Down here at PR we have a good group of 350z and G35 owners and today we where hanging out after a day at the track (I didn't go, we met afterwards) We were talking about the article in the R&T magazine that had the Motor-Rex and the Stillen cars tested and precisely how much could a set of cams improve the performance of 350Z. We reached a conclusion assuming that the article was genuinely accurate.

Fact: the Stillen car has been tested in several dynos giving almost the same result always about 300 rwhp or more.

Fact: Both did almost THE SAME trap speed in the 1/4. The N/A car did THE FASTEST 0-60mph and did the fastest 1/4 mile times.

Fact: the Stillen car because is the variable that has been tested in several occasions and has given similar results every time, it can make a good point of comparison with other cars tested. No matter the equipment used because two cars (same make and model) with similar hp would perform in a very similar way)

Fact: The Motor-Rex car with the only mods been Flywheel, Pop Charger and cams, it can be assumed WITHOUT a doubt, that the cams where the real power adder to the engine.

Conclusion: The JWT equipped car had to have, if not, almost 300rwhp, or maybe more, and the mod that did almost all that improvement in the hp had to be the cams. How much more? I estimate maybe a conservative 40rwhp. Because with the Pop Charger and the Flywheel we wont see more than 15rwhp, and we are talking about a car that had AT LEAST a 60 to 70 RWHP improvement over stock.

I think that is a good example of what to expect for a good set of cams, and those are the cams I would look forward to install in a near future.

 

Sometimes this get frustrating. When another engine gets cams, they get 80hp but we will get 25hp. When other engines have been turbo'ed such as the Supra, they get 900hp but Greddy is blowing VQ's at about 380rwhp. What gives? Sometimes I am scared to be the first one to bolt on something like a K& N filter or something fearing it might blow it up. Ok, that was carrying it too far but you get the idea. All I want is my Z to put out 400hp at the crank and be able to be tracked a couple of times a year and drive it as a dailly driver. Is that asking too much?

 

Something was fishy to me about that RT write up. The Greddy tt could not break 5 sec 0 to 60, they claimed the Motorex car to be developing 350 hp with just cams flywheel and popcharger, and finally the Stillen car produced poor 0 to 60 numbers as well (5.3 sec. I believe) Damn it really needs an intercooler!
Traction or not all cars produced pretty pathetic numbers. except for motorex. I hope its all BS. If I cant break 5 sec with a $5000 supercharger upgrade I'll just stick with Jim Wolf cams.
Anyone else find that article 'a little off' ?? I just cant believe it!

 

This is what I have been trying to say to everyone for months. Our motor is high compression, all aluminum, open deck. It is NA tuned and is not conducive to any type of WORTHWHILE FI in stock form. These other motors you are talking about with bolt on 900 HP are iron block, low compression, etc. They are BUILT for it and until we BUILD our motors with FORGED parts and tune the compression, cams, etc. for FI we will not see that kind of HP. This is also not a V8 which also will see better gains than a six. Look at a motorcycle. A full exhaust, ECU programmer, and intake might yeild 10 HP on a good day. This is because the bike has a small displacement, NA motor. The same with us. Compared to a 5.7 liter, giant head LS1, the 3.5 liter V6 is small and cannot be expected to make the same gains. Compared to even a FI EVO, STi, or Supra, our car will not make comparable gains. With FI you need to open up the exhaust, intake, etc. as much as you can and you can also easily crank the boost. You don't have that option with this motor. The SAME goes for something like the S2000. Do you think they see 80 HP for some cams. Uh, no. So until you build your motor accordingly, you will not appreciate the huge gains allowed to the other motors you are talking about. These guys on this website keep saying, "Oh you can boost 10.3:1 compression!" Of course you can. But you can't make much power safely. It is common freaking sense. The VQ does NOT rewrite the laws of physics and neither do certain people on this board. Do things right the first time. Build the motor, then apply boost.


If all you want is 400 crank HP, then all you have to do is get the Procharger, keep it at 7 psi and have fun. Nothing else needed. Basically, if you wanted a bolt on 700 rwhp, you should have bought something else. Of course, all the motor internals pretty much bolt together so I guess you could simply "bolt on" as much HP as you want.

 

Wow you guys felt the Road and Track article was accurate ?

I have limited knowledge on the VQ engine, I know tons of LS1 stuff ( I had a SS LS1 but it got totalled so I'm here )

I have seen Motor Trend run a 1/4 mile time of 14.0 flat and a 13.9.

I have a hard time understanding how these modded z's run such slow times. Most of those times were near stock!

 

everyone does understand that road and track does not use a nhra 1/4 track on these times correct. When the greddy kit ran at the track it pulled a 12.8. As for greddy blowing up engines, this has yet to happen zland, know it for a fact. Only one campany has blown engines and that was top secret when trying to push over 450rwhp. That was in the name of R&D. I doubt that the motor-rex car can keep up with the stillen. Guy here in dallas has a stillen supercharger only, running 13.3 1/4 all day long at ennis. the road and track drivers are just spinning them off the line and maybe launching to hard on these FI cars.

 

First off with the right builder no amount of hp out of these engines is impossible. Just the right amount of money. As for the turbo/supercharged cars they dont have anything done to them so they rely on their chargers to get the the extra torque. Second of all the supercharger if you go with someone besides still who produces the least amount of hp out of their car but also has a major warranty which is nice. Greddys TT kit isnt exactly the friendliest thing either. Oh and yes people have blown up their engines on the greddy. I know someone who has personally. Going back to the NA car with cams and pop charger and lightweight fly you are going to get more instant torque than the turbos for sure and if you went with a vortech or other supercharger I am sure it wouldnt have turned out that way.
A good little quote
"for every 1lb of rotating mass you take off you have the ability to gain up to 3hp per pound"
Lets see take off a 46lb flywheel and putting on a 13lb hmmmm
33lb difference. That would equal the posibility of being able to put out an additional 99hp. I am not saying its going to be true 50% of the time but it will help. As for the 700hp hahahaha. Look it up I believe there is def. going to be a car out there right now with a VQ35DE breaking 700rwhp. Its called rebuilding the engine for boost.
as for the quote anyone and I mean anyone who actually works in the business knows that quote.

 

Motor trend has run 13.77 on a stock Z.

 

I feel like such a newbie asking this, but can you run a mild cam with FI in the Z?

 

Yes...several guys are running JWT s1's with F/I with very good results. +20-25rwhp

 

Wow a response almost 2 years later. What a hero.

 

The motor really wakes up after 5500rpms with these cams. A 7100rpm redline is highly recommended.

 

On the JWT website, they say the should not be used 05+ because you can't adjust the idle. Is there any way around this?

 

I know that crawford is coming out with huge cams, projected hp gains well over 20 hp they said! and great tq gains. Very expensive though, but also everything crawford is expensive!

 

yeah i didnt look at when this was posted sorry. Its still a comment. I wasnt the last to post recently either until this.

 

so just to make sure im getting this right, if i go with JWT cams, i have to flash it to keep my idel RPM above 850 or ill stall???

 

The idle cannot be adjusted starting with the 04.5 ECU. I found this out the hard way.

Jim Wolf personally installed a small bypass that allowed my car to not stall. It works great now. I believe that PerformanceNissan has a similar setup for sale that will do the same thing.

Another solution is to have your ECU reflashed by Technosquare, etc. But I have yet to do this.

Hope this helps.

 

this will do the trick...

http://performancenissanparts.com/ca...oducts_id=4849

 

i love my tomei 268's... the headwork is nice too -- technosquare reset my idle to 1000... small burbles, but just keeps the ricers at bay

 

I was thinking about getting the Tomei 268's with headwork also. How much power did you pick up?