RE: Oil cooler getting to temp under normal driving conditions:

Well I won't be able to comment about cold weather anytime soon seeing as we're heading into another Vegas summer, but it took roughly 15 min. on the highway early morning, probably ~60-65 degrees out, just normal cruising speed.

Track Review:

This past weekend I did a one-day event at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway road course. The event was fun, but unfortunately some car troubles didn't allow for much track time in the 370Z. Basically after my 2nd session, the car would not start at all. The starter would just wind up but it wasn't engaging. Upon further inspection, one of the starter mounting bolts was gone, the other was loose, and the starter was dis-engaged. Luckily Paladin Advanced Automotive here in Vegas has kick a** customer service and sent one of their techs out to the track with a bolt and fixed it for me! Unfortunately, I only had one more session after that to go back out before day's end. Here's a quick review of some of the new parts and key points on the car...

AE Performance Oil Cooler - WAY better than anything else I have seen for this car. Ambient temp was around 85 degrees, which means track surface temps were probably around 100 degrees. The track was basically made up of straights & hairpins meaning there wasn't a whole lot of air flow going to the oil cooler as the speeds were relatively low and to add to that, I was in lap traffic pretty much the whole time. Pretty bad conditions as far as keeping temps down. For the first two sessions in the morning I had no issues with oil temp whatsoever, it peaked around 245 after about 15-20 minutes of tracking. The third session at the end of the day, around 4pm when air temp was at its hottest, I did get to around 260 degrees after about 20 minutes, again in tons of lap traffic. My consensus is that 95% of the time this oil cooler will take care of any oil temp issues, and what this oil cooler doesn't take care of, none will.

NST Pulley Kit + Fidanza Flywheel - On a track with so many slow corners it was really helpful to have the quicker acceleration that these parts gave the car.

Brakes - For the first time, I finally experienced the "ice mode" that everyone has been talking about. Definitely didn't like it. This track is also harder on brakes than any other track I have taken the car too.

Nitto NT05 Tires - Although they have plenty of tread left, they definitely are nowhere near as fast as they are when they're new. I have had this particular set on the car since September 2009 and this was my 7th track day on them and they feel like crap if I am being brutally honest. They are best when they are brand new, within the first 2-3 heat cycles.

Glad your happy with it Mike!

See you this weekend!


:tup:

Sucks about the starter, at least it didn't fall off completely while you were on track. That would have really sucked!

About the only thing I could see to make the AE cooler better in terms of cooling would be larger lines. This core has roughly the same surface area as the 34 row Nismo cooler but it has half the pressure drop due to having shorter rows. This would dictate that oil has the capacity to flow through the cooler much faster but I think the -8 lines (0.44" ID) are restricting the flow rate slightly. -10 (.565") or -12 (.690") would potentially give higher flow rates and perhaps better cooling when things get extreme as they have twice the internal volume allowing more oil to flow assuming no other restrictions.

I think for a kit that is produced for the mass market they hit it dead on. Like I said, for 95% of the drivers, tracks, seasons, etc. it would be plenty, while still letting the oil warm up enough for normal street driving. Now bigger lines and a thermostatic sandwich plate might be the ultimate setup, but then people will complain even more about price. :)

Let the mass market buy the Stillen kit. Build this one for racing!

LOL, Thats mostly the approach we take on all of our products. Unfortunately it gets $$ for the masses.

Most of our products are geared toward, Porsche, BMW, GTR customers so we try to keep the same quality across the map yet keep it as $$ conscious as possible for our 1k customers to our 50k customers.

On our car we ran larger lines, but we had a bit too much pressure drop, and it took much longer for the car to heat up on the street. Also overall pressure was a bit too low for our comfort w/ the stock oil pump. The -8's corrected this issue without much sacrifice in high temp cooling.

It's the same set-up we run our our Porsche cup cars.

Thanks for the info Paul. It's nice to know the reasoning behind the decision.

I run -10 on my smaller cooler, but I guess that's the tradeoff. Thanks for the 'splainin Paul.

Mike, Paul, Chris thx for the info on the oil cooler.

Mike, at what oil temp do you hover at during normal street driving?

PS thanks for the review.

I actually haven't driven it on the street for more than 15 minutes at a time since putting the cooler on and its just getting to around 170-180 at that point.

Mike, you hit ice mode? :eek:

What brake setup are you using again?

Yes I did. Stock Akebonos with Motul RBF600 fluid, Carbotech XP10/XP8 pads, and Stoptech slotted front rotors.

WTF???, the only thing you have in common with stock is the rotors? Damn!

edit: I wish Nissan Corp had the nuts to answer Car & Driver on that issue.

The calipers and rear rotors are the only things left that are stock. I think its an ABS issue, not so much the brakes themselves.

The more I track this car, the more dissapointed I get. It has huge potential, but so many stupid little issues that completely screw it right off the bat. Between oil temps, fuel starvation, and this ice mode issue, the car needs a pretty substantial amount of reliability mods before it can truly be a good track car, even in nearly stock form. Thinking about selling the car after this season is over now.

Mike, here's the ice-mode thread if you want to add a description of the conditions that triggered it.

http://www.the370z.com/brakes-suspen...oning-abs.html

:eek: :crying::crying:

Too much reading right now lol. Got to about page 6. So far I totally agree with stabbing the pedal causing the problem as I was doing just that to try and get the car to rotate on corner entry since I was battling pretty bad entry understeer. Back to smooth braking then and hopefully I wont have ice mode anymore. :)

:iagree:

Fusz, could you forward this to Nissan Corporate? Thanks so much.

Mike, sorry to change the subject, but what's ur opinion about the OS Giken vs the Carbonetic LSD. Based on streetability and track performance, which is the best??? Just for clarification, I drive my Z mostly on the road with other people coming and do spend many weekends on the track. I was leaning toward the OS Giken, but after seeing ur review and other comments, I'm reconsidering. What should I choose????

Both are great options, but after driving the Berk Technology 135i with the OS Giken, I would probably lean that way. Performance wise they are pretty comparable. Both are extremely street-able. The downfall to the Carbonetic is that it requires quite a bit of maintenance. Fluid must be changed after each track day or every 3000 miles, and you MUST use Carbonetic gear oil. So I would say both are excellent performers and excellent for daily driven cars, but the OS Giken is a little more user friendly.

Cool, I'll stay with the OS Giken

Thanks

I'm using Motul gear oil with the Carbonetic and all is fine

I thought you had used Motul when you first got it, but it made it really noisy?

I take it that you and the BERK team are doing good this season?

http://redlinetimeattack.com/ul/images/lvms/-33_s.jpg

thin stuff for break in and then switched to thick stuff, and noise was eliminated

Haha, yes. So far so good. First event we got 1st place and set a new track record in our class, second even we got 2nd place. Third event is at the end of the month, hopefully we can land on the podium again! :)

mike, i'm up your way for speedventures at spring mountain next week... going?

No, I will be instructing with Exotics Racing out at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway that weekend. :(

nothing to frown about! have fun!!

Well I would rather be driving, but I suppose sitting right seat in Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Audi R8s, Porsches, and Aston Martins is the next best thing. :)

So after much thought, I have decided to part out & sell my 370Z. Not for any reason in particular other than wanting something a bit better at being a daily driver. When I originally bought it, my number one goal was to get something that was brand new that I could use as a project car to help get my company's name on the map. My second goal was that it had to be something that was going to be a capable time attack platform. My third goal was that it had to be civil enough to be a daily driver. Now that my company is out of business and I have another team to drive for in time attack that leaves the 370Z as just being a daily driver. If I am only going to have one car that's only purpose is as a daily driver then I want something a little more practical and more comfortable since I drive out of town probably every other weekend.

I am going to take my time parting it out while still using it as a display vehicle and a daily driver. I am going to part it out in stages most likely, starting with stuff that doesn't have a big impact on the way it looks with the hood closed on display. The second group of parts will be the stuff that I only need on there if I am going to be tracking the car, and so on. There are also a lot of parts that I will need stock replacements for as a lot of my stock parts were given to companies so they can use them to develop aftermarket parts.

Here's a list of stuff that I will be removing from the car and putting up for sale right away. PM me if you're interested in any of these parts.
- Kognition Design V1 Dry Carbon Fiber Rear Wing
- 19" SSR SP3 wheels (Matte Black w/Polished Lip) BRAND NEW in box.

I will be doing separate for sale threads for this stuff as soon as they are off the car, but just to give you guys a heads up. :)

Sad to see you go, Mike...but PMing you now for some of your stuff :)

Sad to hear this Mike, but I can understand your reasoning. :(
I assume you are still going to be racing the Berk 1 series car?

Yes at least for the rest of this season, hopefully they'll keep me around for next season too. :)

Well you are constantly on the podium from what I have seen, so I see no reason not to keep you. :tup:

Sale pending on the Password:JDM Battery/Brake Fluid/Radiator covers, Password:JDM oil cap, and GTMotoring Tow Hook.

pm sent for intakes