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Old 12-02-2011, 04:50 PM   #75 (permalink)
wstar
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Houston, TX
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Drives: too slow
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Power curve: Even an NA motor has a happier end of the rev range, and the more extreme you mod an NA motor if anything the more curvey it gets. This is a rev-happy engine. If you're not at least at 3K RPM, preferably 4.5K+, you're really not in the happy range yet, you're in the moping around the mall parking lot range .

Now many turbos do make the curve a whole lot more extreme and IMHO less drivable, so I'll give you that. I've never been a bolt-on turbo fan though, I'd much rather choose the SC route for the Z, it's flatter and has better initial torque, and it's just less complicated. The only tradeoff really is a lower peak number than a turbo for bragging rights.

As far as engine life goes, I think a solid SC setup that isn't trying to break extreme barriers will hold up well in the long run. But keep in mind everything is relative to how you treat the engine (maintenance), how you drive it (grandma vs endurance races), and how sensitive you are to it slowly getting bad (things getting "loose" and losing power). An interesting data point: the (surely nearly identical) version of our VQ37VHR that Nissan puts in the race version of this car is listed as having a maintenance replacement interval of 3,700 miles.

Granted, that's track miles, they're shooting for the moment it begins to loose any noticeable power, and they probably lowered the number a little to increase engine sales. You can probably get a few hundreds K out of this engine daily driving on the street like a grandma, but otherwise you're looking at overhauls/replacements at some point regardless. There's no free lunch on an engine. Every mile you drive, something is slowly wearing down
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