I was just thinking today as far as NA performance goes is there any good mods out there beyond the basic intake, headers and exhaust? I mean I loook at Z1 Auto's site and there's a bunch of nismo parts that I hear no one ever talk about like the vtc pulley and the nismo competition heads, etc. Aside from going with a set of cams which is quite expensive, how else can I gain power? Anyone make an entire intake manifold for the Z? Does porting and polishing the heads gain any hp?

Thanks in advance.

 

The two biggest bang for the buck changes you can do as bolt ons are the Crawford plenum and high flow cats. The stock plenum is a really bad design, and the stock cats are really restrictive. You'll see good power gains from both of these changes, and they aren't extremely expensive or difficult to install.

The stock intake and catback exhaust are actually pretty good. You won't see nearly as much improvement by changing them as you will from changing the plenum and the cats. Mostly intakes and catbacks just modify the sound of the car.

After that, you're talking about a lot of money and effort. Headers can help, but install is painful in the cramped Z engine compartment. The Nismo heads will bump up your compression ratio, which can give you more power if you have access to higher octane gas. Cams will give more flow at high RPMs, which translates into higher top end hp. Etc.

Note, however, that these more extreme mods do require a lot more effort to install and will require retuning, ie an ECU reflash or a piggyback controller which lets you modify fuel mixture and spark advance. The amount of money you'll spend for these changes would pay for a supercharger or turbo kit, which would give you more power than anything you can do NA.

 

Eh...thanks but no offense that didn't really help at all. I have no cats right now (test pipes), a catback exhaust, intake and probably crawford headers soon. I was actually wondering if anyone knew of any new parts out there like the ones that are on Z1 auto website? The vtc pulley is only like 349.99 and I was wondering if it would work with US spec Zs? Or any other nismo S1 Engine package parts?

 

Ok, I see where you're going now. I don't know of any reason why Japan spec internals wouldn't fit a US spec engine. As far as I know, the differences between US spec engines and Japanese spec engines are all external.

However, I'd caution that any changes to cam timing need to be checked very carefully to make sure that there is no interference between the valves and the pistons. I don't think that would be a problem with stock cams and stock heads. But if you also change to the smaller chamber NISMO heads and the higher lift NISMO cams, there could be interference issues.

 

I think the vtc pulley would need the ecu to be reprogrammed as well. They have some interesting parts on the website, but I would like some one else to test them first

 

yes the vtc pulley fits the US spec heads from what I have been told by Japan, and I've got a set going onto my car when my new heads are done (which at this rate will probably be end of the summer). As stated it will most definitely require ecu changes, which i am sure will prove to the hardest part (since I don't even know if anyone even knows where in the code the cam timing is hidden)

I'll certainly update more as my heads come closer to completion

 

We had the heads in my car Ported and Polished.. as well as the intake runners under the plenum. The first thing I noticed was a loss of some low end power. Once you hit about 3000 rpm, the car comes alive and is stronger than ever. I haven't run any new dyno's since the head work as I've been VERY put off by the different results everytime I go.. even with no new mod's. BUT, my butt dyno and the customers I take out for a thrash are happy with the results....