First top mount single turbo 370Z

98intrigue

Well, here's an update for eveyone...

I picked up the car last Thursday. I drove it to work Friday and noticed the oil temps at 250. Saturday, I was running some errands and oil temps were up there again...but this time the coolant temp was 1 dot away from the far right. I also heard the car knocking at around 30mph in 4th gear. It was around noon with temps around 88 degrees. So I dropped the car off again Sunday with Shawn.

He moved the oil cooler to the front of the engine bay and made the air deflector for it. He also made a custom overflow tank because there was air in the system. I picked it up yesterday and drove it straight to S&R to check the tune. We did some street tuning for about an hour or so. Very first LIGHT pull (not even 50% throttle) and there was very noticeable knock. I pull over while the tuner is working on the timing/fuel, so the car sat at idle for about 5 minutes. As soon as there is no airflow to the radiator (aka sitting at idle), the temps shoot up! We were seeing 240 degrees at idle and around 215 degrees when driving. Airflow is key to cooling this damn car!

So we do another 10 minute drive and the tuner adjusts the tune again. I now have 5 of the same fuel maps, but each map differs in timing by nearly 2 degrees. Currently at map 3 (middle aggressive timing), there was no knock. Weird thing is at idle, the AFR will be anywhere from 15.0-12.0. At cruising, same thing...sometimes it's ideal and then a few minutes later at cruising, the AFRs will be in the 12s. My gas mileage is going to SUCK for ZDayz.

So I dropped the car back off with Shawn last night at around 10:30. He said he'd hook up a remote switch so I can turn on the fans whenever, rather than giving the car a headstart to warm up and then the fans kick on. On my way to the shop, it was unusually cool (66 degrees) and the coolant dot never moved from 2 dots to the left of center and oil temps hovered around 200-205. Feeling comfortable with the temps, I did go WOT once and didn't hear any knock. Shawn texted me this morning saying he got his hands on Flex-a-lite fans! Once the cooling issues are taken care of, I'll go with bigger injectors and the upgraded MAFs and a new tune.

Shawn continues to amaze me with his dedication to making me satisfied with my car. He's going the extra mike to get me on my way to ZDayz...because as of last night, I wasn't going to risk anything and I was going to stay here.

I want to mention that I appreciate everyone's comments/feedback/criticism. This is a learning experience for everyone involved. That's what these forums are for...bouncing ideas off each other and helping the community out. Being that this is a true custom build, I know issues are going go arise... and Shawn has been willing every step of the way to help me out.


I'm not sure what brand they are. S&R ordered them for me.
Thank you for the reference! With the way the VQ35 motors were, I was under the assumption that the air did disperse from the upper plenum into the lower plenum, then into the runners. It doesn't look to be that way in the VQ37s. The good thing is I was watching the AFRs when we were street tuning and the AFR from each bank is nearly identical. It was off by maybe 0.1 at some points.

That was thought about to, but with the way the hood angles down, Shawn could not fit any piping bigger than the 2.5" piping that runs among the front of the motor.

__________________