Former Z Owner's Rant about the 370z
 

I know this forum is visited by many prospective owners that can't help but continuously wonder what are the pros and cons of buying a 370z. I sold my Z this evening and before the sadness and longing are washed away by the fact that "its just a car" I want to share my 3 year experience. Before anyone goes ahead and flames me understand this, I modded the Z to the peak of its N/A power potential. I built the one and possibly only complete carbon fiber Z and I enjoyed the reaction is brought about. So here is my rant.

The Z is a great car but the tuning potential for N/A is underwhelming. Barring a crazy gain by the JUN Camshafts, you will not get 350whp from the Z with all bolt-ons and a tune, you might not even get 340whp. Now that doesn't mean that the car isn't fast, the balance considerable lightweight design help a lot. However, with that said, the Z will not catch an M3, a tuned Cayman S, a tune 135i/1M etc. etc. etc. Those wanting to be Street King, go forced induction but be ready to pony up $$$$.

Today is probably the first time in almost 2.5 years I drove a completely stock Z. Honestly, it felt like it wasn't mine anymore. A stock Z...its too soft. The exhaust tone is not as good as the 350z or Infiniti G and the torque, well its not neck snapping.

The Z is a nice sports car. It is meant for the more hardcore sports car fanatics, if you want luxury get a BMW or Infiniti. It will outperform the 135i in every aspect except a straight line. The best compliment I can pay a 370z is that it reminded me of Nissan's version of the e46 M3.

All in all, I will miss my Z but I will not get another one. It is a great car and had I kept it I surely would have spent a lot more $$$$ into forced induction especially a GTM twin S/C or TT setup. I will still be on the forum and still consider myself a Z expert, even if I am regulated to a Camry for the foreseeable future. :tiphat:

TBH, I suped up my past cars. This car is mainly my weekend cruising car. Not so much making my car a fart can tbh

To each their own! I am perfectly happy with the amount of power the Z offers. I am not into modding but if I ever go that route, the most I will probably do are just the bolt-ons. I have no need for TT or SC. As a DD, my stock Z is already enough, power-wise.

I couldn't agree with this post more, although I have intakes and may get a tune soon.

But I find the power offered by the Z is enough to enjoy on public roads, while offering tracking potential. But I know people who wish it had more power without needing FI.

NY, I'm glad you're sticking around. :D

WOW...... I'm guessing you dropped some serious money to have an all out CF Z. So what exactly made you want to sale the Z? I know you can put the Z back to stock & sell it & sell the parts for a fraction of the price, but at least your making something off of it. In your honest opinion was it actually worth spending all that money modding the car & eventually selling it?

I am a little sad & hurt by hearing that " will not catch an M3, a tuned Cayman S, a tune 135i/1M etc. etc. etc." Psch..... Cayman S is weak, we need to talk about is the Cayman R....jk. I was hoping for a good run, but not racing of course......that is completely bad. I'm just bs here. Those cars are in a different league completely & only a fool would try something & even if there stock good luck with that (1M, M3......).

For me I am happy with my Nismo. Yeah I am going to put a full exhaust system that I am waiting to arrive middle of next month & will eventually put a CAI in. That will be it for me....HOPEFULLY & pretty sure about it. Yeah it is nice to see cars all fixed up (better them than me), but at what cost. If you get your ride totaled you are going to be stuck like chuck. You can try telling your insurance company that I have this much in the car & see if they will adjust the value & if so you will be paying more of a premium.

It was a lot of fun while it lasted I loved the total CF look, it wasn't for everyone but it was always a highlight of many of the NY Import Meets. My rant isn't about not getting $ back for the parts. Frankly, I made a good return but the sound of the Fast Intentions Long Tube Headers + GTHaus Meisterschaft exhaust was priceless.

It seems there are two classes of Z owners. The daily drivers who are happy with the well balance all around solid car and the tuners who always want more. I was in the later class.

Nice......very nice to hear that you made a good return. The exhaust that I am waiting for is the GTHaus Meisterschaft exhaust. I decided to go with all three sections. So if you had to-do it all over again would you do it again, & if so what would you do differenly?

I would argue that the reason there is little tuning potential is that Nissan did proper engineering to wring out every ounce of performance possible from the platform.
If a car has lots of HP that is easily accessible, that just means it wasn't designed as well as it could have been from the beginning.

I think the gripe is the amount of money you need to throw in for mods to see huge gains. I totally see your point, $1200 or more for an exhaust and seeing only 10hp-18hp can be a bit disappointing. I look at it this way though, the guys in the M3, Cayman, etc are probably shelling out a ton more $$$$ for mods. It's just the nature of most N/A cars that have been pretty much pushed near the limits out of the box. To be fair, the guys in the M3, Cayman etc, already 'paid' for the 'Street King' title when they bought the car. Cost wise, a TT 370z probably still comes out less expensive than an M3 or Cayman and will probably be faster. IMO the only way a N/A 370 is going to get over the 350hp mark(@ the wheels) is if they go with direct injection or crack the VVEL. Niether of which is happening anytime soon. You have it right though, and it really depends on how much money you want to spend and what you really use or want the car to be.

Tell the Mustang and Vette guys that they get huge bang for the buck on bolt ons. I think VVEL both maximizes gains and limits potential future gains. Fact of the matter is if you buy the Z and you are going into the purchase happy with the power then that's great. If you buy the Z and want to tune it and get more, well expect to pay big bucks. In comparison the Evo's, STi's, and n54 BMW's need far less and get far more because of their turbo setup. I still wouldn't take any of those cars though.

The only thing I would do differently is pick a very very very reliable installer for my headers. I don't want to say who I used as they have a reputation as a well to do shop but upon uninstall we found prolific amounts of liquid gasket which was a huge pain in the @$$ for my mechanic to remove.

Totally agree. Hypothetically, if I saw a 50whp gain by swapping out a few intake tubes, I would probably be going :wtf:

Those two N/A engines have a lot of advatages from the get go. V8, larger displacement, larger aftermarket supplier sources, etc. If it comes down to cost, you either pay for it up front or during the build. You're already spending big bucks if you buy a vette for example. I think we can all agree an unlimited bank account would probably solve all our problems.

I think it's unrealistic to expect big bolt-on gains out of an N/A 3.7L V6. IMO, going from ~270whp stock to over 315 whp with bolt-ons is pretty strong from a motor this size.

If you really expect anything significantly beyond that you're just kidding yourself and should be getting a pushrod V8 (read: LS series) instead.

well, good thing the car wasn't made just for you. :icon17:

370Z in stock form is fine. it is quiet so an exhaust swap is probably a good idea for some folks. i really dont think the car was really made for youngsters looking for power. it's a coupe for the adult crowd who's kinda done with superchargers, turbos, ecu tuning, etc and just want a nice weekend fun car that runs well in stock/near stock form.

Its a beautiful day in NY, I miss the Fairlady :(

:tup: :tup:......... Absolutely

I respect the opinions here BUT...

My thing is this... when you buy a Z, you know you are buying a NATURALLY-ASPIRATED V6. What do you really expect from bolt ons? Torque underwhelming??? Ok, if you have 332hp and 270lbs of torque. You are not going to get neck snapping torque easily with a 62hp deficit on tthe torque.
Any serious tuner that has been around v8's and v6's knows turbo is the only way to go with an NA v6 if 1/4miles and top speeds are your main goals.
If I had a gripe it would only be the cost of modding a Z. Every aftermarket part comes with an azzrape surcharge.
Also, we sometimes don't know a cars full potential, not because of a limited budget, but because we will chose mods according to taste or apprearance and not functionality in some cases.
Its no porsche because nissan spent the price on the whole Z in the chassis alone. Its no M3 cuz its not a turbo 6 or V8 depending on your year.
That's just me... maybe I'm too rational and less emotional about my expectations from the Z. At 40k we can't have our cake and eat it too. If there was a turbo model for our Z's? It would start @ 44k for the base model you know today. 55k would be an optioned Z. that price range attracts more american and german sports car buyers than japanese ones. That's why we didn't get it.
Maybe R&D will give us a nicely equipped turbo Z with 400hp @ sub 40k? But I heavily doubt it for $40k. If it was that easy? Camaros and mustangs would be FI at the Z price range too.

That's just me though... good luck blades and you definately had a hot Z.
:tup:

^ Naturally Aspirated ;)

In the back of my mind I know there are other faster cars cruising around but where I live the 370 is seen so rarely it feels like an exotic. If I owned a 135i or an sti it would only be about modding the **** out of it so I could compete with all the other 135's and sti's.

With the Z I feel I can take my time, the mods actually mean more than just getting the car to be faster, finding a perfect exhaust note or adding that evo-r rear diffusor are things I never would have considered on other cars because I felt it wouldn't have mattered.

Maybe I'm just settling for something slower... I just feel that if it were a "street king" or some cheaper turbo car the obsession with blindly dumping money into it would be greater because it would be so much less about the total package and more about being the fastest drag racer around.

sucks man. Not to be a ****, but odds are unless you used dry CF most of your cf pieces were heavier than the aluminum you replaced.

And im not sure how you can be upset for a NA v6 making "only" about 340 whp modded. that's insanely good for a NA6.... and not sure how you wouldnt see this coming? Try owning a s2k... you can throw 10k at that thing and barely pickup 25whp over stock(staying NA).

Whats next?

damn... you are a slow learner... this is like the 2nd or 3rd time. :shakes head: :icon17: :rofl2:

How much weight did you shave off with all your carbon fiber modding?

:bowrofl::bowrofl::bowrofl:

Its not just that I found the torque underwhelming, its the fact that its extremely high up in the power. I found myself always have to reach for it, frustrating. The Z is great for what it is but considering that we are the "evolution" of the 350z and HR motors are showing great torque gains after F.I. whereas we are not (damn you VVEL), I guess in hindsight I wanted a little more. 350whp sounds much nicer than 33x.xx whp. My CF pieces weighed less than my stockers, not saying the OEM pieces aren't already stupid light but CF was still lighter, add a braille batter and I don't think I could have shaved anymore without going full racecar.

Just sounds like it wasn't the right fit for you. Sometimes that happens. And sometimes you just need more than one car to keep you happy.

Wait a minute....the Z is NON-ASPIRATED that explains everything :facepalm:

Sad be damn true...

Ur a real champion G. :ugh2:

btw, we're just kidding. :p

Perhaps, I mean its easy to find all the gripes with the car after its gone. I still stand by my assertion that the Z is a great car and I loved having one but I didn't love it say as much as I loved my 2004 Mustang GT. It was a fun ride while it lasted.

Its so easy to dissect a word and feel like a G in writing. Ok the second half of that is V6. V6 usually will either give you average torque and high HP. Or it will give you average hp and good torque.
When the Z33 first came out. It was balanced with 287 hp and 280lbs of torque, but nissan decided to play HP wars, now the engine as it was very balanced and pulling a lot of power with the original tune, but over time each new tune either added better quarter times or better 0-60. It was hard to get both because the VQ was maxed out from the onset.
You can use bolt ons for different applications and pull pretty high numbers. But its hard to get that necksnapping power out of such a small powerplant.
This is why BMW opted for the 3.0 with the turbo. Its a better balance of hp/tq and with fgoing FI you can keep the torque/hp ratio.
The only way to get both hp and high torque on a non asp motor is to go v8 or FI.

.... or not. :icon17: looks like im in unknown's ignore list. :p

Lighten up... :ugh2:

:inoutroflpuke:

I have to agree with this, I mean, did you not understand you were buying a naturally aspirated V6? Huge power gains with bolt-ons just doesn't seem realistic.

The important part is you had fun while it lasted. Good luck bruh. :tiphat:

Mr.kenchan, take it easy on Mr.UNKNOWN_370, it's allergy season right now, anything can't breath thus non-aspirated. :bowrofl: :bowrofl:

Back to the topic. The Z has a 3.7l engine that bunps out 332hp on flywheel. On the book, it's pretty much max out the ability of a production N/A engine.

To extract much more hp from it, unless you race-tune it, and that will cost you a fortune and reduce the lifespan of the engine.

Cheers

Like I said earlier to go from 270 to 315+ is pretty impressive with just simple breathing mods and a tune. :tup:

For reference, the 4.6L 3-Valve V8s in the older Mustangs typically dynoed 315-330whp with intake, exhaust, and tune. Keep things in perspective and the 3.7 is fairly impressive.

Perspective is the operative word, of course. If you expect to to behave like an LSX when you cam it... you're in for nothing but disappointment!

To Me My Z
 

is my weekend and cruising car. Its looks, now that I have new wheels and tires, maKE IT MORE ENJOYABLE. I might add more in the future but now am very satisfied especially since its not my daily driver. Thats the key for me. I really enjoy taking her out. The feel ,looks everything.

^^ I feel exactly the opposite. It wasn't my daily driver, perhaps that's why I wanted more. When I did drive it, it just didn't give me that giggle. Oh well, Camry ain't gonna give me giggles either. Perhaps the wife will....haha.

Sad to see another Z gone on the Island. I'm also not ashamed to say my $34,000 Z will get out run by a stock $60k+ M3 a modded $50k+ Cayman and a modded $40k+ BMW that looks like a clown car... Just saying.