Follow-up analysis to Car & Driver crashing Nismo 370Z at VIR
 

You may recall that C&D smacked a Nismo 370Z into the wall at VIR a few months ago and promised further analysis of the root cause. Here's the thread on the original accident: http://www.the370z.com/nissan-370z-g...ismo-370z.html

Here is C&D's follow-up:

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1272642668

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1272642668

http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1272642668

dang im having trouble reading it..did they crash it again?..haha

so...everybody, time for a new front bumper! and for someone to design some rear brake ducts lol

The back end on a Nismo already has slots in the rear bumper, which should create negative pressure behind the wheel well and pull cool air into the cavity. However, the front fender has no such slot. Hrm...

30-40 stops from 100-0 right after each other....??? Wtf are these guys smoking? The most demanding tracks in the world will not require 100-0 stops right after each other 30-40 times without a minute or so. Lower speed breaking and straits will be more than enough to cool the breaks in the process.

Raced a 335 recently "in a closed legal location" half way through the 10 mile race his breaks started to fade and mine weren't even smelling. Obviously he was harder on breaks to keep the pace going but it still doesn't explain the BS that this article is spitting out.

BTW yes my oil temp did go up to 260 3/4 of the run. :(

It was just to determine at what point they start to really fail

From reading the whole thing it seemed like they were trying to justify why they crashed the nismo in the beginning. No modern car will all of a sudden not stop during a hard breaking. Before not stopping there is such thing as smoke, longer pedal travel, and longer stopping distances called "fading" which gradually build up during hard driving. They obviously ignored those signs and ended up crashing the car...

Interesting read - thanks for posting it

time for modshack to divert his intake duct to his brake duct. :D

I say we push Stillen for a group buy on their new front fascia.

It honestly does not really matter about the justification... the driver obviously did not have the expertise to realize that the brakes were getting crappier... its not like it went from great to zero in one braking section... excuses excuses...

It clearly said the Corvette and Porshe did not have problems. I think it said the mustang Why did none of the other cars suffer as bad as the z did?

I think the article is probably right.

Funny how none of the other media outlets had or even reported issues of severe brake fade when they tested the car and that the probblem hasen't been replicated by anyone else. Doesn't the sport package have the same pads too?

in for updates and a link to the stillen fascia

You know, 'vettes put the calipers toward the back side of the wheel (at least in front) - could that alone allow for more cooling? In the front of the wheel you'll have a naturally stagnant area behind the wheel...

I'm actually working on making a good DIY on brake ducting for the Nismo. I'll post results soon :)

If you boil the brake fluid you can have good brakes on one stop and pedal to the floor on the next, I've done it and it's not fun.

Their summary is correct, the brake cooling on this car is non-existent, one of the worst I've ever had. Normally you get some cooling in the vented rotors by the spinning cooling vanes acting as an air pump, but on our cars the aerodynamics prevent it from happening to much effect. I don't care if you have upgraded brakes from AP or Brembo, you have the same problem.

The next mod this car needs is brake vents, period. I don't understand why none of the vendors have stepped up to the challenge.

But vettes don't have brake vents...just calipers on the back end of the wheel...

That said, I'm all for a well-designed brake vent. It seems it would need more than just a duct to the wheel well to cool the front-mounted caliper area.

There needs to be a custom backing plate so the air can be directed at the hub and pushed through the vents.

Yeah, seem this isn't enough on its own:
http://www.stillen.com/product_images/KB11121.jpg

Sure looks like a ton of air would be aimed at the brakes with that fascia.

Anyone got a reasonable guesstimate on getting that Stillen fascia painted to factory colors?

ask the guy in the stillen fascia thread, he just had it done on his black Z

Just found that one. He paid about $500-600 for paint, mount and blend.
I would imagine a nearly new car could get away with paint and self-mount.

Lawl, isnt this exactly what plenty of us said months ago? And then there were the C&D haters who said they had a lack of skill...whatever. Their mail-room boys have more track experience I'd bet lol.

Combined with a vented fender it would be a pretty serious cooling set up. I always likes the way 370Ztune's signature looked. Minus the flare this would look pretty sick especially if the vents were bare carbon and the rest was painted:

http://www.370ztune.com/images/hdr_z_tune.jpg

Or something more mild that would flow with the already vented rear Nismo bumper like the GTR has:

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:l...fender_ppf.jpg

http://www.carcollery.com/wp-content...Angle-View.jpg

Yea but the problem is in order to justify their publishing of the magazine and possibly to point the finger away from themselves in terms of liability in light of the crash that occurred during the first test event, the author/editors wordsmith the story so that the testing and resulting data reads to sound as if its judgement applies as well to the overall safety, quality and driveability of the 370Z while driving under normal conditions.

There is in the way they chose to write this critique a very fine obscure line between truth and "yellow journalism" so they have backdoors to squirm through when necessary yet render an unjustified negative judgement upon the car and manufacturer.

And one has to consider this may be again another attempt to discredit foreign car makers in the court of American public opinion since the American car industry had to be bailed out. Whereas Toyota and Honda got fried by Congress and by the media, Nissan managed to escape the fire in the first time around.

I find it interesting the sole focus of the written review was only the braking system as if to vaguely lay down a veiled suggestion that somehow Nissan has the same quality problems as Toyota and Honda as recently identified and incessantly harped on by the media.

Sorry, I do not buy that for one minute. Nissan has been notorious for dismissing issues through their "value-laden" tag lines. Example, Exhibit A: "The addition of an oil cooler would have raised the price of the car and potentially moved it out of the reach of some customers."

They sell the 370Z under the sports car category, but expect it to be driven like a Yugo as anything above is not considered regular usage or considered "race track" driven. Nissan needs to get real and cease hiding under corporate lawyer written veiled statements that are the epitome of "vague and ambiguous."

The question has been asked "when is one of the vendor's going to step up and begin developing a cooling kit for the brakes?"

We actually have been working on a few options.

1) Our front fascia. Yes, this is more elaborate and will change the exterior appearance of your car so it won't be for everyone, but we have created brake cooling ducts for the fascia. They will be on display next week at our open house event and will be launched soon.

2) I don't want to talk about our other option just yet as it is very unique to the aftermarket industry and no one else has anything like it so you'd better believe I'm going to keep it "hush hush." I can confidently say that it will be the best form of brake cooling hands down.

:iagree:

Any projection for an availibility of the "hush hush"....

I'll see what I can do to bump it up the priority list for R&D. Now would be the best time though as the car is on the rack...I'll see what I can do this coming week.

how about availability for the ducts for my new bumper? :)

Although, I must say that I have had no boiling fluid issues since switching to Motul and brembo 6 pistons. I think its the mass of the calipers saving the day though.

I haven't boiled mine either with the beefy AP calipers, but rotor temps go sky high.

I'm very excited about what Kyle has up his sleeve, hopefully it can be made a priority.

Well at least they printed a followup article..

I think alot of folks here need to get real and finally come to the long and overdue undertanding with the fact that a "sports car" and a "race car" are entirely two different types of vehicles.

In addition folks here need to finally come to the understanding that the act of buying any car doesn't include making the car dealer or the manufacturer your personal indentured servant who will pay for everything to convert the car into something you think it should be meant to be.

Personally, I would not expect a standard road car to survive extended track use, at the speeds of an expert driver without modifications. I would track my Z, but I would not be going at near the speeds the journalists are. I took a Honda CBR600 motorcycle on the track once, in the slow group, and it's brakes would fade after 5 laps too.

I agree with both of you, but the problem is that Nissan markets the Nismo as its 'track-ready' variant of the Z. They're not marketing it as a standard road car. So the issue here is one of false advertising. Don't market a car as track-ready it if isn't. In some circles, that's called fraud. Now, according to the article, Nissan responded to this incident by now offering high-performance pads as a $580 option. In doing so, Nissan has pretty much admitted that they didn't equip the supposedly track-ready Nismo Z with brake pads that fit the billing.

Well at least I was on the right track all along. I've already upgraded my brake pads, upgraded my brake fluid and added stainless steel brake lines. Next on the wish list will brake cooling ducts or whatever Stillen may come up with to help with the brake cooling issue.

Josh at Stillen: I really need the new brake vents to be compatible with your new fascia. The new fascia and NISMO rear and Siebon hood go on this week.pp