Still learning about the VQ35DE but the heater related hoses and pipes look a mess and with the engine in the car it's hard to see what's what. Basically I'd like to remove everything that is not engine cooling related without pulling the engine out.. Has anyone done this? Is it practical to do with the engine in? There is a thermostat back there I think. Thanks for any help.

EDIT Google dug this up https://my350z.com/forum/forced-indu...er-core-4.html

 

Good info in that thread linked above but I'm not sure about getting water at the right temperature to the thermostat when it's usual feed, the hose that goes across the front of the engine, is deleted. Will try to work something out that flows a fair volume of the water which comes from the back of the heads.

 

I've hacked my cooling system to bare bones. Single hose in / single hose out.

You can remove all the heater lines with the engine in but it's a pain. Your best bet will be to take off the plenum/manifold along with as much clutter from behind the engine to gain access.

You'd be wise to remove the two rear/passenger side hardlines (that attach to the heads) to plug/weld those holes shut.

The hardline on the driver side is easy enough to remove and then plug.

I only know of a single thermo on the car to contend with.

I drilled two ~1/8" holes in my thermostat to allow 'some' coolant flow. Previously I did 4 bigger ~1/4" holes and this was too much - I could see fluctuations in my ECT (via the haltech) that messed with my tuning via the ECT comp map. Also factor in that I run a significantly larger radiator that provides more cooling capacity.

Might want to consider the pathfinder cooling mod at this point in time.

 

Sounds good Bealljk, finally go my head around the system and have used rubber caps to blank off the spare in/outlets. That will do until the engine has to come out.