I just made the change back to stock. Gonna sell the pop charger and get a drop-in filter. I was sick of the heat soak being noticeable after spirited driving on hot days. I have the varis duct and some air duct going straight from it, into the airbox. I think it's going to help a lot. My under hood temps. with headers have to be higher than stock and having an open filter just wasn't working.

 

just wondering, how can one notice when the heatsoak occur?

 

^^^haha, i came in just to ask the same thing

what exactly do you feel when "heatsoak" sets in?

reluctance in acceleration?

 

I gave my popcharger away for free. That's how bad it was versus the 06 stockbox.

 

I think some are being a little over dramatic about the "poop" charger but whatever. I suppose 13.8@103 is can justify the PC being crappy. I mean... intakes make huge differences right.

Heatsoak does suck, but it has at least been proven to increase the airflow but it does take a little while to reach nominal temperature compared to the stock airbox.

 

To put this in simply terms: I have a JWT Popcharger and in my estimation and plenty of research, I have come to understand that JWT Popcharger + Air Duct = Success! That's what I have done and the air duct works wonders.

Any car while in a traffic light will be under heat-soak until the car gets rolling. Same with JWT.

 

compared to the 06, it sucks yes

but what about 03-05?

and again, what exactly do you feel with heatsoak?

 

If you drive harder than usual and pull up to a stop light/sign... the car just feels like it's restricted. You can feel a loss in power when you get back on it to accelerate. To me, it was a very noticeable difference with the pop charger. When you 1st get in the car, it's fine. On cooler nights, it's fine for a while. On hot days, forget it. My car felt very restricted.

 

Once again, in case you did not read. Unless you have big fans blowing in font of your car while you are at a stop light and not moving you WILL experience heat SOAK no matter what kind of set-up you may be driving with. Even a Turbo needs to SPOOL before you can generate any air into the engine equaling more power. EM + C2 = What? SPEED!

 

i suppose cold air intakes are the way to go...

 

Lots of people have made claims that dyno #s are doctored up by cold air companies. I think most people here either swear by the '06 stock box and drop in filter, the pop charger with its heat shield, or the stillen.

CAI companies will get the car hot and get a low baseline #. They will do everything they can to cool the car and get a high number with their intake. Also, peak numbers may be high but often, that's all you get. You're going to feel midrange power and TQ way more than a couple HP in the last few available RPMs.

OK. I'm no expert, so I'm going to stay the F out of this thread now so some other people can share their opinions and experiences with intakes.

 

Not an '06 owner, but it isn't all that different.

I stuck with compromise on my '04 G Coupe. I passed on the JWT full setup for the same concerns you have, but used the venturi + cone + Stillen enclosure. Stillen uses the K&N cone, JWT venturi ring, but full enclosure. Esp. depending on your geography and usage, heat soak can be an issue. I wanted to maintain the CAI box config that the G Coupes came with starting in '04. I did not like way JWT just used a shield.

FYI prior to installing the intake I also ran a drop-in filter (K&N) on my Z for 2 years and 3 years on my G Coupe, my only mod on my original baseline dyno (239 whp, 226 ft-lbs stock, dynojet). I think the butt-dyno says "popcharger better", but I'll not really know until have a chance to finish a few other mods and take the car over for some dyno tuning (ECU). My focus has been more on suspension now after getting 4 years behind the wheel on the OEM suspension.

Several people who have lost power with intakes never reset their ECU, btw, and got worse mpg, worse performance - the car has quite a few settings it "learns" and you need to un-learn and re-learn those to get the most out of the intake. Idle air volume is one, there is a process in FSM for reset.

You can see the Stillen enclosure uses the OEM intake that goes all the way to hood center line, plus is well-sealed from engine side air. The small gap you see near the front is sealed off by the hood:

 

My early '03 350Z (build date Aug 2002) did not have the center line CAI or the same enclosure as my '04 G Coupe does. Sounds like '06 Z finally got a better box.

IMHO you're not going to "feel" heat soak differences between a good enclosure with intake vs. the OEM box. Sure if you're running it hard on a hot day it's not going to feel as strong esp. in the midrange below WOT as it does on a cool evening. At the strip, at the track, sure then I can see esp with timeslips, you'll see the difference as the day heats up with a WAI vs. CAI.

However to say you can tell the difference from a stop light between stock airbox and a JWT intake, well, that's one very sensitive butt-dyno. In the words of Nissan SR20 Guru Mike Kojima, "Butt dynos tell Rice Lies..."

 

Damn duuude! Your motor looks like it's been soaking/corroding in salt water for a few years.... Need to get that cleaned up~

 

Damn dude, I can tell you live 1000 miles South in the ATL, that's called Winter.

It never cleans up as well as new, that's what happens when you drive a car 4 seasons, for 4 years (approaching 50k miles). I've got better things to do than polish the plenum or timing chain covers, like drive it.

Let's see your motor after 4 Winters in New England looking any better, unless you keep it as a garage queen.

 

Btw the corrosion around the shock towers is from damn field mice pissing on the ends, the little bastards party under the hood if I let it sit even garaged for a day or two in Winter, they love to party on top of the plenum, too. I now have 3 cats. I left it for a week while traveling and one made a nest under my shift boot, the beech, and had a slew of mini-mice who went exploring in my dash, all in less than 7 days. Live out the boonies, this is what you deal with.

 

JWT with air duct is the way to go as already stated