Luxury car? Sure. Powerful? You better believe it.
Photography by John E. Thawley, III
In many respects, the Infiniti G35 is the antithesis of the classic sport compact car. Traditionally, we eschew heavy luxury cars equipped with copious sound damping, electronics and slippery leather seating. The G35 has all that and more, including a rather portly 3,500-pound curb weight. Why should we care about this one? Call us sellouts, but we found its claimed 500-wheel hp too compelling to resist. Bay Area resident John Ngo isn't new to the game. He has a pair of built Hondas in his past, one with a custom turbo engine and one with a stroker B16A. In his old age, however, Ngo's taste has shifted to the high end of the market. He bought this G35 new in '04 because it offered a subtle degree of bling, yet retained the high-speed aesthetics and sports-car soul of the 350Z. It even has a six-speed manual transmission.
His original intent was pushing through the usual mods: new wheels, lowering springs, an intake and exhaust. He dropped it using Eibach Pro Kit springs and threw on plus-one Racing Hart C4s. He also added an Injen SES exhaust system and cold-air intake to knock loose a little more power and give the VQ35DE some extra snort.
"I just wanted it to look presentable and make a little noise," Ngo recalls. "After I put in that stuff, I wanted a little more; it still seemed a little slow to me." When hitting the 'Net to do homework on available aftermarket support for the G35, he ran across Jim Wolf Technology. He ordered a set of hot cams, a lightened flywheel and new clutch and had everything shipped to his Livermore, Calif., home, figuring one of the performance shops near his house could do the installations.
Turns out he was wrong. Every place he went turned him down, saying the car was too new and they'd never worked on a G35. Ngo went back to JWT and asked if they knew of a place he could have his goods installed. Z Car Garage in San Jose was their recommendation. Since it's only about 30 miles from his house, Ngo made the drive and met with Garage owner Rob Fuller to discuss his plans."Rob asked me what I wanted to do with my car; what my goal was," Ngo laughs. "I said `1,000 hp.' He replied, `We better get started.'"
While it hasn't hit the 1,000 mark quite yet, the car now produces slightly more than its factory-imbued 270 horses. In order to hit the lofty goal Ngo set, from the beginning it was clear forced induction would be the only way to go. Since he's got previous experience with the hardware, Fuller suggested they go with a Vortech supercharger system for reliability and to keep the project's costs down.
The system is based on Vortech's V-2 Super Quiet (SQ) supercharger package for the G35 and 350Z. The kit, which is the same one we used on Project 350Z, includes the gear-driven blower, high-flow fuel pump and fuel management unit and a front-mount intercooler system. Vortech claims gains of roughly 120 hp and 80 lb-ft of torque at 8 psi with the basic package. That's enough to push total output dangerously close to 400 hp at the flywheel. Our Z makes about 335 hp at the wheels.
Ngo added a brace of supporting hardware to this mechanical concoction, including the JWT cams and clutch assembly, a Stillen oil cooler to further assist the blower's efficiency, and a pair of NISMO headers to expedite exhaust pulses out of the combustion chamber. Z Car Garage also added a Dfi gauge array reading water and oil temperatures, as well as boost, to allow Ngo to properly monitor the blown powerplant.
Ensuing weeks saw more stuff pile onto the car as Ngo threw everything he could find online at Fuller and his shop: a Power Enterprise radiator and all-new hoses, as well as a Crawford Z intake plenum. With the car's newfound power, Ngo quickly became dissatisfied with the suspension setup and purchased a Tein Flex coil-over suspension to place inside the wheel wells, as well as the company's EDFC remote-adjustment unit to the cockpit. Normally he keeps the settings low for a firmer ride.
While they were banging around underneath the lift, Fuller and friends also placed NISMO anti-roll bars to complement the high-tech Tein system and altered the track-edition Brembo brakes with 13-inch cross-drilled Stillen rotors.
After a week of spirited street driving, Ngo began itching for more power, so he took it back to Fuller with a simple request: nitrous. Fuller told him he was crazy and talked him into simply adding a Nitrous Express N-tercooler kit, a contraption that mists the intercooler core with either nitrous or CO2 in order to further reduce intake charge temperatures. Fuller also added a smaller pulley to the blower, pushing boost to 11 psi, and replaced the catalytic converters with Stillen test pipes. He also added a B&M short shifter to keep gear selection crisp, as mis-shifting on top of this bomb would certainly be a destructive endeavor. And most recently, Ngo added a Top Secret front fascia to open the flow of air over the front-mount--and to let everyone else on the road know this car isn't your ordinary Infiniti luxury cruiser.
As it sits, the G35 now makes a hearty 438 hp and 354 lb-ft of torque at the wheels. If you think that's crazy, with the NX mister switched on, the car throws down an ungodly 505 hp and 425 lb-ft of twist at the wheels, according to Fuller.
Five hundred five horsepower is a pretty healthy number, one most sane people wouldn't know what to do with, but Ngo still isn't completely satisfied. "The goal is 1,000 hp," he insists. To that end, future plans include pulling the motor and building a stroker bottom end with custom pistons, rods and a balanced NISMO crankshaft. In fact, as these words go to print, the car is back on the Z Car Garage floor with the stroker kit ready to go. After that, bigger brakes, a roll cage and direct-port nitrous are on Ngo's list for the coming year. Yes, it's heavy; yes, it has leather; and yes, Ngo has poured many cubic megadollars into the project thus far. But 500 hp and 400 lb-ft of torque make for one compelling luxury car. All things considered, it's a car we can live with.