This is a pretty good setup. I have a 2003 350z track ed. I love it. Last year I went with the vortech supercharger and and couldnt be happier with the gains. Thanks for doin what your doin.

 

Thx for the info, I to have been wanting to go FI and been leaning to the Vortech supercharger....

 

update:

stuff's moving along. There's just lots of little things happening with being installed along with the actual vortech install at this point. He says he thinks he has about 5 more hours of work he's guessing. Then if they can tune my car today they will. They have a prior engagement with tuning another car at the end of the day so tuning might not happen until tomorrow morning, but it's getting there.

I dropped off my Gates accessory belt so he can start getting the belts tightened up and finish up the radiator fans etc.

He noted some things/flaws about the vortech kit that might be interesting for people to know. The intercooler isn't really held on very well. It's mostly held on by the intercooler piping. He says it's ok and it'll hold, but it's just not the most secure way of doing it. He says they obviously could have made a bracket the bolts up and he'd actually have no problem doing it, but because he doesn't know how deep he can drill into the intercooler he doesn't want to risk drilling thru it and getting metal shavings in it etc. So anyway, he's going to come up with something to secure it better. He showed me some brackets that come with the kit to hold the intercooler up while installing the piping, but they're not permanent brackets.

Another thing was the AC line that vortech instructs you to bend to avoid touching the blower or piping or whatever. After you bend it, it's practically touching the frame - or maybe it is even. He was thinking that's pretty lame cause it'll gradually rub a hole, but even vortech's instructions say that's how the kit does it. So I think he did something to help that - maybe some wrapping or something. Either way he's been saying the kit seems ok and maybe he's just spoiled to things fitting perfectly for an OEM sorta fit quality, but he's not really impressed with the fit quality of the kit with how much extra work he's had to put in to make everything work better.

Also the intake - as we all know, isn't in the best spot and the air filter is all flat where the air hits - a JWT style filter with an air filter on the top would have obviously been way better. Anyway he'd like to fab up a pipe to bring the intake down to being a cold air intake. That won't happen this round, but next time I'm in I'll have him do that along with an oil cooler. It's not too hot here in AZ yet, but June is just 2 months away.

I've been really impressed with John's and Dynocomp's work. I wish it was moving a little faster, but the reason I went here was I knew they'd do a great job on the install and not skimp anywhere. I'm sure I could pay another shop to do it and it might be cheaper, but part of what I'm paying extra for is a quality installer who's worked on the Z a lot with FI and who'll catch things and do things that a normal mechanic might not do and just do what the instructions say and call it a day.

 

looks great, and im loving reading the process, but when whoever takes pics next can they either use a tripod or a flash ? every pic is blurry and it's really annoying. they would be GREAT pics if i didnt get a headache every time i looked at them. otherwise, contrats, cant wait to see the finished product.

 

yeah sorry about the pics, it's my wife's camera and I just recently started trying to figure it out. I should be able to get the pictures to focus better from now on. I haven't been very happy with these either.

John has also been taking pictures here and there since the beginning and will email them to me. They're probably better quality. I'll post them when I get them


update:

well John is still going at it and had a couple minor setbacks. The GTspec ladder brace didn't have any holes for him to bolt it onto because my car is a very very early model (aug 02 build date) I've heard the later Z's have the holes or whatever in place for the brace. So anyway, he had to drill the holes to fit the bar. He took a picture underneeth the car to show what he did.

He was topping off fluids right when I talked to him. In total, he had to do radiator fluid, power steering fluid, engine oil, and I wanted him to change my rear diff fluid.

He's gotta make a bracket to put my cusco oil catch can in somewhere. Sounded like he was going to mount it kinda in the bumper somewhere.

He noted that one area of the big engine belt runs really close to a certain bolt. He wants to keep an eye on that, but is figuring it probably won't be an issue otherwise vortech would have replaced the bolt with something else or something like that.

It's 3:00 right now and he thinks he'll get done by the end of the day around 5:00 or so. But because that other car is scheduled for tuning around that time, it'll end up getting tuned tomorrow afternoon.

He's going to replace the crank angle sensor wire with one of the ones that Charles (phunk) at CJ Motorsports sells after he starts the car up and makes sure the car turns on etc. John is still concerned about how much vibration will transmit into the car with the solid motor mounts. There's not much for going back now though.

Like I said, there's just lots of little things he's finishing up at this point. He's also gotta get the front bumper cover back on, the ECU and interior body panels put back on, shifter boot and **** etc etc

He'll call me at the end of the day to let me know where he's at and to give me feedback on the vibration from the mounts if he gets the car started up.

 

As long as the bracket and pulleys are on correct and every thing is lined up right . The belt will not touch them small bolts on the covers . They are dam close...but will not touch them . When you get it up and running , just look at them small bolts once in a while to see if you have black belt dust on or around the bolts . If you do...they are hittting them and some thing is out of whack

 

ok well I got a call from John and he had some bad news that'll delay everything

Technosquare got my ECU and someone else's mixed up. Apparently both ECU's were late 02 models and they literally mixed up the ECU's that they flashed.

John noticed that the ECU was shiny and somehow newer looking than mine when he went to put it back in the car. It turns out Rich (who sent it to TS) wrote my name in marker on it before sending it. This one doesn't have my name on it, but it does have some serial code on it designating what type of flash it has. TS confirmed that the serial code says it has a supercharger flash, but because it's not my original ECU, the imobilizer thing in the car doesn't match up with it and so the car isn't starting.

Technosquare says they recently did another late 2002 flash for another customer who apparently is having a hard time starting their car as well....yay for technosquare.

So basically I have someone else's ECU with my flash on it, and they have my ECU with their flash

So there you have it, the car won't start. John said just from sitting there trying to get the car to start you could feel the motor mounts pulsing the engine vibration thru the car, but you really can't gauge how it'd feel until the the car actually starts.

So Technosquare seems to be in agreement that the mix up happened and will pay for overnight shipping etc. I guess the plan now is me and the other owner will keep the other's ECU ultimately, and TS will swap out the immobilizer codes. We'll see what happens, but this could turn into a real nightmare really quick if everything isn't coordinated right - we've had the ECU sitting here for almost 2 weeks now. I bet this has been frusturating for the other owner too

I'll get a call as soon as John or Rich find anything else out, but I'm assuming this won't get solved until early next week at the earliest. The ECU is shipping to them today overnight so in theory there is a chance in hell that I might get it back by friday, but experience says it won't happen. Even then, I have no idea what the dyno schedule is like.

I'm just thankful it wasn't something really bad where something broke or whatever or if the motor mounts made the car feel like you're sitting in a crazy vibrating massage chair

 

Bummer...Nothing to do but wait for it to get sorted out . Sucks just waiting...when what your waiting on was a mistake by some one else

 

lol ok another update (lol it's crazy)

well some good news. I guess Rich kinda layed it into technosquare a little and they're going to be overnighting me a different ECU with my vortech flash and the other immobilizer code. So it'll be here tomorrow and maybe we'll end up being close to where we would have left off otherwise with the car being done tomorrow - hope so, that'd be amazing but I'm still skeptical.

As far as I know (AAM and TS would know) the hardware from all the Z's ECU's are the same, but the programming is different between the model years?


meanwhile, I was scheduled for this coming monday to have a bunch of other stuff installed but cancelled it because the FI bill is going to be more than I originally had set aside since I ended up doing more stuff. John was starting to get a little backed up anyway and said it'd actually help him out too getting it all done at a later date.

btw what I was going to get put on was:
nismo suspension
350EVO front control arms
SPC camber rods
axis ultimate brake pads and titanium plate
cut off the rear dust shields
heim joints for rear sway bar
nismo wheel bolts and H&R 5mm spacers
and a ballpark alignment until I get the AO48's on

 

What exactly were you having TS do to the ECU that the one that you got by mistake won't even start your car? Does this have something to do with the immobilizer codes that you were referring to?

 

I had my ECU sent in to get it flashed for the vortech with the 3.12 pulley, 440 injectors, and other breathing mods. That was it.

They somehow messed up and somewhere along the line my ECU and the other ECU were switched accidently, then they were flashed without knowing they were switched and so therefore we each have an ECU with our flash, but our immobilizer codes are switched. Apparently they just need to be switched back.

TS was trying to get dynocomp to send them the ECU I have now so they could just reprogram the immobilizer code and save themselves the effort of having to reprogram the rest of it twice. They're going to just do it anyway since Rich convinced them to do it so I don't have to wait until next week

 

How do they flash for a specific pulley?? Why are you having it flashed in the first place since you have the EU??

 

it's a pulley on the vortech. I brings boost on faster which means you're running higher psi at a given rpm which means you need more fuel accordingly


The EU is there to tweak and fine tune the tune.

The EU being a piggyback, it won't be as accurate as the stock ECU, so I figure I'd get the ECU as close as possible then fine tune it with the EU

 

Haha. I know what the pulley does, just not sure how you can have someone flash something like that unless your car is on the dyno.

 

it's just to get the ECU in the ballpark, not spot on. That's what the EU is for

 

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I think as was mentioned earlier in this thread,, flashing the ECU for the vortech when the car will be dyno tuned to precisely (or near precisely) to determine the A/F ratio is questionable..Flash is when you can't get on a dyno and subscribe to a standard mail in order flash.. Nothing beats the actual dynamic's and air breathing mod's that happens when on a dyno..Raising the rev limiter and speedo would be desirable however with a flash..

 

minor update:

they got the new ECU shipped in this morning. This ECU I guess has the immobilizer disabled for the sake of troubleshooting I guess. It's still not starting. They think something is either wrong with a crank flywheel sensor not making it to the ECU or something else.

The ECU and EU are getting power. Anyway he disconnected the EU for now and is trying to troubleshoot why there's both no fuel or spark. He says it has the symptoms of being the immobilizer.

He doesn't think the coils have blown (common EU problem) because there's no fuel either.

They also have the 1st ECU still that they shipped originally. John called ATS to ask them questions and they said they haven't had any problems like this with the Z. They did with EVO's though I guess.

at this point we're waiting for technosquare to return our phone call and my experience has been phone calls are not their priority

so all I can do is sit here and wait and hope this won't cost me up the ***. Everyone is a little frusturated

 

keep us updated...

 

Cool thread.