Hi all,

I thought I'd send over the first full race report from the Car and Driver/NoHotWire Nissan 350Z.

It's not often you get to read through the trails and tribulations that a new team goes through learning a new car. Car and Driver Magazine will be doing a full story on this later in the year, but they're done race reports as we progress through our first season.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...challenge.html

BTW, the cars are based in Hayward California if there are any local enthusiasts who are interested.

-Rich

 

Zs seem to be underpowerd in rolex..is it the restrictions ...i heard unitech Zs are also suffering from power issues all seem to need about 30rwhp to stay with the pack. I think the judges better start seeing the light to give the rx8 and porshes some more competetion then the gxprs. The Z should be up there ....maybey a HR variant is needed to make up for the lack of hp with the new gov rules. The rules def dont give the Z no shine.

 

I hear you. The Unitech cars are very well sorted out and that team runs like clockwork. They've really figured out how to run the cars fast, and they have excellent drivers. It's difficult for us to justify why the 350Z needs more HP when they do so well! We have a steep learning curve, but we know where we need to improve and we have solutions for nearly everything. We just need to implement them.

The good news is that the 350Z's have excellent handling vs. the other cars.

Once we implement the 2008 spec ECU (Bosch MS 4.3) we'll be able to re-activate the variable cams and we should have the horsepower to where we won't be left down the front straight.

At this level, you can't leave ANYTHING on the table. We'll be back and significantly faster.

-Rich

 

do you guys update ur site when you guys are running. Im a huge rolex fan getting into the koni scene. so i would def love to record it to watch. ALso do you have any info on ur engine . Im very curious to see how that VQ obtained ur previous hp levels. Is it mainly tuning of ur computer,....thats rather a large gain from what looks to be a fine CPU. Maybey we need this in the tuning world...currently besides a utec a hks fcon is our only tuning method proven extremely effiecient...im curious to how aggressive or powerfull is tht cpu. Seems to be the key to you guys setup.

As totherace..im so tired of seeing that damn rx8 up there ..you have no clue. Everyone knows a rx8 should get eaten alive by the Z in the straights, but in rolex the damn thing weighs near nothing. LOL im dying to see some Zs in the top 10. WIsh there were more races in florida lmao. But thats rolex not koni ....so i gotta tune into that.

But yea do you have any public info on your cars setup.so we can dispaly here from maybeyur website. I love to see the Zs doing what they were intailed to do. TO many drag 1/4 setups these days. Im just mad that 350evo left the scene
with you guys and unitech i hoped to see some podium prowess in the race scene. good luck guys and keep us informed on the schedule i try to record and watch as much as the damn PVR would let me record. Now that ur classes are runnign separrate its much more enjoyable also. GOOD LUCK

question also which vq35 are u using
a reg 287 vq35de or a revup 300 vq. The revup has both exhuast cams and diff plenum and 7k rev. Cant tell from ur pics.

 

The Car & Driver car runs in the Koni Challenge not the Rolex GT series.

 

i know....but its simlilar and isnt it televised also.

 

Car and driver never had alot of positives for the Z but they chose it to be their racecar? wtf

 

Hi Evolved326,

Car and Driver actually like the 350Z. They rated it the highest in its category for the Lightening Lap a number of month ago. Also I've been told the 2003 issue with the 350Z on the cover was their highest selling issue. Ever.

RBLover69,
As for the engine mods we have, we've completly removed the wiring harness. So this is a full on race car with mil spec wiring harness. Hasselgren Engineering did all the work on the engine, including blue printing and balancing to the lightest stock part. The cylinders were hot honned so that they are perfectly round at operating temerature. From there, they had to lock the cams (taking away HP), and tuned the Bosch ECU. This is an $8000 computer that is designed to fully control the engine timing. It's not something that can be put in a street car and still have the Nav system work! ;-) It's a pretty trick.

I'd be happy to provide some setup information once we get it, however, it's really applicable only to race cars as we don't weigh as much, and we're not too concerned about comfort! If you guys are interested, I can post some shots of the interior of the car so you can see what it looks like.

-Rich

 

Hey Rich, it's really cool you're on the boards and giving us some feed back at the same time. The Z is looking good, I just hope you all can really try and stretch the Z's legs some at the next event. But thanks for the feedback!

+1 to pictures.

 

Thanks. We really left a lot on the table, and we know what we need to do to make it faster. We've got a ton of support, now we just need more time in the car. We'll be much faster at the next event. Thanks again!

-Rich

 

Good luck!

 

Thanks for the Info, its pretty cool hearing about what actually goes into a race car, especially one that is so closely based on a production model. Now give us pictures!

 

Maybe you are right.

But the lightening lap thing (as well as the recent comparo they did vs TT and RX8 ect) only shows that the Z is damn quick. Does not mean they liked it because they did not rank the Z too high. The reason the 2003 issue sold well is due to the public's interest in the Z and not because C&D likes the Z and produced more copies.

 

Here's a photo of the driver's side.
Here you can see we've replaced the triple gauge cluster with a BOSCH DDU 4 motorsport display. We've modified the screen a bit to show us RPM across the top, Engine water temp, oil temp, battery volts, gear, oil pressure and fuel pressure.

The left radial switch controls screen brightness. The right is a 'page' button that flips between 6 different screens on the dash, (we have a page for engine 'stats', a page for lap times, fuel consumption since refill, fuel cons by lap, etc. ) The red button is the car to pit radio and the yellow button is the pit speed button. We're going to move that button to the upper right so we can talk on the radio while driving down pit lane. We're also going to add a fuel reset button on the steering wheel.

 

Here's a photo from the passenger side. You can see the race cam, and the Cobra race seat. You can also see more of the cage that Impact Engineering designed. They do great work. This car used to be the yellow anniversary car that Nissan has in all the photos. It used to be yellow, it's not white on the inside. Here you can see the radio and to the right of it, the BOSCH C4 data recorder (above and to the right of the radio box mounted on the side of the transmission) so we can play back every engine function since the last download. If anyone over revs the engine, this is the tattle-tale.



I'll post some more photos.

-Rich

 

Thanks Rich. Nice pics.

 

i thought she was a revup motor but then i seen the headlights of the car anywho with all the mods done to the engine i cant really tell, nice pics btw. Any info on where i can find TV times to record im looking everywhere to record these events my TVR is only recorder grandam rolex series ..i wanna see u guys in action.

 

Look under Koni Challenge schedule.

http://www.grand-am.com/Home.asp

 

Here's another pic from the race. Credit goes to Morgan Segal.