Archives for : 300ZX (Z32)

Methed AT Addict ;)

Mr. Billy S brought us his Z32TT AT last year with some basic mods.  His Z came equipped with JWT Sport 500s, stock auto trans, stock intercooler piping, Nismo 555cc Injectors, stock exhaust manifolds, Chinese 2.4″ down pipes, stock cat pipes, Borla catback, Selin Dual POP Kit, and Snow Performance Meth\Water injection kit.  Need less to say the dyno results weren’t spectacular with his list of mods.  We took the time to “educate” Bill on how to better improve the efficiency of his setup without having to make any “huge” changes.  Throughout the course of a year, Bill put on 2.5″ IC piping and we installed a built SZ transmission, SZ 3″ 4-Bolt DPs, SZ 3″ Test Pipes, and SZ 3″ Catback to top it all off.  Bill also stepped up the nozzle size on the Snow Performance kit.  Exhaust manifolds were not upgraded.  Bill is currently planning his next “big” upgrade.  Some of us just can’t get enough.

This dyno graph shows you the difference from his old mods to the new mods.  If you read the paragraph above you’d know what the differences were.  The after shows a dramatic difference across the entire powerband with the largest gains found in the mid-range.  At 4k we freed up another 70 torque and 50 whp.  This is on 91 octane.  Click the graph to see its full size.

This graph again shows you the difference between the mods and this is on meth injection (Boost Juice).  On his old mods and running meth we found NO added power from turning up the boost.  This is when efficiency comes back into play.  No need to run more boost and make the same or less power.  The after is very impressive.  Running meth and 91 octane fuel with the new mods we saw 110 whp & 105 torque gains at 5500RPMs.  We were able to run higher boost with the new breather mods and make power like planned.  This won’t be the last of Mr. Sutton’s quest for more power.

Trust Your Lust

When Dean M. brought us his baby for tuning and some clutch job, he thought he was “done” modding his Z.  Anytime we @ SZ see any room for improvement we’ll let you know.  Dean is rocking some Sport 500s, purple top 555 Nismos, SZ 2.5″ DPs & TPs, HKS “old skool” dual tip catback, stock exhaust manifolds, JWT Dual POP, and Greddy Profec-B EBC.  We let Dean know that there were significant improvements in the Z32 mod world and that before he planned upgrading turbos he can easily perform other supporting mods to give him better response and possibly the same or more power than a turbo upgrade would provide.

This story does not end here as we tuned Dean’s Z as is w\o adding any new funky fresh mods.  After discussing his long term goals we agreed that in the next few months we would add our SZ 3″ DPs and 3″ to 2.5″ TPs.  I’m working on the catback change.  Hopefully Dean will agree!  If so we’d go full SZ 3″ TPs and SZ Catback.  Next in line would be Z1 TBs, Ash I\C & Inlet Piping, along with some Ash Massive I\Cs, topping it all off with some Nismo 740cc injectors and 300Degree Rails.  We performed the following dyno sometime last year with his current and old skool mods.

While we had Dean’s Z for servicing, we added the Aruba Dave brace.  Nice piece with clean welds.

Here’s Dean’s Dyno graph for his “old skool” mods.  Both on 91 & 100 Octane.  Another one of those where more boost doesn’t make more power.  He’s got a potato in the tail pipe! 😉  Stay tuned for Dean’s new skool mod results in the upcoming months.

Dean’s Z is @ the shop at this very moment for some suspension work.  Turns out those Teins really do ride like shit.  Well, its relative but Dean’s ready to ditch his Tein EDFC setup in favor of some new Nissan shocks and Eibach springs.

Till next time!  Keep the rubber side down.

Dean D. Does it Again

Let’s start off our Memorial Day Weekend with our boy Dean chalking up another IDRC win this past April 23rd making it the 2nd time he’s taken 1st at an IDRC event.  Dean qualified with a 10.2 @ 135MPH, running a 10.6 @ 137MPH in the finals.  With his MPH going over 135 MPH Dean was officially “black-listed” from Auto Club Speedway until he adds more safety equipment which includes full cage and NHRA licensing.  Dean has no interest in bringing the car up to safety status since it will make the car too safe racy and uncomfortable for the street.  His 9 second pass will have to be done at another drag strip, did someone say Bakersfield run?  For those who don’t know much on Dean’s Z, he runs our SZ EXP-90 Kit (3071s) & SZ Race Long Block.  More info here.

Photo courtesy of Rommel Estrada (Artist\Photographer)

Dean’s fuzzy on the details on who he ran in the semi\quarter finals.  His final run was up against Jeff Church in his 700HP Supra.

Photo courtesy of Rommel Estrada (Artist\Photographer)

In the finals versus Jeff in his Supra.

Some 96 Fix

Owning a 1996 300ZX means having to live with OBD-II.  Although OBD-II today is a great tuning tool for newer car models, the 96′ Z was left in the dust.  1996 was the first year OBD-II was implemented in North America and it was also the last year the 300ZX was produced in North America.  This left the 96 a red headed step-child when it came to easy breezy modifications like its younger kind.  The 1996 year had 20 less HP, less aggressive camshafts on both the intake and exhaust for both the MT and AT alike (totally different than any of the other years).  The 90-95 MT cam spec for duration is 248 on the intake and 248 on the exhaust.  The AT 90-95 has a 240 intake and 248 exhaust.  Drum roll for the 96…………  they use a 232 intake and 240 exhaust!  They also have less lift then the earlier Zs.  No VTC system (Nissan’s Variable Cam Timing) also hurts power all around.  The 96s also use their own special OBD-II ECUs which are tougher to tune and throw codes for non emissions friendly mods.  So some have resorted to retro fit their 96s to 95 specs as far as the wiring, ECU, and cam setup goes.  This maybe an easy option for some but in states like California it’s a tough option to go through with.  Talk about some bad odds.

Enter Alex.  He has a 96 Z32 TT and has the mod bug.  Alex has been our customer for almost 10 years now and he’s slowly turned the wick up throughout the years.  This past December he wanted to “bump” it up some with the way of our 3″ 4-Bolt Downpipes (Stock Turbos), 3″to 2.5″ Test Pipes, Ash 2.5″ I\C Piping (w\ SZ Outlet Pipes) & Massives, Selin Dual POP, Nismo 740cc Injectors, Z1 Throttle Bodies, J-Spec Bumper, and some cooling mods for the track (auto-x & road course) duty.

Freshly painted J-Spec & addition of Powertrix C.F. Ducts.

Ash product installed.

Here are his results on 91 octane.  We had to rely on an AFC for fuel tuning……because its a 96.

Here’s where it gets interesting.  Exposing the shortcomings of modifying a 96 TT.  Increasing boost and fuel octane (100) did nothing for it.  Easily seen here are the boost differences between the 91 octane tune on 14.7 psi and 100 octane on almost 19 psi.  Gains are seen early on between the two only until about 5800 RPMs.  After 5800 RPMs the engine cannot efficiently make use of the added boost.  Running the engine at this level will only add stress to it.  The cursor on the graph shows the differences at 6000 RPMs.  Boost is 12.78 psi on 91 octane and 16.74 on 100 octane.  One would expect more power but that is not the case.  On 12 psi the engine is more efficient making power and torque.  It makes 20 more HP & torque on less boost (12 psi).  To make use of the quirky 96 and 100 octane would be to limit boost past 5800 RPMs.

Up next for this 96 will be the addition of pre-96 cams while adding Nissan’s VTC system without modifying the ECU & Harness via SZ funky, fresh mods.  Keeping it California legal.

Orange POPsicle

Creamsicle anyone?  This Z32TT packs some orange punch through some Sport 700 Turbos, MS Manifolds, Selin Dual POP, and SZ 2.5″ Downpipes & Test Pipes.  Mods are simple and basic.

After having sat for a few years Ubaldo brought us his creamsicle to get it back on the road and have it tuned.

Not bad for the amount of mods and our 91 Octane.

High Miles!

Although its hard to see clearly that’s 300,648 miles from one of our customer’s Z32!

I apologize for the infrequent posting lately!  More posts coming soon.

Backin’ it up! (Stock Turbo Mayhem)

Mr. Evan from NorCal followed in our old boy Adam’s footsteps for another silent stock turbo equipped killer Z32 on the road.  It’s been a few months since Evan’s Z rocked out with its $#@$ out, I apologize for not updating as much as possible.  If I did all our work we’d have a system overload!  Anyways onto Evan’s build and results!

Evan came to us back in November and while he stopped by we added on Ash’s I\C Piping, Massives, and Z1 T.B.s.  I say we (during that time I was battling health issues and having radiation therapy every day), Brooke, Evan and his friend worked on his Z to get it ready to make power.  Greg also installed a set of our inlet accordion replacement pipes to get rid of some of the restrictive inlet (suck side) system.

Minus Adam’s intake piping, Evan had the same overall mods.  After the mods performed at our shop were done, we were all excited to see the results.  Evan had surprisingly enough a Genie 2.5″ Catback too!

91 octane, 15 psi for 417 whp

100 Octane for 447 whp!

Q16 for 479 whp!!

All that with stock turbos!  Congrats to Evan and his lovely lady for being patient with him and his Z! 😉

Mike’s Red Dragon

See the red dragon in the picture?

You know when you get bit by an automotive bug you want more of it.  For Mike it came in the form of this 1995 300ZX TT.  It wasn’t long before he took it out to his local drag strip and craved more power.  He brought us his Z with “stage 3″ modifications.  Roughly making around 315 whp.  Over the course of a year we made improvements upon his platform.  We began by adding our SZ 3″ 4-Bolt Downpipes, and SZ 3″ to 2.5″ Test Pipes to mate up to his existing Stillen Catback.  For his drag racing rituals we installed our lightweight flywheel and High 5 clutch.  Moving on to the inlet tract we installed the Selin Dual POP kit, Ash Massives, 2.5” I\C piping, Z1 throttle bodies, and at the same time the plenum was off we upgraded his injectors with Nismo 740s.  A set of new old stock Leader Gears was also installed for added off the line giddy up.  The only thing holding him back now are the restrictive stock exhaust manifolds.  Upgrading his catback would also benefit him as well.  Knowing Mike though, if we do manifolds it will be time for bigger badder turbos.

Ash Massives mounted and ready for boost.

100 Octane Tune for which he runs at the drag strip.

Update to Melissa Drifts & Godspeed Turbos

I apologize to Melissa if this causes her any grief (I know this was already made public on the forums) but a couple months ago her Chinese Godspeed turbos gave up the power to make boost.  We haven’t personally seen what exactly failed on them.  They lasted only a few months and maybe a couple drift sessions.  Whereas her stock turbos had well over 100K+ miles and many years of drifting abuse.  Oh and her stock turbos are still in good shape.  I’m not surprised.

Selin Dual Intake and Dual POP History

A little history first……
Way back in the day JWT was the only one making larger turbo bolt on solutions for the Z.
The Single factory MAF has a zero to five volt scale and JWT found that the single MAF voltage happened to correspond to about the same HP. So the 5 volt signal was good for about 500 HP.
The JWT solution was to remove the stock intake TEE and used a single MAF on one side and a dummy MAF on the other side…….this measured half the air going into the engine and by splitting the injector size in half in the chip, the ECU could measure 1000HP.
Because the Z32 has a idle air control system that pulls all the air at idle from the left side of the engine where the MAF was placed, It measured all the air at idle causing a rich condition at idle and low speed.
The JWT fix for this was adding, what they called the low speed drive-ability kit.
What this did was cut the idle air hose with a TEE and run the same size hose to the other side, Because the hose was longer going to the other side this was not perfect and JWT added a small restrictor to the driver side to try and provide a better balance.
Well that all worked, but was not perfect and just bolting them on did not always offer a great idle.
What is interesting and why I bring this up, is because the reason JWT developed the dual pop was because of the electronic limit of the MAF.
The limit was 5 volts and this was about 500 HP.
Because of this electronic limit of the meter being 500HP, that got miss-interpreted and people started saying you do not need a dual pop until over 500HP…….
Well, electronically that was true, but power wise it makes a difference completely stock. We found in testing over 11 years ago that getting rid of the stock TEE and completely separating the two sides of the air intake system made great gains…….The only thing we did not know was if some of the gains were in the tuning of the chip that was required to go to dual pop at that time.
Jim Selin came along and decided to create a better solution…….
The Selin translator does not require a low speed hose and it also does not require a chip change to split the ECU value if your under 500HP. The reason it does not need these extra items is because it still measures all the air, Jim’s translator simply takes any air coming into the engine from either side and adds it together and sends it back to the ECU as one signal just like 1 meter does stock.
The reason dual pops work is that stock, the 2 sides are fighting for air in the tee, both sides are pulling from the same center section causing the turbos to work much harder to suck air.
By completely separating the two sides it makes it much easy for air to get into the turbo and the results speak for themselves.
When going over 500HP the Selin translator can be switched to average and this still measures all the air, but adds both sides and sends exactly half of the total it measures back to the ECU. This setting requires a chip change to cut the injector size in half to allow measuring higher HP up to 1000hp.
Jim came to us with a few customers watching to have us help him perform a test before and after going not from stock, but from a single pop to Jim’s dual pop set up.
This was done while strapped to the dyno and no other changes were made except installing the Selin complete dual intake set up.
The car had 2.5″ exhaust and a JWT pop and JWT chip.
We made sure the car was stable before starting the tests.
We then made 3 pulls to make sure the reading was consistent…..We then added the Selin Elbows, a second MAF with second pop, and the Selin translator…..
We then made 3 more pulls.
I believe Jim only posted one before and one after of the dyno work.
I think showing all of them helps people to see that it was not some trick or strange anomaly.
I will show separate Horsepower charts from the torque charts make it easy to read and include Air fuel ratio and Boost readings.
Again, this was all the same chip and only adding the second pop.

Horsepower

Torque