So this has been an elusive number for a lot of Z owners. Some have every bolt on in the book, tune, etc, and they're stuck between 320-330whp. I remember my baseline dyno with short tails on this car hitting 305whp and thinking I should hit it NP. As I posted before, I made 327/270 with testpipes, exhaust, intakes, and an uprev tune.
I took it up a notch and swapped all my exhaust components for Fast Intentions, added Z1 headers, upgraded to their race filters, and an Ecutek tune. To my mild disappointment, I gained 5WHP and lost 9lbft of tq. I started questioning whether the tune was okay as over time, it felt sluggish. I called Martin a couple months ago after I verified I was only making 312 hp after several pulls; originally starting at 294. So Martin stopped by, changing how Ecutek handles timing and picked back up to 326/260 on a hit day.
Fast forward to this past week. I just added a Specialty Z 6 puck, RJM clutch pedal and CMC (I recommend the $hit out all of it). The car felt like it ran on energy drinks. Quick to rev, perfect clutch engagement, great locking, I was like "hell yeah". Then I noticed I can just spin first rolling into it and full throttle shifts into 2nd broke it loose for more than a couple seconds. Now this raised my eye brow higher than Dwayne Johnson's. This thing felt healthy. Maybe the tune was truly fixed?
I took her to the drag strip, I couldn't hook. I sucked all night. I was not used to the clutch. It'd grab second so hard, I'ds wheelhop. Even spinning through two gears and terrible 2.3 60', I was trapping 106 with 80% humidity and 78 degree weather at night. Then a cold front came in. I sold my old clutch plate for a few dyno passes and took her in.
It was mid 60's outside, 35-40% humidity I'd guess, and about 72-75 in the garage. Martin just finished tuning a turbo 350 putting down 405/370 before mine and I wasn't planning on tuning. We strapped her down, I'm in the driver seat, and we lay down the first pull, 4th gear. 325/268. Not bad... I noted more torque than before. The car is idling for a few min and they tell me to do a 5th gear pull. I row through the gears, mash on the gas and then a 332/271 pops off. Now I'm feeling this $hit. All my torque returned and hp is there. Everyone thinks the car has more. We let her cool off, oil temps staying stable at 180, but water temps would jump to 220 on the long pulls and needed to cool back down to under 190.
Fast forward a few minutes, I turn the car back on, we get the car rolling again and I start shifting through the gears. Temps look good, and just waiting for the signal to put my foot to the floor. I see it and I start. Car is definitely pulling strong, screaming her beautiful voice all the way to 8,000rpm. Then I hear cheering and I knew it put down something strong. I look at the screen and see 342whp and 274wtq. 0 tune changes that night, just mild weather and half the humidity. I do attribute a mild increase to the new flywheel; it weighs nearly 20lbs less than stock.
In the near future, I'm swapping my pumpkin for a wavetrack diff, Z1 cover, new bushings, and 4.08 gears. I already have JWT C2 cams ready to build on a second set of heads, oil pump gears, cam sprockets, and an ATI damper to add. I'm not going to throw out any hopeful numbers, only that I hope they work as advertised. See the mod list below and pic of the dyno. I'll get ahold of the DRF's and add a video tomorrow. It's an in car video from my dash cam, but it should still sound great
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Z1 Cold Air Intakes with the Race Filter Upgrade
Z1 Headers with ceramic coating
Fast Intentions DE Resonated Testpipes
Fast Intentions 12" CF exhaust
Specialty Z Clutch and Flywheel
Synolimit Ported throttle bodies
Synolimit Ported lower manifold
Synolimit Ported upper manifold
AE Performance 72 row oil cooler (for those frosty oil temps)
Ecutek tune by Martin (RS-Enthalpy)
