complete engine overhaul questions.

chii370

Wstar, your the first person in a long time that has mentioned SC on this car. From what I have heard and read over and over on forums, people are getting screwed going the SC route, not even receiving the SC factory claim of horsepower gains "which isn't even close to TT" let alone a respectable whp number in the 500-550 range which I would EXPECT with a $7000 investment.

I wouldn't have minded going SC, no lag, and it just feels like a stupid sounding NA engine with more power which is all fine and great. But did they figure out the problems yet? I've heard quite a few stories so far about how people bought one from stillin or gtm and only saw gains of 125-150 FWHP. IMO 125 whp isn't worth 7 grand just on the forced induction side of things, because now you have spent a lot of money and done NOTHING to your stock motor to ready it for that. Instead why not spend the money on the motor itself.

I'm starting to understand a little more about the differences in these cars with more research and Talkin to you guys. VVEL is what it is, I think its limited by design, that problem aside though there are a LOT of things on the motor that can be improved, and I understand it took years and millions from Nissan to develope it..... But there's one crucial thing your missing. THEY WEREN'T BUILDING A RACE CAR!! They have to get the most power they can AND worry about maximum reliability, fuel economy, emissions, engine life, transmission and differential limits... I mean the list goes on and on.

To say it's at it's max NA HP rating is naive, it is for what they were trying to design yes. But I understand what you were getting at. Ok so let's assume you can't get 500 out of it, but as it sits right now mines 368 at the crank so 450 crank seem unreasonable? I just think the main problem with this entire subject is that no one has tryed it yet, to expensive, not enough parts, and untreated territory.

Everyone I've ever talked to has always just TT, SC, or put on an exhaust with headers "3 in" and slapped in a cold air with k&n filters. That seems to be the average extent of experimentation and knowledge am I wrong? But even the guys with the exhaust, headers, intake, tune, filters are seeing 40+ gains crank depending what Dino u use. Hell I've done one thing to mine, I put k&n panel filters in and it made a average powerband gain of 4.5 horse with a max of 11.5 at 6krpm.

What does that tell me? This engine has a lot of room to grow on the intake side of things, as it sits from the factory it's struggling to breathe. So a bigger intake manifold "perhaps one from the gtr" huge heads, bigger injectors, and a tune that makes it work and I bet you could match or BETTER the gains from all your boltons and then you can still bolt on all that stuff after for even MORE gains. Little things here and there help too. Light weight flywheel, forged aluminum heads "saves weight" forged aluminum pistons.... I mean it starts to add up pretty fast and they are always gains. By pretty conservative calculations for average projected gains on each part the engine dips in the 450 crank area with relative ease..... And this is without considering an increase of volume to 4.5 or whatever you choose.... Which yet again will have decent gains by itself. Hell that was already backed up in theory by the 300zx vs 370z full bolt on base HP compairison. not all, but a lot of that extra power can be contributed by the increase in displacement IMO probably most of it.