Where is everyone starting??
 

What are some first things you guy are doing to add after market performance? I see headers, exhaust, oil coolers, ultra long tube intakes,stillen has a power pak deal too,,, ect...man where do I start :)

Seriously though what does everyone think the better items are to add for power mostly in the form of horse power..lets say you had $2000 to $3000 to spend (370z sport package)

catback exhaust and intakes for starters...

hfc's and/or headers next...

lowering with eibachs (coil overs if you plan to track)

and 20" wheels...

There was a thread while back weighing the best cost-to-performance ratio and I believe it was HFC. Hence the reason why my first mod was HFC. :D

All of those parts are good for power but I think fixing some of the flaws of the car might be a good first step. My first step is to lose that rubbery shifter. The clutch engagement height is another thing that you may want to look at also.

I would go with Stillen Gen 3 CAI and F.I. HFC's. That would put you close to the 2k mark with installation. Unless you are going to do it yourself, you would be closer to 1k. Plus the gains would be very noticeable in the higher rpm's. I think those are the best bang for the buck.

Stillen Gen 3's! :tup:

modshack oil cooler (285)
Stillen Gen 3 (550)
Invidia Gemini Exhaust (930)
Test pipes or cats (3-500)

Right around 2000 and its a nice package.

G3's, Test-Pipes, CBE

This does seem like a good priced set-up..i need the oil cooler and then thinking about prolly the headers and cat-back..

My personal belief is the high flow cats are the best bang for the buck and headers the least. Everything else is in between.

Best "bang for your buck" would def be the Gen3 intake and hi-flow cats.

I've got the Gen3 , stillen U/D pulley, stillen grounding kit, stillen headers and waiting on my FI catback.

Keeping the stock cats for noise purposes.

The headers really aren't much of a gain, not until someone releases long-tubes anyways..

No they're not, but every little bit helps.

I started with a Stillen G3 intake.

It was the product I was most comfortable buying, as I didn't see any valid competition...and, Stillen was having a 20% off sale with the G3 intake when I decided to make the purchase = no brainer.

Install was easier than I thought it would be.

I'll be pulling the trigger on a cat-back system here this next week.

Below is my project list... I don't regret a single upgrade

As for what I'd do first... the car needs to be usable/reliable on the track... that means

1. oil cooler... stillen 'race' setup or custom dual setup
2. baffling inside fuel tank or swirl pot to resolve fuel starvation issue... I'm still working on this

Then work on the weight

3. take 150 lbs of weight off by reading weight reduction thread
4. relocate battery to rear

then cheap suspension upgrades

5. stiffer/adjustable anti-sways
6. rear camber arms

then cheap horsepower

7. CAIs
8. skip the HFCs and go straight for resonated test pipes

then all the rest! I really enjoy the lightened flywheel and real LSD

http://i656.photobucket.com/albums/u...jectlist-5.gif

Which cat-back you gonna go with?

[QUOTE=kannibul;222712]I started with a Stillen G3 intake.

It was the product I was most comfortable buying, as I didn't see any valid competition...and, Stillen was having a 20% off sale with the G3 intake when I decided to make the purchase = no brainer..QUOTE]

Except now emerging is an issue where it wears through your AC line. Taking the front off to check mine to make sure there are no rub issues as someone else has reported.

Might I add, the NST Underdrive Pulley Kit?!

:tup:

The instructions tell you to be wary of the rubbing problem. But, for those who missed it on the install, yea its a little bit of a pain to have to remove the bumper again. But all you have to do is move the line away from the intake and maybe wrap the line.

Still one of the best mods for the Z.

Stillen intake, exhaust, and HFC's can net you 50-60whp alone with no other mods. I can add another 10-15whp on top of that with ECU tuning.

It's always best to define the goal of your specific build. Are you into looks, suspension-braking, or power? Those are the three major buckets. Personally, the first thing I mod on every one of my cars is the wheels, tires, and suspension. Then I start adding power.

I am also having trouble desiding weather or not to just powder coat the wheels it came with or go with some kind of volk or something else..I have the yellow z so all black wheels is what i want...again, i am going back and forth on the stock rims???

Anyone know of a good priced wheel for these off the top of your heads...all black, i have looked at prolly 1000 different pics on this board..lol

work on getting the least expensive mods done and move on to the more expensive mods but if money's not an issue start anywhere.

How about posting a few dyno sheets where you get the 50-60 hp from intake, cats and exhaust as no one else including myself has gotten that amount.

My baseline hp was 281.7 (std) and after intake, headers, cats, exhaust, Cobb dyno tuning was..... 317.3 (std). That is a 35.6 rwhp gain and if you use a drivetrain correction factor of 17.2 % (Based upon actual dyno hp vs factory claimed hp) you get 41.7 flywheel hp. Remember, this also includes headers and correcting the fuel/air to about 12.8 to 1. So the actual gain from intake, cats, and exhaust would be a little less.

Also, what are you using for tuning? Took my car to Cobb in Plano Tx and basically got ZERO gains from the four hour tuning session on their Mustang dyno.

Probably should mention run 2 vs run 7 was the actual gain (12.9) from the Berk high flow cats. That means I got 22.7 hp from intake, headers and Stillen exhaust plus Cobb tuning not counting about a dozen headaches from installing the headers and exhaust fitment problems.

Just the facts, please.

If Sharif says he can get that much I wouldnt doubt it... the guy is a genious with the VQ platform... The numbers do seem high but who knows...

The only genius part is getting the Stillen stuff it fit right, besides that there is no difference regarding output regardless of whom does it. Think that is why these type of mods are called: "Bolt ons"

There has been enough documentation from people posting dyno sheets that I'm surprised anyone whom appears to be knowledgeable, would even attempt to "puffer" outputs.

Speaking of Puffering.........If you take a peek at my posted dyno sheet you will notice the baseline is "run 2." The reason for that is the car sat about 45 minutes with the hood closed before going on the dyno and the output was about 10 hp less than when it sat 30 minutes more with it open. Didn't have anything to log with at the time so I don't know exactly what was going on (obviously heat related) but if I had posted that as the baseline then you would have seen a 50 hp gain. Problem is it is not apples to apples and would reflect a false gain over optimal conditions. Of course then, none of manufacturers selling items to automotive consumers would never do that. Boy Scouts honor, ya know.

On the tuning side I'm a believer. Typical N/A cars will pick up usually between 5-12 hp. Certain cars like the LS3 have shown to benefit even more. Biggest issue I'm running into in trying to get mine tuned properly is the software is still in its infancy and for me tuning by Cobb was ineffective as a result. Wondering what he was using for tuning and was a very legit question.

Hate to say this but most tuning secrets are really is no longer a secret: fuel/air is fuel/air, timing is timing. It's having the proper tools and getting them right in terms of what the individual car wants/likes. Not difficult with a wideband 02 and a dyno, but people whom do it every day certainly do pick up a trick or two over the average Joe (like me) and can squeeze out a tad extra.

There is a certain titration between timing and how rich/lean the cars like with my Corvette liking 13.3 to 1 and a bit less timing to produce the best results. A lot of trial and error went into finding that out.

+1 ... and whether it is 40 or 50 added whp from boltons, it's a big f'ng jump... it's clear that nissan held back a lot so they could create margin for growth in future years and with the nismo

I am at the track at the moment so I cant post the dyno chart but I am sure Ben the owner will post it. Our dyno is a Dyno Dynamics and a bone stock 370 puts down 250whp consistently. 50whp has been proven time and time again. I am not sure what is going on with your car. When I get in front of my laptop I will do some research for you.

I have been tuning the VQ's for 5 years and have many hundreds of tunes under my belt. There is no fluff on my part. Thanks guys and sorry if I have any typos from iPhone.

I am at the track at the moment so I cant post the dyno chart but I am sure Ben the owner will post it. Our dyno is a Dyno Dynamics and a bone stock 370 puts down 250whp consistently. 50whp has been proven time and time again. I am not sure what is going on with your car. When I get in front of my laptop I will do some research for you.

I have been tuning the VQ's for 5 years and have many hundreds of tunes under my belt. There is no fluff on my part. Thanks guys and sorry if I have any typos from iPhone.

To the OP. I started with suspension KW V3, OS Giken LSD, Nismo Diff cover, add Oil cooler, relocate and upgrade power steering cooler.

Pending: Fast Internal exhaust, and a tune with Cobb AP.

:iagree:

I love my iPhone :tup:

You can have all the logs and dyno sheets ya want. Made it through college by sitting next to the smart kids so any answers you can throw my way is appreciated. Admittedly a bit bummed at the overall output compared to other similar modded cars and the lack of response from tuning attempts. Even been shopping Z06's and GT-R's trying to figure out what to do.

Spent 3.5 hours yesterday a Dynoject dyno with a bud whom tunes for a living seeing if there were any improvements in the Cobb tuning software and to reestablish a new baseline before adding 4.08 gears. Made quite a few little adjustments in mods adding an under drive pulley, opening up the grill/bumper so more air gets to the Gen 3 intake, oil cooler and wrapping the Gen 3 intake tubes for less heat soak and to lower intake temps, downloading the latest version of the Cobb tuning software into the ECU. The air temp was also 55 degrees which is a radical change from normal Dallas summer heat.

The car picked up 10 hp from the mods and appeared to respond to fuel/air tuning where it didn't prior. Fuel/Air tuning picked up 3-4 more hp with the car now at 330.3 and 262.2 std for an overall gain from baseline of 48.6 rwhp or 56.9 flywheel. Remember also, the car has had the kitchen sink thrown at it regarding mods with about every bolt-on available.

We tried to play with the timing and haven't had time to study the logs to see exactly what was going on but the car lost 2hp when we added 2 degrees timing and also lost 2 hp when we pulled 2 degrees out. The overall timing from the logs picked up two degrees on it's own but the car is still pulling out midrange timing which shows as a slight dip in the midrange curve. Going to fatten the car up a little more in the lower midrange to see if that is what it likes as cars are more prone to detonate around peak torque.

In getting a bit deeper into the software I'm am noticing some abnormalities such as the MAF voltage is different from left to right indicating uneven air distribution and obviously the phantom timing issues which are probably related to tables in the ECU.

What do ya need? It's all yours.

^ I'm going to tune my car (after i get the cobb softwear working on my PC)

Quick question. How are you tuning on the dyno? Full throttle runs? Or hold the load and tune each cell?

This is kind off going of topic .. why don't open a new topic in the tuning section.

PEACE ... :tup:

wtf with the 16ft/lb loss?

Denny, without having your car on the dyno with me, I would not be able tell you exactly what to change. NA tuning is very subtle, and although we follow general guidlines, each car is very unique. One 370Z may make best power at 12.9:1 AF, and another may prefer 12.3:1 AF. This is why the canned Cobb tunes probably don't yield too much power. It's a whole different story with a car like the GT-R, in which we can push a few keystrokes, and make 50-70whp just from tuning...no mods. That said, if you have any datalogs from the dyno pulls you made, please email them to me. sharif@forgedperformance.com

Here is one of the dynos from Ben's car. Although we never had the opportunity to baseline his car, all the other 370Z's and G37's we tested are very close to 250whp on our dyno. So in this case, we are seeing roughly 40whp improvement from just HFC's and exhaust...no tuning.

Your baseline on the DJ seems very close to what others are seeing on that particular brand of dyno (280-287whp).

http://onfinite.com/libraries/1467494/4f7.jpg

This is what we are installing. Gen3 intake, testpipes and Stillen exhaust. The dyno runs are numbered different due to the folders of the upgrades. The first pull listed is testpipe install there was no baseline pull. Second is with the car still on the dyno and install of testpipes and Gen3 intake. The last pull is with testpipes, Gen3 and Stillen exhaust installed.

At the moment we are waiting for Uprev to finalize the 370Z software for tuning. We're eagerly awaiting the call from Rich or Jarred to tell us it's finalized.

These are the best runs for each upgrade going all the way to the rev limit.

http://www.z1motorsports.com/imageGa...70Z10_9_09.jpg

Computer clitch.

[QUOTE=Sharif@Forged;230111]Denny, without having your car on the dyno with me, I would not be able tell you exactly what to change. NA tuning is very subtle, and although we follow general guidlines, each car is very unique. One 370Z may make best power at 12.9:1 AF, and another may prefer 12.3:1 AF. This is why the canned Cobb tunes probably don't yield too much power. It's a whole different story with a car like the GT-R, in which we can push a few keystrokes, and make 50-70whp just from tuning...no mods. That said, if you have any datalogs from the dyno pulls you made, please email them to me. sharif@forgedperformance.com

QUOTE]

More than glad to share anything I have and thank you for the offer. In my experience, have also found each car has an individual personality and no.... canned tunes can be very hit or miss.

Think quite a few people may have an unrealistic expectation on what to expect from a N/A tune as your very correct, it subtle and not mind blowing by any means.

Out of town at a meeting, but will e-mail you the logs w/dyno output as the timing really has me confused. Need all the imput I can get and very much appreciated.

Lots of stickers i.e. sticker-whore my car out via TRD, Mugen, Mazdaspeed, SVT, HKS, Greedy, "Type R" and the likes; big "fast & furious" wing; Pep Boys intake

...just kidding, I think the most imperative would be a high quality oil cooler.

I apologize if I sound harsh, but don't you think it's a quite waste of money if he never track his car?

CBE
Intake
HFC
Not is any specific order but those should be around 2000 +/-

It bothers me personally to see the needle go past 220. Different strokes for different folks. I know a lot say 260+ is danger mode, but in Los Angeles, REGULAR driving in 80 degree + weather can get ya there in a jiffy.