2009 Nissan 370Z Automatic - Short Take Road Test

t-ray

Can you find any record of an owner-driven G37 Sedan going 105mph in the 1/4 with the 7at gearbox?

scorpion90

Believe what you want to believe, but the marvel of electronics and engineering are making the manual tranny old school. Clearly, the Nissan GR-R uses basically a super auto tranny with great performance, so what so hard to believe that some of that technology is in the 370Z auto tranny. Believe what you want, but the times are a changing.

Lug

Nissan 370Z - 332 HP - 270 ft/lb torque Curb weight - 3232 lbs base
2004 C5 - 350 HP - 375 ft/lb torque Curb weight - 3210 lbs base

Unless it's impossible for a good driver to utilize more than 270 ft/lb of torque and the Vette's extra 105 ft/lb of torque are wasted, there has to be some really good magic fairy dust to get that 4.6 and 13.1 1/4 mile. Forget the 0-60 for a sec, these numbers have a heavier car with 105 less ft/lb of torque and less hp trouncing the vette in the 1/4 mile (the vette is reported at 13.3 to 13.5). This could all well be true and the other numbers we've seen for the auto could be all lies, but I'm still waiting for a reasonable explanation as to why besides "they said so".

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miguez

Lug,

Without a more in-depth analysis, please consider that the 375 ft/lbs of torque in the C5 may happen in a narrow band of the RPM spectrum. Newer engines are becoming better at delivering a flatter torque curve, which means that their torque is available pretty much off the line. Older engines, or different designs, might only deliver that torque at the end of the RPM spectrum, in which case they might not be as good at the initial acceleration on a 1/4 mile. Since this drag run happens in such a small amount of time, this could incur some of the difference.

Just a possibility.

miguez

Hey Lug,

Thanks for the info. Do you have a link to a dyno chart for the LS1? I am interested to see what the torque curve looks like. Even though you mentioned that the dyno shows 300 ft/lbs, we need to see if that's for pretty much the entire RPM curve, or just in a certain spot.

Thanks,

wstar

Here's a dyno chart link for an LS1. This is mated to a T56 (6 speed manual), and came out of a 2002 Camaro (but was install in an RX7 apparently). They're pretty flat on torque, all things considered:

Edit: You'll have to view it from the forum yourself, they prevent remote direct linking:

http://www.rx7club.com/showpost.php?...6&postcount=20

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miguez

Oops, unauthorized image linking...

miguez

Here we go: RX7Club.com - View Single Post - Pictures of my LS1 T56 build (final product)

miguez

Yep, very flat. That means it's more likely now that the difference then is not down to torque.

wellarmed

There have been a couple of new owner/forum participants here with little to no drag strip experience, simply drive out to their local track and record 13.3/105+mph numbers.
They even scanned and showed their time slips. These aren't fantasy performances. That being said... I don't see how a (albeit steller) lone performance of 13.1@108 is "impossible".
The 13.3s at 106 have been documented. That's a fact and if you factor it in, another -.2 sec/+2mph is in the range of just being a everything came together event as far as track and weather conditions.
Anybody with alot of actual drag racing experience knows how much of a factor track conditions can make. Huge. And when it all comes together it can be surprising.
I do not expect that this kind of performance is going to be the norm but there are just too many variables to compare tests that weren't even done on the same track under the same conditions and by different people.

I think rather than argue what is possible or not... just wait and see. I believe that simple bolt-on intake and exhaust mods have the rear wheel dyno numbers over 300 and the real world performance capabilities of these cars will start to show up pretty quickly now that spring is here and some of these are starting to go to the local tracks.

t-ray

105mph for an auto - I'll buy. 106mph... maybe. In excellent conditions. But 108mph is just not realistic. 108mph and 106mph are a long way away - 2mph in the big end is a huge difference.

The only way a mag is gonna get 108mph out of this car is if they were testing 1400 feet instead of 1320, and that 108mph was measured at the very end. In the real world, there isn't going to be a single 7AT 370z driven from the showroom floor to any legit 1/4 track in this country and average 108ph over the last 66 feet of the track.

I haven't driven the 370z yet, but I've had my VQ35DE down the 1/4 over 300 times. My wife has done it over 100 times, and probably close to 50 times in her HR.

wellarmed

I agree that 2 mph is a big diff. Being passed by another car at the finish line that is going 2 mph faster doesn't leave any doubt as to who's in charge at that moment.

My only point is (and I have thousands of quarter mile passes in everything from 13 seconds to 7 seconds), weather and track conditions could account for such a difference. If legit 106 mph runs have been made at a density altitude of 2000' (which is probably about average and would certainly not be considered undesirable) and the 108 mph run was made at a sea level/60* temp with a 10mph tailwind... there's your difference.

I don't recall that the people doing this 13.1/108 performance stated exactly what the conditions were or where they actually performed their test so I agree that's a consideration to question.
They also just rounded off those numbers so was it a 107.51 rounded up? I will say that those numbers do match up correctly assuming about a 1.9 60'.

I don't want to sound like I think that these cars are going to be laying down 108 mph runs on a regular basis. I guess my point is... just because somebody may have done it, doesn't mean that there's some kind of fairy dusting monkey business going on.

I will agree however that the validity of all these different test results are open to question concerning just how they were measuring the numbers. I actually don't believe any of these 0-60 numbers as being truely accurate. 60' times on a drag strip...yes. 0-60 mph measured in tenths of a sec.... no.

If these quarter mile times were done on a NHRA cert drag strip using the same equipment that would be used at a sanctioned race, then there isn't any room for argument. On the other hand.... if the guy was just looking at the speedo....

t-ray

All good points. However, this article was in C&D, and the test procedures for C&D are published and well known.

Most of the time metrics are not collected at a sanctioned track - they are collected whereever the opportunity presents. And the timings are tracked with a unit called a VBOX. I can't remember the technical details, but C&D had quite an interesting article detailing the testing equipment several years back. From what I recall, the unit was very accurate - accurate for figures like ET and g's. However, this is a guess here, I would imagine the trap speed figures would be "optimistic" - much like a gtech.

But that's just a guess.

wellarmed

Yea... if that's what they're doing, they might as well be using a stopwatch as far as I'm concerned. I mean how hard is it to use a legit track for that kind of testing. I know the mags used to use Pomona in SoCal all the time.
Anyway..... I would be interested in reading that article because years ago I put a gtech in a Mustang that was running high 11s at the time on slicks. A guy that was marketing them gave me one to try out. I figured the sudden launch of dumping the cluch with slicks was just too much for the thing to deal with because the results were not even close to accurate.
I wouldn't doubt that that type of equipment is better now but I would have to see identical numbers repeated on a track with real timers to confirm before I'll believe what amounts to a g-meter/calculator can 'figure' down to 1/10s of sec/mph with repeatable accuracy.
Maybe someone with real life experience of doing that can chime in.

Anyway...... real 106s are being produced and what I'm really interested in seeing are some real track numbers from one with the new long intake and exhaust combinations. If the Stillen intake with pullys and HFC makes as much power on the track as claimed on the dyno I think we'll be seeing some 108s (or more) that won't be debatable.

Lug

This looks typical to what I've seen. Some like Dynojets will read up to 320.

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