Ramps That Work

Dwight Frye

I did the first oil change on my 370Z yesterday at a little over 1200 miles. I bit the bullet and refilled with the expensive Nissan ester oil and used a Mobil 1 Part # 110 filter. The 110 is slightly longer with a little more capacity than the Nissan factory filter and the #108 Mobil 1 that the cross ref. book calls for. I plan on switching to Redline synthetic at around the 5K mileage mark. The oil was pretty black considering it had only been in the car for 1200 miles. No problems removing the filter as some have reported. I think I used about a half quart of oil during that period but am not 100% sure as I don't know if the factory fill was up to the high mark on the dipstick. I did remove all 16 bolts to get the shield out of the way but with an cordless screwdriver and socket it wasn't a big deal.
I had a set of ramps that I used with my G35 Infiniti and was concerned about clearance as I have the Sport Model. No problems at all, drove right up with no scraping. I dug the box out of the rafters if anyone is interested in the brand. They are made by AutoPro, model 23405. I can't remember now where I bought them, but it was one of the chain stores like Kragen, Chief or Autozone. They are made of heavy ABS plastic and have a 15 degree ramp. One tip, my garage floor is epoxy coated and pretty slick. The ramps want to slide forward even if I wedge them under the tires first, so I bought an inexpensive rubber backed bath mat at Walmart, about 36" long. I cut it in half lengthwise, put the section rubber side down under each ramp and it keeps the ramps from slipping.

Steven

Awesome tip! I gotta get some ramps myself.

jpit

You only need to remove the four bolts closest to the rear of the car to change the oil and filter. The shield has a crease in it designed to fold back. Also, I went with Redline at 4000 miles but after reading an interesting article about the Nissan ester oil I have decided to go back to that. From a well-known Nissan tuner:

"What is Nissan's special oil? The oil was developed to complement Nissan's Hydrogen free DLC coating used on the cam followers in the QR25DE engine, the VQ35HR and the VQ37VHR engines. DLC stands for diamond like coating, which is an amorphous layer of carbon crystals with hard smooth properties much like diamond. Most of valve train friction is created by the interface between the cam follower and the cam lobe. DLC is very slippery stuff and Nissan uses it to reduce valvetrain friction to improve fuel economy, reduce emission and increase power."

"In lab testing of test coupons, the Nissan Super oil with hydrogen free DLC coating had the friction reduced by 60-75 percent over conventional oil with no coating. This equated to a around a 40% reduction in total valvetrain friction in a real motor and a 20-25% reduction in total friction of the motor! This is a significant result which should show real gains in fuel economy and probably something like 1-1.5 hp per cylinder at high rpm over an uncoated valvetrain with conventional oil. If this is worth something to you then yes, the expense of the oil is worth it! Now the DLC coating still works at reducing friction with regular oil just not as amazingly well. Not using the Super oil will not cause you engine to wear out prematurely or anything like that but it probably will wear slightly more, particularly in the valve train, probably at a level that doesn’t matter much."

370Zsteve

Great post . Hell, anything to improve NVH in the 370Z is a good thing. no? AND greener...AND more power?

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SOLD MY Z MARCH 2018 - another Core OG moves on - new ride 2019 Z Corvette Grand Sport - no mods necessary but already have eyes on HFC and intakes LOL IT NEVER ENDS.

Pointman

I have a set of Race Ramps 67" 2 piece. They work very well. They are however expensive.

67" XT Ramps - Car Ramps | Get your Car Up 10"! | RaceRamps.com your best solution for Lightweight Car Ramps!

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JTTF SQ8