AlphaSnacks

Background:

I've owned my UpRev cable for a number of years now. I tuned my 350Z with it, and it made a superb difference in everyday driving. When I sold the 350Z for the 370Z, removing the license and driving the car totally stock to the dealer felt...lame. The car lost a lot of its balls. Anyway, I couldn't wait to tune the 370Z, but of course I had no choice but to do so. First, I wanted to break the motor in with a few thousand miles. And then of course, I had to get my mods done:

MotorDyne ART Pipes
Invidia Gemini
Oil Cooler
HPS Intake Tubes + K&N Filters

The above mods definitely helped pick up quite a bit of power over stock, there was no question about it. I'd say the ART Pipes and exhaust are the most beneficial, and the Oil Cooler allows me to retain all of that power throughout the entire drive (as opposed to gradually losing power as the car gets hotter and hotter - I URGE everyone to spend the $500 to get this installed, most shops include an oil change in that price - that's $100+ right there).

Power and AFR After Mods

The colder weather made it pretty difficult to do any proper tune logging with Cipher, as traction was just a nightmare. But as the weather got a little bit warmer, I decided to finally put it all together and do my log sets. I already knew that one focus of these logs should be the 2K-3K RPM area, as breather mods made my car extremely lean in that region - AFRs in the 14s and 15s needed to be addressed. Then towards redline, the mixture was getting a bit too rich, dipping into the 11s and 10s past 6000RPM.

I ran a multitude of logs to collect as much data as possible across various gears, at various speeds (0-100, 50-70 6th gear, 40-60 5th gear, town driving, highway cruising, 3rd gear pull from 30MPH). I carefully inspected everything and noted all of the troubled spots and everything that needed attention.

Tune "A"

Within 24 hours of talking to UpRev, I had my first working ROM: Tune-A. A pair of maps, map 1 where AFRs under WOT will hit an average target of ~12.5, and map 2 where targets are in the ~12.8 region. Map 1 is the more aggressive map and man does it bark. Map 2 is solid, linear and smooth, but Map 1 is how the Z is meant to behave everyday.

Low-end torque is much, much improved. No more flat spots in the 2K-3K RPM range. And once the needle climbs past 3K RPM, no matter the gear, there is notable surge in power that pins you into the seat with every tip of the throttle. It simply feels amazing. The rear end snaps and barks (no worries, Michelin SuperSports are getting mounted in a few weeks) and the car just feels alive and eager. The 350Z felt great with the tune, but the 370Z feels transformed. Driving down the boulevard where the speedlimit is 40, before tune I'd be in 4th, because 5th felt a bit too strained and weak. Now after the tune, 5th is ideal and provides plenty of kick. It feels as if I've gained an extra gear, if that makes any sense. Highway cruising feels spectacular, allowing me easy passes with the low-end torque.

More to Come

Now, there's a reason why this is called "Tune A". I'm still working with UpRev on improvements and adjustments. I believe there are still timing adjustments that can be made, in addition to possible massaging of the AFRs some more once the weather properly warms up and I can hook better to get new logs done - I think aiming at a target mixture of lower 12s is where I want to be, even if it causes me to p*ss out a bit more fuel. Lastly, I want to try out a new throttle table - specifically the "2300" table to see if it gets rid of the annoying rev hang our cars do after they get a little hot. So there's still more work to do; more logs for me to log and inspect cell by cell during every run.

But all in all, there's no sense in modding your 370Z if you're not going to finish the bolt-ons with a tune.