Stay NA or go to the Dark Side?

SS_Firehawk

I wish VVEL was something we could tune already. I really think it has great potential to change the game on every front. FI really needs it to tune overlap at higher boost pressures. NA can really use it to open a new can of worms. I think it has the possibilities of allowing some crazy exhaust cam profiles to run with it. I think the combination of VVEL tuning and a custom ground set of some aggressive exhaust cams can push this engine to the next level. If I knew when that day would come, I would be on that faster than Sir Mix A Lot on Nikki Minaj. I do have a year of waiting regardless of how bad I want to do anything.

Before I do anything to it to it, I will be replacing the spark plugs as I think they have been affected by a few thousand miles of being untuned and running pig rich. I think While I'm home on vacation, I'll get them replaced, the Motordyne manifold thrown back on, and retuned with temps that aren't in the 100's to see where I stand. I'm planning on a small trip to Cali as well while I'm home, I'll run on a dynojet while I'm there as well so I an see the elevation difference and if my shop back home has a stingy dyno.

I put down 270whp DIN bone stock on that dyno (avg was 266whp), and at it's highest 316whp DIN. He give me everything in DIN because it reads higher and I convert it. My friends bone stock 2012 M3 put down 332whp DIN on that dyno and that's rated at 414hp. Doing the math tells me that drivetrain loss is at about 20% when measured on this dyno.

Reversing the formula put my car at around 395 hp at the crank when I made the most hp. With it sitting at a tuned 306whp DIN right now, it's right around 381hp. If I can find that lost hp, I won't be as frustrated as I am now. Adding exhaust cams may just be all I need at that point. I'll be running M3 levels of engine performance in a car that weighs 400lbs less. I won't be chasing LS3 C6 vettes any time soon, but I'm also not 50+ or b!tching about my sh!tty seats and as$tastic interior either.

Am I making sense here? I want to be sure I'm not extrapolating out of the realm of what's considered common or realistic with the 370Z. I want to be realistic. If I can put down over 330whp on that same exact with those cams, I'll be happy with it's NA performance. 25whp from where I sit now is in my opinion, absolutely achievable with those cams.

EDIT: For clarification, I started my calculations with known hp at the crank. Example 1: 332 x .20= 66.4 (265.6whp) Example 2: 414 x .20= 82.8 (331.2whp)
I took factory crank hp and determined the difference between it and the dyno results to be 20% which is shown above. I then extrapolated the known crank hp and compared it to my dyno results at 316 and 306 respectively using 20% as my drivetrain loss to determine the new crank hp results. (I'm no mathematician, but this is the best way I could explain)

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