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I know there will be no shortage of Z's making more than mine but this is my first boosted car and the first engine i have ever built so i'm quite proud of myself. For any one looking to go boosted i highly recommend it if you can do it. The car was built completely by me in my garage, no crazy tools or machining processes and no outside shops aside from the dyno tuner. I am not a mechanic, just a guy who likes cars and likes to tinker.
To start off the front of the car was completely drained of fluids and everything from the license plate to the serpentine belt was cleared away so the engine could be pulled out.
There is a ton of silicone holding these engine together, its often hard to tell if you missed a bolt or if the silicone is just keeping it glued together.
Even with ample table space the engine still took up a ton of real estate. At this point i wasn't sure if she would ever run again.
The pistons and cylinders were quite clean even with 105k on the motor. A simple ball hone in a hand drill put a nice new finish on cylinder walls.
Wiseco pistons and eagle rods go together quite nicely. Filling down all the piston rings takes quite a bit longer than i thought it would.
Bottom end rebuilt with the new pistons, ACL bearings, ARP hardware and tons of lube.
I made a simple tool from pipe to take the valves out so everything could be cleaned and reassembled with new valve seals.
The Z1 motor mounts are much nicer than the stock ones and hold the engine very firmly. I also used the Z1 transmission mount and differential bushings so the whole drive train is ready for the power of boost.
Boost incoming! T trim blower for a little extra power over the SCI trim and its a V2 so it needs an oil feed and return line. The V2 requires a little more work to install than V3's , but once its in you dont have to worry about changing the supercharger fluid and engine oil separately.
After reading stories about Vortech users suffering from belt slip i added an extra pulley to increase belt wrap on the jackshaft pulley.
Vortech's included intercooler will definitely work but when compared side by side with a mishimoto unit you can see just how much less restriction the mishimoto will have. The stock Vortech air filter lives in the engine bay and will suck up tons of hot air, to fix this i relocated an AEM filter to sit in front of the radiator.
Dyno day! im happy to report it was an uneventful morning and the engine absolutely screams!
The Nismo style bumper doesn't lend itself well to flowing a ton of air for the intercooler but at least it looks nice, despite being super dirty.
Fancy Paint editing skills at work here. The light purple and bright red are HP and Torque representations of the dyno graph from when the car was tuned before rebuilding and boosting the engine. The dark red and dark blue lines are the new HP and Torque after rebuilding and boosting.
Peak power is up by 138hp and shes making a whole mountain more torque which makes her much more lively when you pin the throttle wide open. You'll also notice that below 2500 rpm's the old NA engine actually made more power. Down at the low rpm's the Vortech isn't making boost and the lower compression 8.8 pistons cant keep up with the stock 10.3's
For those of you that are curious as to what all has been done to the car ill list that all below, other than that let me know what you think!
Vortech T Trim V2 Supercharger
2.87 pulley
Mishimoto intercooler
AEM airfilter
75mm Throttle body
Viton valve seals
HKS head gasket
Wiseco 8.8 pistons
Eagle rods
ACL main and rod bearings
ARP main, rod, flywheel and head bolts
Exedy clutch and ACS lightweight flywheel
Z1 motor mounts, transmission mounts and differential bushings
Z1 light weight crank pulley
NGK spark plugs(one step colder)
DC Sports short tube headers
Berk High Flow Cats
DNA motoring dual exit cat back exhaust
Walbro 255LPH pump
Bosch 630cc injectors
Haltech Platinum Pro Plug-in ECU
All timing gear and seals are OEM new replacements. Its a big list of parts but I've been saving up for the build and collecting parts for nearly 18 months to make the car what it is now and i couldn't be happier!
it would be wise to move your oil cooler to behind your intercooler
If you ware looking for more than 400hp you will need bigger injectors and bigger fuel pump. Your build will easily hold 600hp if you can spin the blower that fast!
There are a handful of other big vortech builds on here so definitely check them out!
(Nothing against you what-so-ever) The DE engine gets a bad wrap for being less powerful but for what you can do with 8 to 10psi and how good the engine is mechanically, (aforementioned) how easy it is to build / rebuild and plethora of parts I dont understand why people trash on it.
Nice post with good pics. It also got me wondering what you've done with your Z outside the engine build. With 105K miles on it, the brakes, tires, and suspension could use an upgrade as well.
Nice work and all solid choices for your build. One question though- when my V3 VQ35DE went on the dyno, my hi-flow Berks came out the exhaust as Rice Krispies. (tuner set rev limit at 7500). How are yours holding up?
Nice work and all solid choices for your build. One question though- when my V3 VQ35DE went on the dyno, my hi-flow Berks came out the exhaust as Rice Krispies. (tuner set rev limit at 7500). How are yours holding up?
How rich was that tune? HFC shouldn't struggle with a supercharger.
How rich was that tune? HFC shouldn't struggle with a supercharger.
Honestly dunno man. I was not invited to the Dyno testing due to Covid-19.
I'm currently seeing 14.1-14.3 on my AEM wideband, scheduled for a retune after 2.87 pulley change and valet map.
Of course it's possible they wanted better #s for advertising, sell me test pipes which is fine. We will see after the next tune...
Gotcha that sucks, I'm genuinely curious as I have Berks too and will be using a HKS supercharger eventually. I know HKS used their cats on their 500hp supercharged Z so IDK.
it would be wise to move your oil cooler to behind your intercooler
If you ware looking for more than 400hp you will need bigger injectors and bigger fuel pump. Your build will easily hold 600hp if you can spin the blower that fast!
There are a handful of other big vortech builds on here so definitely check them out!
(Nothing against you what-so-ever) The DE engine gets a bad wrap for being less powerful but for what you can do with 8 to 10psi and how good the engine is mechanically, (aforementioned) how easy it is to build / rebuild and plethora of parts I dont understand why people trash on it.
I had the cooler after the intercooler and the poor thing started to cook back there so i put it in front of the intercooler. Id rather have higher intake temps over burnt oil any day lol
The build can definitely support more power, the blower is being over spun at redline right now so im really only limited by the blower, but that upgrade will have to wait until i get bored of 400hp
Nice post with good pics. It also got me wondering what you've done with your Z outside the engine build. With 105K miles on it, the brakes, tires, and suspension could use an upgrade as well.
The brakes are new oem, i had to replace them to pass inspection just the other month. As for suspension the previous owner took care of that already! She has Tokico shocks, Tein springs, Hotchkis sway bars and all the factory suspension has solid urethane bushings. The wheels could use some work though, i like my TSW Sebring rims but the tires are just General Max's, 225 front and 245 rear. The shop i got my engine tune had a 350Z rolling on 265 front and an astounding 305 in the back without a wide body kit. The shop owner said they had to do a little cutting to make that work, im not looking to go quite that extreme.
Nice work and all solid choices for your build. One question though- when my V3 VQ35DE went on the dyno, my hi-flow Berks came out the exhaust as Rice Krispies. (tuner set rev limit at 7500). How are yours holding up?
So far so good but it has only been about 150 miles on boost and another 3000 miles before that without boost. I have heard of several people blowing there Berk cats out the exhaust (after purchasing and installing mine) so i'm already mentally prepared should that day come around. I guess after that they will just be test pipes disguised as cats!
I had the cooler after the intercooler and the poor thing started to cook back there so i put it in front of the intercooler. Id rather have higher intake temps over burnt oil any day lol
The build can definitely support more power, the blower is being over spun at redline right now so im really only limited by the blower, but that upgrade will have to wait until i get bored of 400hp
this is horribly bad logic ... if your oil temps are 200degrees and you are passively blowing 180-200degree hot air past your intercooler, you may as well take the intercooler off the car.
Im sure more people will chime in but I would highly highly highly reconsider your oil cooler placement.
Higher intake temps will cost you power and can lead to detonation. There are 5 other places you can put your oil cooler where it wont negatively impact your intake charge temps!
Congrats on the build and kudos to doing it yourself. Maybe look in to flattening that torque curve, there is still power left on the table!
What resources (reference materials) did you use for your engine build? I need to eventually build my boosted 370, and my 350 revup de is starting to get tired at 130k miles. Being able to do it myself will save some cash as well as giving me the satisfaction of course.. Building a spare block sounds like the perfect winter project too.
Wow, as a relatively new member this build is inspirational. Now you are giving me even more urge to save a little bit and make my Z a bit more oxygen enriched. I will admit still scared of opening my engine
06-20-2020, 04:52 PM
400hp 350z!
