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Old 05-07-2012, 10:19 PM   #66 (permalink)
_ace_
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Join Date: May 2011
Location: USA
Posts: 140
Drives: 370Z
Rep Power: 14
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To all those who have never experienced it and would like to see for yourselves:
  1. Get the car down to 1/4 tank or less
  2. Find a safe spot to do this with a reasonably long right turn:
    • Take a right turn at 0.8g or harder. You can use an iPhone or Android app to check that.
    • Hold that turn for a total of 3-5 seconds with the go pedal down pretty hard and at high RPMs. Have a passenger count it on a watch.
    • How long it takes depends partly on how hard you're turning and partly on how much fuel you spend while cornering hard.
  3. That's it! When your car dies, you had fuel starvation. Note that this does not require any speeding--it just means you are cornering hard on a longer turn. I have an exit ramp with a very tight bend on the way home and have gotten it there 2-3 times. Without breaking the law.
On the bright side, I had a 5 gallon gas tank and found I could get the car to start up after putting 2-3 gallons in (from an indicated 1/4 tank). I guess somewhere in there it's enough to either pool near the pickup or spill over the saddle of the fuel tank.

Also, when going around a long right hander near 1/2 a tank or less, I've started to just take my foot off the gas--that seems to make starvation almost never happen. But fuel starvation in this car is still very much a real, genuine, and initially totally unexpected design flaw than can happen to any 370Z owner on the street if they simply come across a long right hand corner and take it hard.
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