The story behind the 8 second 350z
 

Vinny and I sat down for a few so we could bring you the story behind the silver 350z... here was Vinny's response:

“I crashed my Supra in 2004, which led to a great opportunity, as I was hired part time by Performance Motorsport to make their, at the time, 11 second 350z nitrous car competitive in both the NHRA and NOPI street tire class. As I remember, we had approximately 30 days from one race to the next when I was hired with the goal of building a mid to low 8 second car, with time being the enemy.

There were many things that had to be done to the car, but the most important was to build a turbo engine. So I called in a few favors to get parts built to my specs based on all the engines I had built over the years, specifically the Toyota 2jz and 4G63. Yes the engines were very different but since they were both turbo engines I applied the same principals that have always worked for me in the past.

Our company of choice for pistons was CP and a total seal set of rings and of course Carrillo made us a set of H beam rods with the Carr bolts. I called up Zeke from Ferrea and told him I needed the works… valves, springs and retainers seals. Like everyone else I called, they dropped what they were doing to build us some killer parts. Now remember, at this time none of these parts existed, so it was really cool that when they all came from everyone they were perfect. I had been porting the heads as soon as we got them off the car. Not knowing how far I could go on the heads, I just went as far as time would allow. At this point we assembled everything and the guys installed the engine back into the car, which already had a Motec wired in it previously. We then sent the car to have a set of headers made and instead of using rear mounted turbos by the trans we decided to get the turbos as far out on front as possible, which they wound up by front the bumper. The turbos were T66’s as that was the rules back then. We then had a machine shop make us an adapter plate (which we still sell today) so we can mount a GM 400 trans. We had all custom parts made from the shifter, driveshaft and torque converter. The converter was from Pro-torque, and the axles and drive shaft were from The Driveshaft shop. We had a pair of BF Goodrich drag radials on the car and some VP 116 race gas. We made some base pulls on the dyno and immediately went to Atco to test. Andrew Rubio drove the car and did a great job. We first went 10s just to shake it out and then we turned it up and the thing just went! I remember like it was yesterday, it ran an 8 something pass and we all started laughing. We all turned around and said, “Yea we don’t need a 9 second pass we completely went right by the 9 second mark.” It was truly funny, the car just worked. We had a good driver and a good team. The set up and engine were right on the money. We packed everything up right then and there and went to Texas where we ran that 8.33 @176mph.

It would not be right to take all the credit as I was part of, at the time, a good bunch of people and although I was the engine builder and crew chief, there were a lot of good people around me at the time to make this all work in basically 27 days. To this day I’m proud of not only myself but to be part of this experience with them and will forever be grateful for the opportunity…”

Here is the video:

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We here at Vinny Ten Racing are currently building another car just like that one and should be ready in about month and a half, so keep your eye out for it ;)

:bowdown:

Looking forward to the new car :thumbup:

way to go Vinny!! :thumbup:... cant wait to see more of these!

wow throwww backkkk lol Damn.... this is the kind of information this forum needs... Good job VTR, Brandon great thread

+10000 :thumbup:

+1

Good read!

here u go Rude lol. This is throwback right here

is that Vinny staging the car for the driver?

Im VERY excited for this new car

So no detailed specs of the old or the new set up?

Yes.

The fact is, the parts that were only proprietary were the pistons and rings so we cant disclose that, however, the ferrea valves, the carrillo rods , are off the shelf items and anyone can buy them. The compression ratio was 8.5:1. We used a factory head gasket and 1/2 inch stud that you can get from VTR. The porting was done by Vinny and I think he said when he was building the engine he was wearing blue jeans, blue underwear and a pair of nike sneakers, and I'm sure in his traditional sweat shirt LOL ;)

Do you need more specifics? Really what specifics do you want to know... valve clearance, piston to wall clearance, rod bearing clearance, main bearing clearance, ring end gap, crank journal main and rod size... I mean these are all things that Vinny includes in every engine and if I posted them on the forums my competitors would have a field day. I'm sorry but I think everyone realizes theres only so much he can disclose. I hope the members can understand and respect that.

Ahh...you have to love when everything just works! :thumbup:

Awesome work Vinny, great thread Brandon :) Cant wait to see whats new

:spot: Thanks for creating this thread and telling us more about this car!:thumbup:


LOL I don't think the detailed specs that 3hree5ive0ero was referring to were anything THAT specific.:bowrofl:




Here's the kind of things the moderators need to know to include this car in the top 25 drag list (which are also some of the things many of us are curious about):

• full unibody car/not a tube chassis?
• stock displacement or bored/stroked?
• sleeved or unsleeved motor?
• turbo setup used (you said a custom twin T66 turbo setup)
• how many PSI of boost?
• type of transmission (you said a TH400)
• type of engine management (you said Motec)
• type of tires used (you said BF Goodrich drag radials)
• type of fuel used (you said VP116)
• a time slip and/or video for proof (you have an awesome vid of the run)
• 60' time?

As you can see Brandon, there are only a few things on that list that haven't been clarified already. ;)


Do you have some pics you could post here? Would LOVE to see a good engine bay pic or two of that custom twin turbo setup!:D

Also... In the portion of the Drag Source article that you posted in your other thread... I noticed that it said this motor had Nismo cams.:icon9: Would also LOVE to see a dyno sheet!!! Does Vinny still have a dyno sheet that you could post up?

Thanks for sharing. Very nice write-up.

I also look forward to hearing more about the new project you guys are working on.:D

Wow this thread is delivering in so many ways!!!! Showing that this engine and that chassis are capable of running that fast and it can be replicated.... I am really interested in the suspension setup for this car... But we all know builders,tuners,and other people involved in building a race car have secrets... If they didn't it wouldn't make it as exciting to see an 8 sec 350z with it's vq motor .... AMAZING!!!!!


For reference I know street cars with over 900 hp that can't break into the 9s... It takes a team of talented individuals working on every aspect of a car to the smallest detail... Please keep us posted on the new vehicle being built!!! :)

Damn.... awesome car.. look forward to seeing whats next...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS9dY...eature=related

I've been wondering why VTR is so illustrious, but I can see why... the supra world is pretty intense.

Doesn't look like a stock intake manifold to me.

Full parts list would be the honorable thing to do. I wish shop weren't just trying to wring every buck possible out of us.

:+1: I'm also curious about the suspension setup. I wonder if it was anything different/custom, or just some off the shelf coilovers and suspension arms.