Nissan 350Z Project

"Hoorah!" is the cry of the U.S. Marine Corps. Ask any Marine and they'll tell you what it stands for. "Hoorah" definitely has meaning to Jordan Santiago. He was one of the "Few and the Proud" stationed in Iwakuni, Japan for the past 2 years with the Marine Corps. In between missions, he became fascinated with the local street racing scene and that's when the 2NR bug bit him. Once he served his time in the military and came back home, he had a few extra dollars at his disposal and decided to build a 350Z project. With discipline and attention to detail learned from the military, and drawing inspiration from his experiences with the Japanese tuner scene, Jordan created a silver bullet like no other.

The first thing on his list was the exterior. Now, when you start with something that is already ugly, the most you can do is cover it up. But when you start with something that is already sexy like a stock 350Z, there's a good chance you're gonna end up with a supermodel by the time you are done making her over. High on Jordan's priority was doing this car his way and making it as clean as possible without clutter. He believed the stock body lines were already super clean so there was no reason to change it up, he just wanted to enhance it. There's no 200lb fiberglass imitation body kit with 20 non-functional vents here. Using a full Do-Luck body kit, he contacted his boy Sophal at Sophals Kustoms to make everything work together. The Do-Luck front bumper, side skirts, and rear bumper, were sprayed in metallic silver and installed with care, making it look like the car came that way off of the Nissan assembly lines. For high speed stability and also for a bit of the "sweet" factor, a Do-Luck carbon-fiber rear diffuser was also installed. And just to add a bit of flair on the clean bodywork, a graphical design inspired by Endless brake kit puts the finishing touch on the enhanced sheet metal. The end result is stunning, the perfect mix between form and function-and a bonafide traffic stopper for those nights out cruising down the strip.

The "doing it light, doing it right" philosophy carried over to his choice of suspension and rollers. To handle any curve or high speed maneuver thrown at the car, front and rear Hotchkis sway bars were added and a set of Zeal Function B6 coilovers lower the center of gravity on the car. At its most aggressive setting, the Z looks like it is lying in the trenches ready to defend it's territory. When choosing rims, he wasn't out to impress "MTV Cribs," so you won't find a set of 45 pound chrome weights sitting under each wheel-well. Instead, Jordan was inspired by street racers who rolled down the mountains of Japan, so he chose a staggered setup of super lightweight 19x8.5 front and 19x10 rear Enkei RPF1's wrapped with Nitto NT555's (245/30/19 front, 275/30/19 rear). Unsprung weight was kept to a minimum since, even at 19-inches, these rims weigh less than 19 pounds each, regular 16-inch rims weigh more than that. The easy part was installing everything. The hard part was making it work together as one. Once the suspension setup was tuned and aligned for the streets, the car feels so confident and well composed, it's almost as if she dares you to test her limits because she knows you don't have the balls to take that next corner hot enough.

Taking fast corners and making emergency lane changes aren't everything. There are going to be times where you'll need to slow your roll. If you look closely and peek through the rims, you can see some serious stopping power. Endless six-piston front and four-piston rear brake calipers are clamped around Endless 14-inch vented and slotted rotors. Now think for a second, so that you can absorb the massiveness of what that means, 14-inch rotors? There are economy cars on public streets that don't even roll on rims much bigger than that! This cat has brakes and rotors larger than the pizza pies we eat on each corner of his car. One may ask, "Why take the braking so seriously?" The wicked answer lies under the hood.