wstar's Journal

semtex

Have you done any UOAs with Motul? I've switched over to Redline. The stuff I keep reading about Motul in the VQ makes me nervous.

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"There are no small accidents on this circuit." -- Ayrton Senna
316.8whp & 248 ft/lbs (Dyno Dynamics) | 319whp & 256 ft/lbs (DynoJet) (04/23/10)
Stillen G3 CAI, CBE, Pulley / F.I. LTH / GTSpec Ladder Brace / Setrab Oil Cooler / UpRev-tuned by Forged Perf.

RCZ

Good to hear the car is running well Wstar! Happy Holidays buddy.

christian370z

I'm glad you bumped this up, it was an very good read! I'm interested in the Continental DW tires as my next tires, how do you think they compare to the OEM Bridgestones?

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-320whp / 259wftlbs-
SP Rays -- RE-11s -- SpecialtyZ Tune -- Swift Springs -- Stillen 25R Oil Cooler -- Stillen G3 Intakes -- Berk HFCs -- F.I. 12" CBE -- Stillen Sway Bars -- Es14 Spring -- INGS+1 lip -- CF Spoiler -- GTR Start Button -- VLED Parking Lights -- PWJDM V2 shift knob

wstar

Well, my car sure seemed a lot grippier, but I also added an inch of width, so it's not really a fair comparison. The Contis are solid tires though, the tread design has a lot more in common with the Michelin PS2 than our OEM Bridgestones.

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Red__Zed

nice build.

travisjb

making some progress!

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2009 370Z #104
*For Sale*

RCZ

Good to have you back and posting man Looks good, but somehow I'm still not convinced about the gains form that manifold.

wstar

I consider myself "convinced enough" that I didn't think it was worth it to do another before/after dyno on this part (my last dyno being so old and all). The other charts and results people have already posted in that ungodly-long manifold thread seem pretty consistent with the reasonable explanation that longer intake runners = shift the torque peak down a bit.

Whether the small change is worth the cost, that's a pretty good question IMHO. But for my personal case, seeing as I'm not going to do forced induction and there's very few effective breathing mods left (basically the M370 that just went on, and the FI headers that I'm waiting in line for), I may as well go all the way and then get this final breathing config dyno tuned using my soon-to-arrive UpRev.

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370Z JT

Hi bud. I'm looking into getting my next mod. I have K&N drop ins with a cbe and test pipes.

In your opinion, which mod were you most impressed with. I'm looking at either getting the G3 or the manifold next.

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wstar

IMHO the G3 intakes are probably the better bet for your "next step", but I'm liking the change in the torque curve the M370 seems to give, too. Soon as my new headers come in (and get installed) I'm going to have the whole thing dyno tuned and then we'll see where things stand (I expect to need to smooth out some rich spots in the mid range, as FI themselves noted, and really who knows what else given the combo of bolt-ons I've got running now).

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wstar

More small parts ordered:

NST 10% overdrive alternator pully - help offset some of the alternator RPM loss from my stillen underdrive crank pulley. Easy, light, cheap, might save me some headaches some days.

Elite Engineering C6 Catch Can - This is made for 'vettes, but really the only reason it's considered a vette part is because they ship a mounting bracket that mounts onto LSx engines easily. I had this can on my LS1 Trans Am for a long time, was really impressed with the quality of it (the mesh/outlet design, ease of dumping the fluid, etc).

With the way the PCV hoses are set up on the M370 Manifold, you now have a single, combined PCV hose (T-adapter from both valve covers, single run to rear of intake manifold), making it easy to use a single oil catch can for our car. Since I relocated my battery, and since oil catch cans work better when they're a little cooler than the rest of the engine bay anyways, I'm going to figure out how to mount this thing in my empty battery compartment.

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Motordyne

Just under the manifold next to the throttle body.

wstar

Got my UpRev cable in the mail today. The software worked fine on my little netbook (Dell Inspiron Mini 1018, nice for a tiny car/travel laptop), running Windows 7 Starter (just for UpRev, I dual-boot over to Ubuntu for anything else).

Cipher: The UI on Cipher is a bit clunky, but it does do some neat stuff (like talk to the BCM and test wipers and windows, etc). Clearly they've got a lot more inside scoop on Nissan's CAN and custom PIDs, etc than generic OBDII software does. The data logging supports a lot of Nissan-specific parameters too, but I haven't had time to play with it a ton. Several interesting buttons were greyed out, related to adjustments that could possibly be made by Cipher, and maintenance operations for ABS and the fuel system. Maybe not supported on this car, or maybe those only come with an upgraded license?

Osiris: Flash process went pretty uneventfully. One oddity I noticed during the flash process (aside from all sorts of unusual dash light combos) was that the engine fans spun up and kept blowing the whole time. I was sitting there thinking "gee I hope this flash goes relatively quickly before those things drain my battery, which started as 12.08V". Most likely this is just something the ECU does on its own, not Osiris-specific. Luckily the flash is pretty quick compared to some older cars I've done this on.

I don't even have an "e-Tune" at this point obviously, since I haven't sent them any data logs from my car. They created some default "tuned" map for my Map 1 based on a mods list, I'm sure it must be fairly conservative without data to go off of. I also had them up the idle speed to 700rpm, up the rev limiter to 7750, and remove the speed limit for that map. Initial short drive on it went fine. Car seemed a little perkier, but (a) it probably hasn't even finished re-learning fuel trims from the ECU reset yet and (b) it's probably all in my head

The map switching functionality is just awesome, it'd almost be worth it without any performance tuning capabilities. I had them set up my Map 2 as a Valet mode limited to 3000rpm and 30mph, and Map 3 as a Security mode limited to 2000rpm and 5mph.

I tested out the Valet Mode and tried to defeat it. WOT seems to sometimes bypass the low rev limiter for a very brief moment, but the speed limiter can never be evaded, all in all it works great. If I were a Valet trying to hotrod this car around before parking it, as soon as I realized the car was refusing to go over those limits I'd give up quickly, maybe even be worried that I might have broken something and might get blamed for it (given that the rev limit responds in a bouncy fashion, much like our true higher rev limit).

The security mode lets the car run, but it can only crawl at 5mph. Aside from setting that before shutting down the car, I might switch to it when I want to run into a store quickly and leave the car running. Then I don't have to turn it off, but if someone managed to jump in the car, I can catch them on foot

I'll probably go for a dyno run sometime in the next week or so, probably down at EngineLogics since they have that well-maintained DynoDynamics unit there, which is what my last graph came from ages ago. Mostly just to get a new baseline, and make sure I'm not running too lean. Then I'll see about having them (or someone?) dyno-tune the AFR targets and timing advance once I get the FI Long-tube headers installed.

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ChrisSlicks

LOL. If that ever happens make sure you have a bystander whip out their phone and record the ensuing chase.

Sounds like it worked out pretty well.

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Hotchkis ARB | Stillen CAI | Art Pipes | Berk CBE | Stillen AP Racing Brakes | AE Performance Oil Cooler | BC Racing ER Coilovers | Doran Control Arms

wstar

Installed NST's overdriven alternator pulley this afternoon/evening. There were a few gotchas to getting the alternator out of the car, but it was a learning experience. I could probably do it in 1/3 the time if I did it again now.

Random notes in case someone googles this later: You really should have an impact wrench on hand for the pulley nut itself, and it's a 24mm nut. Definitely remove radiator overflow tank and cooling fans first like the Service Manual says. Then remove the belt, and then remove the belt tensioner (completely) for easy access to the top front alternator mounting bolt (it's a totally unnecessary pain in the *** if you don't, no idea why the SM doesn't mention that).

Also, if you have an oil cooler installed, odds are very high your oil cooler lines will block the normal path for pulling the removed alternator out of the engine bay from below. You can either drop the front swaybar to let it out, or what I did: spin it around so the pulley is facing the ground and just prop it up on the swaybar + radiator housing and do the nut removal/install while it's hanging there.

Half hour test drive went fine, nothing seems to be coming loose. Volts look like they're a touch better, but the real test will be whether it helps in the long term during those periods where I'm harder on my charging cycle for my tiny battery and underdriven crank pulley.

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