M.Bonanni Project 370Z V3.0 | Clean Slate

SPOHN

Awesome. I wish the best of luck to you. The OSG will not be a let down. I love mine to death. Still my favorite mod to this day.

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Unique_Z

Wait what..

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My Z Build
UniqueZ

WWJD

Mike, are you bringing your Z to Buttonwillow this Sat? I really wanna know what a pro can do with the Z.

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My Journal #1My Journal #2 Build by The R's Tuning, Irvine
Laguna Seca 1:43.073 (stock power)/ Buttonwillow 13CW 1:59.532 (full exhaust)

SPOHN

Sorry on my iPhone

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M.Bonanni

Yeah I have driven a handful of OS equipped vehicles in my past. They are legit. Excited to try it out on the Z.

Yessir! You bringing yours?

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M.Bonanni

Ok so yesterday I got the chance to take my Z out for a few laps around Buttonwillow Raceway. I was out there for the main reason of coaching, and I was super busy with that, but collectively throughout the day I was able to sneak out onto the track for a collective total of around 7 laps. Although I wasn't able to run the car a ton, I did get some useful info out and some new theories.

Fuel Starvation:
Unfortunately nothing new here as far as just reinforcing how bad the issue is. I decided to see just how bad the issue was on my car by pulling off track the second I got fuel starvation and taking it to the on-site gas pump to see just how many gallons away from a full tank I am able to run before getting starvation. Mind you, my car was on old haggard heat cycled to death Hankook RS3 passenger car street tires so we aren't talking extreme g-forces here. So I get my first sign of starvation, pull off track, and head immediately to the gas pump to fill it up. The car took 5 gallons. 14 gallons still in the tank. That means roughly 74% full which tells me two things. 1. The stock fuel gauge is not the most accurate thing in the world (still said I had 7/8 tank). 2. If we were able to come up with a solution to where we could go out on track with just 5 gallons and still not starve, we could save roughly 84 lbs. of sloshing weight which is HUGE. To put that in perspective, if you add the weight of the stock catalytic converters, entire stock cat-back exhaust system, and the stock hood, they would weigh 86 lbs collectively.

ABS "Ice Mode"
Now, I admit I haven't been keeping up with the other threads on this issue so this may not be anything new, but I feel I have a pretty strong theory with regards to what triggers this now. This time out, I tried a different pad compound than I have ever tried before so I didn't quite know what to expect. I ran a Hawk Performance DTC-70 front, DTC-60 rear. These pads are super aggressive, have a high initial bite, high brake torque, and a high operating temperature. The moment I put my foot on the brake pedal after putting them on for the first time, I knew immediately they would be way too aggressive and they sure were. I could not avoid Ice Mode no matter how hard I tried. Anything more than normal street braking would trigger it. Any bump in the road while braking would trigger it. We already know that when you unplug ABS the stock Akebono brakes have a lot of rear bias. The 370Z also has a hyper sensitive ABS system and whenever its triggered, if you have any steering input in the car whatsoever, it blocks pressure off from the rear and we lose braking force. This is likely done to prevent a spin in normal accident avoidance situations on the street. This is horrible for the track.

So what can we do to avoid Ice Mode? Well if aggressive pads make it worse then we have to go with less aggressive pads. Problem with that is less aggressive usually means lower tolerance for heat so now we run the risk of overheating the pads during track use. To fix that we need to lower the operating temp of the brakes themselves with super efficient ducting or switch to an aftermarket brake kit that is more efficient in dissipating heat and still use super efficient ducting. These are band-aid solutions though, not actual fixes.

Now, the electronics side of cars is admittedly not a strong suit of mine but here are some ideas I have that if possible can be easy fixes. I have heard of re-flashing ABS systems before. What if there's a way to re-flash the 370Z ABS system to make it less sensitive and/or eliminate the "safety feature" that blocks off braking force with steering input? Or is it possible to disable the steering angle sensor? What would that effect other than traction control/ABS? That wouldn't necessarily fix how sensitive the ABS is, but if I am correct in what's going on, it could at least eliminate Ice Mode.

Now onto how everything that did work performed...

Whiteline Sway Bars
These are quickly becoming my favorite mod I have done to this car. They offer a great range of adjustment front and rear. This is the only thing that is different in my suspension setup now vs. when I built the car for the track the last time and the handling balance is exponetially better this time around.

BC Racing ER Series Coilovers
I didn't have too much time to mess with the settings on these unfortunately but I still have plenty of room with them to fine tune the handling. The only thing I may try different is upping the rear spring rate to 12k for twisty mid-speed tracks like Buttonwillow. I say that only because I did desire a little bit more rotation on turn-in but that may be something that can be related back to the ABS issue. If I could have been harder on the brakes then the front of the car would be more loaded and the rear more unloaded when I turned in and then it may not even be an issue. Not to mention being able to trail brake. So I may wait on trying this until after I get the braking issue at least better.

25 Row Oil Cooler w/Ducting
I am still not 100% ready to give my stamp of approval on this as I wasn't able to get a lot of back to back hard laps in, but I had ZERO issues with cooling when I was out. Temps stayed around 220 for my longest stint which was probably still less than 10 minutes. I will say that I feel pretty confident that mildly cool weather (mid-60s) I would probably run into fuel starvation before I would oil temp issues, if I were to hit them at all. We'll see once I can get some longer runs in. But this issue is, for now, been bumped down on my priority list.

Powerband
I am impressed with the useable power and driveability feel that just the AEM Intakes and NST pulleys provided. Impressed as I was with the effectiveness of these two minor mods, I am still dying for more power and sound. The car is way too quiet and every driver always wants more power. Exhaust system and UpRev tune are desperately needed.

Stock LSD:
I am pretty sure I burnt this LSD up back in March 2009 the first time I ever tracked this car because it is garbage. Stiff rear sway bar settings and a generally stiffer than stock suspension setup only makes the stock diff perform worse. Thankfully I have that OS Giken replacement on order.

Tires:
For this event I was on seriously worn Hankook RS-3 street tires. They have been heat cycled to death and are probably 1mm away from showing cords. They were purchased by the previous owner of the wheels/tires probably two years ago, tracked a bunch by him, daily driven by me for 6-7 months, and have spent the last 4 months sitting in my garage. Needless to say I wasn't expecting much from them, but they were still pretty good. I know they are a lot slower than a brand new set though.

Results:
During the first part of the day, all of the transponders were sold out so I had a buddy clock my first few laps with a stopwatch. On my first lap out in this car in almost 2 years, on a completely new setup he clocked me at a high 2:02.xxx which I could not believe. Here's the catch, my brake pads weren't up to temperature yet on this lap so I only hit ice mode once that lap. Since that lap time was unofficial I am not going to get too excited or count on it, but I do believe it was at least within a half second. Later in the day, as people started heading home, I grabbed a transponder and set out to see if I could make it official. Unofrunately the all important first lap when my pads weren't up to temp was ruined by lap traffic and after that I got just one traffic free lap, but hit ice mode in every braking zone. Despite that I was still able to clock an official 2:04.751 which I am still pretty happy with knowing how much time was lost due to the severity of the ice mode problem during that particular lap. Although I didn't see a mind blowing lap time, what I did see was huge potential.

Whats Next:
As mentioned earlier in the thread, I have a brand new set of RS3s already in my possession and an OS Giken limited-slip diff on its way. Aside from those two things my next focus is getting different brake pads. I am going to talk with the guys at Hawk Performance, give them my feedback, and see what they suggest. I may be stuck re-configuring my current brake duct setup a bit to be more efficient in order to operate in the temperature range of a much less aggressive pad setup, but braking performance is my number one concern with the car at the moment. Second to that is upping the power a bit by getting rid of this stock exhaust system and doing an UpRev tune. Third, and it's only third because there still isn't a tested, proven, easy, solution is fuel starvation.

I will be going to Buttonwillow again at the end of April armed with a fresh set of RS3s, some new brake pads, and an OS Giken LSD at the very least. I think those three things alone are going to be worth a couple of seconds, but the weather will likely be not as ideal for running a fast lap as it was yesterday. My goal is to break 2:00.000 which sounds pretty lofty, but if I truly ran a high 2:02.xxx with the way the car is now, then I think its well within the realm of being realistic.

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EventHorizoN

Hey Mike!

It was great seeing you out at ButtonWillow yesterday! Thank you very much for posting all of this super useful information for all of us out tracking our Zs. Yesterday, I noticed "fuel starvation" as early as a quarter tank. When entering into areas where the car does a rather quick change of angle of rotation; the car will cut fuel almost instantaneously. This has been such a challenge to deal with when trying to achieve good lap times. So I have made a habit of watching when these challenges occur. In addition, I found my car entering "ice mode" when a car stopped suddenly in front of me. (under stressed conditions) I began to slide without braking initiating, so immediately I started to modulate pressure relieving the ice skating condition. I thank you for sharing this, and hopefully if I find out so more quick mods we can do to prevent this; and share with others here on the forum. Have a great rest of the weekend. -Jason

SPOHN

I'm hoping soon enough that our fuel starvation problem will be solved very soon by Phunk. I'm starting to get skeptical at this point. Even though I know he's good. Nothing ever seems to be soon enough.lol.

I haven't had the luxury of ice mode in three track days on XP 8's though and track conditions where great on street tires. I have a set of XP 10's waiting to go on next. See what happens then. So it must be the pads. I brake hard as hell and at Road Atlanta I was threshold braking coming from 140 to 45 with no issues on the back stretch.

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clintfocus

with DTC 60 front and stock rear pads, i didnt experience any ice mode at buttonwillow a few weeks ago, i also topped off every other session and never got fuel starve. on my street tires (RE11s) the DTC 60s up front were great

M.Bonanni

Great seeing you to, your car is coming along nicely! I too hope that we can get solutions to these. I have opened a dialogue with Hawk about compound choices. Doing very mild pads is an obvious choice but at the sacarafice of temperature sensitivity. It's finding the best comporomise between temp range and bite thats the key. Well actually reflashing the ABS would be the key, but not sure if its possible at this point.

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M.Bonanni

Just got an invite to compete in my 370Z at the 2012 Modified Magazine Tuner Shootout! This year they're trying to bring it back to relatable street car level as the competition for the last few years has been dominated by full unlimited time attack cars.

Super excited for this but the pressure's on to get the car to where I can use 100% of its potential in its current state, plus hopefully get some more goodies on the car by then that will enable me to raise the performance and still use 100% of its potential.

The competition features a time attack, autocross, drag race, dyno competition, emissions test, and exhaust sound level test. Right now, I am a shoe in for the emissions and sound level test with the stock HFC/cat-back on the car haha. Plus I think that if I can get the ice mode to a controlable/predictable state then I will do pretty well in the time attack and autocross portions. As it sits right now I will probably get my *** kicked in the dyno/drag race portion. Problem is I have no idea who my competition is going to be as of yet, but I know that I am only truly going to be competing with other RWD platforms and since its Modified Magazine then they are almost positively going to be all Japanese makes.

I also don't think I will be able to track test the car before the shootout unfortunately so a lot of it will be guess work. The shootout takes place end of March at Firebird Raceway in Phoenix, AZ.

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travisjb

Helpful updates, Mike. Look forward to following your progress in AZ

Your observations on ice mode are consistent with what we've been discussing Ice mode solution? I've had some conversations with Bosch and their distributors, and it does not seem likely that we will find a software update solution

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2009 370Z #104
*For Sale*

Mike

good luck!!!!! sounds very fun

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NISSAN: 75 280Z / 86 300ZX GLL /87 Sentra SE / 03 350Z / 23 Z
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ChrisSlicks

I ran the DTC-70's at my last event last year. They are a very high-torque pad with high initial bite which even on race slicks was difficult to modulate at times. I got into ice-mode a few times but after a few laps was able to learn to be more careful with the pedal pressure. I'm going back to the CL RC6/6E as these pads have very high heat handling but only moderate torque. Much easier to modulate and I'm able to stay out of ice mode 99% of the time. The only downside is they are expensive, but they do last a long time, the 6E's especially.

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Hotchkis ARB | Stillen CAI | Art Pipes | Berk CBE | Stillen AP Racing Brakes | AE Performance Oil Cooler | BC Racing ER Coilovers | Doran Control Arms

EventHorizoN

Here are a couple my girlfriend took of your car from this past weekend! enjoy!