what happened."
With what im sure was a very freaked out Salesman in the passenger seat...
Things were different then. That same year Ford released their new SN95 Mustang GT with 215HP, a 6 second 0-60 and 15.5 in the 1/4 Mile. So when my Dad accidentally stumbled onto the Q and its 278hp and 15.8 1/4 time with 4 doors and luxury design features...
He had to have it.
The Q was the car that started the "second wave" of my Dad's car obsession. It is also the first car I remember my dad owning.
Its the car that started it all for me. I cried like a baby when he sold it.
It seems fitting that the first "Legend" I share is about the car that made me fall in love with cars. My dad wrote an article in 99 for an unknown magazine (I don't believe it was ever published in the magazine but he submitted it) that was later posted on NICO Club (Nissan Infiniti Car Owners Club) a car club my Dad started in 2000. He titled the article "Love at First Sight" (ill share that article below)
It was love at first sight for him. He said that the car had alot of European design features he loved with the reliability he had come to love and trust in Japanese cars.
My earliest memory of the car that I can recall was probably in 1996 or so. I was in kindergarten and we were running late for school. We lived in Sharon Massachusetts at the time. There was some great roads out there. Long straights where you could really open it up. This memory stands out to me because I remember being afraid. My dad said something like "Now Jon, you and I are car guys, we like going fast, but when we go fast we can't tell mom..." I remember that was the first of three times in my life my Dad was very stern in correcting me that I had read the gauge cluster wrong.
While he said then we were only going 45.... He did in fact later on in life confirm what my little eyes saw all those years earlier.
We were doing 120mph on my way to school. Just a kid and his Dad. Doing dumb car stuff. Making memories.
By 1997 the car had already pushed the limits of what the aftermarket was supplying off the shelf for the Q45. My dad was borderline obsessed with making the Q faster. He started reaching out to companies asking them to develop performance parts for the Q. Frustrated by the lack of support for the car he started his own performance company he called B.A.D Performance. In MA. at the time to say something was bad was slang for awesome. B.A.D stood for Birkmire (our last name) Automotive Design. The first part offering from B.A.D was a ring and pinon for the Q45.
This really just meant that he found a company to make them, did a solo group buy of the gear sets and then stored them in our shed until he was able to sell a few sets years later. My dad said that re-gearing the q45 to a 4.11 was the single greatest modification he did to the Q. He had alot of firsts on that car, including a fully built level 10 Transmission with a 3000RPM stall. He sent his ECU back to JWT to have a special tune put on it that worked with race gas and NOS. As far as I am aware. He was the first person to throw NOS on a Q45. After roughly 3-4 years of ownership the q45 with full interior was running high 12 second 1/4miles.
When I was in first grade one of the doctors my dad worked with had just purchased a brand new Dodge viper. During their lunch break they went out to play. Legend has it that his buddy was very annoyed that from traffic light to traffic light the Q was keeping up with the viper. The viper owner offered up his iconic blue and white striped viper in trade for my Dad's Q for the night. I guess the allure of a 4 door sleeper was worth the trade for an evening. We went to a car show that night with this dudes viper. No one in massachusets had really seen one at that point. Everyone was stoked to see the viper. Even though I told everyone it was called a cobra... a snake is a snake right? My dad would later joke that the viper was junk, sounded like the milk truck in his town growing up and that he would rather have the Q45 over the Viper any day.
In 1998 my dad received a Job offer that would move us from MA. to Florida. My dad was so happy. The dreams of the little boy who grew up dead broke in Ohio were finally coming true. My Dad was moving to Florida. I remember my dad telling me about how different the car scene was in Florida and how relieved he was that he could get the Q out of the salt and snow of MA.
When it was time to move my dad went to Florida without us first to start his new job and he decided to drive the Q from MA to FL. He stopped at Atlanta Dragway on a Friday night... ran a 12 and stopped at Gainesville Raceway the next night and ran a 12. People would always freak out and leave the stands to come to the staging lanes to figure out what the Q had under the hood. It was such a sleeper. I know that was thing my dad loved most. My dad loved talking to people and telling stories. The Q gave him the chance to do just that.
In Florida the Q progressed a bit more with the addition of some centerline wheels front and rear with skinies and slicks. That got the car all the way to a 12.6 at 108. My dad would take the car to Bennigans once a month when we first moved there and street race. He loved beating up on the sick shift muscle cars of the time. He told me one time that he made $1500 off some attorney's kid who had a 911. He was proud of that. He also won a few trophies at the Orland Speedworld for various events. We drove the car all the way to NOPI regionals in ATL in the early 2000s to promote NICO Club. It was mostly Hondas and a TON of ford probes for some reason. My Dad slapped the Q45 on the dyno at the end of the day and took home the grand prize for the highest Dyno HP result of the day. We took the car to an import shootout in 2003 maybe??? in Bradenton Fl. It was a huge event. There were some really heavy hitter cars out there. Because they had a bunch of Big horsepower supras, hondas and DSMs they prepped the track really well. The first pass of the event my dad did a great burn out pulled up to the tree and when it went green...
The 4 door, full interior, 4000LB, Japanese luxobarge pulled both front wheels off the ground.
The highlight of that whole thing was that there was a huge Hispanic contingent in the stands. Many of which had air horns that they would blast incessantly when they liked something that happened on track. Half the stands cleared out and all came down to see the huge green Q45 in the staging lanes. Each run after those horns would go off. My dad LOVED IT.
My Dad had huge plans for the Q. His plans included a super charging system with nitrous overblow as well as a new billet aluminum torque converter with the goal of 600 to 700HP. He did in fact work to develop a SuperCharger for the Q45 through B.A.D performance. All in the complete kit was 5K and netted between 100-150 HP. Unfortunately, the Group buy flamed out and im not really sure what happened to the pre-94 grey Q that had the proto type kit on it... But I remember leaving The SuperChips shop after dynoing the car and the car smoking the tires for what seemed like over 100 yards.
If memory serves me correctly He did in fact get that Billet Aluminum converter but I haven't been able to find documentation of that. I do know thought that he eventually ran a 12.2 in that car. Which I assume was as a result of that TQ converter.
My dad then Sold the Car to a Guy named Fred who was a Nico Member. He only owned it for a short time and then sold it to Wes (pictured below). Wes was a HUGE part of Nico club and was literally obsessed with the Q45. My dad sold it to free up cash and space for his second love at first sight accusation... His 1996 R33 Skyline. (more on that in a later post)
Wes is the only reason I have these photos. And im so grateful. They were actually taken after he bought the car from my dad. Wes would later swap in a 300zx 5spd transmission and so much more. Ill talk more about what happened to the B.A.D Q45 in a follow up thread as its life intersected with a few GRM members along the way.
Its funny to think that such a random car had such a huge impact on my automotive passion. It wasn't a 911, a corvette, some famous race car... No, For me it was a 1994 Infiniti Q45. A legendary one at that.
That's the funny thing about cars. It doesn't really matter what car you list. There is a freak out there that loves it, dreams about it... sees value in it.
Today... The Green Q is gone. All I have left of it are the set of centerlines that I one day hope to put on my future Q and the original gauge cluster from the car. It sits next to a few photos of my dad and a few of his trophies in my garage. In some ways these memories feel a long way off. But in a very real way... it doesn't feel that long ago I was sitting in the back seat of a Green 1994 Q45 looking at that very same gauge cluster...
We are doing 120mph on my way to school. Just a kid and his Dad. Doing dumb car stuff. Making memories.
Thanks for reading along,
The Speed Doc's Son.
THE Green Q45 PT2.
This was the article my dad wrote in about 1999 about the Q. He really loved that car. Its also hilarious that my dad wrote this article in third person. As if writing it for the magazine. Its a small detail that makes me laugh because its totally something my dad would do. This article was later shared for the first time in 2002 on Nico Club Forums in its early days.
B.A.D. Q45 - "Love at First Sight"
By Speeddoctor
The "Q" story begins with Doctor Rex Birkmire's insatiable need for speed and yet insistence upon the highest quality automobile. With a wife and three kids it was necessary to have a sedan that holds at least five people. Rex describes himself as a doctor by day and a gear head by night.
He fell in love with the Infiniti Q45 when he test drove a used model five years ago. When given gentle input the car yielded a quiet, comfortable, luxurious ride. This is all nice for a time, but when you want to put your foot to the floor you would think that Dale Earnhardt's 600 horsepower V8 was under the hood. This was even stock. The engines just howl with four valves per cylinder and four cams. The first time Rex test drove a Q45 and put his foot into it, he was going 140mph before he knew what happened (these cars will do at least 170mph when the top speed limiter, which is set at 155mph, is taken off).
Wide/Tune
Rex has the tuner/ illness and he always has to tweak and tune his cars. With the Q45 he started with Eibach springs for a 1 ½" drop. This gave him improved handling and an aggressive stance. Then he put a set of OZ wheels; 17" in the front, 18" in the rear with 235/40/17 Dunlop SP8000s in the front and 255/35/18 Dunlop SP8000s in the rear. That made a huge difference in the traction and handling and the Dunlops are very quiet due to their high-tech staggered tread pattern.
Compu-Tune
In search of more horsepower, Rex purchased a Jim Wolf ECU, which took the top speed limiter off and added 36 horsepower at the top end. The redline was advanced from 6800 Rpm to 7200 Rpm. This dropped elapsed times from 15.1 to 14.8.
Exhaust-Tune
A stainless steel BORLA exhaust was added, which yielded another tenth in the quarter mile and provided a wonderfully quiet ride when cruising easily through town, but provided a hearty growl when stepping hard on the gas.
Nitrous Oxide-Tune
Nitrous oxide was originally provided Jim Wolf. This system uses a Jim Wolf ECU upgrade to run a dry nitrous single fogger system through the throttle body. ET times dropped accordingly, but my sense was initially that the jets were not synchronized, that the jet was too small and that the engine was running too rich. After making numerous dyno- runs and track runs we finally settled on the proper jet range for the nitrous oxide, given the computer's calibration, which was a .67 to .71 jet. ETs now dropped even lower, to a best run of 13.2 at 101mph.
Fuel Tuning
Takash Racecraft fabricated a race gas system that can be switched to with a flip of a switch on the console. This ends any worries about pre-detonation when running on the bottle.
Trans-Tune
Transmission work was done to fortify the transmission. The torque converter was modified to increased the stall-speed and the valve bodies were re-drilled to provide firmer shifts and the clutch faces were Kevlar-lined to handle up to 1000 horsepower. This transmission can come in three stages , depending upon what the owner wishes to do with his particular transmission. These changes netted a total of 3 tenths in the quarter mile for consistent 13 flat passes.
Differential Tune
B.A.D. has developed a number of ring and pinion options for the Infiniti rear-end ranging from 3.3:1 to 4.11:1. A 4:11 was put in our project car and the off-nitrous performance was staggering. There is probably no single thing that you can do to the Q45 to change acceleration characteristics more than to add a 4:11 rear end and yet the top speed was not affected.
Wheel Tune
Finally, Centerline wheels were added initially to the rear because rotational mass reduction is so significant in quarter mile times. The rims, which are approximately 10 to 15 pounds lighter than the OZ cast aluminum rims netted at two tenths to three tenths gain in the quarter mild times giving a best run of 12.9 at 105mph. Recently Centerlines were put on the front, a set of 17" Centerlines on Nitto 555 series high speed Z-rated tires, which are 205/50/17s. This cut off another two tenths of a second and provided the best quarter mile time yet of a 12.6 at 108mph.
Final Tune
The B.A.D. Q45 is great for the street and track. It gets loads of attention, in part due to how unique it is and because it is such a sleeper. The fans go crazy when we start running 12 second quarter miles. They also like the fact that our 60 ft times are 1.78s and that we lift the front wheels off the ground anywhere from between 6 to 12 inches. Not bad for an automatic transmission equipped luxury sedan weighing over 4000 pounds!!
Stay tuned, Y2K plans for the B.A.D. Q45 will involve a super charging system with nitrous overblow as well as a new billet aluminum torque converter, which should, according to the manufacturer, cut at least five tenths of a second off quarter mile times. Total horsepower output should be approximately 600 to 700 horsepower. Elapsed times will drop into the 10's and the whole package will continue to be a streetable daily- driver.
The fun stuff: Mods
That was a good read. Thanks for sharing!
Agreed, very cool stories
B13Birk said:THE Green Q45 PT2.
This was the article my dad wrote in about 1999 about the Q. He really loved that car. Its also hilarious that my dad wrote this article in third person. As if writing it for the magazine. Its a small detail that makes me laugh because its totally something my dad would do. This article was later shared for the first time in 2002 on Nico Club Forums in its early days.
B.A.D. Q45 - "Love at First Sight"
By Speeddoctor
The "Q" story begins with Doctor Rex Birkmire's insatiable need for speed and yet insistence upon the highest quality automobile. With a wife and three kids it was necessary to have a sedan that holds at least five people. Rex describes himself as a doctor by day and a gear head by night.
He fell in love with the Infiniti Q45 when he test drove a used model five years ago. When given gentle input the car yielded a quiet, comfortable, luxurious ride. This is all nice for a time, but when you want to put your foot to the floor you would think that Dale Earnhardt's 600 horsepower V8 was under the hood. This was even stock. The engines just howl with four valves per cylinder and four cams. The first time Rex test drove a Q45 and put his foot into it, he was going 140mph before he knew what happened (these cars will do at least 170mph when the top speed limiter, which is set at 155mph, is taken off).
Wide/Tune
Rex has the tuner/ illness and he always has to tweak and tune his cars. With the Q45 he started with Eibach springs for a 1 ½" drop. This gave him improved handling and an aggressive stance. Then he put a set of OZ wheels; 17" in the front, 18" in the rear with 235/40/17 Dunlop SP8000s in the front and 255/35/18 Dunlop SP8000s in the rear. That made a huge difference in the traction and handling and the Dunlops are very quiet due to their high-tech staggered tread pattern.
Compu-Tune
In search of more horsepower, Rex purchased a Jim Wolf ECU, which took the top speed limiter off and added 36 horsepower at the top end. The redline was advanced from 6800 Rpm to 7200 Rpm. This dropped elapsed times from 15.1 to 14.8.
Exhaust-Tune
A stainless steel BORLA exhaust was added, which yielded another tenth in the quarter mile and provided a wonderfully quiet ride when cruising easily through town, but provided a hearty growl when stepping hard on the gas.
Nitrous Oxide-Tune
Nitrous oxide was originally provided Jim Wolf. This system uses a Jim Wolf ECU upgrade to run a dry nitrous single fogger system through the throttle body. ET times dropped accordingly, but my sense was initially that the jets were not synchronized, that the jet was too small and that the engine was running too rich. After making numerous dyno- runs and track runs we finally settled on the proper jet range for the nitrous oxide, given the computer's calibration, which was a .67 to .71 jet. ETs now dropped even lower, to a best run of 13.2 at 101mph.
Fuel Tuning
Takash Racecraft fabricated a race gas system that can be switched to with a flip of a switch on the console. This ends any worries about pre-detonation when running on the bottle.
Trans-Tune
Transmission work was done to fortify the transmission. The torque converter was modified to increased the stall-speed and the valve bodies were re-drilled to provide firmer shifts and the clutch faces were Kevlar-lined to handle up to 1000 horsepower. This transmission can come in three stages , depending upon what the owner wishes to do with his particular transmission. These changes netted a total of 3 tenths in the quarter mile for consistent 13 flat passes.
Differential Tune
B.A.D. has developed a number of ring and pinion options for the Infiniti rear-end ranging from 3.3:1 to 4.11:1. A 4:11 was put in our project car and the off-nitrous performance was staggering. There is probably no single thing that you can do to the Q45 to change acceleration characteristics more than to add a 4:11 rear end and yet the top speed was not affected.
Wheel Tune
Finally, Centerline wheels were added initially to the rear because rotational mass reduction is so significant in quarter mile times. The rims, which are approximately 10 to 15 pounds lighter than the OZ cast aluminum rims netted at two tenths to three tenths gain in the quarter mild times giving a best run of 12.9 at 105mph. Recently Centerlines were put on the front, a set of 17" Centerlines on Nitto 555 series high speed Z-rated tires, which are 205/50/17s. This cut off another two tenths of a second and provided the best quarter mile time yet of a 12.6 at 108mph.
Final Tune
The B.A.D. Q45 is great for the street and track. It gets loads of attention, in part due to how unique it is and because it is such a sleeper. The fans go crazy when we start running 12 second quarter miles. They also like the fact that our 60 ft times are 1.78s and that we lift the front wheels off the ground anywhere from between 6 to 12 inches. Not bad for an automatic transmission equipped luxury sedan weighing over 4000 pounds!!
Stay tuned, Y2K plans for the B.A.D. Q45 will involve a super charging system with nitrous overblow as well as a new billet aluminum torque converter, which should, according to the manufacturer, cut at least five tenths of a second off quarter mile times. Total horsepower output should be approximately 600 to 700 horsepower. Elapsed times will drop into the 10's and the whole package will continue to be a streetable daily- driver.The fun stuff: Mods
- Level 10 transmission with 3000 stall torque converter
- MSW wheels- 17x8 in the front, 18x9 in the rear. Sumitomo HTRZIII 245/45/ZR17, Kumho Ectsa 245/40ZR18
- Full custom Borla exhaust with gutted cats
- 4.08 Rear End conversion
- 100 shot Nitrous system, with JWT NOS, race gas fuel cell.
- JWT ECU and TCU- Boosts performance and raises redline to almost 7500 RPM
- Tokico Blues with Eibach springs
- Stillen Front strut brace.
- Cross drilled brake rotors
- Stainless steel braided brake lines
- Synthetic fluids throughout
- Best 1/4 mile time: 12.6 at 108mph
Hopefully soon I'll be as fast as your father's car. If only the parts he had on his were still floating around.
In reply to ExcessKuma :
That sure would be nice. It's a bummer that some of these companies stopped supporting the platform. It is great to see that VH Performance is making some really sick go-fast parts these days.
THE Green Q45 PT3.
So, the question is.... What happened to the B.A.D Q45?
Well, Wes Owned the car for a long time. He sold the car in Late 2016. Wes used the Q45 for all types of innovation for the Q45 platform. Much of what he did to the Q was documented on Nico Club's forum and is used to this day as the playbook for Q45 modification. Wes did one of the first (possibly the first) 5spd swap in the Q, Big brake up grades all kinds of suspension upgrades, the list goes on and on. I have to say... The Q looks so good on Z wheels. It even looks somewhat at home in the AutoX
The last time I saw the Q was at the 2005 NOPI Nationals in ATL. Nico Club had a huge showing at the event. I believe to be her largest Nopi event ever. My dad and I went together and had the chance to show off his Silvia which won best of show for the Classic JDM category and Wes won 3rd place in the Asian Luxury Category. It was very cool to see the Q. On the way way home from that trip my dad and I soke at lenght about our memories with the Q and I told him that one day I'd love to have a Q of my own.
Wes took the car all over. He did track days, autoX car shows hauled friends around. He was a fabulous care taker of the Q. But, just as my dad had feared all those years ago when we were up north. The evil salt got to the Q. Wes did what he could but eventually the Q was no longer a viable daily driver or even fun mobile. The final straw was one of the HICAS lines rusted out. So in 2016 he sold the car with 232K miles. A life at that point well lived.
Wes sold the car to a guy who did some fixes to it but ultimately after getting it sorted he had more money into it than he wanted and sold it another guy. That guy apparently wired in all kids of stero stuff and drove some. Ultimately the car sat as he traveled alot for work.
In 2014 I met forum great John Welsh. He has a gold arrive and drive Q45 there that year. I talked to him about the Q45, he spoke about Wes and the nico club ecu for the Q45 and I told him I knew all about that stuff as my dad owned the Green B.A.D Q45 originally. John was awesome and we kept in touch through the forum. John Will have to fill in the gaps but somehow he found the green Q. Unfortunately... She was ROUGH. He made me this video to show off how bad the B.A.D Q45 had gotten. You can see it here on YouTube
But here are some pictures.
As you can see from both the video and the pictures the rust really was bad. And frankly. While the Q still had some great parts on the car. The car itself was not worth saving. John would eventually sell both the green Q and His white Q to other Forum legend Patrick. Patrick would later part the car out and scrap it due to its rust.
The white Q inherited much of the great parts from the green one that ExcessKuma now owns down here in Florida.... Within just a few miles of where my family lived when we first moved to Florida. In many ways... coming full circle. ExcessKuma reached out to me shortly after he bought the car and informed me that in the box of misc parts he got from Patrick there was a gauge cluster. We were able to setup a time for him to drop it by my Dad's office. Unfortunately, my Dad was with a patient when he came by. My dad was surprised at how much the cluster meant to me, but it meant so much to him to know I valued that car and the memories we made in it together.
It's a bummer that the Green Q is gone. But im glad that it meant something to so many people. My hope is that somehow the Legend of the Green Infiniti Q45 that hurt a lot of feelings along the east coast now means something to you too. Because for each of us who love motorsports we have a story. A story about the first time we knew we would be gearheads for the rest of our lives. A moment when a car transcended simple transportation and became an obsession.
For me it was a 1994 Infiniti Q45. We were doing 120mph on my way to school. Just a me and my Dad. Doing dumb car stuff. Making memories.... And one day, that may be all we have left.... and maybe, if you are lucky. A memento to point to too.
While I don't know if I'll ever sell the brace from your father's car, you're welcome to use it as a template to make a copy anytime. Reading this reminds me I need to work on my Green Q
Pastor, prayers for you on this father's day weekend .....lord's peace be with you.
In reply to 759NRNG :
Thanks man. That means alot.
B13Birk said:In reply to 759NRNG :
Thanks man. That means alot.
Amen, as does your response Pastor .....peace out
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