General | - Part 18

Archives for : General

370Z AT Tune

Posted by : Sebastian Chacoff On : May 24, 2010

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Last week Brandon brought over his black beauty AT 370Z for tuning. This Z34 comes equipped with F. I. Long Tube Headers, F.I. C.F. Catback, Stillen UD Pulley, and Stillen Gen 3 Intakes. Brandon knew better than to go flooring it until the car was tuned. Make sure to at least check air fuel when doing engine breathing mods. Many of the intakes out in the market will lean your mixture.

Peak power didn’t go up drastically, but everything where it counts below that made an average of 10 more whp and torque from just tuning.

A Good Dose of Caffeine (Boost)

Posted by : Sebastian Chacoff On : May 20, 2010

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We took this daily driven Z32 owned by Jason & Nikki and injected it with some good ole fashioned mods. Believe it or not this car started out life as a 5-speed and was converted to accept an SZ Stage 1 Automagic Trans. This Z32 posses’ a “fresh” JDM engine with the auto A\R turbos (smaller than 5-speed turbos). When the engine was dropped in we dynoed the car to see how it performed with factory boost levels, full SZ 2.5″ exhaust, and single POP. We then added our SZ 3″ Downpipes, SZ 3″ to 2.5″ Test Pipes, JWT Dual Pop w\ Selin Translator, Blitz SBC iD-Spec-R Boost Controller, and SZ custom tune. It still has factory intercoolers too.

Turbos are truly an amazing thing. Boost and Zs rule! Like my bud Rob Fuller would say. You can see the “before” and “after” results below.

Say “ahhhhhh” (At the doctor’s office)

That’s right folks, almost 100 RWTQ gained by 4000 RPM. Time to shred some tires and laugh at Prius owners! For those who have trouble reading a dyno graph, the red lines are the “before” runs and the blue lines are the “after” runs. The fainter of the lines are Torque and the darker are HP.

Dr. Dean

Posted by : Sebastian Chacoff On : May 6, 2010

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Dean finally got his Z tuned this week. We’ve been so busy over here at SZ that we didn’t have a chance the last several months to get his monster the proper attention required. His mod list can be seen here: Dean’s Mod List

He plans to make the upcoming June 12th IDRC event, competing in the True Street Class. The dyno graph below shows his race fuel tune on boost and also on nitrous. One can see how well the nitrous works, it is only used to get out of the gate and shuts off at 5500 RPMs. This should be enough to get him into the 9s. Now go kick some ass!

No, that’s not Dean with the pot belly.

350Z Tune

Posted by : Sebastian Chacoff On : May 4, 2010

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Luis brought us his Z33 AT for a few goodies and ultimately for a tune on his basic NA DE. His Z has plenum spacer, catback, resonated test pipes, Nismo C.A.I., and UD pulley. Needless to say his AFR was way out of whack. So far so that we felt it was unsafe to get a complete baseline pull. A week before this we made a few baseline pulls on another Z33 that only had a JWT POP for a mod and was running extremely lean as well. The JWT POP on the DE engines doesn’t change the sampling tube diameter of the MAF so the intake alone isn’t causing the AFR to be lean.

Here’s Luis’ results:

His base AFR (blue pull) was in the 13s and 14s! After some tweaking we ended up with a safe AFR and a much peppier Z. We gained over 25whp in certain areas.

Zeetoyz Oil Cap

Posted by : Sebastian Chacoff On : April 30, 2010

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Finally an oil cap where the logo can be moved independently of the physical cap location. Hooray! Seriously though, this is indeed a nice feature and the quality is great. I had to have this cap to add a little more blue and delete the Nismo oil cap. Thanks Terry!

PSA: Z32 E.S. Tension Rod Bushings & Your LCAs

Posted by : Sebastian Chacoff On : April 25, 2010

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We first started seeing this particular issue many years ago. However it is still an issue for those unknowingly running the ES bushings in the factory tension rods. Since this problem first surfaced, SZ no longer used the ES t-rod bushings. Shortly after ES heard of problems and came out with a new style but we have no feedback on those bushings. We use adjustable t-rods now with rod bearings like the Powertrix and SPL Parts rods. We have ONLY seen this happen on Z32s equipped with version 1 ES bushings. No other Z32 with aftermarket adjustable rods have done this in our first hand experience. I know some have a theory that the nuts that attach the t-rod to the lower control arm are overtightened but this does not seem the case. It is pretty clear that the ES bushing does NOT allow ANY horizontal movement or side load on the rod so the LCAs take the brunt of the applied force (factory bushings and aftermarket rods do). Just like a paper clip , sooner or later the metal fatigues, cracks, and can possibly separate. This customer wasn’t complaining of any suspension related issues, luckily it was caught before anything happened. The owner’s Z now sports adjustable rod bearing t-rods. It’s a good idea for everyone to check their LCAs even if you no longer run the ES bushings.

It’s hard to tell especially with all the dirt and grime but upon closer look, one can spot cracking by the nuts attaching the rod to the LCA.

No ability for the rod to move horizontally.

Top: Cracked Arm, Bottom: New Arm

Top view of cracked arm

PSA: Z32 Old Style Stillen F.U.C.Arms

Posted by : Sebastian Chacoff On : April 22, 2010

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A customer stopped by earlier today complaining of some suspension clunking. We were shocked and surprised (okay maybe not that surprised) at the findings. Not only are they a bad design structurely, they are only good for one time use since they get crushed and are impossible to adjust afterwards. He’s had these Stillen arms for over 8 years installed by another shop. Luckily he and his Z32 didn’t get hurt. This is a caution to those that still use these arms.

Universal City Nissan Meet

Posted by : Sebastian Chacoff On : April 18, 2010

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Universal City Nissan put on a nice showing for us Z heads. Any excuse to get the Zs out is good enough for any of us. The main reason for this meet was to unveil the 40th Anniversary Z. It sports a special color, color matched wheels, red calipers, and red interior theme. In no particular order…………………………….

We kicked off the day meeting up with the San Diego Z32 Club & West Coast Z Club

Getting the details of the cruise.

Cruizing through L.A. isn’t easy. Lots of traffic and lights made for keeping the group together tough.

Nice old school Zs representing.

Thanks for the plaque Ronnie!

Thank Z-Gods that this thing didn’t come out as is.

Used some old R32 GT-R stock for the brakes.

Dr. Dean’s Engine Bling

The Kogi Mobile provided much needed Korean\Mexi Style Tacos.

Straman Vert

Fin

The Lone Star Z

Posted by : Sebastian Chacoff On : April 9, 2010

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Where do we begin this story? Well its a long one and there’s no need for specifics. We can say it has a happy ending. I hope that didn’t spoil it for ya ;). Dave brought us his red gem child from the big state of Texas for some fixin’ after the wrench hit the spokes in his prior builds. Along the way to Z nirvana, this Z received some funky fresh mods. It arrived at our door with a freshly built engine, larger CZP 2560R turbos aka “GT28Rs”, MSP Manifolds, SZ 3″ Down Pipes, Nismo “old skool” 555cc Injectors, JWT 400 cams, JWT Dual POP, etc… (the important mods). We performed various seances to rid the evil spirits and added SZ 3″ to 2.5″ test pipes and SZ 2.5″ dual tip catback. It had that nasty ole’ Borla catback and 2.5″ test pipes (good riddance). Added some CZP silver I\C piping, Ash Massives, and Z1 T.B.s to round out the “charge” side.

The Z was dynoed back in Texas before we got our hands on it shortly after its latest build. Depressed with the paltry results of 365 whp, its owner decided for drastic measures.

Loaded with some Texas 93 octane we kicked off the dyno tuning fun. I forgot what “real” fuel smelled like from other non-smog Nazi states. Hell would freeze over if California got 93 octane one day. Its amazing how 2 octane points help. Luckily we have quite a few local gas stations that offer 100 octane at the pump.

A little cleaner.

Just another day at the spa.

Here’s how the Z performed on 93 octane & Q16:

510 whp & 465 torque on Texan 93 octane and 587 whp & 545 torque on Q16.

In a week or two this Z will be on a trailer to go back to her owner. Enjoy the ride!

ZONAZ

Posted by : Sebastian Chacoff On : April 5, 2010

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John, in the last year or so has brought his beautiful Z32s over to us for tuning. His yellow Z has Sport 700 turbos, IPP engine, stock cams, MSP Manifolds, Nismo 740cc injectors, SZ full 3″ exhaust, Z1 TBs, CZP I\C piping & Ash Massives, and dual POP with Selin elbows. All available from our new store. John did the work himself and did an excellent job on both cars. Better work than I’ve seen from other pro shops. Two thumbs up! John has the help from his son Connor when it comes to working on the Zs. Connor has been an integral part of John’s SZ trips. Connor also lends a hand around SZ if needed. This last time John brought his family to enjoy some of the SoCal sights.

The Zs soaking up the rays in SoCal beach weather.

His red Z is equipped with Sport 530s, Nismo 740cc Injectors, MSP Manifolds, SZ 3″ downpipes and test pipes that cone down to 2.5″. Stock I\C piping, Stillen Intercoolers, and dual pop round off the majority of the engine mods. You may notice he has a roll bar in this Z. John plans on participating in some local AZ time attack events. Both of his Zs are running proto SZ MAP sensors. No MAFs on these Zs. Nice since his yellow Z has BOVs. This is one of the new products we’re working on in the near future. There’s still some more work tweaking to be done.

Clean execution from Yellow Bird.