STILLEN 370Z Supercharger System - Announcement!!!

willtangclan

Oh yes the new tune feels very nice. Much more power then the previous tune. Throttle response is alot better. And yes, no more hard starts. But too bad the ping. I was watching the replays on my boost gauge and it peaks much earlier also.

weiboy718

At what rpm range you're hearing the ping?

g37mobbin

i heard Phimosis got his car yesterday...i went to go pick mine up and made home safe

Phimosis

lol. I was thinking the same thing!

Phimosis

Stop driving it (under boost) immediately!

It sounds like you have too much ignition advance and that can destroy pistons, con rods and wrist pins.... to the point of catastrophic fail.

I would first check that it flashed correctly. If you were accidently running the stock 370z tune, it would be doing exactly what youre talking about.

Phimosis

After 8 weeks of missing my lil 370z, it's finally back from Stillen. First I'll post the results, then I'll post driving impressions.

First, I was told by a salesperson at Stillen that my car dyno'd very high in it's baseline form. 315 hp to be precise. This suggests that my car may make more power than some other people's cars....as there is slight variance between each car. It may be because I broke it in hard-and-fast, with full throttle runs to the redline from the first day I owned it.....and tuning with8,100 rpm redline.

My assessment would be that my car is a "best case scenario." Well..... I have seen ONE car that dyno's higher than mine. That is Stillen's press release car. I suggest comparing the dyno chart from page one of this thread to my build.

My build goes like this: '09 370z sport package, touring package, 12k on odometer. Baseline runs were with Stillen G3 intakes, Stillen headers, Stillen hi-flow catayltic convertors, Stillen exhaust. Post supercharger runs were with all of the above mods, except G3 intakes.

green line = baseline.

blue line = 8psi pulley with old tune that ran very rich, didn't start correctly and bogged at throttle tip in.

red line = 9 psi pulley that Stillen used on their press release car with revised93 octane tune (in california that means running 1 gallon 100 octane race gas per 3 gallons of super unleaded).

weiboy718

i need to get my @$$$$$$$$$$$$$ to the dyno lol

Phimosis

I've put over 200 miles on the new tune and have a pretty good feel for what the car is all about now, so I'll summarize:

The car runs perfectly. let me say it again. THE CAR RUNS PERFECTLY!

It starts like stock, whether hot or cold. It idles smooth. It doesn't smell rich when you get on the throttle at low rpms (like it did previously). It doesn't bog at throttle tip in (like it did with the last tune). The gains come earlier (mostly because of the 9 psi pulley). By 3,000 rpm it pulls noticeably harder than stock. It makes 300+ lb/feet of torque from 4,200 rpm up. It makes a really sexy turbine sound from idle to about 2,500 rpm that turns heads in parking lots.

Because I did the clutch/flywheel at the same time, the synchro rev match downshifts are awe inspiring. The rev match is blindingly fast and accompanied by the sound of the turbine spooling up and the boost augmented bark of the exhaust. I was rolling down Rodeo drive this morning where poseur types take their exotic cars out for their saturday morning drive to troll for model/actress types. I did the usual 3-2 downshift as i'm rolling by Louis Vuitton and the number of heads that turned to see what kind of car it was, was too many to count. Maybe 10? Brought a smile to my face. Ok, I'm a poseur too. So what?

If you analyze my dyno graphs, you may be surprised that I'm raving about this new tune, when I have to run a race gas mix and I went from the 8 lb pulley to the 9l b pulley and it didn't make any more power (421.96 hp vs 422.4 hp). The reason I am happy is because of the gains in the mid-range. On the old tune, it didn't make decent power until 5,000 rpm, then the power came on explosively. The dyno chart doesn't reflect that, but it was very noticeable while driving. In a few race situations, its seemed like minutes, not seconds waiting for boost to build. You can't get full throttle at 5,000 rpm to the ground exiting the corner in second gear, so you exit in third gear at 3,800 rpm, then a corvette starts passing you..... and you're going crap.....come on, get to 5,000 rpm....come on! It was frustrating to say the least.

So the million dollar question, is why isn't the peak power higher? Well, kyle was nice enough to introduce me to their lead engineer and he went over the tuning with me. Basically, they are pulling timing from the top end to prevent detonation since its running at 9 psi of boost rather than 8. Retarding timing kills hp, but saves pistons.

To be honest, I don't mind that this tune doesn't make more peak power. At 7,000 rpm under full throttle, the game is on. It doesnt need any more "on" unless its accompanied by similar gains in the mid range. If you loook at the slope of the line from the 8 lb pulley, it was linear, all the way to 7,100 rpm, then it trails off. If the trace of the 9 lb pulley dyno run followed that linearity to 7,100 rpm, it would be making over 450 whp, but you'd only get getting those extra 30 hp for a few seconds at a time because it's only a 500 rpm window where you would have the extra power.

The only peculiarity I have seen that makes that car not respond like the stock engine is that on throttle tip-in, the torque output fluctuates slightly for the first second or two. Like maybe 5-10 hp worth of fluctuation, similar to turning the AC on or off. It's not abrupt like turning the AC on though. It's like a sine wave of 2-3 fluctuations. It's not even annoying. I just noticed that it does it, so I thought I'd report it. At least it doesn't bog when you open the throttle. That WAS annoying.

Today I posted my praise. Tomorrow, I'll post my criticism. <-- not plural. I only have one bad thing to say.

Q8y_drifter

This is probably the most thorough SC review I've read since these things started coming out. Well done!

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CGMobile370Z

Do you have to run a mix of 100 octane all the time with the 9 psi pulley and new tune?

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Phimosis

My only criticism of the setup is not with the performance, the workmanship or the customer service. The issue is that my car doesn't perform as well as Stillen's press release car. I'm running headers, hi-flow cats, exhaust, 9 pounds of boost (what I was told, but haven't seen the actual number) and using a 1:3 mix of race fuel and premiun unleaded, yet my car doesn't reach the hp or torque numbers that Stillen advertises on their car running 91 octane with 7.9 psi of boost and all stock, except cat-back exhaust.

If they had a press release and advertised 400 hp and 310 lb/ft of torque, I would have still bought the Stillen kit over the GTM because of Stillen's reputation, racing history and number of vehicles they have modified. I would have still went the supercharger route over turbos because of the lower cost, the simpler conversion back to stock (if needed) and lower risk for engine failure. I say lower risk of failure not because of facts, but from anecdotal stories about catastrophic engine failures on after market turbo cars in general, and that whenever you go to higher hp numbers, you have a higher risk for failure just from internal stresses. Then, after modding my car and getting higher hp and tq numbers than their press release, I would have been ecstatic. But.... Since they advertised these higher numbers, I have been disappointed every step of the way when my car comes up short.

After reviewing the performance of other Stillen customers car, GTM's customer's performance and through analysis and introspection, I've concluded that that problem is not with my car; the problem is with Stillen's press release.

Am I saying that Stillen made the numbers up and that the dyno run is not real? No. They could tune my car to squeeze more power out of it by advancing the timing and leaning it out a little. I'm guessing that their press release was a leaner, more aggressively timed tune, but not a tune they would feel comfortable giving to the public because of the sheer numbers of failures that would inevitabley occur due to the corresponding increase in cylinder temperatures from the lean mix and the material fatigue/cracking that would occur with detonation from the advanced timing. It's no big deal to run your test mule like that for a few weeks of dyno testing, but it is a big deal to give that tune to the public, where some people will be tracking their car, doing top speed runs and other stunts that puts the engine in the upper rpm range under full boost for long periods. A lean/aggressively timed tune under those conditions will eat holes in pistons, crack piston skirts, break wrist pins, spin con rod or main bearings, etc.

The details that I am skeptical of are 1) their car made those numbers with only 7.9 psi of boost and 2) That they intended the tune that developed 438 whp to be distributed to the public and sent for CARB certification.

I want to apologize to Kyle in advance, for posting this. I like you and I don't want to hurt your business. All the people at Stillen have have been nothing less than excellent in how they treated me. And, both the workmanship and installation are excellent. But, I feel obligated and somewhat honored to report the truth to the best of my ability and knowledge to the readers of this forum so they can make educated choices.

With all of that said, I am resigned to believing that no one is going to be able to hit numbers they posted in their press release, unless they do a custom tune with risky parameters.

Regardless, I am still happy with performance and the refined, stock-like manners of the car.

One last point to add is not related to Stillen, but centrifugal superchargers in general: I have never owned one, so this was new territory for me. Because the boost comes late, ie. upper rpm range, you only get those massive gains for half of the time that you are on the throttle. At the redline, the engine is going nuts. After the gear change and boost is down again, the performance is far inferior to a positive displacment supercharger. The result is that even though my car makes 422 whp (roughly 500 at the engine), it is not Z06 Corvette fast or GTR fast. It is more like base model Corvette fast. I had a Kenne Bell supercharged mustang cobra that made 375 whp and it felt just as fast as my 370z. It's a little disappointing because with 500 hp, I was expecting to be driving godzilla's little brother, but it just isn't. The solution would be to run the supercharger with an even smaller pulley and use an 8 pound waste gate so that boost comes on early, hits 8 psi early and stays at safe levels to the redline. I talked to Kyle about this and he said they've kicked the idea around many times over the years and even tested an older car with the centrifugal supercharger/waste gate design, but nothing has ever come to fruition because of cost and emissions regulations. So maybe as a stage II custom tune this could be accomplished with a $300 wastegate and a little machine work to make the port and mounting pad in the air intake?

Phimosis

Yes. And no.

If you were going on a road trip and didn't have access to race fuel, you wouldn't damage your engine as long as you stayed off the throttle and out out of the high boost range as you approach redline. But, the uprev design is sophisticated enough to allow 3 fuel maps. So the people at Stillen were nice enough to make a map for 91 octane for me as well. If I don't have access to race fuel, I press "coast/set" on the cruise control, then simultaneously press cancel once for map 1 or cancel twice for map 2 to choose between 93 or 91 octane. The 91 octane map is timed very conservatively though and probably wouldn't perform any better than a good 91 octane tune with the 8 lb pulley. But, the higher boost levels expose you to higher risk for failure.

Osiris

Good writeup Phimosis. I'm glad they finally got yours up and running. I'd be happy to have mine back at this point with the same numbers you are getting. However, i too am not happy with the fact the cars are not attaining the advertised numbers. In some ways i feel duped.

So far, i've received 3 different tunes since last Thursday and still no resolution. And with the long weekend, i have to wait til Tuesday for the work to continue. At least you had the benefit of having your car sitting in their garage and talking with them face to face. They won't even reply to my email...how's that for customer service?

Anyways, good to hear about your car.

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willtangclan

Yes i reflashed it back to the R4 tune where it was running better without the ping. I'm pretty positive it was the correct tune chosen because the only thing about this tune was the ping, other then that the car ran amazing. Much better then previous tune

The ping would come in around the 800-1700 rpm range.

Chris@FsP

From the rpm ranges you stated, it sounds like tip-in knock. I've seen it on a few 370's even with stock tune. Does it knock under load too?