The SC you have fluid, belt, intake filters, and with Stillen I am not sure but possibly a SC fluid filter. Also with Stillen they have the water box which will need to be maintained probably a bit for the water/air setup.

I'm not trying to offend you but if you are not very mechanically knowledgeable then boosting a factory NA car probably isn't the best idea. Once you boost a factory NA car you need to constantly monitor things to make sure nothing is off. I check oil, hose clamps, vacuum lines, etc every time prior to pulling the car out of the garage.

There is no 'other' turbo maintenance than what I mentioned above. You need to check for leaks (fluid/vacuum) and check all hoses/etc to make sure nothing is damaged (cut/dry rotted/heat damaged/etc.). The turbo gets it's oil/water cooling feed from the same places the engine does so when you change oil you are 'servicing' the turbo.

Edit - If you want a low maintenance boosted car get one that is done that way from the factory

Even then factory turbo cars still can have all those issues or even more if the OEM did not get the properly level quality of parts.

True but they also have safety built in because the car was designed for all the extra heat. Take the GT-R for example. It has factory heat shielding around the turbos since they knew that extra heat would be there. That or they relocate items to an area without the heat. When you stick a turbo in that location on a Z there is no factory shielding protecting the things that can melt.

I completely agree that the manufacturer has to do their job in the original design. I was just pointing out that 'less' **** goes can go wrong on a factory boosted car.

Very true and with a factory car (depending on when you buy it) there is a warranty to help cover some oh sh!t things that can occur.

Warranty???

Oh you mean that thing I threw out before my first oil change:rofl2:

:bowrofl:
I kept mine for a good 10 months.

I am open to learning. It would seem, though, that the SC kit would be easier to inspect since it has less parts and is less complicated. I should try to find someone local with each to see if I can get a ride in.

If your planning on running the stillen kit with there tune, To keep it CARB legal.

its going to be a huge waste of money. You'll put down like 330WHP (I put down 291 before the kit, 329 with stillen kit and there tune hahahah). itll run like **** too.

If your going with a custom tune, then ok. but it wont be CARB after that lol.

Not living in Cali, but can they check that (the tune)?
Say you get flagged and you show them your CARB cert can they say you are running a modified tune which is not CARB legal?

I would get a custom tune. I figure I could get a map for smog testing or find someone to pass me if I have to. The CARB sticker, though, would keep me from having issued with cops if I were to get pulled over. Besides, I heard they changed smog testing in California to be just checking for codes and maybe the sniffer test.

By all means ask questions. We all did the same thing when we got prepared to go FI. It's better to be educated then make an uneducated decision. That can get pricey and frustrating. :tup:

Plus we're all gear heads and love to help out.

:iagree: I didn't know much about turbos and **** but once i decided to go force induction with the Z i pretty much had most if not all the knowledge from all the guys here. All you need to do is ask away people will help you here! :tup:

It looks like you have been working towards getting a supercharger from day 1 (Live in Cali, bought a 7at, 4.08 FD, headers and full exhaust). Supercharger seems like the next logical step for this car. Especially if/when Uprev gets enough control over VVEL to take advantage of the extra exhaust flow. People are going to recommend you to go back to stock exhaust manifolds and cats, but I would never do it. Not for the few horsepower Stillen says you'll gain back. It's cheap and easy to just add more CFM instead (pulley down, or impeller swap).

Take your time deciding. Both SC and Turbo cars are fast. When you compare apples to apples, they both get the job done (And by apples to apples, I mean comparing a 450 whp SC car to a 450 whp turbo car). But, they both have very different characteristics. Find a way to drive both, or at least ride in both. I did not. I had the Stillen first on my HR. Then later drove a Single Turbo Z and realized I made the wrong choice. Educate yourself on the differences and how they both work. That way, no matter which one you choose, you can set it up the right way the first time.

While I understand your need to bash the kit, making a generic statement like that is a bit facetious. I don't recall when you installed your kit, but we have done a lot of tune refining over the past year and a half. We consistently see in the 390-430 whp range. When the power levels are lower than that we examine the tune with out customer and make adjustment (both in California and outside). We have even developed regional tunes to account for climate, altitude, and fuel quality differences.

At the time your Kit was purchased we may not have provided that same tuning support we do now. Our head tuner spends a lot of time updating the tunes and making it the best it can be. Yes, a 100% custom tune is usually ideal as every car and place is different. A lot of our customers who get the turn key kit are getting tailored tunes for their car upon install because we are still developing our regional tune profile and improving this constantly.

I apologize you had a bad experience, but things do change and we are working to make the kit as good as it can be out of the box without too much tuning required.

After 16 tunes from your "tuning department" and the car wouldn't idle and run properly.

This going on for a 4 month period.

After your tuning department said its an install error, I gave up on you guys.

After a local tune, the car drove prefect and idled perfect,

I think I have the right to be a bit facetious, don't you?

Maybe things have change since then, if so, great!

I'm sorry to hear that and I understand your frustrations. I'm not sure when this all went down, but we have been working hard on such issues and our tuner has done a great job.

I know things with our tunes were not good for a while and I won't deny that, but we have been committed to fixing it and I'm glad you were able to get your car working well.

So is the general consensus from members with the kit that the stock non-upgraded kit with a custom tune will run fine, be reliable and make about 410whp/300wtrq? I remember some people had issues idling issues which I believe was attributed to air turbulence or something by the intake? Has that been resolved? Anything else i should be concerned about? Will the stock kit be cool enough int he summer here in Socal (90s and 100s)?

If you come down for an install here at STILLEN I will have your car (like everyone else who gets their car installed here) custom tuned (This didn't used to happen over a year ago but now it is pretty standard procedure for us). It will still be CARB and everything will be tailored to your car. You live up in my old stomping grounds (Pasadena) and I can say that the kit will do fine in SoCal weather as long as we have the Oil and Trans Coolers installed. If you are planning on tracking the car there would be other things I would advise doing as well though. Hit me up and we can chat about it more if you'd like.

If I was as close as you are I would do what Mark suggested. You can have it CARB and a custom tune for the car. The kit isn't the highest HP out there but I love mine because the power is so lineal.


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I have a quote from my tuner (a very well known and respected Z shop her ein socal) for your kit, install/tune, LTH removal, and transmission coolerlarger lines. If you think you cna beat his price, feel free to pm me. His price his pretty good though.

I wouldn't concentrate too hard on the numbers, most dyno's are different, I know here in Aus, I'm running the 9lb pulley and only got 370rwhp. Other cars tuned on the same dyno with just bolt-ons were making around 250rwhp. If you are worried about numbers, find a high reading dyno and do a power run after you have had the car tuned properly lol.

you WILL need to upgrade your clutch at some point, factor this in, standard clutch will last a while, I've done about 10,000k's on it with the stillen kit after 50,000 stock k's. (37,500 miles total).

The air turbulance issues were from people not installing a bracket which is supplied with the kit, so nothing wrong with the kit. This bracket is only required when being installed with the standard stillen heat exchanger. I'm running the frozenboost larger heat exchanger and haven't installed the bracket as there wasn't enough room, but the heat exchanger covers over where the bracket goes anyway. So no troubles there.

Can I ask why you would remove the LTH for the small gain that people are seeing? Uprev unlocks new features all the time. If they unlock the VVEL control, headers will be a much better option than the stock manifolds and you will wish you had them back. If you want the power back for now, dial up the boost a little. Add the 9 lb pulley to up the CFM the Charger is putting out. That will compensate for the power lost to the LTH for now. The limiting factor in for your setup will probably be the stock motor/trans. The Vortech head unit is rated to make over 700hp (in the right conditions). Just spin it faster until you make the power you want (<500).

I haven't run the numbers in a while, but I think the Stillen Kit is spinning the Head Unit around 48,000 RPMs. It is rated to spin around 52,000 RPMs, and people actually spin them as fast as 60,000 RPMs on the 350Z. Then if that is not enough, add the SI impeller/volute for $365 and add another 10-15% CFM.

I know all of these options are too much for a stock motor/trans, but I want to see what others think about this. I can't comprehend taking LTH off of a supercharged car. Make up the loss with more air. What do you think Stillen? Is there a piece to this puzzle I'm missing?

One of the reasons for losing the LTHs is I would like the var to be quieter. As for VVEL, the car has been around for a long time now and it still hasn't been unlocked and I haven't heard about anyone seriously working on it for a while so I am not expecting that to happen anytime soon if at all. As for dialing up boost, people have had issues with this kit running too much boost on the stock motor.

So I was thinking, if the stock cats and headers help create boost with back pressure, would having extra HFCs (since they're already welded into the lead pipes and would cost some extra money to replace) generate more boost and power since there will be 2 sets of cats? I have no problem with getting new lead pipes and replacing them, I was just curious about this though.

Are you asking about replacing the stock cats with HFC's or adding some HFC's to the factory cats?

I currently have HFCs welded into my lead pipes so I would need new lead pipes if I go back to factory cats which is a little extra cost. It' snmot a biug deal, but if it would actually make more power to leave them on and have double cats then I might leave them there.

The only issue with HFC's is their ability to tolerate heat. You run the risk of them melting/blowing out. Obviously that would be bad.

Thought you said you guys fixed your tunes :/ A 323 WHP after spending 9k WOW!! Sound like my tune from 3 years ago


Updates! 395 hp and 293 tq on a Dyno Dynamics. The googles (and tuner) said they read pretty low compared to dynojets.

So I had 323 hp on the baseline pull with the stillen tune. It was running at an afr of 9:1 WOT..... Thanks a bunch stillen, that is some horse s***.

That is pretty disappointing. I put down similar numbers with just my bolt-ons and had maybe a third that much money in it. At least it makes decent power with a real tune.

Turbo is the way to go:tup:

That's not always the case. It's all about your goals and needs.

IMO Stillen S/C look nice, and give a different application.

Turbo's will make more power for our VQ's, but both will put a smile on our faces. I had both, and both did it's purpose.

People that want a more DIY project. and having that wow factor at the local car show. Stillen is actually a good option. What I would like to see is a stillen s/c with a 100shot. :tup:

I DIYed my turbo build.

Turbo is a DIY, but S/C just a easier install.

I think you need to stop taking a few cases here and there as bible and calm down. There are still cars that are problematic and tuning can be more difficult on some cars. For the number of kits we sell and tune without issues, one or two problems (seem show up on forums more than anything) are not enough to warrant a blanket accusation of us not "fixing" our tunes.

We have been working hard to develop tunes for every ROM code, altitude, latitude, climate, model, and difference in mods, but it takes time. Will we have some that prove to be more difficult, yes. Will we have some that go very smoothly with no issues, yes. If the tune out of the box doesn't work for someone we work hard to fix the issue. However, it can be difficult with the large number of install errors that cause issues, unknown parts installed in conjunction with the supercharger, etc.

I just learned of a car that belonged to a forum member that was having issues that was recently purchased by someone who knew nothing about the car. We got the new owner to send us pictures of the whole kit installed with the bumper off and they never installed the air shield for the intake. We replaced it and all "tuning" issues were suddenly solved. As you can see, it is not always cut and dry simple fixes or always the tunes fault. It always takes time to figure things about because everyone is human.

On that note, you can tune around installer errors, but we don't do this because the kit needs to be installed correctly to function properly and be reliable. If we have a lot of difficulty fixing a tune, more often than not it ends up being some kind of installation error (missing part, pinched wire, etc).

Yea with a custom tune it will, I made 342 LOL on their tune 3 years ago, custom tune netted me 412 WHP. Tune was SUPER RICH, Mine as so bad I couldnt start the car "hot" it would flood out :/ my tips where super dirty,

I think I can go back through this entire thread and every page you have referenced your canned tune issues from 3 years ago LOL.

You probaly can LOL , but its weird that all you do is say you've fixed things but the things I had go wrong 3 years ago are still going wrong. :/

I don't take anything as "bible " and am not upset so no need for the calm down comment. Just pointing out facts. I was and kinda still am a supporter of your kit( Just wouldn't run you tune) but that's me. I had talked with you guys a lot during my build and tried to help with some issues I saw with the kit, those same things are there now? But again when you have ZERO competitors you can do anything you like.

Don't get me wrong the kit is great for what it's designed for and that's 400-420 WHP and no more. 8-9 PSI and no more. I made the right choice 3 years ago buying your kit and not GTM ( Out of business) and Sam was a DONK. My only mistake was trying to get more power out of the kit.

Made 390whp and 310wtq on my vortech S/C, and only invested a total of 4.5k.

Yes it was still at 13 sec car, and yes turbo was a better performer.

Like I said, both will put a smile on our faces. I had both, and both did it's purpose.

I go back and forth on Stillen, BP, and FI.

1. I have FI LTH (which more than likely will need removed)
2. I could possibly be stationed in California (need that CARB sticker lol)
3. I don't drive my car often and am unsure if it is really worth the overall cost.
4. Obviously spending the least amount of money is optimal, without sacrificing anything of importance or cutting any corners.

Riptide, a couple questions to ask to help.
-What is your power goal that you can be happy with for the long term, or will it grow over time?
-What is your overall budget?
-CARB sticker, if you do get stationed in Cali do you have the ability to keep the car registered in another state during your time in Cali?