So I drove 5 hours last weekend to Altered Atmosphere because the inital tune I got locally, was crap. The final numbers were 428rwhp and 401rwtq @ 9PSI. I'm really happy at this point but during the drive back, as some of you guys might know, I got water in the intakes which put my car into limp mode. The rain was pouring the whole way back so I couldn't test her out. After posting about this, I got advice from tinman to dry out my intercooler and pipings and my limp mode went away! Thanks! So for the past few days the weather got better and I got to take the car out for a spin. The car feels like a whole new animal with 9PSI! I'm very impressed. Big thanks to Mike for spending a few hours after closing time to get my E-Manage wiring corrected and the fuel pump assembly fix correctly.

BTW, I check the car last night and found my coolant below the low indication. I filled it up today following the service manual's directions. Can some one explain to me why my coolant is so low when it was full last week when I checked?

I was also told that I should get a compression and leakdown test to make sure water didn't get into my engine and ruin the seals. Is this necessary? I would think that my engine "should" be okay since the heat from the turbos probably evaporated most of the water and my CEL didn't go on.

Well...Let's get down to business. Can someone help me host the dyno chart?(Thanks in advance)

 

 

Keep an eye on that radiator and the fluids. My radiator was doing the same thing....It would be full and then all of a sudden it was almost empty, but when I filled it up and re-checked it later it would be fine. Turns out that it was leaking under pressure when I was boosting. I replaced it with a PE radiator and everything has been fine ever since.

 

You can just replace the radiator cap to a 16lb cap stock is 13 somthing. I had the same problem tested and checked the system a number of times never found a problem until I changed the cap. Now the problem is fixed. The car never over heated. $10 fix at pepboys.

 

chit....cost me $700 for parts and labor...lol. I was going to change the radiator anyway.

 

Aloharacing-Email sent. Thanks!

Gman-Does this appy to all stock radiators, leaking under pressure? If so, I definately have to get a aftermarket one. Will the Koyo radiator fit with the Greddy TT? I've heard mixed answers. Thanks for the heads up. I'll definately monitor the coolant more often now.

I did notice spots of coolant residue on my plenum today when I was looking under the hood. I found it weird that it was only on the plenum and not a drop anywhere else. Can someone explain what or why this would happen?

 

I have the Nismo radiator cap. Isn't this cap rated for more pressure?

 

I had never seen anyone post about the leaking under pressure, so I don't know if anyone else had the same problem with the stock radiator. Mine was leaking from the bottom. Here a picture of where it was leaking from. You can see the water stains.

As far as the koyo yes it does work with the greddy. do a search 350zDCalb recently posted pics of his intall and he has the greddy tt kit. Maybe try what captj3 said first and see how that works.

 

If your coolant resevoir level is running low, this could be a sign of leak, or some consumption of coolant/boil over. Might wanna check it out. A lot of the higher boost cars had some issue with overheating and pressure spikes, but no movement in the temp needle.

Might be time for a radiator upgrade at some point....especially with the great power you are now making.

 

Would it be poor form to predict that you're just a couple of long WOT runs away from a blown engine?

--Steve

 

Yep, it works. I have that setup right now.

 

Nice numbers, congrats. Correct me if Im wrong guys but isnt 12:1 a/f for a TT Z a little on the lean side? That would be ok down low in the rev range(less heat), but from 4700-redline?

BTW-how did you rev to almost 7000 rpm's are you flashed? And if so why not go to fuel cut so you know what the a/f is the whole way across the board.

 

Ouch! That's harsh but probably true. If you are having these problems I would upgrade the radiator before I did any hard sustained driving.

 

Alberto- Yea I was thinking the same thing when I look at the chart when I got home from the 5 hour long drive. I didn't really look the the chart when I was there because I was literally falling in and out of sleep because I'd only had about a total of two hours of sleep the night before-spent the whole time driving from 3am and got there around 8am. I talked to Mike about the A/F being around 12 from 4500 to 7100 RPM and he basically told me that is "should" be fine and that he adds fuel after the dyno tuning for road driving. I'm really questioning wether or not the tune I got was actually good. I'm going to call him now to see whats going on.

Yes, I got the AAM ECU reflash to pulling timing instead of my Emanage which came with the 7100 redline. Why didn't AAM rev'ed to 7100? Good question...but I would have to ask them.

Thanks guys, for pointing out that the A/F is too lean for comfort. Thats exactly what I was thinking but since AAM is really experienced with the Greddy kit, I felt comfortable in their tuning decision at the time.

 

12:1 AF isnt necessarily unsafe, as long as they reflashed the timing to retard slightly more..which they probably did. Each tuner has their own technique. I would ask AAM, but if there isnt knocking, then 12:1 is fine, given proper ignition timing mapping, and a good free flowing exhuast.

 

I've met the guys over a AAM they seem extremely knowledgable, not to mention their shop car is a Greddy TT car with roughly the same numbers and that car is just fine...so I wouldn't worry too much.

 

Sharif, thanks for pointing that out. I just talked to Mike and he basically told me again that everything would be fine with my setup and if I feel uncomfortable with the A/F, he will bring it down to the 11.5 area. He also told me that there is enough timing pulled to make the tune safe.


I'm going to head back down to AAM since I am a little scared that my car is running on the lean side. In addition, since we didn't get to fine tune on the road because of the heavy rain, it would be a good reason to go to AAM to do that as well.

Whew!...You guys telling me that my motor will blow got me a little scared. I feel a little better now that Sharif mentioning this. Thanks!

 

Wouldn't this tend to mean that the heads were lifting and pressurizing the coolant system? Where did the coolant go?

 

depending on details that are not available in this thread, he might have boiled the coolant which can cause enough pressure to open the cap and push coolant out.

12:1 is not ok for an engine of this compression ratio if you ask me. just because the timing is conservative doesnt make things better. The only reason you run extra fuel in a turbocharged engine is for proper combustion chamber cooling. Retarding the timing does not achieve this. On a very hot day with hot intake temps under heavy load, this engine will ping.

It doesnt matter where your timing maps are if the fuel mixture ignites before the plug fires anyway.

Some of my customers cars, such as McDerns, would NOT accept A/F that lean at all. Any run during tuning where we even tapped 12:1 for a breif second I could hear the engine pinging.

Now here is the catch, I doubt that A/F readout on his graph is even accurate. Its extremely rare to have a A/F that steady and smooth... more than likely the O2 sensor box needs a filter replacement... poor airflow thru the O2 pump causes dampening on the A/F readings... its just too null and unresponsive looking to make me believe in it, even with smoothing all the way at 5.

when the o2 pump filter needs to be changed, the logging will show leaner A/F then what is really happening... just as if there was fresh air contamination in the exhaust gases before they hit the O2 sensor.

Ultimately, there are too many factors here for us to truely be doing any judging at all of AAMs tuning on the car. For all we know its perfect... but based on the choppiness of the graph (which could just be boost fluctuation, so i am not judging), I would think that it might even have more conservative timing then it needs.

All I am noticing, that I have any right to question, is that the car is about 25hp short for 9 psi. But then again, 1 psi makes a 25hp difference, and maybe his boost gauge reads high and its at 8.5 psi, while the car im thinking of off the top if my head maybe it reads lower and was really running a half psi more then i thought. Who knows.

My only suggestion is to not let that car run at a true 12:1 air/fuel. I recommend keeping it from 11.3:1 to 11.0:1. I have made 450rwhp @ 9psi on customers cars like that with 93 octane gas... so its not costing you much power to run that rich.

The 350z with piggy backs tends to lean out a LOT when it gets colder... so you need a margin of error for that. When I let my customers cars cool down for 30 min before doing a run, i typically see about a half point A/F leaner... as we can not adjust the temp correction factors with a piggyback... when you have larger then stock injectors, the corrections can and will be exagerated if you dont change them.

 

Yup, pre-ignition (what this is) is VERY bad. If its going to pre-ignite (caused by over-hot plug or whatever), this is probably more likely to happen at BDC (i.e. 180 degs off) just after inlet when the air and fuel is in an uncompressed state and is very easy to ignite. Becomes much harder to ignite as it is compressed and the pressure rises.

Pre-ignition is insidious and destroys your motor in no time at all. Detonation is generally not great but most engines can withstand a limited amount of mild detonation even for a long period IMHO.