Ever wondered what's involved in putting together an endurance racer? Curious to know what it takes to bring an ordinary 350Z to a standard that's capable of handling the mighty Nurburgring Nordschliefe for 24 hours straight? Read on...
German magazine Auto Zeitung, in conjunction with RJN motorsport, campaigned a Nissan 350Z in the recent ADAC Zurich Nurburgring 24hr race. Thankfully, Auto Zeitung took several photos throughout the build-up, showing us just how much effort, preparation and engineering needs to go into a street chassis to make it last the distance in an endurance race.
The overall formula is not that different from other classes of road racing. A stripped out shell combined with a strong engine and good suspension are the core ingredients, but unlike a car built for short circuit sprints, drag racing or time-attack, all of the ancillary systems need to be stout enough to handle the rigors of a day's worth of non-stop racing. Auto Zeitung found this out the hard way when they encountered recurring gearbox failures with their Hewland 6-speed sequential cog-swapper, which - thanks to several time-consuming gearbox swaps - pushed their car back to 131st place overall and ninth in class by the end of the event.
The rest of the car ran well and fuss-free throughout the race and no wonder - RJN Motorsport made sure it had all the good stuff packed into it. Check out the photos below to see how they built up their Z33.
Critical to ensuring you remain in the game for the length of the race is a big radiator. Running at WOT for the majority of the time creates a lot of heat, and a radiator with a big core and a big frontal area is the best way to disperse this heat. Overheated engines don't run so well, so money spent here is money well spent.
Race cars don't need airbag sensors, headlight washer jets or air conditioner plumbing. It's all dead weight. The easiest way to rid these things from your car is by stripping everything down to the bare shell and then adding back the stuff you DO need.
The interior is spartan and includes just the bare essentials: racing bucket, instruments, pedals, gear selector and that jungle gym of a roll cage
Lateral loads in any kind of road racing are much higher than anything a road car will experience, so reinforcements must be made to things like the suspension subframes and linkage hard points
Big brakes are a must for fade-free stopping. Here you can just see the AP Racing calipers peeking from behind the rear wheels
Bilstein racing coilovers. These are 10-way adjustable and feature a remote oil reservoir to help lower unsprung weight
Here's that pesky transmission. Hewland normally have a reputation for bulletproof quality, but unfortunately that didn't seem to play into Auto Zeitung's hand on race day
A sequential gearbox simplifies the gearchanging procedure massively, easing driver workload. Pull the big stick back to go up a gear, push it forward to go down. Simple. With dog-engagement gears you don't even have to touch the clutch on the upchange
Here's some more AP Racing goodies: a full standing pedal box. The threaded thing next to it with a hose fitting on the top is part of the vehicle's on-board pneumatic jacking system
Less weight equals more performance, hence these very cool carbon fibre doors
Take one VQ35DE...
...add these sexy individual throttle bodies...
... and the intake plenum from a VQ35HR and you have one stout motor. In addition to these mods, the engine sports a dry sump lubrication system, Nismo race crank and lightweight internals. It turns out a respectable 380hp
So there you have it in a nutshell. Of course, if I had to travel down the same route, I'd probably just send a wad of Yen to Nismo for one of their race-ready 380RS's, but then I'd be robbed of the experience of building my car just the way how I want it. I'd probably fuck it up somehow anyway.
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