Now that I had track worthy tires, track worth brakes, and an oil cooler that will, at the very least, allow me to run a handful of laps I finally had a track capable 370Z again! There was still more that I wanted to do however before heading out to a track. First, for whatever reason, I don’t trust stock wheel studs on any car so I ordered a set of Nismo 60mm wheel studs for all four corners from Scott@FontanaNissan and installed those.
My next pair of modifications was my first attempt at creating my own parts or modifications. Before going to the track again I wanted two things; front brake ducts and ducting for my oil cooler. Again, once I finalize an efficient and proven package I will post up a detailed blog entry featuring these things but for now I will give you the short version.
Air goes in through the openings in your front bumper and is met with your radiator, oil cooler, etc. this creates a high pressure area, think of it like an aerodynamic traffic jam. Air then finds the path of least resistance so it will find any gap of unrestricted space to rush through. Like every production car I have seen, there are these gaps around the radiator and all over the front end so the goal is to block these off and provide all of the air that enters the front bumper only one option, to go through the radiator and coolers. A few hours and a roll of aluminum foil tape and I had the front end sealed up covering all of the gaps between the radiator and the radiator support. I also fabricated up some sheet metal panels to block other areas so air has no choice but to go through the radiator. The only other place that the air can go is into the stock intake ducts and that’s fine by me! To take it a step further I fabricated up some ducting for the oil cooler that leads from the grille all the way back to the radiator trapping any air that enters that portion of the bumper and forcing it through the oil cooler. The result should be a much higher volume of air going through both the oil cooler and radiator. Here’s a photo I took during mock up with the bumper on. I did paint the ducting black once it was finalized and tried to take some photos but they didn’t come out. You can see much more on this crappy cell phone pic.
Next on the list was the brake ducts and the main reason for this was because of the ABS “Ice Mode.” There is some speculation as to whether this is triggered by excessive heat and if that’s the case then I don’t want to take any chances. I got through an entire year of tracking the car without ever hitting ice mode until I got to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway outside road course. This track is harder on brakes than any other track I have taken the Z too and coincidentally the only track where I have experienced Ice Mode so although I am not 100% sure it is heat related, my personal experience supports the theory. Either way, I figure brake ducts are a good idea. Ideally you would have 3” + hosing feeding air into the center of the rotor and out through the veins in the middle, but my fabrication skills are limited and to fit 3” hose would likely require some cutting of things that I don’t want to cut unless one day my 370Z becomes a dedicated track car. What I did then is use 2.5” hose that gets air from the front fang area in the bumper and blows it at the rotor surface. Is it the most efficient way? No, but it will help, hopefully enough to keep me out of the Ice Mode zone if it is heat related.
