Andrew brought us his pretty 2010 40th Anniversary 370Z for some tuning. Andrew has the Injen CAI and Fast Intentions C.F. Catback.
Nice solid gains.
Archives for : Dyno
Ed’s been a good customer of ours for quite some time. We’ve always come to know him as “Ed with the Front Mount”. Ed was sporting the Apollo FMIC kit which in our opinion sucks balls. I’d like to add as I was reading on another forum that FMICs CAN work on a Z32 when designed properly. The only one to our knowledge is the TDM FMIC Kit. We run it on our blue drag Z32. It has less bends and a very high quality core. The (Apollo) kit increases piping length and also adds more bends. This in turns adds to restrictions and loss of power, along with blocking airflow to the radiator. Slowly Ed fixed maintenance issues and did small upgrades along the way. Recently he finally decided to have us ditch his FMIC setup in favor of larger 2.5″ I\C Piping, Ash Massives, and Z1 T.B.s to round out the combo.
Ed’s current mods:
- Stock Turbos & Manifolds
- Stock Engine
- SZ 2.5″ Downpipes & Test Pipes
- HKS Hyper Catback
- RPS Twin Carbon Clutch
- Selin Dual POP Kit
- Nismo 740cc Injectors & 300Degree Rails
This is a before and after from just changing out to the old FMIC to the larger I\C piping, Massives, and T.B.s. Red run was the old FMIC, Blue run the new setup. Some gains down low and impressive gains up top. Almost 50 ft\lbs and 60 whp gain at 6500 RPMs. Efficiency is key, more power on same boost levels.
The Deal Family’s Track Warrior Z31 Turbo
A few weeks back we got a call about Z31 needing some dyno time. Owner’s Todd and Tyler Deal were battling misfiring and poor running performance out at the track. This Z has an impressive list of parts one is a wickedly built SOHC VG30 that makes use of a VG30DETT crankshaft. The car and its parts don’t look impressive but this car does surprise once it finally was fixed. I don’t have all the details on the car but it obviously has a healthy sized T3 framed turbocharger, JWT Cams, 2.5″ I\C Piping,Greddy Recirc Valve, Tial W\G, Greddy Profec B B.C., and AEM Water\Meth Injection. The water injection does an excellent job in keeping engine coolant temps down believe it or not. This Z also makes use of a transmission cooler & pump to combat unwanted heat in the gear box. This 1984 Z depends on the use of JWT’s ECU conversion that uses an 88-89′ NA ECU, Ford Cobra MAF, and Bosch 420cc Injectors for engine control.
Resting after a hard day’s work. The I\C can easily be seen along with beat up brake ducting.
After a few attempts to make a clean pass on our dyno due to tremendous misfiring, we took over tuning and fixing any mechanical\electrical issues. A shout out to Clark Steppler from JWT for fixing the ECU quickly.
The blue run was the way it came in. Really bad misfiring, so much a complete run could not be made. After some time of tuning you can see where ended up on the red run. See how torque happy these SOHC engines are. 401 whp & 429 Torque.
Juan from Bardabe brought over his customer’s car for us to tune. This time we got to play with a red top SR with a 2876R Garrett turbo. This 240SX comes with an S15 front end conversion and is gutted for drifting fitted with a cage to boot.
Here are some other important mods:
- Z32 MAF
- Sard 850cc Injectors
- HKS 272 Cams
- Brain Crower Springs & Retainers
- Cosworth Headgasket
- 87mm Bore & 9:1 Compression (CP Pistons & Eagle Rods)
- HKS W\G Actuator 10 psi Base
- Blitz Intercooler
- Unknown Exhaust Manifold
- Greddy Intake Manifold
- Greddy Recirc Valve
- Blitz SBC iD Spec-R B.C.
We used the factory ECU with a Nistune board to get this little 4 to run properly. After many hours of getting the base map & cold\hot start setup we were ready to make power and turn the rollers. We setup the HKS W\G actuator to 10 psi base and later installed a Blitz SBC-iD Spec-R Boost Controller to make more ………BOOST!
91 Octane Tune, 15 psi for 353 whp & 292 Torque
Q16 Tune, 23 psi 444 whp & 355 Torque. You’ll notice that at 6600 RPMs the clutch (Exedy) starts to slip thus the power drops and boost drops. It can still make more power!
We’ve known Miss Melissa for a few years now and she’s been a die hard drifter ever since she had the opportunity to try it herself. There’s a good chance you’ll see her if you frequent the drift circuits like Irwindale in SoCal. Her poor car has seen alot of abuse but it just keeps going. She sent me a text one day out of the blue if we would install a pair of turbos on her car. I kept an open mind and knew something like this undertaking was opening a can of worms. Its not as simple as one may think, throw some turbos on and your done. Doesn’t really work that way most of the time. Melissa’s Z32 is pretty stockish in the performance department. It packs a JWT Single POP, Boost Jets, JWT ECU, Stock Fuel Injectors, Genie Catback, SZ Clutch & Flywheel. That’s it for mods. So when she asked about upgrading turbos we scratched our heads. There was plenty more to do before she truly maxed the stock turbos potential. For those who missed it, this is the pride and joy (click me).
Godspeed hooked her up with a pair of their new turbos and intercoolers. Our opportunity to see what cheap Chinese made turbos look & perform. Chinese parts\copies have taken over our market by storm. Its amazing that the consumer will buy the cheapest option, thinking only with their pocketbooks. Anyways that’s enough of ranting, I can go on and on and on and on and on……..
To simplify things and minimize the can of worms we opted to install the turbos with the engine in the chassis.
Specs direct from Godspeed:
Compressor Trim 60 Exhaust Trim 63
Intake side inducer 46.48
Intake side exducer 60
Exhaust side inducer 53
Exhaust side exducer 47.12
Internal wastegate set at : 12 psi
We found that the wastegates were totally off. One opened at 5 psi the other at 9 psi. We set them for 13-ish psi. Keeping in mind Melissa has no boost controller.
Dual port actuator is included.
It’s “hot” side. 4-Bolt housing. Much larger housing than stock though. Turbine wheel is a good size.
The “cold” side. You’ll notice that the inlets and outlets are cast made to fit the Z32 configuration.
Turbo Manufacturer (JiaMu). A quick Google search brings up some diesel truckers experiences with them. Let’s hope they last for Melissa’s sake.
Stock cold side on the left, Godspeed on the right.
Stock hot side on the left, Godspeed on the right.
Melissa’s Z32, checkout her site when you have the opportunity @ www.melissadrifts.com
The results:
This isn’t a straight apples to apples comparison as you can see the boost levels were different along with supporting mods. 11 psi on the stock turbos, 13-14 psi on the Godspeed. The Godspeed turbos also received a help from their intercoolers along with some down pipes & test pipes. So I wouldn’t go off this graph. This is just to show the difference on how the car ended up. 287 whp on stock turbos, stock pre-cats & cat pipes, and stock intercoolers. 341 whp on Godspeed turbos, intercoolers, down pipes, test pipes, and higher boost. Just so we’re clear on differences. No tuning was performed and the factory injectors are still performing fueling duties. This power level is easily attainable on stock turbos as most already know.
We wish you the best in luck with your drifting quest Melissa, and let us know how the turbos hold up. At least now she’ll be able to smoke the tires more effortlessly through the drift. Rock on.
Christian came to us for tuning on his Z a few weeks back. He has a black powdercoated Stillen G3 Intake, Berk HFCs, and Tanabe Y-Pipe connected to the factory muffler.
Great clean look with the intake piping powdercoated black.
Final Results
Antonio’s been a customer of ours for almost 10 years. He purchased his Z from our parts manager at Nissan a long time ago. Through the years he did some small upgrades and as its mileage climbed and the fact it was an early 1990 model (valve issues) developed low compression. To add insult to injury, his wife wrecked it slamming into and up a curb. The accident took place sometime around 2003 and he saved the cash to fix it all. His baby was in a real bad place. Antonio was determined to fix the chassis first. The accident took place sometime around 2003 and he saved the cash to fix it all. The frame shop ended up replacing the sub-frame along with a plethora of other things. Once the body was “fixed”, it sat for a few more years before Antonio could save up more cash to dedicate to the engine. Late 2009 came by and it was time to fix his ailing Z. Antonio wanted something that was very reliable and make good power. Nothing too extreme. We sourced a brand new Nissan long-block as the heart and soul. These are now non existent as far as I’m aware. Sport 700s, MSP Manifolds, larger I\C piping, Ash Massives, Z1 T.B.s, full SZ 3″ exhaust, 740cc injectors & 300Degree Rails, Selin Dual POP Kit, SZ Oil Pan, and RPS Twin Billet Carbon Clutch round up the majority of the mods.
To the untrained eye it all looks stock.
After getting the car all back to together and restored we found there were still gremlins plaguing the chassis and driveline. There was still much ado with the suspension. Since the car was hit in the front and rear it ruined the front wheel bearings and also the rear. The RR axle was also damaged and needed replacing. Those have since been replaced. It wasn’t until corner weighted it that we found just how bad everything was. We found that the LR corner was seriously underweight while a majority of the weight was on the LF. Ride height was seriously off. For this we looked to Powertrix and installed a set of their Sport Street Coilovers.
While playing with the front suspension more we also found that the front Stillen anti-swaybar was under extreme pressure. This is not good for handling, ride height and the bar needs to not have any preload on it. Having this off was throwing off the weight and ride height. Not correcting this issue would have us going round in circles. To accomplish this we used high quality SPL End-Links featuring the use of heavy duty 1\2″ bearings.
While one end of the anti-swaybar is tightened down you need to drop the car down on its own weight and attach the other side with no preload. The other side that is already tightened may need adjusting for the “loose” side to attach. Finally with these parts installed we were able to properly corner weight the car to have an almost 50\50 weight distribution (51\49). One more wheel bearing seems to plague this Z so we should have it riding smooth and noise free down the road. With a little more time & money a resto on the exterior will be done.
Tuning results after a 1000 mile break in on 91 Octane:
460 whp & 421 torque.
SZ Oil Pan & SZ 3″ Exhaust
A well executed Z32 done by our good friend Scott Smith. Scott has one gorgeous Z with a lot of giddy up and go. Once his dedicated track slut, this Z32 serves as a weekend cruiser and dragster. Although we did his build some time ago we retuned with our 16x ECU Switcher. His Z33 has officially taken over road race track duty.
- SZ Race Long-block
- JWT 500 Cams
- SZ 3″ Exhaust Turbo-Back
- Nismo 740cc Injectors
- MSP Manifolds
- MSP Turbo Inlet Pipes
- JWT Sport 700 Turbos (.64 A\R)
- JWT Dual POP
- SZ Flywheel
- SZ High 5 Clutch
- NA Rear End & Sub-frame
- Stillen Intercoolers
We added our SZ ECU Switcher and went to work with 3 different fuel tunes.
91 pisstane for 493 whp & 429 torque.
100 Octane for 599 whp & 533 torque.
Q16 for 658 whp & 586 torque.
Scotty! You better get into the 10s! Good luck and go get ’em!
Last year we had a Z33 with a Vortech SC come in for some baseline dyno runs to asses it’s running condition. Our customer bought it already equipped with the blower and tuning. We were amazed (OK, not so much anymore) how bad the tune was. First of all the map the car was running off the piggyback UTEC wasn’t even the right one. We put it on the “right” map and did another pull. Results shown below.
So the blue run was the way the customer had been driving the Z around. After locating the Utec we set it on the “right” map and made another pull shown in green. Needless to say it was horribly off on either setting. We started by ditching the piggyback Utec in favor of our beloved Uprev. This Z had larger injectors and fuel pump which I had to figure out exactly what he had since the owner had no clue. He bought the car from a sand lot used car dealer with all mods installed.
Here’s the before and after. Red was on the Utec “tuned” map and blue is what we ended up with after we tuned it using Uprev. Safer and more power. 290 whp before & 323 whp after.
Mr. Kevin Chen drove up from S.D. to get his Z tuned. Kevin has the full F.I. exhaust system including resonated test pipes and Stillen G3 Intake.
Baselined @ 308 whp and came out ahead to 318 whp after tuning.
