2009 Nissan 370Z Automatic - Short Take Road Test

t-ray

105mph for an auto - I'll buy. 106mph... maybe. In excellent conditions. But 108mph is just not realistic. 108mph and 106mph are a long way away - 2mph in the big end is a huge difference.

The only way a mag is gonna get 108mph out of this car is if they were testing 1400 feet instead of 1320, and that 108mph was measured at the very end. In the real world, there isn't going to be a single 7AT 370z driven from the showroom floor to any legit 1/4 track in this country and average 108ph over the last 66 feet of the track.

I haven't driven the 370z yet, but I've had my VQ35DE down the 1/4 over 300 times. My wife has done it over 100 times, and probably close to 50 times in her HR.

wellarmed

I agree that 2 mph is a big diff. Being passed by another car at the finish line that is going 2 mph faster doesn't leave any doubt as to who's in charge at that moment.

My only point is (and I have thousands of quarter mile passes in everything from 13 seconds to 7 seconds), weather and track conditions could account for such a difference. If legit 106 mph runs have been made at a density altitude of 2000' (which is probably about average and would certainly not be considered undesirable) and the 108 mph run was made at a sea level/60* temp with a 10mph tailwind... there's your difference.

I don't recall that the people doing this 13.1/108 performance stated exactly what the conditions were or where they actually performed their test so I agree that's a consideration to question.
They also just rounded off those numbers so was it a 107.51 rounded up? I will say that those numbers do match up correctly assuming about a 1.9 60'.

I don't want to sound like I think that these cars are going to be laying down 108 mph runs on a regular basis. I guess my point is... just because somebody may have done it, doesn't mean that there's some kind of fairy dusting monkey business going on.

I will agree however that the validity of all these different test results are open to question concerning just how they were measuring the numbers. I actually don't believe any of these 0-60 numbers as being truely accurate. 60' times on a drag strip...yes. 0-60 mph measured in tenths of a sec.... no.

If these quarter mile times were done on a NHRA cert drag strip using the same equipment that would be used at a sanctioned race, then there isn't any room for argument. On the other hand.... if the guy was just looking at the speedo....

t-ray

All good points. However, this article was in C&D, and the test procedures for C&D are published and well known.

Most of the time metrics are not collected at a sanctioned track - they are collected whereever the opportunity presents. And the timings are tracked with a unit called a VBOX. I can't remember the technical details, but C&D had quite an interesting article detailing the testing equipment several years back. From what I recall, the unit was very accurate - accurate for figures like ET and g's. However, this is a guess here, I would imagine the trap speed figures would be "optimistic" - much like a gtech.

But that's just a guess.

wellarmed

Yea... if that's what they're doing, they might as well be using a stopwatch as far as I'm concerned. I mean how hard is it to use a legit track for that kind of testing. I know the mags used to use Pomona in SoCal all the time.
Anyway..... I would be interested in reading that article because years ago I put a gtech in a Mustang that was running high 11s at the time on slicks. A guy that was marketing them gave me one to try out. I figured the sudden launch of dumping the cluch with slicks was just too much for the thing to deal with because the results were not even close to accurate.
I wouldn't doubt that that type of equipment is better now but I would have to see identical numbers repeated on a track with real timers to confirm before I'll believe what amounts to a g-meter/calculator can 'figure' down to 1/10s of sec/mph with repeatable accuracy.
Maybe someone with real life experience of doing that can chime in.

Anyway...... real 106s are being produced and what I'm really interested in seeing are some real track numbers from one with the new long intake and exhaust combinations. If the Stillen intake with pullys and HFC makes as much power on the track as claimed on the dyno I think we'll be seeing some 108s (or more) that won't be debatable.

scorpion90

Looked inside the GR-R at my dealer and there is no manual shift knob. Paddle shifters behind the steering wheel and what looks like a fancy automatic type console shifter. There is NO Clutch pedal!

So, is it an auto or a manual? Sure looks like an auto to me, although with dual automatic lock up clutches. My 2 cents worth.

Lug

The GTR has a true Dual Clutch transmission, totally different animal and far superior to either a manual or traditional automatic in switching speed.

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keep Chubbs in your pocket - Chubbs

280z/300zx

IF you find it so impossible to think that a 370z can put down these times that beat the C5 Vette what do you think of the HR 350z's that run 13.1-13.2. It's been well documented that the HR 350z can run these times so it shouldn't be to hard to understand that the more powerful 370z with a better suspension and rear diff ratio would be faster. Perhaps the C5 has too much torque causing it not to make use of it's power off the line