couple more questions...
were you bouncing off the rev limiter or just driving 'briskly'?
manual or automatic?

Car is a Base Model w/Sport Package 6MT and ~1600 miles on the odometer. Downhill was obviously fine, but the climb back up was where the temps went to hell. It wasn't "bouncing" off the rev limiter, but was running 7200-7500 rpm before shifts in 85+ deg. low humidity weather.

As a side note, it also had the right front outside pad separate from the backing plate and scored the rotor pretty good too. New rotor and front pads will be forthcoming from the dealership.

This is only the first of what will be many runs on Skyline, other "mountain" roads and 100 miles/day of the notorious 680 Sunol Grade and 880 rush hour traffic in the SF Bay Area. If this continues to be a problem that is not solvable by Nissan's service department, it will trigger a lemon law claim.

Sometimes with a manual transmission, it is hard (for me at least!) to get off the gas between gears on an upshift... ie 1st to 2nd you press the clutch but don't lift the throttle... possible that you were running up the throttle between gears and putting it into redline? not saying this is your fault, just trying to understand all the contributing factors - all of which sound like normal driving conditions so far

SCCA Club Racing license holder from 1988.

yesterday we did our first socal 370 canyon run, almost 2 hrs of canyon driving
some cars are running at 250-260

my car stayed at 2 clicks obove 220

My first choice for an oil cooler is the ARC oil cooler as shown at one of sponsor's blogs: 370Z ARC Oil Cooler.

My second choice is being sold by another of our sponsor's: Central 20 Oil Cooler.

short and to the point ! love it... still, might be worth watching what happens between gears... this car tends to run up between em, even if your timing is perfect in other cars... humor me and watch next time... thanks

Fair enough. The only issue was when acclimating to the late disengagement and the factory 2 inch + "dead spot" at the bottom of the clutch pedal travel.

The clutch needs to be re-adjusted to eliminate almost all but a small portion of this "dead space".

I suspect this is your problem, not an actual defect in your driving style. All the manual VQ37HR's I've driven to date have the same problem.

I agree... I'm going to have my mech look at adjusting my clutch pedal dead zone and engagement points this week!

To test my theory, I'd really like know if the automatic transmission cars are overheating... going forward, please call out which transmission you all have... THANKS!

I haven't run my car as hard as you guys yet, so I can't really compare with you on overheating. I will say that in some respects the 7AT is also susceptible to driver error leading to hitting the rev limiter in the lower gears though. There's a very (very) tiny window for clicking that paddle at just the right time to run the gear out without bumping the limiter, and you have to account for the lag between hitting the paddle and the actual shift occurring.

I mentioned in another thread that the Z-Car Garage have hinted about oil temperature problems in their blog - Z-Car Blog

They updated their blog on April 15th with a youtube video of their trackday at Thunderhill Raceway (below). It all seems to be going well at first, but at around about 5min 50secs - well, see for yourself...

Chubbs you inspired me, next track day I'm recording my Z.

I'm actually impressed with how much time he got in before getting close to 300 degrees.

I guess that's when the Miatas start passing. lol

What the heck? Miatas and Minis passing so with s2k

I thought the same thing until I went to the blog site and saw that the other cars were running R compound tires and many were heavily modified. A modified MiniCooper S with R compound tires is nearly a jet powered go kart!

There's no way a stock 370Z on OEM tires could keep up with those things in the corners and depending on how much the Mini owner has done to his turbo/SC power plant, even in the straights...

Here's the actual blog post: http://www.zcarblog.com/2009/04/15/3...l-raceway.html

I used to have a turbo'd Miata - those things are NOT slow once you put a turbo on them. They're tiny, light, and rev like crazy too. 240-ish RWHP may not sound like much, but in a car that weighs 2100lbs..