Waiting to Inhale VQ37VHR tuning /modablity
 

Is everyone happy with the 370z's engine and its ability to be tuned or FI 'ed or would you prefer Nissan to have a different powerplant and drivetrain in the 370z. I feel the car is great but cant help but being a bit jealous when you see some of the power that EVO's ,Subies,Stangs ,etc etc are getting .Does anybody regret their purchase ?

I wish we had gotten a different motor.

Evos and subies are reliability nightmares. Stangs are a dime a dozen though I still love them. In the end none of those cars are real sports cars. With the aftermarket for the Z really blowing up lately, one can readily get to 500whp, either way my Z is prettier and more fun to drive than all those cars mentioned above.

This is untrue.. i've owned 2 Evo's... my roomate has one right now with 90+k miles on it and was tuned at 383 whp on a mustang dyno and has had no major issues. The old 4G63 can hold well over 400 hp without having any motor issue. I was tuned to run 29 psi on my stock motor and didn't have issues. The Subaru's are a different story though.

subaru's are also reliable. with both cars, it's idiots trying to crank out power without supporting mods.

Everything is a trade off. I purposely bought the 370z for the simple fact that NA there is only so much you can do with it, and guys getting low 12's... I mean i've asked before, but how much do you want? We could all go TT and run 10's or 11's, but that's just not usable hp. Take a 12 second Z to a road course with a set of RE-11's and I think you would have a blast... I wish SOOOOO bad there was a local track here.

On a side note... I always wanted a Z... I wanted the old Z33 style though. Part of me does wish they had stuck to their roots and stayed TT, but most of us wouldn't be driving them due to cost, there would be no need for a GTR, and there just would be to many temptations when it came to mods and they would ALL be MUCH more expensive and a whole lot more maintenance.

My answer is no... i'm happy with the motor and the car. It's a very fun car and I really enjoy it.

are you talking stock form cus theres nothing to be jealous about from those cars...

if your talking with basic bolt on's thats another story..

now if your talking boosted, the Z's can lay down 450-500 no problems.

I only said Subaru's for the reason that some of them have had tranny issues... namely the WRX's. The STI's are supposed to be a stronger tranny.

This is true, the Z beats the STI and Evo stock for stock, especially with the right driver. Keep in mind that unless you're talking an Evo X... they are HEAVY... I believe 3500 lbs, so the power to weight ratio is better with the Z. The X is an incredible handling machine though... that S-AWC is just awesome. I have yet to really push the Z because i've been so used to AWD for several years.. i'm just slowly getting the feel for the way the car handles and am careful... especially with my Fiancee' in the car.

WRX has a new trans now too:tup:

No regrets. For a NA motor she takes well to mods and there is still room to grow.

The old Evo motors were cast iron thats why there were reliable. The new ones are aluminum. I loved the old Evos but by the time I was in the market they just weren't appealing. Besides the Z looks better and I prefer an RWD any day. TT or SC a Z and the Evos and Sti's without built blocks are left behind.

Does it? I read somewhere it was the same one... the WRX is a nice looking car though. I almost got one, but I felt that I wouldn't be quite happy with it ... the interior of the Z is very nice and the Evo X's was CHEAP. I wanted something that was comfortable and just different. I do miss the AWD though. It would be cool to have an AWD Z :tup:

The 4b11 has shown thus far to be quite a reliable motor from what I have seen on the Evo forums, and I spent a lot of time on there. The old 4g63 was proven over and over and over for 9 generations and obviously in some of the older Eclipse's as well, so yes I would say it was more reliable, both are strong motors though. The power trains in the Z seem quite solid though and I have read no complaints on any area of them which makes me happy. I'll be putting my trusty AMSoil MTF in my Z soon too :tup:

"modability" of our n/a v6 won't compare hp/$ wise when looking at factory boosted cars or big v8's.

That said, for an n/a v6, I think our Z takes to bolt on mods quite well. Def better than the last gen Z.

As far as big builds, ie. FI, people are having no problem getting 450 to 550 whp out of these cars. Remember, our platform/motor is still relatively young and is a relatively small market compared to domestics like stangs and vettes so development times will ususally suffer.

As far as the evos and sti's go, to really build 500whp+ cars, you'd need to spend some $$ there, maybe not as much as for our Z, but it's not like you throw 2-3K at an STI and wind up with a 500whp car afaik.

I think it got beefed up around 06 when they went to the ej25.

Dont get me wrong I love my Z ,I do think they should have made a TT version ,I dont know what a safe whp /tourq would be with the stock internals but a TT or SC with around 370whp would be what I would have got . On another note how about sharing the same engine, maybe a detuned one as the GTR ,The cars are very different in style and one is AWD .Enough of a reason to have the two I think . I am looking forward to owning this car for the rest of my life and dont regret my decision one bit .I just dont want to wind up like the 350 z guys in 2012 with a different powerplant tranny etc a limited production run from 09 till 12 and low options for boost ( they should have made the two engines easy to swap IMHO) Nissan is missing something here and it seems they are loosing out .Some people are dumping there Z's to pick up car's in the same price range that perform better , are more easily modded (or both ) ,or they upgrad to a GTR or VET .That sucks for us ,This cars ground work sould have been better .OIL Cooler ,radiator ,Brake freeze , etc etc .This is suposed to be a SPORTS CAR ! That goes around a Track more than twice before over heating ! My Dads buick could !Nissan needs the K.I.S.S. principle badly .

The is suppose to be a poor mans sports car. A loaded Auto convert runs close to 50K thats not cheap, so could you imagine if they offered a TT or SC version. Anyone who bought this car thinking they where going to be a stop light champ was sadly mistaken and did not do there reasearch before buying. If you wanted to be the fastest guy around in a straight line you shoudl have bought a Vette or the 5.0.

Thing is, the vq's don't hold up that well with good numbers on FI. 500whp on a real dyno is stretching it if you're actually gonna drive the thing...luckily it seems like there are very few people that have any interest in tracking their
Z....

There's a lot of talk about stuff coming out, but it's been a while....I wouldn't hold your breath.

I bought the car banking on the 3.7 being right on the edge of breakthrough, but I'm pretty sure it's not coming at this point. At this point in the s2000s life people were knocking on the 9 second door already... We have what... High 11s? And maybe 2-3 guys on the forum with anything close to competitive lap times....

"The is suppose to be a poor mans sports car. A loaded Auto convert runs close to 50K thats not cheap, so could you imagine if they offered a TT or SC version. Anyone who bought this car thinking they where going to be a stop light champ was sadly mistaken and did not do there reasearch before buying. If you wanted to be the fastest guy around in a straight line you shoudl have bought a Vette or the 5.0"

Thats my point the car is not cheap nor is it a sports car , cheap like a 240sx I can go with or 50k and I can go around the track more than twice .I dont care about drag speed. I care about handling and speed and the TT 300z weren't that expensive back in the day (research done ) .the fact that you have to spend 2k to get your car in track shape is ******** ,again (oilcooler , brake venting , radiator, ) .I love the car really , but NISSAN could have at least vented the brakes and given us a oilcooler WTF

RED ZED is a perfect example of the type of Z owner I am talking about ,Nissan is missing something here .Him and evryone like HIM . I am not into driving a moder fricking MG or Triumph Tr6 call myself a sports car and be slower than a toyota corolla . Reasearch done ! This car should be contender and it doesn't feel like it is . P.S. No one tracks there cars because A. it overheats ,Not fun . B they buy a 944 to track which is more fun.

300ZX at the end of there life where in the 40K price range they became very over priced. My car was 34K out the door, and in this day and age that is cheap for such a good car. And it is a good car, I have to be honest, I never had the car on a road course but I never had a issue with oil cooling, but I decided to go with an oil cooler just because I plan on doing some track days. Small price to pay to fix a tiny issue. I dont think the radiator has to be changed on the Z unless your making some serious power? And as for the brake venting it has been proven by CarAndDriver that unless your doing constant like 100mph stops over and over again the Sport brakes are fine. To say the Z is not a sports car is just stupid.

^ I'd argue it is built as a GT car rather than a sports car (300zx was openly a GT car).

For the brakes, where's this "proof"?

Btw, your rotors exceeded 900f on the dragon and we weren't even going hard.

Really, you need 2k to track this car? Hardly, 500 for an oil cooler and around 100 bucks for better fluid & pads and you are good to go for the average driver.
Now if you want something you are going to be competing against gutted cars, then yes you are going to be dropping some money to do it.

The Z is 'cheap' for what you get, you can compete out of the box with cars slightly above our price bracket, did not say win but compete. And comparing it to a 240sx is just ridiculous, that was way down the list in its time period compared to the Z.

The price of a 300zx TT in 1991 was 34k and comparing with inflation and adjusting for today you are pushing just over 50k for the same car.

I disagree, the G37 is the GT car. What makes you say the Z is a GT car? Curious? Do you remember when CarAndDriver smashed that Nismo into the wall at VIR?? It was because of brake failure. Well a couple of issues later they did reasearch into why this happen to a sports car like the Nismo Z. The two biggest reasons it happen was because A) The car was a Media test car and was abused very badly B) Yes they found out the car did not have enough air going to the brakes to cool them off. They then went on to test many different brake fluids and also found out the stock fluid was boiling over, but this was after many 60 or 100mph panic stops. CarAndDriver tested a few more fluids and changed to better pads and finally was able to get the Z to withstand several panic stops from very high speeds. So yea you can argue "well Porsche or Ferrari or more expensive cars dont suffer from these problems" but bottom line the Z is a cheap car for the masses. A little peice of a high end sports car that everyone can buy.

The issue with the C&D test was just a load of BS.
They took a car with over 10k track miles on it, did not change the pads, nor did C&D do a proper safety tech inspection and threw it on a lighting lap. Anyone with half a brain could have guessed what was going to happen.

Getting back to the original question:
Yes I am happy with the motor, and I have gone through a lot of steps and am currently have a supercharger. Transmission Nissan needed to look at much deeper, they did some good upgrades with the motor form the 3.5L to the 3.7L, but the transmission is still rubbish.

Power the other cars are getting?
Hardly, the Evo/subbie guys have a 4 banger turbo from factory, it is fairly easy to throw on some upgrades and supporting mods to get big dyno numbers but that is all it is. The Mustang is a solid car, I bought my Z in 09 so the 5.0 was still in the testing phase and no one knew exactly what we were going to get. Would I get a 5.0 today if I had the choice between it & the Z? Probably not, I would go a completely different route all together.

That doesn't "prove" anything either way...there's a reason anyone who tracks seriously has ditched the akebono fronts.

Again, enough for light use...and fine for what the car is...also not relevant to a thread that is about the engine....

Wrt to the GT comment:
Weight, softer, compliant suspension, heavy focus on comfort(wide seats), huge interior space, blah blah blah. The FR configuration and weight distribution help too.

Wikipedia classes all z cars as GT cars... And we know the Internet is never wrong.

Come on red: Nissan Z-car - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From the first line of wikipedia.

I chose this car over the 5.0 basically because of looks.. if I sell the car in a couple years I will probably jump back in a speed3 or something. Low 12s for under $2k. Overall though I'm happy with the Z!

I don't know what it is but I like the idea that they are able to tune a motor that would prob net low 200s in the 90s to make almost three and a half. The high reving NA aspect was a big draw for me. Sort of like how I always liked the last gen M3. I feel like I am getting more engineering effort out of the car vs just large displacement or some turbos.

I personally didn't buy my car to try to make 400hp out of it but it seems pretty reasonable to assume it could easily make 500hp on stock internals. Not sure if the AWDs could say that but I don't know much about them, it just seems like they would need a lot of boost to get to that level.

Most domestic V8s seem unrefined to me for some reason. Just seems like the Z is a pretty solid platform and really outshines them all on styling IMO.

Nobody wants to believe me about the CarAndDriver incident. I know the Dragon is not a road course, but I have never felt more confident of brakes on a car after a few runs. No fade and perfect pedal feel the whole time. Red_Zed I think your thinking of your horrible base brakes when your write about the Akebonos.

from same article....

And...see examples here.

Grand tourer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mine were 300f cooler than yours...

Everybody knows the c and d car had been driven hard. It doesn't mean anything...real track users experience matters a lot more than what the rags say anyways.

How would you know that my rotors hit 900 degrees? If I recall all the base brake guys were having fade, so if heat makes mine work better then so be it.

No fade on the dragon, got it on 28 coming in, likely due to the highway use.

I took rotor temps like I always do....

Can I buy pot from you now???? The car had bad brakes because it was a test mule. This was the same car that recorded a 0-60 time of like 5.4 seconds and a 1/4 mile time of like 13.6. CarandDriver said straight up there was something wrong with the car because previous regualr model Z's where much faster, but the threw it on the track anyway.

Could have sworn you and shadowquad mentioned fade and bad pedal feel, could be wrong. And you took my rotor temp? I had no fade at all on the whole trip.

That is referring to the 2+2 version of the Z, the 2 seat Z has always been a 'sports car' since day one. Plus a lot of people agree that the 2+2 Z should never have been produced.
And per the sports car page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...gefrom=IVM+C12 The Z is a sports car (2 seat) and a GT (2+2), so we are both right. :tup:

Yes, not relevant. They are great for light track use and street driving. They dont hold up to heavy track use. This is not new, the article is not relevant.

The issues c & d had have no bearing on my thoughts on the brakes... It's real time use with them (including running a 300zx with them)