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I’ve been reading threads on different oils, and how they differ from engine to engine. I read on a few forums about people sending in small samples of their used engine oil when they do changes, and get laboratory results back telling you what minerals were found in it (basically telling you how your engine is wearing.)

I’m not going to comment on these, because if you look closely, and read, you will see that there are comments on the report itself.

First report

Second report

Third report

Fourth report

You can tell that the engine is still breaking in, because the numbers are going down. Basically, if it were the other way around, that would show progressive wear-and-tear on my engine’s internals. My next oil report will be on German Castrol Syntec 0W30. I’m anxious to see what the report looks like, I know it will be the best yet.

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.

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.

Well, it finally came out. I’m pretty curious to see what some dynos look like. Other companies are coming out with cold air kits for the 07 Z too, so I’m probably going wait and compare later. Stillen came out with what I expected, and their system is going to stay in my top 3 pics for induction.

Other companies I’ve heard that are releasing similar products soon are JWT, Injen, Fujita, and of course Nismo will be out later in the year.