What gains from what mods? Let's get scientific.
 

I think it would be useful to establish a database of the real-world HP gains that can be expected from any given engine mod or set of mods. But we need hard info, not promotional BS, boasting, or "seat-dyno" WAGs.

Can you post here, or point to other threads or links, cases in which you or someone else has

1) done a baseline dyno in stock condition,
2) installed one mod (or two at most), and
3) dynoed again to determine the improvement?

We'll want to see the pre- and post-mod dyno scans, and all relevant details about the mod and the work done.

Can you help me out?

Try here:

https://my350z.com/forum/search.php

not sure if your thinking this, but 1 mod good for 5hp and another good for 7 does not mean you then have 12. only realistic comparisons is a car with the exact mods that you want, and its final point. you cant take one car with 1 and another with the other and add them.

meaning the database would be infinite for all the different combos. but good luck with it, I think youll find not many bother dynoing their cars anyway.

exactly...

Thanks very much. And what exactly do you suggest I search on to find posts with the three criteria I'm looking for, as opposed to every single post in this forum?

try searching for: cai, exhaust, hp, dyno stuff like that. Don't expect to much. If bolt ons made a difference in these cars, we'd all be hanging with C5s by now

I was aware of that, which is why I suggested that combinations of mods might also be useful. Ideally, one would like to have before and after dyno readings for every individual mod and many common combinations. But as you say, not many do the dynos.

HOWEVER, it seems to me that there are enough people here who might have done it to make it worth the effort to start compiling numbers that would be more reliable than advertising copy or bragging.

So if you've got some numbers, let's have them.

I compiled some dyno numbers along with abbreviated modifications a few weeks ago. I'll see if I can dig up the post...

Now, I don't want to get of on a rant here, but,

Just read. The information is all here. Why does everyone need so much redundancy in their lives? What the hell is wrong with our lazyass population? When is the last time you went to the library? When is the last time you discovered something all by yourself? Does everyone have to be spoonfed everything or can anybody be original these days? Do people not understand that is costs MORE to involve multiple people to do the task of one man? You can search for the info you seek and yet you feel it is our responsibility to hand it to you, taking up our time and effort. Now I am not saying that you won't get help or I think you should never ask a question, but if you can do it yourself, why not do it yourself?

I mean, where are we? Are you familiar with the changeable parts that a car has that can affect power? If you are, then search for those words in the search bar. If you are not, check out www.howstuffworks.com and then come back and read people's posts about how they dynoed all their parts and come to your own conclusions, do not come to our conclusion. The whole point of modifying a car is not to have the same mods as everyone else. Obviously you have not even attempted to look around this website as the 3 questions you asked have the answers in a TON of threads about dynoing, modding, results, etc. There are debates, disagreements, arguments, challenges, forged friendships, and tons of information that has been given out. Why can't you just read it? That is my only real question.

Being a computer programmer I am always looking for pet projects. I have been thinking about writing someting that would allow tracking this type of info. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know and I can start if there is enough interest.

Yup, commasense is talking my language. This would be a cool project, seems pretty easy too just off the top of my head.

Once real-world data is entered, we could pattern the data to find the best combinations for power.

The only problem is data-integrity. How would we protect against incorrect information? Sure, most people wouldn't want to enter incorrect data, but everyone knows there's always someone who wants to cause trouble.

just in case it's not known by commasense, engines will put out the different hp # from the factory. Different dyno's will give different hp#'s, different dyno testing techniques will produce different hp#'s, i think it will be near impossible to get a scientific answer to your questions, there are too many real world variables.

Mr. Potato Head, while I'm sympathetic to the point you make in the first half of your message, I think you're out of line.

If you look, you'll see that the Engine/Drivetrain/FI forum has over 43,500 posts in 3,160 threads. A search on "dyno" yields 1,800 threads in all forums and over 900 in the Engine forum alone.

Just "CAI" and "dyno" yields 160 hits with an average of 39 posts per thread for 6,000 posts, total.

And as we all know there are literally dozens of possible mods that might have been installed and tested by members of the board. I don't claim to know all of them. So, IMO, this is not a trivial or simple search.

Furthermore, you jumped to the conclusion that I posted this thread without doing any previous searches. In fact, I've spent quite a bit of time already and haven't found many cases meeting my three conditions (not three questions). About half a dozen, after searching through hundreds of posts.

So I thought I'd ask people here if they knew of any cases (that might include things not posted here) that would meet my requirements. And it's not just for my personal benefit. As other posters here have recognized, this could be a project that would benefit the whole Z community.

So, Dennis Miller, save your rants for people who ask really stupid questions, and cut me a little slack. Thanks.

Now, on to my rant: Your statement, "The whole point of modifying a car is not to have the same mods as everyone else," is completely idiotic, and the second half of your post shows that you didn't understand my point at all.

I'm not considering mods as a statement of my personal identity, or to impress other people, or because they'll look cool, but because I want to make the changes that will have the biggest impact on real performance. Not butt dynos. Measured performance. That's what the word "scientific" means.

I don't give a good god damn about "the debates, disagreements, arguments, challenges, forged friendships, and tons of information that has been given out." You're right that there's plenty of that out there to be found, but 99% of it is useless for my purposes. And I was hoping that some of the friendly people here would help me find the 1%.

I'm still hoping they will.

swifty949: The fact that cars and dynos are different is the reason I asked for pre- and post-mod dyno runs. Assuming the same dyno is used before and after, and that other conditions are relatively similar, we should be able to get a fairly good idea of the net improvement. Not perfect maybe, but a good starting point.

teh215 and m'sZ: I don't know if programming would really be necessary. I was thinking of a simple table that listed people's mods by type and manufacturer, the net gains, and averaged them out. Some more complex treatment of the various combinations would be needed. But I'm open to your ideas for a more sophisticated service.

A lot will depend on the dataset we get, and so far it's pretty small. So, as I was saying, some help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Or you're still on this?