Japanese and the Z - Sound
 

I'm gonna post up some of the more interesting things that I ran across during my trips to Nissan Japan and hope they are entertaining to some of you.
The Japanese are incredibly into touch, feel and actually the 5 senses in general to a much higher degree than anybody else I have ever ran into. They can all draw, are extremely observant and notice little things about people they are around and communicating with. Hard to explain but it's like Japan was colonized by a band of artists.
A good example is that when Admiral Perry visited them in the 1800s he left a cartridge firing rifle with them as gift. When he returned several years later they had made another just like it even though that was the only rifle they had ever seen. They gave him the copy. Tom Cruise alludes to this in The Last Samurai.
A peek into the future I think..............

While there to train on large Japanese built plastic injection molds I was in a class and the subject of sound came up and my group was informed of the following to show us how far they go to finesse something.

Notice the sound of your engine when you mash the throttle and you year that soothing sound of internal combustion power. Several things affect this sound but the most important is the intake which is number one and the exhaust which is secondary.
Designers are given a certain amount of real estate under the hood for their given parts so look at your intake. I am not familiar, yet, with the Z but most cars have a type of plenum that is blow molded plastic where air enters before the air filter container. This is the source of your intake sound and it is tuned like a musical instrument by a man that is blind. At that time Nissan had one man that went to different areas to do just this. This was his job even though he was an accomplished musician of some sort.
He was very high paid and famous in the company. He would listen in the car, direct changes, report back to the PPM (Principal Project Manager) and together they would acquire the proper sound. But the blind guy's hearing was the tool for the job.
After the intake was tuned the same guy would do the same for the exhaust and later would choose tire type and brand using the same logic. In Purchasing it used to kill us that he would choose a tire that cost $50 each when we could get the same quality of tire for $35 from another manufacturer. But this guy ruled. Yes, Nissan gets tires that cheap.

If this is of interest let me know and I'll lay out some more stuff later.

I just thought it was fascinating.

That is very intersting! :tup:

Suddenly the weird resonators on the intake and the counter weights on the exhaust make sense.

Shame that the musican's hard work hasn't translated into good reviews on the engine note -- Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson saying he'd rather hear the sound of his own firing squad than the VQ37 approaching redline.

He is the most interesting blind man in the world and he drinks Saki!!! lol definitely interesting! :tup:

This might be for another thread, but how does Nissan (per your experience) handle contracts on things. So they want X tire for a car (370z), do they do a contract with a company to get a good deal and if so what happens if they alter a few things and want to change the tires?

The Dreamer
That's an easy one for me. When a car is in development each part is given a budget or cost target which add up to a total that will translate into an acceptable MSRP. You can't go over target without God's approval
Tires are same and every effort is made to use an existing tire so it is speced and then put out for bid and an award is given to a company.
When a prototype starts to roll the actual tires start to be tested and this can go in many directions including changing the tires and making them model unique which is expensive as hell.
It's all between the designer, the blind dude, marketing and the PPM with the blind dude having priority.
Kind of a left handed answer but it's not an exact process. Usually the tire maker will provide a "guest" engineer to work beside the Nissan designer to finalize things.

It should be noted that in the old days tire makers would practically give tires to us so that consumers would replace them with same which is really where their money is. But they figured out that that is not what consumers do and could not care less whether the OEM chooses their product or not. This equals higher prices.

Does that help?

Yep, I know the Japanese work a lot on hand shake basis and will pick item A or B because of what you described. Though I was curious how Nissan has adapted to the idea of contracts and budgets.

All has changed since the French (Renault) bought controlling interest of Nissan. The handshake is gone and replaced with what's called a Master Purchase Agreement. Very complex. Have no doubt, the French call the shots at Nissan these days.

ive also had the pre-french guy G20 and wat a mess that was. :shakes head:

To be accurate, he doesn't always drink saki....but when he does, he prefers dosSaki. Stay thirsty, my friends.

Little did you know, the 370Z also hails from the pre-french era. It was once called an "Altima"...

Then the French came along, blended a few lines...

...and the 370Z was born!

wtf is this saki stuff?

lol, Ghoswned. ugh.

i really can appreciate the work that goes into tuning the sound of the cars and all that. it's nice to see attention to details. still...if our VQ37VHR is 'tuned for sound', i think we've got serious problems. maybe the blind guy is going deaf. :ugh2:

and honestly, they should probably get that intern going on figuring out how to get some more low end torque out of this damn engine!

i think importconvent was rubbed the wrong way. :icon18:


... back to topic. :icon17:

http://i55.tinypic.com/furmth.png
Similar mirror design? Check.
Similar Fender bulges? Check.
Similar headlight shape? Check.
Totally uninspired offering of multiple shades of gray? Check.

A blind guy designing the engine/exhaust sound makes sense. His heightened hearing would lead to quieter exhausts....hence our nearly silent stock exhaust.

Now did this blind guy lay a hand on the car during testing? The V and H in NVH surely didn't get aprpeciated.