Traded down FRS for Poor Man's M3
 

Hey boys n’ gals,
Sold the FRS, picked up an ’04 G35 Coupe w/Sport Package. Thought I would give a small review of the difference in driving experience. This was purely a financial decision. Traditionally I have been a momentum-car kind of guy and a track rat. Before the FRS I had an ’08 Civic Si sedan and traded to the FRS because I missed the driving of the rear wheels and power induced oversteer ;).
Experience: Quite a bit of autox, many trackdays including instruction and some competition in timetrials/hillclimbs. Preferred setup is slightly oversteer biased.
Seat time: Everything from stock 100hp crapboxes to 800hp Trackcars/Racecars.
Initial G35 Impressions:
The Good:

• Finally an engine that does not sound like an upscale tractor. One of the most disappointing things for me in going from the Si (which IMO has the best N/A mass produced I4) was having to listen to the sound of the FA20 at anything but WOT.
• Having nearly double the torque is nice, much easier to break the end loose. Don’t have to downshift to 4th on the hwy for steep gradients.
• Nice to have the steering wheel controls back (my Si had them, not a deal breaker but very nice to have)
• Brembos are great, not sure if these are stock as the fronts have drilled rotors which are definitely not stock. They have slightly less feedback than FRS but have appreciably more stopping power. Heel toe is easy and satisfying to do.
• Based on what I read I expected a god-awful transmission with rubbery feel. It is much better than anticipated, gates are pretty close (closer than E46 M3) and heel-toe is a breeze. Can’t shift it as fast as the FRS but that is typical for a larger drivetrain.
• Damping is pretty good, a little slow to react but much faster than I expected. Car does not wallow too much, very compliant and sets pretty quickly. Feels better than a mustang to me but not FRS good.

The Bad:

• Sitting position, too high! Seats are comfy and all but slipper leather L
• I will miss that excellent steering feel…
• You feel that extra weight, especially over the front. This car (as it sits now) is not neutral like the FRS
• No Bluetooth. Never had a car with it but sure got used to it quickly…

The plan: G35RS
Once you play long enough you realize that the best way to do this is to leave your DD and have a dedicated racecar/track toy. For me that is a Kart for now and W2W later. In the meantime however I enjoy a sharpened driving tool just like the next guy, so I will do what I was planning to do with the FRS, ala FRSRS.

• Drop 150-200lb without sacrificing comfort via: Bucket/6-point for driver, light quietest single exit exhaust, light 18x10 square setup with 244s or 255s to give the front end a bit more bite, no junk in the trunk, and maybe take out rear seats. Lighter battery and possibly MUCH lighter flywheel.
• Add 15-30ish N/A hp. Have not researched how hard this is but whatever the lowest hanging fruit regarding unlocking power.
• Some decent coilovers, corner balanced and my alignment for some friendly oversteer.
• Oil cooler

I will miss you guys and the car, all the best!

G35's are a poor man's M3? This is news to me. And here I thought the E36 M3 was a poor man's M3.

My friend has an 04 G35 coupe and he let me drive his car for a little bit. It is a good car, although the twins have a better feeling with driving, the extra power on the G35 was pretty cool.

My son went the other way. He had a 03 G35 and went to the FR-S. He actually still had the G sitting in the driveway but only drove it once after he got the
Scion. I sold it for him after it sat there for 6 months. It was a decent car with a good engine but not very nimble. I do agree that the Subaru engine is not a good sounding engine though.

use to have a 350z full bolt ons.....cant say I miss it much. Loved the seating, shifter and leather, hated the weight, and gas mileage.

I had a 350z and agree with a lot of your comparison:

- Loved the VQ35DE revup engine - torque, sound, etc.
- 6MT transmission was better than expected, very smooth into gates
- Also unexpectedly missed bluetooth
- Agree on seating position on the 350z, never felt like the seat went down enough

Oddly, I always felt like the 350z had the more communicative steering rack, but it just wasn't as precise or quick as the FR-S. Made the 350z feel more analog, but heavy if that makes sense.

I liked my 350z quite a bit more than expected. Congrats on the new car! One thing I loved about having an old, cheaper 350z was being able to park anywhere or hit bumps without worrying too much, while still having a fun car to drive.

Torque was nice lol mine was so low though that anytime I went over a speed bump the whole underside of my car scrapped...Was going to raise it but sold it to get an EVO instead. I will say I never once had anything break on my 350z either.

Haha yeah mine was only on springs and would still scrape the front bumper at times. Still I didn't really care too much. Unlike with this FR-S, for which every little scrape annoys me.

I am certainly not knocking the FRS, in fact I would have kept it if it was financially responsible (IMO best new car you can get under 50k if you like driving). I guess I am just pleasantly surprised by the G35, I expected this pig of an understeering monster with no sporting appeal. Instead I got a somewhat sporty GT that I can actually heel n' toe in. A little work on her and she will be able to handle some casual lapping as well.


Any of you boys with experience have any recommendation for lowest hanging fruit with resect to unlocking a bit of N/A power on the G? On the FRS I would have done headers and a tune and called it a day...


Based on very limited research it seems my best bet is an intake, z tube, plenum spacer....and? Do these cars flash/tune well? I will probably try to pick up a light exhaust from someone on the forum at some point but that is mostly to save weight. The car has enough power for me and will be even better once I move the power/weight ratio a little higher with weight reduction so just looking at the easy stuff.

I had the ACT prolite flywheel on my 04 Z. It made such a big difference. I don't think I would be able to drive another VQ without one.

@circuithero: I made a similar decision close to two years ago. Traded in my FR-S with the plans of going Karting after regularly tracking the FR-S and other cars for over 3 years. Was trying to get serious about it and even stuck my head around the Karting environment for about a month or so, and for some reason, I couldn't find the motivation to invest my efforts into the sport. It felt very empty and did not capture me... Or maybe I didn't capture it.

After letting a couple years pass... I'm back around getting myself into a BRZ. As long as I'm driving on public roads, I cannot imagine driving anything less sporty than it, and that's what I was doing all this time when I needed to go places, unfortunately.

All the best to you. :)

For power mods, you are on track. Motordyne makes a good plenum spacer. As with any N/A Japanese car, the mods you can do are somewhat limited. Yes, you can have it tuned with Uprev and since you are in BC, there is a tuner in Vancouver as well as a few different options if you don't mind making the trip down to Seattle. http://uprev.com/dealers.php

Since the G is a fairly heavy car, N/A mods aren't going to make that big of a difference since there is more mass for that horsepower to move around. Sounds like you intend to improve that with weight reduction though.

Jim Wolf Technologies also makes a few different camshaft options for the VQ35DE if you want to go that far.

^


That is exactly what I was looking for. Great advice, thanks so much. Looks like I will be able to unlock roughly 30 whp with the very basic bolt ons and tune. Now if I can figure out how to keep that unique exhaust note... Maybe do long tube headers and keep the heavy ass stock exhaust...


Any idea if the G35 has issues with cooling motor wise? I will be monitoring temps with the SoloDL but would be nice to know ahead. Not much motorsports talk on the G35 forum :(


Ive seen the G37 go into limp mode on our trackdays and have never seen the G35 on track but the 370Zs seem to do fine, although usually they are modified...


Also, any idea if the brakes have the same heat evacuation issues as on the Zs? I have heard and seen some brutal horror stories from complete brake failure on the Zs both in trackdays but more disturbingly road racing... The brakes are nice and big and they have the heat capacity but that heat has to go somewhere...


Ordered/Done:


Z tube
06 Rev Up Airbox (apparently everything else is compromised by heat soak)
Nismo Y Pipe
Junk In the Trunk Is Gone (-45lb)
Rear Seat will be gone (-36lb)
Have a FIA Bucket (No headroom for helmet anyway right now) (-40lb?)
Remove passenger seat for lapping (-70lb?)


Future:


6 Point Harness
18x10.5 RPF1s
265/40/18 RS3s V2
Carbotechs 12/10
FA 510
Tune
10lb Battery (-26lb)

There is no such thing as a poor mans car because cars are expensive to keep and add insurance/gas/maintenance

Poor mans car is a RC Toy car