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This might be the quickest known Nissan Z in America with most of its stock engine still intact. AMS Performance just finished building an RZ34 Nissan Z that retains its factory block, head, and internals while making a monstrous 820 wheel horsepower from only bolt-on upgrades. With that much power, the modded Z was able to run the quarter-mile in 9.23 seconds at 149 mph.
It isn’t the outright quickest RZ34-generation Nissan Z in America, as that title belongs to Emilia Hartford’s heavily modified Z. That one actually holds the record for the fastest Z on the planet. However, Hartford ditched the VR30 engine for an extremely modified VR38 from a Nissan GT-R. That 2,000 horsepower monster ran a 7.75-second quarter-mile, which is crazy on its own, but AMS’s car is practically stock compared to Hartford’s.
AMS Performance
AMS told The Drive that all the installed upgrades can be added to any Nissan Z, like its upgraded intake, intercooler, exhaust, heat exchanger, and even fuel system parts. Basically, AMS threw its entire catalog of tuning parts at the Z’s engine. It also has upgraded turbochargers that were developed in-house by AMS, along with an engine tune.
Impressively, it even uses the stock nine-speed automatic. Despite its pedestrian transmission, it’s able to put its power down to the rear wheels consistently, as AMS had to do four consecutive quarter-mile runs to achieve its 9.23-second time. The fact that the stock transmission is able to handle that much power, repeatedly, during violent full-throttle launches, is pretty remarkable.
Helping to keep that power down are absolutely massive Hoosier drag radials. Otherwise, the suspension seems to be stock, though. The ride height looks normal, too.
To call this an ordinary current-gen Z wouldn’t be right. Still, it’s a lot closer to a car you can buy from the dealer than other builds we’ve seen on the platform so far. And no matter how you look at it, a nine-second quarter-mile time is a stellar achievement on this side of the sports car market.
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Nico DeMattia is a staff writer at The Drive. He started writing about cars on his own blog to express his opinions when no one else would publish them back in 2015, and eventually turned it into a full-time career.
