Well, I began working on the brakes of the 350Z. I got to a part that required me to break-loose a bolt that holds the caliper bracket together. It was pretty tight and I couldn’t get it to budge. I started reading the service repair manual for my car, and I found out that the bolts are torqued to about 120ft/lbs.
I did some research, and finally decided to buy some air tools. I went to Lowes and Home Depot, and I ended up buying a Kobolt compressor with a 10gal. tank from Lowes along with a kit including Ingersoll-Rand impact wrench & ratchet set. It also included several impact sockets. It looks really fun to use 
Airtools set
Kobalt tank
Air gun
Hose
So, some boxes came a month or two ago
I went with Fast Intentions‘s resonated test pipes. I ordered them in polished stainless steel. This is probably my favorite mod so far. It cost $300, they look sick, and they sound beautiful. I would definitely buy them again if I had to. The company is based in SoCal.
HKS Hi-Power cat-back, he box was HUGE! It was shipped perfectly. It had some Japanese writing on it too… I have no idea what it means. It probably says “Box very big, very heavy, don’t drop!” I know HKS is a company based in Japan, but I think they also have a US division I’m not really sure. Either that or they just have a website for the US. The vendor I bought it from is Forged Performance. They are in Georgia, so it came in only a few days. I went with the HKS because it is a true dual exhaust. I prefered the dual exhaust only because it provides much better flow, and that is much needed later on if I decide I want more power. The single-path exhaust systems are good for NA cars, which is what mine is now. However, I might not stay NA. The other thing with single-path exhaust is that they are very loud. I wanted something that sounded clean and tuned. This is what I wanted.
I carefully removed and inspected every part. There were only a couple very minor nicks on some of the mid-pipes. I’m not worried about it at all since it’ll never been seen unless the car is in the air.
I’m very happy with the looks and sound of these exhaust parts. They are high-quality parts, and I would buy them again.
The tips are titanium and the edges are actually burnt. The burnt tips give a blueish/purpleish color. Sounds great, looks great.
Haven’t been on here in a while, but I’ll be posting again as well as updating the site. I’ll also be posting updates on the Z.
So I bought some more carbon fiber. They are just overlays, I think for now on I’m only buying the real stuff. It’s not that I don’t like the carbon fiber overlays, they’re cheap, easy to install, and they certainly look decent. But it’s not the real thing; it defeats the real purpose of using carbon fiber (to make the car lighter, right?)
This manual shift cover was bought from thezstore.com Anything I buy from them generally comes pretty fast, and packaged well. It’s always exactly what their description is. It *almost* fits perfectly, I just need to get some more 3m double-sided tape to help around the edges of one of the corners.
I also bought this from thezstore.com. There are actually more pieces to this kit, but I don’t know if I like the other pieces or not. The overlay on top of the instrument panel is sold separately. I do like the instrument panel cover, it is not just a sticky over-lay. It is actually molded and fits snugly.
