[harryw]

Happen to see a little note in yesterdays paper saying that Nisshit in the UK are releasing a powered up Z to commemorate the launch of Gran Turismo 4.

Apparently the power has been increased to to 221kW.

No news if it is coming here.

As always

H

 

[mchapman]

Thats the same output as the new track model 350z's in the states, so I wouldnt really consider it commermorative of GT4 as it was already released in another country.

 

[scathing]

And its the same power output as the Nismo S-Tune GT Fairlady Z, so I doubt too much "extra" R&D has gone into it.

 

[Dissident]

As longas they don't come out with the "fast and furious" arcade 350z with a supercharger sticking out of the hood.... Saw the game at the theater today and almost wanted to cry when I saw the Z....

 

[mchapman]

The S-Tune GT 350z is supposedly underrated, so its 220kw isnt indicative of its actual performance. The non-nismo 220kw 350z gets the extra power from different cams, pistons and the addition of variable valve exhaust timing and the S-Tune GT gets its from various changes like intake, cams etc.

Another interesting point is I believe that the Non-Nismo 220kw 350z also has stronger rods.

 

[mickyboy]

I think it is amazing that all these mods cams, pistons, intake, etc only produce 220kw (at flywheel I presume). Goes to show how tuned the standard 206kw zed is!

To do all those mods, like the Nismo S-tune and only add 14kw WTF!

Like I said before, suspension tuning is where most of the gains are to be made in the zed. Not raw horsepower, although more would be great, but reduction in lap times.

 

[mchapman]

Well if Honda can get 185kw from their 2L mill in the S2000 then I think Nissan can tune more than 220kw out of their 3.5 liters. They obviously dont want to put any more money into it.

You can get alot more power out of the VQ35 its just expensive.

 

[mickyboy]

Yeah, that's my point. It's making alot of power out of the factory now.
Any car company or even person can get more out of an engine but at what cost?
The Nismo S tune package would cost how much, maybe 7-8K to get just 14kw!
the VQ engine is almost at it's limit unless we spend big $$.
7-8K (non FI mods) would not give substantial gains in performance down the qtr mile or even on the track. But 2K suspension mods (maybe even less) would probably give the car greater improvements in track times but almost nothing in the qtr mile.

 

[mchapman]

The Nismo S tune package would cost how much, maybe 7-8K to get just 14kw!

The S Tune package is supposed to be understated so that 14kw doesnt show the full performance gains. And I believe the NISMO S-Tune package is more like around the $12k mark not imported. I do think however that this package is at the extreme end of the list of mods to get more power from your 350z and I dont consider it worth the money. You could get more power for less by organising these or different mods yourself.

the VQ engine is almost at it's limit unless we spend big $$.

I dont believe the VQ35 is at its limit, it might be more expensive to get alot more power out of it but thats just because its a well designed japanese na tuned engine. It was never going to get the kind of gains that a turbo motor or old American V8 would. But for a NA tuned japanese engine to get the gains we do from exhaust, cams and ecu etc its actually quite good, if our engine was at its limit im sure the gains we do get would be greatly reduced or non existant.

7-8K (non FI mods) would not give substantial gains in performance down the qtr mile or even on the track. But 2K suspension mods (maybe even less) would probably give the car greater improvements in track times but almost nothing in the qtr mile.

This might be correct but unless your own a race car track times arent the only thing you need to think about. If thats all you think about and you do concentrate on suspension mods then the suspension you end up with wont be very good on the roads as a daily driver.

I think its better to look at the car as a whole and modify accordingly, improving areas that need attention, focusing on one particular area is never going to be as effective.

 

[mickyboy]

Shite, I didn't know the Nismo package would cost that much!

"But for a NA tuned japanese engine to get the gains we do from exhaust, cams and ecu etc its actually quite good, if our engine was at its limit im sure the gains we do get would be greatly reduced or non existant."

What gains do we get from the above???
Not much for the $$ involved.

 

[scathing]

Originally posted by mchapman@Jan 10 2005, 02:43 AM
Well if Honda can get 185kw from their 2L mill in the S2000 then I think Nissan can tune more than 220kw out of their 3.5 liters. They obviously dont want to put any more money into it.

Rumours are that the next GT-R will run a VQ.

Since that's going to be their flagship car, and the GT-R will be FI, they're probably thinking that they'll just throw most of the R&D budget into that engine instead of at the NA version.

As for the VQ35DE, 206kW is nothing for a 3.5L engine. The M3's powerplant pumps out 250kW at 3.2L. Porsche squeezes out 240kW out of their 3.6L. If the VQ35DE in the Z33 is in a "highly tuned" state, then it goes to show how inherently bad the design of the engine is.

I'd hazard to say that there's plenty of power left in the VQ35DE, even leaving it in NA form. The fact that the torque curve is so flat shows that Nissan has tuned the engine for a wide spread of torque. And as anyone who's seen a Honda VTEC engine's torque curve, if you're chasing a high specific power figure your torque curve tends to be a bit hillier than the Nullabor-like delivery of the Z33.

There was a Best Motoring video floating around, with tuned Z33's, where one of the companies had rebuilt the internals as well as tuning the engine and pushed out 250kW from the motor. Nismo has a full, pretty much race, rebuild and tune package which ups the compression to 14.0:1, but develops 450hp.

I wouldn't want to try running that engine on Australia's pump gas, though.

 

[mickyboy]

Yep, there is probably alot of room for improvement in the VQ engine, but my point is at what price? $15-25K extra would be alot of moula for a zed. Our cars have been built to a price (just look at the interior plastics!) & that magical japanese 206kw ceiling which has just been dropped by the Japanese authorities. So maybe we will see higher outputs in the years to come & higher prices (which is inevitable) as well.