[scathing]

I remember seeing an ad on the US Infiniti web site regarding the G35 (which is a V35 Skyline), and there was a G35x model which had an adaptive AWD system.

It acts pretty much like the ATTESSA system found in the GT-Rs, which means it can vary the torque load from 100% rear to a 50:50 split.

I hadn't considered it too much until recently, when I was reading a thread on HICAS on Skylines Australia, when they mentioned the current Stagea. Looking at the pictures of the suspension (which is identical to a Z33's) I was reminded of the old dream to make my 350Z AWD.

Have a look at the Infiniti G35 site, and under Dynamic Highlights check the "Intelligent all wheel drive", or the Nissan Japan Stagea page, and choose the menu with "ET-S".


Just think: with this drivetrain and an APS TT kit, you'll put out a fair amount more power than a Porsche 996 Turbo, perhaps equal levels of grip with a tyre and coilover upgrade, and marginally more weight.

At the very least, it would still be classed as a sleeper as your average WRX STi would no longer be in the running, and you could go hunting Euro supercars.


I don't know if I'd want to ruin the "purity" of RWD on my car (I know the drivetrain runs 100% rear around a corner until you apex and get back on the throttle, but there's still the matter of all that excess weight up the front of the car) but I'd get so much power-on grip in return.....

 

[Barzten1]

I would be totally down.. Is it possible and how much to do it?

 

[toykilla]

count me in!

 

[westpak]

Since having the Greddy TT kit and getting stuck spinning tires as an STI pulled away, YES I have thought about AWD and wish I could do it if there is a way to retrofit it on the Z I would love to.

 

[scathing]

There are only 2 major engineering issues I can see with doing it so far.

1. The 350Z's wheelbase is shorter than the Skyline / Stagea's, so depending on how the driveline in the G35x is set up the parts may not be a straight swap

2. Where do the front driveshafts connect to the driveline? Are the manifolds / turbos going to get in the way?

It would definitely have to be turbo. The 350Z with light bolt-ons doesn't have the power to overwhelm the chassis as it is; 4WD won't bring any benefits except in low-grip conditions (which is very rare in Australia, and its not like I'll be very welcome moving in to Vail any time soon ). In fact, it'd probably degrade performance with more driveline loss, more total weight, and more weight at the front axles.


I don't even want to know how much it would cost (how many wrecked G35x's or Stageas are there floating around? Buying the parts brand new from Nissan would probably cost as much as the car), but in performance terms it'd be worth it. And I'd feel much more confident and happy using the APS kit's 427rwhp if my "traction control system" reacts to rear wheel slip by sending power to the front, rather than just closing the throttle and being a party pooper.

I'm less likely to do my current process of turning off the TCS as soon as I get in the car, anyway.

 

[lionkiller]

Originally posted by westpak@Jun 18 2005, 08:31 AM
Since having the Greddy TT kit and getting stuck spinning tires as an STI pulled away, YES I have thought about AWD and wish I could do it if there is a way to retrofit it on the Z I would love to.

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WHAT?!? No more 100 ft. burnouts?!?!?

:rolf2:



I guess if it sticks better, doesn't lose too much power to the wheels.....

 

[mchapman]

Scathing, I have a best motoring video in which they drive a 350z with a GTR engine and driveline. Because the 350z weighs so much in stock form when you combine this with the weight of the GTR motor and 4WD system it becomes very heavy. The car was setup for rallying and they still liked it but thought it needed a bit more power.

I would not build one because of the weight increase.

 

[Nis350ZTT]

I'd build one. With more weight comes the need for more power, the need for more power can be handled by AWD. I would love to see the look on an Evo 8/STi owner when a 350Z outlanches him and gets 2-3 car lengths on him.

 

[mchapman]

I think selling your Zed and buying a R34 GTR would be more cost effective.

You can get a few year old one for $70K AUD.

 

[Nis350ZTT]

Originally posted by mchapman@Jun 19 2005, 01:59 AM
I think selling your Zed and buying a R34 GTR would be more cost effective.

You can get a few year old one for $70K AUD.

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Skylines in the U.S. are tons tougher to get legal. As long as you don't touch $30k on this project it would be worth it.

 

[mr rizk]

It would be awsome but IMHO not cost effective. Rather buy another car with the mula

 

[scathing]

Originally posted by mchapman@Jun 19 2005, 03:59 PM
I think selling your Zed and buying a R34 GTR would be more cost effective.

True, but the same could be said about buying an APS TT Z33.

Assuming you TT'ed a Track model, you'd have $10,000 to spend on your R34. That will get you some serious power-up.

On that note, buying a 35th Anniversary Z and popping on a new exhaust and filter would get you within a couple of grand of your R34 GT-R, but nowhere near it in terms of performance.

 

[scathing]

Originally posted by mchapman@Jun 19 2005, 10:57 AM
Because the 350z weighs so much in stock form when you combine this with the weight of the GTR motor and 4WD system it becomes very heavy. The car was setup for rallying and they still liked it but thought it needed a bit more power.

The RB26DETT is a cast iron inline 6. Its going to be a lot heavier than a VQ35DETT, and given its length it will put more mass in front of the front axles.

I was planning on keeping the VQ35DE and running a TT kit on that, along with the 4WD system. No doubt its heavier, but boost makes up for it.

A GT(s)T weighs less than a GT-R too, but I don't think anyone's disputing which of the two is kind of the Skyline heap.


Anyway, it'd be interesting. It would cost a fair amount (I'd pretty much have to pull apart a "donor" car for the driveline) but would be one of those, "its different and cool" projects, rather than the expensive and stupidly undrivable projects that get around.

 

[Nis350ZTT]

I don't think we want to get into best bang for the buck. We all know that a 1000cc, 500lbs or less motorcyle is the best bang for your buck vehicle there is, and probably ever will be.

 

[westpak]

Originally posted by MR RIZK@Jun 19 2005, 01:51 AM
It would be awsome but IMHO not cost effective. Rather buy another car with the mula

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Yeah but how many of us do the cost effective method.

 

[mchapman]

Originally posted by scathing+Jun 19 2005, 07:58 AM-->

<!--QuoteBegin-mchapman

@Jun 19 2005, 03:59 PM
I think selling your Zed and buying a R34 GTR would be more cost effective.

True, but the same could be said about buying an APS TT Z33.

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Not really, If your considering a 350z then you don't mind about not having an AWD system, so I wouldn't call a GTR more cost effective in that scenario, its about the same. Similar power for a similar price.

If your converting a 350z to TT and to 4WD then I would consider a GTR more cost effective.

But as westpak mentioned correctly, not much we do is cost effective. Only a few of my mods have been cost effective and NONE of my mods from here on in will be cost effective. So please please ignore my comments and don't let me deter you.


Question:
Have you seen the best motoring with the Amuse 350z?

This is a awesome car with only 308ps output (they now have a 350ps version). The professional driver reviewing the car did not think the 350z needed AWD when setup like Amuse had it. If your after 4WD like grip, I would be trying to duplicate Amuses setup on my car to achieve similar results.

This option is not cost effective either, but at least you can buy all the parts and install them easily.

If you havnt seen this clip I will copy it off as it definatly worth watching.

 

[scathing]

Originally posted by mchapman@Jun 20 2005, 10:33 AM
Question:
Have you seen the best motoring with the Amuse 350z?

This is a awesome car with only 308ps output (they now have a 350ps version). The professional driver reviewing the car did not think the 350z needed AWD when setup like Amuse had it. If your after 4WD like grip, I would be trying to duplicate Amuses setup on my car to achieve similar results.

This option is not cost effective either, but at least you can buy all the parts and install them easily.

I've seen the Tuned Z battle, but not one specifically on the Amuse vehicle.

That said though, 308ps at the tyres isn't anywhere near 427hp at the tyres. 350ps is still a fair way off. And that's on APS's base setting - I wouldn't settle for "only" 430rwhp.

If I had the budget, I'd rebuild the bottom end with something a lot stronger and lighter (while keeping approximately the same compression ratio) and a mild cam grind. With a full replacement ECU and a decent bottom end, I should be able to run more than the 9psi that APS limited themselves to for the dyno run they publish while keeping much of the VQ35DE's response and low to mid range.

 

[mchapman]

The Amuse one is different to the tuned Zed battle and looks like it would have beaten all those cars there even at their base power output. The car weighed only weighed 1330kg with driver by using carbon panels etc. I believe this weight might have been with driver as most of the weight they publish are with driver ie normal 350z is at ~1550kg.

One idea which is floating around in my head as a possiblily if I get bored of a built NA setup is a higher compression turbo setup. JGTC race cars run high compression like ~12.5:1 motors with turbo, Nizpro turbocharged a 355 Spider which has something like 11.5:1 and you can get turbo kits for other 11:1 compression cars though they do run low boost. Forged motor, Motec, low boost, accurate cylinder filling and adequate cooling would be the key components here.

A possible downside i see to running a Zed with such high power levels is that you loose the ability to go flat out or almost flat for most of a hard drive. Because there is so much power your cant keep the throttle open all the way for much of the drive because that much power would make you spin most of the time. You'd be at the edge of loosing control at just 30% throttle so you'd be ***** footing the accelerator just to stay on the road which doesnt sound as much fun as going flat out pedal to the floor for alot more of the drive. So you may loose some of the fun factor at such high power outputs.

Your AWD system would fix this for the most part though.

 

[scathing]

Boost controllers are your friend.

In my "budgetless setup", I was going to have a MoTeC with multiple maps. For tooling around town, I'd have an "economy" map, which would pull some timing out of it, run it slightly leaner than stock (but not much), and run the turbos at 1-2psi peak boost. Set the VTC controllers to bolster the midrange, and set it up to run as fuel efficiently as possible.

It would just feel like a fit factory 350Z, so if you accidentally flexed your right foot or get stuck in busy traffic and get dirty, hot air into your CAI and over your heat exchangers, you won't blow something up.

For "street" sports, maybe I'd tune it a bit harder and run it on 7-8psi. So it would make a little more power than what ZTRACK's car is making (with the mild cam upgrade), which might even be too much. If so, drop the boost some more to keep it drivable.


Then, for track work, I'd have the car tuned "perfectly" and making maximum power.


(This is on a 2WD assumption; if I had the ET-S system I'd probably run 3-4psi on "economy" and 8psi wouldn't be too much on "street sports".)

 

[mchapman]

I remember Peter mentioning that the lowest the APS kit could run is about 6-7psi, i think it was the wastegate springs or actuator which was responible (dont quote me though). With modifications you could get it to run lower settings but then I dont know how it would go with your higher level plans. Some compromise may need to be made here but even at 6psi with a very conservative tune with alot of timing removed, good tyres and a lower final drive ratio it would be considerably safer to drive around in than your max output map.