Great to have you back in here posting... there needs to be a critical mass of people that have value to add - and you're part of that!

M370 was good for me because in time trial / racing you are classed based upon peak power not power under the curve... it trades peak power for usable power... it's a good trade to make! not as much bang for the buck as intake / exhaust on this car, but worth it if for some of us

nice build.

Let the parts ordering commence!

Over the past couple of days, put in orders for:

Fast Intentions Long-Tube Headers (Ceramic Coated)
Motordyne M370 Intake Manifold
2x RU-2820 K&N filters
Stillen 7AT cooler

I imagine the manifold, filters, and 7AT cooler will get here relatively soon, and I'll install all of that in one day with the bumper off.

(Yeah, I know the filters can be cleaned, but tbh they're not that expensive, I'd rather just throw a new set on while the bumper's off and be done with it this time around. Maybe I'll clean, re-oil, and bag the old ones when I'm done and use them for the next swap).

Of course Fast Intentions is backlogged on headers (the popularity isn't surprising given how great their catback is), I'm looking at 8 weeks out before those ship. So that'll happen separately mid-summer.

Once that's all on the car, it'll be time for UpRev and some dyno tuning. I guess I should start looking into the UpRev process now in case that has its own delays to account for.

Ordered UpRev's Osiris Standard today. Stillen 7AT cooler and new K&N air filters already shipped. Motordyne has billed for the Manifold, but I haven't seen any email from them on shipping yet.

Installed Torque on my phone, w/ random bluetooth OBDII adapter ordered from Amazon. Neat app, since I already have a mount for my Android phone set up permanently in the Cubby area for GPS Nav. A lot of basic PIDs (e.g. fuel trims, O2s, coolant temp, rpm, etc) work out of the box, the gauge display options are nice. There are a number of useful PIDs my other dedicated handheld units can sense on our car that it doesn't know about though (e.g. Ambient Air Temp, Transmission Fluid Temp, etc).

This comes down to a bunch of the PIDs being proprietary Nissan secrets that they sell to scantool mfgs :( Still digging around the internet for some site that might have stolen or reverse engineered a list (since Torque does let you input custom PID specs). Worst case I may look into sniffing the protocol and reverse engineering the PIDs.

Motordyne M370 Intake Manifold Installed today. Install was a breeze, no point in a DIY really. They shipped me either one hose too short, or one too few hoses (either would have made it work), but I had some 3/8" ID hose here anyways, so I just cut some of my own. They also sent me a free Motordyne T-shirt, so it's all good :)

I will note one thing: if you don't have a bottle of Throttle Body Cleaner laying around, pick one up before you install this. You'll have the TBs off the manifold and it's an excellent opportunity to clean out any accumulated gunk with access to both sides of the throttle plates.

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...-installed.jpg

Took it for a short test lap around the neighborhood to make sure nothing was leaking, falling off, or throwing codes. All seems well. Subjectively, feels like I gained a little torque / responsiveness in the low-mid rpm ranges, which is exactly what I was hoping for. Nice job Motordyne :)

In for the info. I'm thinking of installing

making some progress!

Right on wstar. On your PCV hose, it should be routed under the manifold instead of the long way around.

Glad to hear you are happy with the results.:tup:

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

Really? Is there room under there (I assume you mean under the center)? Or did you just mean going under that little manifold tab and the intake baffle, but still taking the same basic route? I was looking at this pic to try to figure out what was meant, seemed like it was routed roughly like I did mine:

http://i352.photobucket.com/albums/r...DYNEM370-3.jpg

Either way, I think I'm going to stick with the current routing, because now I want to slip an oil catch can into that line we're talking about (around vs under). I had considered doing this earlier on, but was put off by the fact that our car needed two separate cans, and I wasn't sure how much oil was flowing through the PCV system anyways. Now I've seen the oil slick in those PCV lines, and conveniently with the M370 tee-ing the 2x PCV lines together, I've now got a single line to insert a single can into it.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Yes. All you need is to put it under the tab next to the throttle body.

Yeah, I did do that earlier today to clean up the routing in the front (went under the tab + that little curved intake baffle box. Sorry I'm still confused on your "Yes" though: do you mean you guys are intending that the hose run directly under the manifold itself (i.e. just above and parallel with the passenger side fuel rail, inside from the valve covers?).

In any case, like I said I'm already off the beaten path now, as I'm going to run that line way off on the passenger side to mount an oil catch can in the unused battery compartment. Just curious for mine and others' future reference.

Just under the manifold next to the throttle body.

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 :p

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 :bowrofl:

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.

LOL. If that ever happens make sure you have a bystander whip out their phone and record the ensuing chase. :roflpuke2:

Sounds like it worked out pretty well.

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.

Oil Catch Can installed. DIY thread here.

You have definitely been productive this weekend, congrats on the successful installs! Have you any improvements with the pulleys?

Yeah voltage is actually more stable so far with the alternator pulley overdriven. My underdrive crank pulley has been on forever, this was just the alternator pulley upgrade. No expected power gains from the pulley, just a little more peace of mind on battery charging.

So, I went back to EngineLogics to run on their dyno yesterday. For reference, my previous dyno run was around 15K miles ago. Background from then: I already had Stillen's Gen3 intakes and short headers, Berk HFCs, and Stillen's catback at the time, which is a pretty complete bolt-on setup, and I made right at 300hp even at peak. EngineLogics' dyno is a DynoDynamics, they keep it calibrated really well, and it's known for reading lower than just about any other dyno in town.

Since then I had only made a couple of very small changes that would maybe affect a dyno run by a small amount: an underdriven lightweight crank pulley, and a lighter wheel/tire setup (oh, and swapping a leaky and mangled Stillen catback for Fast Intentions). I was expecting all along that those wouldn't make much difference.

More recently, the dyno-affecting changes have been the M370 intake manifold and a canned tune from UpRev. This dyno trip was mostly about validating where the car's at right now, making sure it wasn't running dangerously lean, etc, before I put on FI's long tube headers (coming in ~6 weeks) and then give it a proper dyno tune.

The results were crappy. The first few pulls were peaking around 280hp, which is a 6.7% drop in peak horsepower. They had my old data to overlay with the new, and it wasn't just a small shift at peak. The graphs overlaid almost perfectly in the lower RPM ranges (which to me, validates that the dyno is still calibrated the same, any weather difference isn't a huge factor, etc), but in the upper RPM ranges the whole curve of the torque and horsepower looked worse than my older data.

Their first comment on the comparative data was that I seemed to be running a lot leaner in the upper RPM ranges than I was before at WOT (we're talking high 12's vs mid 13's AFR, nothing excessively dangerous). The tech said he suspected the canned UpRev tune caused that change, so we map-switched back to the stock tune and did another pull. The AFRs got a bit richer again, and some of the lost power was restored, presumably because our ECU is smart enough to use a bit more timing with a richer mix? In any case, it's not all that shocking that a canned tune sucks, I always knew I'd need a dyno tune once I got done with the engine's breathing setup.

Then we looked closer at the overlay of the old and new torque curves (using the stock ecu map pull). Again identical over the lower RPM ranges, but around the 5K mark is where they diverge. The old graph was smooth, the new one took a couple slow nosedives at different points, and was lower all around in the 5K+ range.

Their theory on this was it *might* be an effect of the intake manifold swap, said they had seen similar results from poorly matched aftermarket intake manifolds/spacers/etc in the past, just due to changes in air turbulence patterns and/or the MAP sensor (which with the M370, gets relocated off of the main manifold body and attached to a vacuum hose off the side, which is something that bugged me a little in the back of my head to begin with, but I figured they must know what they're doing. Still, MAP sensor on a flexible hose? That has to change the timing and magnitude of its response right?).

So I'm back to running on my stock ecu map for now, and after I got back from the dyno last night I swapped back to my stock intake manifold (and re-did some hose work on my oil catch can setup to make it work with the stock manifold (basically like I mentioned in that thread: capping off one of the stock PCV vacuum intakes on the manifold and sending the can's output to the other). I'm planning to head back to EngineLogics for another dyno as soon as they can slot me in, maybe today if I'm super lucky, otherwise probably Monday, and I'll see about getting some printouts of the comparative graphs from my car to post up here if we see anything interesting.

At this point I expect we'll see better numbers without the M370, but it's also possible the remaining loss was just that the engine hadn't re-learned fuel trims, etc from switching back to the stock ecu map? Also keep in mind these results are of course specific to my car's setup, I've seen what looked like good graphs from M370s on others' cars posted here. It may be that the effects of the manifold are highly dependent on the rest of the intake/exhaust setup.

Also, it could be some other wear and tear on my car causing the higher-rpm torque loss. I did check for exhaust leaks when I got home (with a soapwater spray bottle at the flanges, idling cold), didn't see any problems there. Once I get it re-dyno'd back on the stock manifold I should be able to put the M370 issue to rest for my setup though.

RCZ: I should've paid more attention to your doubts than all the other data I was trying to aggregate from the M370 thread, it seems ;) We'll find out soon.

Interesting. I would have expected a slight peak loss for a little more area under the curve in the mid range, but from what you describe you saw only losses. Leaning out at the high rpm's is never a good thing. Will be watching for your follow up results.

In for more results, nice review !!

I'm definitely interested in a new dyno. Without the M370 you will have a very similar setup to mine. I'm debating on getting the canned tunes vs a full custome tune.

;)

My guess is 293 when you get redyno'd without it.

Ok the results are in, and the dyno vindicates the M370 actually, so that whole theory about the intake manifold potentially being a problem was bunk. This is the comparative HP+Torque. The red lines are the M370 yesterday, the blue lines are the stock manifold today. Both are on the stock ECU map, roughly similar weather conditions, etc.

You can clearly see the M370 makes decent torque and power gains virtually everywhere, but comes in a little low beyond 7K RPM. This is what I was originally expecting based on the M370 thread, so there's nothing wrong with the M370 at all. The gains are actually quite impressive to me. Those yellow grid lines are worth 8 hp/torque each. Pretty fat torque gains in the low end, and the slight loss at the top is totally worth it.

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...stock-blue.png

We also played with that canned UpRev tune a bit as well. The bottom line is that on the stock manifold, it makes virtually no difference in power, but considerably leans out the engine. On the M370, the UpRev tune hurts a bit on power. Either way, the whole setup obviously could use some real dyno tuning love, and I really don't fault UpRev for this canned tune, seeing as how it's based on zero real data from the car.

The M370 will be going back on the car this weekend, obviously. The remaining issue is explaining the loss of ~20HP vs my older dyno graphs.

15K miles of hard driving could introduce a number of variables, perhaps some deeper maintenance is in order (some kind of fuel injector cleaning treatment? Spark plugs? Are there some fittings loosening somewhere that I haven't found?). I had a peek at my air filters this morning too, and the grooves are full of road debris (bits of grass and dirt, etc). They're really in bad need of a cleaning, so that could be a contributing factor if they're starting to restrict.

Another potential change between my ancient run and these recent ones is that I changed a leaky and broken Stillen catback for a working Fast Intentions one. It's possible the Stillen's leak was actually helping my power output before :icon17:.

Another factor is when we went back over all the dyno's data log for the old and new runs, there was a substantial ambient temp difference. The old runs were logged at 74F ambient, and the new runs are at 95F. Ignoring any difference in atmospheric pressure or humidity (no data log on any difference there), just the 20 degree temp rise could account for about 6HP according to normal SAE correction formulas.

So I don't really know at this point. I'm chalking it up to 6 from the temp change and the other 14 I'm guessing is from dirty air filters, lack of an exhaust leak possibly, and general wear and tear? I was already planning to swap filters when I put in the 7AT cooler, hopefully soon. Maybe after that I'll see if I can get another run in on a cool day in the morning just to see what difference temps+filters makes.

Thanks to Brian at Engine Logics for doing the dyno runs and going over the results with me. I think I'll be using them to do my tuning once the long tube headers are on.

For quick comparison, here's the graph from 15K miles ago (hope it stays on the same page):

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...-tq-vs-rpm.jpg

Wow. Can't wait to get the manifold. Looks like +16 hp and trq gains in some areas. Quite impressive. This is with a canned tune to boot.

It's with no tune, those graphs are running the stock map.

This morning I was thinking more about the relative weather issue on these two widely-spaced dyno runs, when I remembered that there's online almanac data. I looked up the pressure and humidity in Houston for the first dyno date and yesterday, combined that with the temperature data from the dyno's logs, and plugged the full set of values into the SAE calculator HERE, and it came up with a dyno correction factor of 0.995 for my old run and 1.050 for the new run.

Assuming the almanac data is decent information source for these purposes, those correction factors put the numbers at SAE-corrected 298.7 and 294, respectively, rather than 300.2 and 280. So really I'm betting most of the difference was the weather. 4.7hp could be anything, likely the dirty filters :)

so it does work then. Cool. Looks like some real gains in the mid range!

Got bored this evening and decided to make an unplanned run out to the local dragstrip (Royal Purple Raceway, what used to be Houston Raceway Park). Only did two runs: one at 35 PSI all around that came in 13.335 @ 103.79, and a second run I dropped to 30 PSI on the rears and shaved a little time, got a 13.245 @103.27. DA-corrected, the runs are 13.192 @ 104.92 MPH and 13.134 @ 104.137 MPH.

I'm not the world's best drag racer and never will be, but they were pretty solid runs for me. I'm sure the car has a little more in it with slightly better launching and shift timing. Should easily drop into the high 12s once the next round of changes are done circa late June (LTHs, tune, 2pc front rotors), which is coincidentally about when I think I'll finally have time to start regularly hitting up the HPDE events down at Grandsport Speedway. I really want to get my transmission cooler and front brake ducts done before that though.

Oh yeah, the timeslip scans. Any advice about what I sucked at the most for next time based on all the little detail #'s?

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...e-shifting.jpghttp://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...e-shifting.jpg

I find it strange that you're only picking up 18.88 mph in the second 1/8 mile. The 84 mph trap speed in the 1/8th mile is definitely healthy for a bolt-on 370Z. But it seems like your Z just falls on its face in the 2nd 1/8 mile.

Just to give you an idea: a year ago in similar weather I was running 82 to 83 mph in the 1/8 and 102 to 104 in the 1/4 mile. And depending on how I was shifting, my Z will pick up anything from 20 to 23 mph from the 1/8 to the 1/4 mile.

or maybe i'm overthinking this? :ugh:

That was kind of my gut feeling at the track, too. What's particularly strange with those two runs is that my second run with the better ET had a slightly lower trap speed :confused:. I'm starting to wonder if maybe I'm misjudging where the official end of the 1/4 is and getting off the car too quick at the end heh.

Losing MPH when you lower tire pressure is normal.

How does the car feel towards the end? Did it feel 'slow' at the top of the last gear or two towards the end? What was your oil temps when you made those runs? I usually let my car cool off MINIMUM 30 minutes between each run. Ideally 45 min to 1 hour, or as long as it takes to get the oil temps back down to 150 160 degree range. Any hotter than that and I can feel the car lag at the top of 3rd gear (6MT). Can you tell I'm a track junkie? :icon17:

IIRC they calculate trap speed by measuring how long it takes to cover a measured distance (which starts from the end of the 1/4 mile mark). Just because of that I stay on it until about 115-120 just in case. :icon17:

Ah I didn't think of that, makes sense.

Beats me, it all happens so fast it's hard to remember. I know on both runs I smoked my random competitor for the first half of the race, and then first one caught up by quite a bit near the end, and the second one ended up overtaking me.

I had a good hour between runs, but about half of that was idling in line (I did shut down during a couple long waits for other car classes to try to prevent heat soak buildup). My oil temp was 180 at the start of each run (in the evening the car tends to stabilize there at idle with my thermo'd oil cooler + oil pan spacer), and the coolant around 188-190. At the end of the run the oil would be closer to 200-210 when I looked while turning off the track.

I could get it down to 160 if I tried (harder) to avoid prolonged idling after my cooldown/off period, but I figured I didn't want the oil too cold, but I guess I'm just being paranoid about ideal temps there. I'm running 5W30 anyways, I'm thinking I should start switching to 10W30 in the hot summers here.

Yeah I definitely didn't stay on it past the 1/4 mark, and I might even be letting off early, I guess next trip in a few months I'll try to stay on it way past where I think the mark is and see what happens.