350ZRB

Mine will arrive next week.

What about people who purchased the first two batches?

sentry65

iTrader: (11)

there were like 2 or 3 review threads like a month or month and a half ago on the SSV

Duflacci

The Word is Zero gains

sentry65

iTrader: (11)

over what? stock? crawford/kinetix V4?

It gains some power around 4000 and 6300 and upward over the kinetix V4 and we all know th kinetix V4 gains some overall power

They're not going to be the most amazing gains, but a gain is a gain and 10lbs less is nice too

ZinMiami

iTrader: (2)

Because I think it's been a bust so far. Not a total bust, but it doesn't seem to have delivered on it's promise. Someone posted his A/F got even richer which would initially indicate less airflow than stock.

Anyone remeber who posted that?

sentry65

iTrader: (11)

several people posted that and i thought the general idea was that isn't conclusive because certain other bolt on mods will richen things up too sometimes.

I think so far 3 people have posted getting richer

One guy with a TT posted he gained 10whp from it as long as it's tuned right

The people with Vortechs and the R4 software have all said the software doesn't have enough range to compensate for the SSV's A/F curve and therefore they lost power and richer A/F

Znitro

I found it had poor machined flanges that caused boost leaks from 12 psi down to 8 and a rough idle..... enough to throw a code p3000.

Use lots of silicone when mounting !!

I do like the way it looks and it runs VERY cool to the touch even after many miles.

Z

sentry65

iTrader: (11)

I put mine on today. I used to have the crawford on. I'm 100% NA (see mods in signature)

It sounds different. Not dramatically different, but a little. My GF said it's louder and I guess it might be yeah. I think it sounds smoother. I told my GF that I'm not sure I like it better or worse than the crawford, it's just different. It's new so I guess I'm more excited to listen to it instead of the stock/crawford. Maybe I'm going out on a limb saying this, but it MIGHT sound a little more mustang-ish with it, I dunno kinda hard to say. Definetly sounds mean still.

As far as power, well I dunno. I reset the ECU and went and put half a tank of racing fuel in the car because my car has been detonating lately because it's lean. Ran it somewhat hard for 15 minutes. It definetly isn't worse than the crawford plenum. My guess would be it's slightly better, but how am I to tell after resetting the ECU and running basically 96 octane. I think it had a little more punch than the crawford. Don't expect to just bolt it on and it be the most killer mod ever with no tuning. I'm not expecting to get much out of it unless I can tune.

I bought it for the weight savings, colder metal, looks, possible small increase in power over the crawford, and because my stock lower plenum has a broken bolt head and thus I had a ton of metal silicon plugging my air leak where the broken bolt head is.

It for sure does not get as hot as the aluminum crawford plenum.

I did weigh the SSV. It weighs 10 lbs exactly

I weighed the crawford and lower plenum and just the two parts came out to 17 lbs total, but all the brackets and bolts probably weigh 3 lbs - there's a LOT of left over stock bolts. Like 20 or something, and 1/3 of them are really long ones.

After driving for about 15 minutes, you can touch the SSV and it's hot, but not HOT like the stock/crawford one. I'm using the nissan gasket. I'll eventually use the thermogasket when I redo my fuel system

Install is a little strange compared to the crawford - the weirdest part is you have to connect two of the hoses to each other. So even though there's 5 hoses that plug into the stock setup, there's now 3 that plug into the SSV. It's the coolant hoses that are connected.

BE CAREFUL WHEN INSTALLING THAT YOU DON'T DROP ONE OF THE BOLTS DOWN INTO THE PISTON CHAMBER. One of the bolts fell off and I damn near had a heart attack wondering if it fell down the piston chamber. If one were to fall down there, it just might actually sink into the piston chamber because they're thin enough to slip past the valves. I finally found it under the car - huge relief! The SSV is kinda hard to fit onto the engine. It barely fits. It almost rubs against the rear frame of the engine bay. Make sure the little hose clamps - that the clamp teeth are not facing the rear and are facing straight up - helps give you 1/8" more leverage.

The SSV gives you a LOT more access to getting to hoses and the throttlebody. Taking the throttle body off has always been one the the biggest *****es to do. And then when you take off the top plenum, you have 5 hoses to take off - 2 of which are hard to get to. You can take the kinetix SSV off MUCH easier. So if you were to ever need to take it off to get to the fuel lines or heads, this thing is awesome for saving you time and being simpler

The crawford strut bar will not work with it. At least it does touch the front part of the SSV. I took mine off and put the stock one back on.

The kinetix instructions SUCK. I used the ZU L8R's thread: https://my350z.com/forum/showthread....&highlight=ssv
for the visuals because the kinetix instructions are just 2 pages of solid text that assume you know the name of every hose in the car.

Install did go smooth though overall. Took me like 3 hours cause it was my 1st time and I wanted to be really safe and take my time trying to understand how it installs. Car fired right up. No air leaks or anything. They did include a new Nissan gasket. You have to reuse your throttlebody gasket.

You can see and access so many more parts of the engine now compared to the stock/crawford setup. I can only imagine it'll help not trap heat in so much.

IMO this manifold is much better than the stock setup. Is it worth the price over the crawford or regular kinetix or APS? I dunno that's your call. I'm actually happy with it though. Great way to gain some minor power, save weight from the front of the car, and look/sound cool



minor gripes:
the area between the tubes is not chrome - you can only tell if you're looking for it, but the chrome didn't cover the parts on the box part that are between the curved tubes.

Also, one of the curved tubes has a long small scratch. Not a thin one. More like someone scraped something on the metal before it was chromed. Again, not very noticable

Do I really care about either of those? not really. It looks fine.

phunk

iTrader: (21)

It does not make sense for people to say that just because the car runs richer with this manifold that it is flowing less air.

The 350z has a MAF sensor, NOT a MAP sensor. a MAP sensor car runs off of what I like to call ASSUMED VOLUMETRIC EFFICIENCY. It assumes that at a given pressure/vacuum wtih a given air temperature and RPM that the engine is flowing a specific amount of air. If you were to decrease the VE of the engine, the sensors would still read the same and then it would run richer expecting the greater airflow. If it were to flow better it would lean out as the pressure and temp would be the same so it has no way to notice the additional air.

But once again, this is not a MAP car, its a MAF car. It has a sensor that precisely measures the volume and density of the air coming into the engine. That sensor outputs a voltage between .5-5.0 volts that represents said amount of air. The ECU knows that a specific voltage and specifc RPM require a specific amount of fuel to reach the target Air/Fuel ratio.

Take a look at the 2D fuel map, and its a table with MAF voltage versus RPM. There is a fine tuned curve in there that the engine will always pass thru at full throttle when stock. If you increase airflow, the voltage will now be higher at the same RPM. This is a part of the map that is probably not extremely fine tuned from Nissan, but they probably added a greater value for fuel there because they know the Z should not be hitting this level of airflow at said RPM. Manufacturers typically tune a car to run much richer in higher airflow to help protect the engine.

So if this was a MAP car, I would think that by it running RICHER that would mean less airflow. But this is not a MAP car, rather its a MAF car, and therefore the fact that the air/fuel ratio has changed after install says it really could go EITHER way.

Why dont one of you with this manifold spent the $75 or so and have it flowbenched with the stock runner piece versus all 3 stock pieces?? Everyone is so excited to get this thing on that they dont even care if it increased airflow?

sentry65

iTrader: (11)

yeah, I don't know any places that do flowbenching in my area.

The dynos so far seem to show it doing a decent job with airflow. I wouldn't expect it it to work any miracles.

If my lower plenum didn't have a broken bolt stud, I probably wouldn't have bought the SSV since I already had the crawford. But I needed a fix, and my options were to

- replace with OEM lower manifold, seems like a waste of money

- replace with 2005 track model lower manifold, which loses a lot of torque

- wait who knows how long for 350EVO to develope their manifold

- wait forever for someone to develope individual throttle bodies that you can actually buy

-get the SSR manifold, which is rediculously expensive, has no dynos, loses power for NA, and FI gains are still somewhat questionable - since there's no dynos. It's not the greatest looking either

- or buy the SSV

Now I can sell my crawford plenum and strut bar to recoup some money

I bought it, and it does exactly what I was expecting it to do based on all the dynos.

I certainly didn't put it on and go "holy ****!!!!!"
going from the stock plenum to the crawford didn't impress me all that much - at least didn't live up to the hyped reviews IMO

sentry65

iTrader: (11)

ok I just went driving again, this time with no pasenger (still full tank of gas though) and I'm really happy with the car. It does seem to pull harder, but there's several reasons to be weary of what I'm saying.

for one, it's a butt dyno. I do tend to be as brutally honest as I can because I'm my car's worst critic, but I think it's helped my car out.

another thing, before I was terribly lean. BAD lean. If the SSV actually does richen up the car some, then that alone will make me gain maybe some slight power.

My car drives and idles much smoother than before, but that could be the racing gas. Racing gas always makes my car drive smoother.

I think the sound is a little fuller than the crawford. The crawford is more of a low midrange sound - 250hz kinda sounding for audio people

the SSV on my car sounds like it has more bass. So more around the 100-150hz range. It's more milky or buttery sounding - that description is gay, but that's how I'd describe it.

350ZRB

Thanks for your input, sentry65.
I will put mine on next weekend. I do not have ECU reflash yet but want to get it soon after this mod.
Do you think it will be ok for a while to run SSV with no reflash.
I have Injen CAI, DC Sports header, Kinetix HF cat, and Borla TD.

Thanks again for all your comments.

350ZRB

I will use gray RTV. Should I apply to both flanges or just TB flange is enought?
Thanks

sentry65

iTrader: (11)

If all the dynos are correct and the A/F actually gets richer because of the SSV, then I'd say there's no need for the reflash. The only issue you might run into is if the ECU determines emissions are worse to the point where it starts pulling timing or does so because you start detonating (though running richer would help counter that anyway right?) so who knows. You'll just have to see how your car reacts.

As long as you keep your car under 4000 rpms, it almost doesn't matter how lean your A/F is - you're just not stressing the engine that much under 4k

I just used the gaskets and nothing else. I don't have a torque wrench, I just torque the bolts all down until they're to the point where they won't easily budge unless I start muscling them - which at that point they'll break if you try to muscle them tight.

Mine was a perfect seal. I'd only resort to RTV if you seem to get air leaks no matter what you do. The gasket for the lower plenum that's also used for the SSV, is much easier to deal with than the big wide one for the upper plenum on the stock setup. This latest batch of SSV's are supposivly double checked for a flat fit across the mounting surfaces.

10secapsttz

The Kinetix SS manifold is actually heavier than stock and is not even made of real SS, it is coated steel. My friend installed one on his TT Z and really did not notice much other than it looks pretty cool.It only cost $75 to do a before and after dyno,why doesnt someone do it already.

sentry65

iTrader: (11)

guess what, you are WRONG

I weighed my SSV

I weighed the stock manifold

It's about 10 lbs lighter

sentry65

iTrader: (11)

ok here's a picture of my engine

10secapsttz

Your talking about upper and lower manifold? Mybee my friends plenum was a real early version made of different material or something, cause that "f" er was heavy as hell...He has had his for like 3 months now.

sentry65

iTrader: (11)

their prototype was made of something other than metal

there were pictures all over the net about it

the production version is steel and weighs 10 lbs

booger

iTrader: (6)

Hard to beleive the R4 doesn't have the range to correct the A/F . Unless there is hardly any air being pushed into the cyl. Ive worked with it for over a year now and dont see how there wouldnt be . You can adjust the injector pulse all the way down to [ 0 ] and all the way up to double the stock pulse