2017 Nissan 370Z Nismo review – Roadshow

The Good The 2017 Nissan 370Z Nismo’s performance upgrades transform the sports coupe into a street-legal race car. The firm suspension offers great track feel and the wide, sticky tires give plenty of grip when cornering. SynchroRev Match makes every shift a perfectly timed one.

The Bad The $3,500 Tech package adds outdated navigation and an eight-speaker audio system. You could do better with a smartphone. The firm ride and narrow seats are punishing over rough roads and for longer trips and the shallow trunk makes the Z impractical as a daily driver.

The Bottom Line After experiencing it at the track, I’m seeing the 2017 Nissan 370Z Nismo in a totally new light. However, as the competition continues to refine, the Z is a tough sell for all but the most hard-core.

I can admit it: I was wrong…sort of. The last time I saw the Nissan 370Z Nismo, I didn’t love it. The ride was harsh on the street, the boy-racer aerodynamics were just obnoxious, the tech felt a decade old and the performance bump didn’t feel like it was worth the significant price bump over the standard Z.

This time, after spending a week with the 2017 Nissan 370Z Nismo, I caught myself considering buying one of my own. This car’s not so different from the one I drove before, so what gives?

Handling upgrades

The laundry list of Nismo upgrades is of the old-fashioned sort: big wheels, meaty tires, stiff suspension and naturally aspirated power. It’s not the first car that I’ve described as Japanese muscle, but it’s probably the one that fits the description best.

Working from the ground up, the Z Nismo’s upgrades start with a set of sticky Bridgestone Potenza S001 high-performance tires. The rubber is wrapped around 19-inch forged alloy wheels built for Nismo by Rays, a manufacturer of high-end racing and tuner wheels. The wheels feature a staggered fit with 9.5-inch wide rollers up front and even wider 10.5-inch wheels out back.

The Z Nismo has more contact patch on its rear axle than many cars have at all four corners.

Antuan Goodwin/Roadshow

On display behind the wheels’ spokes are bright red sports brakes. The Nismo uses four-piston aluminum calipers on 14.0-inch discs and two-piston calipers on 13.8-inch discs for the front and rear axles, respectively. But Nissan’s tuning division didn’t stop there; it also upgraded the brake lines with rigidity hoses and filled the system with R35 Special II brake fluid to reduce fade at high temperatures such as those you’d experience at the track.

Still working up, the chassis is suspended over the rolling stock with a Nismo-tuned suspension with stiffer springs, dampers and stabilizer bars. In the engine bay, the strut towers are tied together and to the body with a reinforced 3-point brace. After all of that stiffening, Nismo has also installed front and rear chassis dampers to help cut down some of the vibration and harshness over rough surfaces. Even with the chassis dampers the Nismo is a pretty loud and rough ride over uneven pavement and city streets.

One of my biggest nitpicks with the previous iteration of the Z Nismo was that the aerodynamics package was just a bit too boy-racerish, too attention grabbing and just plain goofy looking. The 2017 370Z Nismo has a smaller rear spoiler that no longer blocks what little rear visibility the Z has to offer. The GT-R-inspired body kit is plainly more attractive than the old catfish fascia.

Trackside with the 2017 Nissan 370Z…
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Inside the cabin, the driver and one passenger wedge into a set of Nismo/Recaro racing seats with Alcantara inserts. The racing buckets are gorgeous but too tight and uncomfortable on the street. On the track, however, the tall bolstering did an exceptional job of keeping my butt in place during cornering. I’d go as far as to say that they actually get more comfortable the harder the Z is pushed at the track; because I didn’t have to brace myself with my knees I was freer to see to the business of actually driving closer to the limits…either that or I was too amped up on adrenaline to notice that my bottom was aching.

Meanwhile, the steering wheel and shift lever also both get the Nismo treatment and are wrapped in Alcantara and leather, respectively.

If it ain’t broke: Powertrain upgrades

Not much has changed in the engine bay, which is just a teensy bit of a disappointment. I can continue to wish for a factory-installed and warrantied twin-turbo system, but I don’t realistically expect any drastic powertrain changes this late in the 370Z’s life cycle.

The heart of the Z Nismo is essentially the same naturally aspirated, 3.7-liter VQ-series engine (VQ37VHR) V6 engine that powers the standard 370Z. It’s basically a tweaked and higher displacement version of the VQ35DE that’s powered the Z since the 2003 launch of the 350Z. Nissan puts some variant of the VQ into everything from the Frontier pickup to the Maxima sedan; it’s a proven and reliable powerplant if nothing else and Nissan seems to be taking an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to this element of the Z Nismo’s performance.

The VQ-Series V6 engine can be found under the hood of many Nissan cars and trucks. Here, it makes a respectable 350 horsepower.

Nissan

In the Z Nismo, output has been massaged to 350 horsepower and 276 pound-feet of torque (up from the standard 370Z’s 332 horsepower and 270 pound-feet of torque) thanks to more aggressive tuning. Fuel economy is stated at 26 highway mpg and 18 city mpg.

The 370Z Nismo comes standard with a six-speed manual transmission with a feature called SynchroRev Matching. When shifting up or down range, the Z’s computer can hold or automatically blip the throttle, matching the engine speed with your new transmission speed for smooth shifting. It’s sort of like an electronic heel-and-toe. If you don’t like the computer intervention, the SynchroRev Matching system can be defeated with a single button press, but I actually found that I liked it. The Rev Matching made me feel like a racing god without getting in my way.

There’s also a seven-speed automatic transmission with paddle shifters available, but people will laugh at you when they peek into your Z and only see two pedals.

Rounding out the Nismo upgrades is a viscous limited-slip differential on the rear axle that makes sure that both of the Z’s meaty rear tires share the load under stress and effectively do their job when accelerating out of a corner.