Mike Maez shot this car for the May 2008 issue of Modified Magazine, and the photos are going into the Tunerzine archives with his blessing, which is the right home for them given how much Enjuku Racing history runs through this site. I worked at the Orlando shop in 2003-2004, we ran its drag S13 as an archive feature earlier this year, and the company sponsored our Formula Drift finale coverage last weekend, where it was also on the sponsor list of the championship-winning car. This 350Z is from the part of that history where Enjuku was fielding its own drift program, and the story Modified told about it was less about the parts than about the calendar.
The short version is that Nissan North America gave Team Enjuku three weeks. The team had pitched Nissan on a drift car styled after a Japanese Super GT racer. Nissan agreed and offered it a spot in the company’s SEMA 2007 display, but the show was only 21 days away when the 2006 350Z Roadster arrived in Orlando bone stock. Enjuku was also running cars in the Formula D and NOPI Drift finales at the same time, with most of its staff on the road at one end of the country or the other, plus a shop and a website to keep open. The solution was an intern program with Universal Technical Institute’s Orlando campus. Eight students from the school’s Nissan program were picked for the job, four in the morning and four in the afternoon, and after a crash course from the Enjuku crew they started on the unglamorous end of the build, stripping, cleaning, sanding, and painting the roadster.
The car then went to Piper Motorsport for a week, and the cage that came back is the part of this build I’d point to first. Piper built it by hand to recreate the silhouette of the coupe on a roadster shell, notching the A-pillars so the pillar bars could run higher and notching the door frames so the door bars could bend where they needed to, all while keeping the door frames rigid. Modified called it one of the most complex cage designs the staff had seen, and it gave the driver more room than a conventional roadster cage would have. With the cage in, the Super GT-inspired driver floor, center console, switch panel, and dash went in around it, along with Sparco Evo seats, Impact Racing restraints, a Sparco steering wheel on an NRG quick release, and a fire suppression system.
With the interior underway, the engine and bodywork were handled at the same time by different hands. The VQ35DE was pulled and rebuilt as a 4.1-liter with a Brian Crower stroker kit, an 86.4mm billet crank, a sleeved block bored to 100mm, ARP2000 fasteners, custom pistons, ACL Race Series bearings, and Cosworth CNC-ported big-valve heads with high-rev springs and titanium retainers. A Stillen Stage 4 Racing supercharger kit and Stillen headers went on top, with a custom Berk Technology center exhaust, a C&R Racing radiator with Samco hoses, an Aeromotive regulator, and a custom rear-mounted fuel system plumbed with AN fittings and stainless braided lines next to a Braille Racing battery. An AEM EMS with a UEGO wideband runs it on E85, and Modified’s estimate was more than 500 rwhp in a car weighing 2,852 pounds.
While the engine was out, the bay was lined with gold foil heat shielding, an idea borrowed from Grand-Am Daytona Prototypes, and the enormous carbon fiber rear wing was another piece inspired by that world. BRS Autodesign supplied the full Super GT-style widebody kit, Seibon did the carbon hood, trunk, and tonneau cover, and the paint went from Silver Alloy to 350Z Redline.
Underneath, a G-Force gearbox is paired with an OS Giken clutch, flywheel, and rear differential, while Stance coilovers, Battle Version lower control arms, and a sprint car-style steering setup handle the drift geometry. Twenty-inch Volk Racing GT30s, 20×9.5 in front and 20×10.5 in the rear, carry Cooper Zeon tires in 245/35R20 and 275/30R20. Wilwood four-piston calipers and rotors handle braking at the corners, with a CNC Series 412 staging brake mounted just to the right of the steering wheel.
Two days before SEMA opened, the car rolled onto the transporter at 4 a.m. for the roughly 2,300-mile drive to Las Vegas, which the team made on almost no sleep before unloading it just in time. Sponsor decals and a parking lot detail were the last things done before the car was handed over to Nissan.
Modified’s story closed by calling it the car to watch in 2008, with Robby Unser expected to drive. Unfortunately, plans changed with the 350Z before the season got underway. There’s a story behind what happened next, but it’s not our story to tell. Maybe one day it will be.
What is worth preserving is how quickly the car came together. Three weeks from a stock 350Z Roadster to a SEMA car with a hand-built cage, stroked VQ, supercharger, and full Super GT-inspired bodywork is a build worth keeping a record of, and now it has one.
GalleryPhotos by Mike Maez
