1990 Nissan 300ZX Review!

The Z32, the love-hate relationionship on wheels. Lets start off the review with a little bit of my history with the 300ZX.

This was my first 300ZX. It was my first car also, I got it when I was about 16 or 17. The thing was a pile of junk and had no end to its issues. Although it was bad, I don’t regret it. I learned so much from this car.

This was my second 300ZX, also my second car. I like to inflict self pain. This one was a twin turbo model that had been taken great care of. The prior owner is now one of my close friends!

I didn’t learn from my first experience though, these cars are expensive to own as a daily. It really has to do with the complicated nature of the car and the age of it. The fuel economy was a little painful as well. This twin turbo never left me stranded through, my need to be meticulous with maintenance and having a perfect running car burned me out.

After selling the 300ZX I got a 350Z. Much better as a daily! As you can see I have the current 300ZX alongside it, now lets carry on with the review!

My girlfriend and I bought this car together. I was in no means looking for one, she secretly wanted one after selling my twin turbo. She stumbled across this 1990 NA model owned by the same owner for 15 years. It was in excellent condition! It even had paper work of maintenance from 2002!

I like to think that no matter how perfect one of these are, its still going to have issues. We got it back home and it had an idle issue when cold. As soon as it warmed up it idled fine and drove great. Ironic how it idled fine when cold when we bought it that day, its the nature of the car.

I’m not really a fan of 18’s on the 300ZX. Sold the 18’s and got some 17x9 MB Battles. The car also has Eibach lowering springs, KYB adjustable shocks, a Magnaflow Catback, JWT intake and JWT ECU. Alright I’m done blabbing, lets get to the review portion.

The 300ZX is powered by the VG30DE, a 3.0 litre DOHC that revs up to seven thousand RPM. The car makes 222 bhp. Even with this, the car is pretty slow. Most modern minivans will pull it in a straight line. At lower rpms, it does provide a nice lump of torque to push the car, so it isn’t totally gutless. You won’t be winning any races in this car though. If all you are looking for is speed and power, look away from a NA 300ZX.

Although its powerband is sluggish, the car is mated to a nice and notchy five speed that directs power to the rear wheels. Every model came with a VLSD as well. TT’s had a 3.69 final drive and NA’s had a 4.083 final drive. It really does embody the spirit of a NA car, you have to wind it out all the way to its 7000 redline to get the most out of it.

The chassis is what delivers the most of the driving experience in a NA 300ZX. The front uses a multilink suspension setup, which helps deliver loads of mechanical grip. The steering rack is extremely tight and one of the fastest I have ever driven. There have been times I put my blinker on to make a left turn, and didn’t turn the wheel far enough to have the blinker spring back.

The rigidity of the chassis was superb back in 1990, but compared to most modern cars it feels like a sponge. Having t-tops doesn’t help this but you aren’t going to care when you are blasting through your favorite driving road with the tops off and wind embracing your face. If you want out right performance, you can find rare models called slicktops. These slicktops are hardtops, good luck finding one, a little over 2000 were sold in the US (I really don’t know how many more there are in other markets). If you look back at my first 300ZX far above, it was a slicktop.

Every Z32 comes with four piston calipers up front and two piston calipers in the rear. They make for a firm pedal and ABS flickering stops. By the way, the Z32 has the best ABS I have ever experienced, there may be better out there but this is pretty damn good. With a NA, a good set of rotors and pads and you’re set for the track. For the TT’s I would suggest upgrading to larger rotors (they make adaptors) along with an aggressive pad to keep brake fade away.

It is a moody car. One day you will be driving this car and it will love you, the next day it will puke coolant all over your driveway. These cars can be very tempermental. I believe its due to its age and complicated nature. They can still be very reliable if you keep up on maintenance and/or go through everything in this car and replace old parts. Luckily there is a load of info and how-to articles from the great Z32 community, if you can handle a wrench, this community can help you fix your 300ZX. Now to put things into perspective, lets talk about doing a plenum pull…

See that six legged polished spider? Thats the upper intake manifold also know as the plenum. There are plenty of bits hooked up to it. Looks messy huh? I can’t remember what the time is to take it off, but I believe its about 6-8 hours your first time. I know it took me awhile to take it off my first time. Now, why would you have to take it off? Bad injector? Plenum pull. EGR bad? Plenum pull. Valve cover gasket or the tiny 3” piece of hose that joins the fuel rail together leaking? Guess what? Plenum pull! Don’t get me started on doing a timing service. This car wrote the book on “While you’re in there might as well change this part also.” I feel this is where you run into issues with buying the car secondhand. Some owners cut corners while working on these cars. They get fed up and skip crucial steps, or don’t replace all the parts need to make a specific service complete.

I feel the lack of being meticulous is where these cars get some of there tempermental nature. If you are looking to buy one, find one that has documentation. Talk to the owner and ask them specific questions about how service was handled. For example, my white NA, he had to do the injectors, so he changed all 6 with OEM parts. Along with that, he modified the plenum so that if they ever had to be changed again you wouldn’t have to pull the plenum (There is a write-up on how to do this). That is a good indicator that no corners were cut. Don’t be afraid of emissions systems being removed as well. EGR is the biggest pain on these cars and many owners delete it for multiple reasons. The biggest being cleaning up the engine bay, making service easier and not having to deal with it again. Now if you find one where emissions equipment was removed MAKE SURE IT WAS DONE PROPERLY. Also consider your local emissions laws.

All in all, what the 300ZX will do is teach you. It will teach you the joy of a classic car, it will teach you about Z cars, it will teach you about working on cars and most importantly, it will teach you about the love for cars.

Guys, I hope you enjoyed this review. Please check out my video review! Got some sound clips in there as well. Thanks guys!