Intro; This thread is just about my engine bay; what it is now, and what I am doing with it for this “version” of my power-train. The purpose of this thread is to help me organize my thoughts, figure out the timeline of this car (I had to spend 2 hours going thru old dyno graphs to figure out this history), and to share ideas with everyone. Feel free to skip the optional novel below.

History; Car was purchased new in 2003. July of 2003 was the first power mod, a Borla Exhaust. I installed Greddy turbos over the following winter. Ran around mildly boosted through 2004. Perfected the RFS and installed the first FCON in a US 350z in September 2004. It made the, at the time, stock engine power record of 467rwhp at 9.3psi (SAE Dynojet 248c). I took the car out street racing pretty much every night. The engine never so much as hiccupped, but I wanted more power and I didn’t trust the engine to hold together if I gave it more boost.

Winter of 04-05 I built the engine. Inspection of the OEM block showed no excessive wear and I wished I would have run a little more boost in it before. In April of 2005, I had only begun tuning when I was up to 14psi and made 573rwhp (SAE Dynojet 248c). The car started to experience headgasket issues later found out to be from sunken/unlevel AEBS sleeves. So I left the setup alone and just rocked it at 14psi max boost, as the headgasket issues got worse and worse over time. The car was still decently quick, running mid 11s while blasting coolant on the windshield, and this was before I was really decent at driving the car.

Spring of 2006, I had pulled the engine to resolve the issue. The car was gone for a long time for a paint color change, and when I got it back I installed the second built engine. All I changed was the block casting and the pistons for the most part. I also did a lot of engine bay cleanup mods, including moving the PS pump and all idle/tension pulleys. August of 2006 is when the new engine setup was running. I no longer owned a dyno, so the car had very limited dyno access, and I mostly street tuned the car.

From this point on, the car remained largely unchanged, and was just driven when the weather was nice. For the rest of 2006, and all through 2007, I never turned the boost up any higher then the original 14psi – 14.5psi.

Halfway through 2008, the car was down for several months for another color change. Sometime in fall of 2008 I had it together again. I started to crank the boost up a little higher and mess around, but the gains were becoming diminishing. I had cracked exhaust manifolds, I hadn’t had it on a dyno in a long time now, and I hadn’t given it any attention since assembling the build in 2006. I don’t know if I even changed the plugs since then. I just beat on it. But I could tell it was definitely down on power.

Winter of 08-09, I decided it was time for a change. I removed the entire turbo system and sold it. I removed the intake manifold and started the CJM front throttle intake manifold project. I removed all the external components of the cooling system. I completely dissected the engine harness to reroute it and remove unused wiring/connectors. The plan was to have it all back together with some crazy *** standing mile setup sometime in 2009. But, I ended up mostly taking the year off from caring about the car. We finished the intake manifold design, and I did most the engine bay rewiring (kinda half-assed), and that’s about it.

Now; We will be finishing up the install on the CJM intake manifold, I will be finishing up engine bay rewiring (although I want to build an entirely new harness down the road). I am going to put back together the cooling system with all the changes I wanted. I am going to finish the custom intercooler setup. I sold the massive turbos I was going to use for standing mile and picked up something more practical, so I need to finish the new turbo system. I also have to install the CJM twin pump in the car. Once it is all done and running, THEN I will leakdown test the engine. If it needs a new shortblock, then I will assemble one and swap it in. But as it stands, for now, I am running my 2006 build.

9:1 CPs, Pauters, Stock Sleeves, Revup pump, Ferrea springs and retainers and 1mm OS valves, mildly ported heads by Dale Forrester, JWT S1 cams, and I have BC S2s on a shelf. HKS HGs and ½” headstuds. ATS Twin carbon in there for now, don’t think its gonna hold.

You will notice that I put a lot of effort into changing things around to make the engine bay cleaner, more organized, and serviceable. That is actually what a lot of this entire phase of the setup is all about. I just couldn’t stand how ugly and frustrating the original layout was. I changed around a lot on the front side of the engine in 2006, and now its time for me to do all the rest of the things I thought of since then to clean it up more.

We have a dirty work area in the corner of the shop mostly used for restoring old classics. I have reserved the lift for a little while to put this car back together. I hope to stay motivated in updating this thread with pics as we progress. I always wished I would have taken more pics or videos along the way.



SPECIAL THANKS TO THOSE HELPING ME BUILD THIS CAR; Brandon, Chris, and Ryan.

 

For all the years the car was on the revup lower plenum and stock upper, no spacer. Then I later added an APS tallboy. The intercooler and charge piping was all basic Greddy, nothing had been changed other then extending a Greddy pipe to eliminate the MAF since my FCON setup isn’t configured it use it.

I always hated the intake manifold layout in this car, and the effects it had on how everything had to be done and laid out. I used to work on many Vipers, and I liked how the throttle body was front and center (03+), and completely out of the way. It allows you to have very clean/short charge pipes, and keeps the rest of the engine more accessible. I want to be able to look at or change my plugs without removing parts. I want to be able to pop off the valvecovers and check on my valvetrain and lash. Enter; CJM Front Throttle Intake Manifold. The original purpose of the design was because I wanted it. I also wanted to use the pair of billet 62/65s that I had and go for some world records, so I needed a manifold that could support well north of 1000rwhp.

Well, no more 62/65s for this car. But the horsepower targets are still high enough to make use of a racing intake manifold setup, and the side benefits of an improved engine bay layout are worth it alone to me.

Running this intake manifold requires a reworked engine harness, that was the original cause for starting the engine harness project. More on that in a different section.

So, we designed the intake manifold so that people could run an elbow on it to face either direction and connect to their existing charge pipe. But for my car, I needed to take it a little further. I lowered my radiator about a half inch and found that I can fit a pair of 2.5” pipes straight over the radiator if I just threw out the hood latch system, cut up the core support, and went to hood pins. I will use the intercooler and additional supports to tie the front end back together since the core support is no longer very structural. I will get the front end all tied together sturdy enough for high speed towards the end of this project.

So, here we have the finished parts of the intake manifold;


Here is the beginning of me cutting away the core support. This is about as far as I went, except that halfway gone vertical beam is now completely gone.


Here, Brandon is working on port matching the CJM intake to the runners.


I found that a pair of 2.5" pipes gave me a lot more clearance then a single 80mm or 3", so I needed a very nice "Y". Without a twin 2.5" to single 80mm existing, that I could find, we machined one. While we were at it, we put in a vertical offset to assist in lining it all up.


Now, I had screwed up and put the 2 holes in the end tank too early, and they didnt line up quite right. While grinding and trying to get them to line up so we could put on a pair of bead rolled pipes to use couplers to the Ypipe, I pretty much screwed it all up. I asked Brandon to make me a billet section for the top of the end tank to replace my previous poor decisions.

So he did the math and CAD the part and machined it for me. We didnt go super far with the machining, we plan to finish it by hand.


Now to cut into the top end tank and insert the billet part... looks like brandons math using the i-phone level app worked out pretty good!


Now that needs to be welded in and hand finished/blended. There are going to be short sections of pipe welded to the top of it to fill the gap between the Y pipe. The bottom end-tank is being made and I will have that from my sheet metal friend next week hopefully to finish up the intercooler. Here is a drawing of the lower end tank being made;


Today I had to take off the intake manifold to complete my semi-polish on the machined surfaces to get some better pics for potential customer;



I got the lower end-tank sheet metal from Ron.... I also polished the Y-Pipe... I cant wait to post some pics of the intercooler all done and the y-pipe completely installed with all this stuff polished.


OK torqued down the lower plenum finally, its here to stay now after 1000 test fits.



chris welded up the intercooler. unfortunately i didnt have access to a bead roller on saturday, so the lower inlet tubes have some weld beads around them rather then a nice rolled bead... the outlets have bead rolls because they were pipes i cut off the ends of from some turbo kit for unknown car.


here it is mounted. tomorrow im going to slide it a little to the left to straighten out the Y pipe, then cut the Y pipe ends a little, adjust it, and bead roll it.


yesterday it hit me.... I am way overkill on the intercooler. WAY overkill.


so I got the inlet ends of the Y pipe bead rolled and i installed the pipe with some couplers. i have a black throttle body coupler on order, but its a 80mm, kinda wierd size, might be a while before it shows up.


another thing you cant really see in the picture above is that the metal crossbrace that goes beneath the top of the core support, that bolts to the 2 bolts at each headlight end of the core support... well it actually fit right back in and clears the Y pipe. So now we are working on some simple ways to tie together some supporting to strength the core support where I cut it in the middle. Its actually pretty simple. Pics on that soon.



car is on the ground, got some higher up pictures...


if you think the engine bay looks bare, well... theres not much left to put in there... the top radiator hose and pipe, and the main vacuum line off the intake manifold that goes into the cowl. thats just about it.







i just wish the rest of my engine looked nice like some of the new stuff... i have a lot of cleaning and polishing and detailing to do once this car runs.

 

This car always had the Greddy 18g kit, it worked great for me over the years. For this new project, I was switching to some SFR headers with burns collectors, and some Precision 62/65 BB Billets. When I bought the 370z I decided to tone it down for now. I sold the 62/65s but I am holding onto my SFR headers. Most of this build will still support massive power for some large turbos like that once I go bigger on the clutch again and swap in a fresh short block... but for now its something more realistic.

I installed a fresh new set of Greddy exhaust manifolds. They are heat wrapped black just like the ones in my older 2006 build pics floating around section 3 of this thread.

I did minor port matching on the ex manifolds... just to smooth the entry from the exhaust ports, nothing thats going to really do much.

I dont have pics of the new manifolds right now, i didnt really take any since they are exactly the same as my 06 setup.


For turbos, I have some brand new Greddy 20g units from their 350z Tuner Kit. Before bolting them up I wanted to switch to my own oil lines, once again, just like my 2006 setup. My oil lines were gone so I had to make new ones, this time using black heat sleeve rather than silver.

I use the banjo bolt that Greddy supplies, but swap out to a new banjo fitting with a -4 AN.


I bolted the turbos to the exhaust manifolds and routed/connected the oil lines just the same as my 2006 setup.

I somehow lost the banjo fittings for the oil returns on the oil pan, I called Greddy and they are sending some to me.

The new project is the pre-intercooler charge pipes.

My intercooler has 2.5" OD inlets, but the turbos have 2.0" OD or so outlets. I am using Greddys pipes just to get from the turbos to in front of the engine... then I am using reducer couplers to go from the 2.0 to the 2.5 once in front of the fender liners, and then 2.5" piping to the IC.

Since we are trying to get the most out of anything on here, and have this painful inability to just put a part on the car how it comes, we ported the cast elbows that attach to the compressor outlets to point forward.... they had a lot more wall thickness than they needed, also building a huge step down inside the coupler. Quite a bit better now.



More on charge pipes when I have more pictures.


I sold the Tial 38mm wastegates that came with the tuner kit, and I picked up some Tial MVS V-band wastegates. They are about an inch shorter than the 38mm, and have a slightly larger valve, and vband inlet/outlet. I have 1 bar springs, so about 14.5psi.

The Greddy 20g tuner kit comes with 2.5" SS downpipes, 1 piece units that go from the turbo to the catback. Rather than bolting the Tial 38s to the manifold like they do in the 18g kit, they supply extension pipes that lower the wastegates about a foot down, to lay at about the same height as the low spot on the downpipes. Then they have little turndown dump tubes.

Well, I needed to fab something to mount my new MVS gates, and I preferred the old location of the wastegates. So, I took the Greddy extension tubes and hacked off the ends to weld the vbands to, making them into little adapters for the new gates, and putting them back up where the 18g kit did. Since they are Vband, I can rotate the gates into any position to make clearance for the dump tubes.... I believe that situation is why Greddy moved the 38s, so they could have the nicer downpipes without the dump coming back in all aggressive like the 18g kit.

Pics on that soon.

the wastegate adapters;



installed the wastegate adapters

driver side


pass side


the MVS gate ready to go in


gates fit great in there!




dump tubes are done, they are currently being welded to the vband


heres the driver side charge pipe


the passenger side is pretty much the same, its done too... no pics yet

picture of drivers side dump tube setup done and installed

 

Back in 2006 I removed the AC. Removing the air conditioning just opens up worlds of possibilities that continually snowball. In 06, this is how far I took it;

I modified the existing powersteering bracket so that I could move the pump to the drivers side of the engine where the AC was.

Once I did that, I replaced the lower alternator bracket with a tie-rod, and secured the bottom of the PS pump with a tie rod. The modified PS bracket lines up the PS pump to use the section of the crank pulley that was meant for the AC. I removed all the idlers and tensioners, and just used shorty belts on both the AC and PS straight to the crank pulley, and the tie-rods adjust the tension.

This setup has worked over the years for me just fine... and my lord how it cleans up that area of the engine!!!! Also note-worthy... I was able to completely remove all of the factory PS plumbing... all that BS hardpipe on the crossmember and passenger side engine bay, etc. Instead, I made a -6 PS line that goes about 12" from the pump straight into the rack. For a while I had the PS pressure sensor in there, but never wired it... it gave me no problems not having it, so I have just recently removed it.

Here are some old 2006 pics of that setup:


My engine accessory setup will not be changing for this phase. I just figured I would show you some of the original pictures from when it was nice and new... I wish I could say that my engine bay was anywhere near that clean these days!!!




So, I wanted to focus on my engine mounts a little bit because that is going to come into play in a couple weeks. In another picture from 2006, notice...


I trimmed the OEM aluminum engine mount brackets for additional clearance around the Greddy turbo inlets. I made it so that straight 3" couplers and pipes (not reducers) fit right onto the turbos. It was a very little amount of trimming and only took a few moments. Now, at that time, I ended up just putting the Greddy intakes back on.... but this time things will be a little different and that extra space I made years ago will be taken advantage of.

I also added some injected performance motor mounts to replace the OEM ones... I wanted to solid it all up a little and not have to worry about chaffing/etc. now that I have a 370z for daily use, i dont care if my 350z just a little rougher, and besides, i hear the solid motor mounts in the 350z dont really make the car uncomfortable. i doubt ill notice over my loud *** exhaust. Ill get some pics of the Injected mounts up here soon.

 

In the old build I had made some cleanup mods to these systems. I removed the ports for the TB coolants lines and welded them shut. I removed the stock oil/water heat exchanger, and welded up its water port off the main coolant pipe and the plugged the barb on the thermostat housing. We machined a part so that I could bolt the Mocal thermostatic oil cooler port sandwich plate straight to the upper oil pan without the stock heat exchanger having to be there. I think guys found some OEM part that can allow you to do this now.

I tapped a plug in the oil channels to put my oil temp sensor for my Defi gauge there. I added 2 new ports next to the stock oil pressure sensor port to feed my turbos without using a T fitting or sandwich plate.

So heres the removed oil warmer, adapted Mocal sandwich, and my direct oil feed lines and relocated oil pressure sensor. If i did it again, i wouldnt use the front port for my pressure sensor... its too close to the sway bar for an every day car.



Originally I had the oil cooler behind the greddy intercooler... as seen in this pic... (lower right corner)


but it was kinda lame and just tossed together because at the time it was holding me up.

now I am working on taking that oil cooler, mounting it vertically on the driver side of the new intercooler and using it as a PS cooler. Then, putting a nicer oil cooler vertical on the passenger side of the intercooler.

As for the cooling system.... I want the passenger side pipe to be completely bare... so we are making a new aluminum one from scratch cause it will be lighter and cleaner. To get the heater hose off that pipe, I moved it back to the cast aluminum pipe in the back. Notice the other ports welded shut, and some of the extra crap shaved off the pipe.





Well this is getting close to done. I started to mount the new oil cooler, 2 corners done, i think i will do probably only 1 more mount, then plumb it. once the oil cooler lines are hooked up, the car just needs a fuel pump installed in it and it will start.



I have to build the new passenger side coolant pipe sometime this week before i can let the engine warm up tho.

 

The car started on Monday, April 20th.... in sort of a test state to make sure my totally modified wiring harness was going to work. Well, I only had one wire that I forgot to hook back up, and it left me stumped for a couple hours, but I found it.... it was inside the car, not the engine bay... which is why I forgot it, because I took that particular wire out like a year ago unrelated to this project and figured I would remember by the next time I tried to start it. Guess not.

Anyway... Since the car started its time for me to iron out all the details so I can drive it.

This includes setting up the vacuum lines in a permanent state. So I did that.

Added to the very backside of my intake manifold is a 1/8 BSPT port for the HKS FCON intake temp sensor. So thats in. Then, I have a 1/8 NPT port with a 1/4" hose barb, using a simple rubber vacuum line to my HKS MAP sensor for the FCON, and a single T to put the aeromotive fuel pressure regulator at the same port. That is it for engine bay exposed vacuum.

On the drivers side of the intake manifold, we added a -8AN port. I put a -8/-6 adapter in, and a -6 pushfit hose end.

The -6 hose goes into the brake booster compartment where it T's off to the brake booster, and then ends up into a little vacuum manifold I made today. The vacuum manifold has 4 hose barbs that are 1/4", and the -6 in/out since its made out of a piece of fuel rail extrusion.



looking at the pic of the vacuum manifold... the top right port is going to the boost sensor port on the HKS EVC solenoid. The top left port is going to the wastegate IN on the EVC solenoid. The bottom left is going to my boost gauge in my pillar pod. The bottom right is looped right to the EVAP solenoid which you can see I relocated to right under my vacuum manifold. Then you can see the blue hose going from the solenoid over to the battery side where the EVAP hose is by the passenger side shock tower.

When my -4 bulkhead fitting gets here, I will run the last vacuum line, which is the wastegate OUT on the EVC into a bulkhead T fittings going thru the firewall. From there, each leg will go to a wastegate. Then my vacuum lines are all done and I can clean up all this compartment area and reinstall my cowl panels. Very excited to do that and seal off that area as DONE.

And YES, concealing some of the clutter is more important to me than windshield wipers.

 

I have always had the CJM S2 kit in here, of course. The position of the regulator with the CJM fuel systems was always offset to the passenger side because of the intake manifolds throttle body inlet neck being in the way of putting it centered. With the new intake manifold, I can move the regulator to the dead center of the engine bay. So I have done that, and built a new line from the driver side rail to go into the other side of the regulator, building a more symmetrical setup. This was not needed, but I want things to look as simple as possible. Next, I need to install the CJM Twin Fuel Pump, effectively creating the CJM S3 kit (finally). I already have HKS/Denso 1000cc injectors that have been in there since the FCON install in 2004. They will remain.

So, the fuel system is currently a CJM Stage 2, with one custom hose made to center the regulator on the firewall and use both inlets of the regulator.



Now I am working on the Stage 3 upgrade, so coming next are pics of installing the twin pump and plumbing it up to the Stage 2 hardpipe.


OK... today I finished the fuel plumbing, which also effectively completed our Stage 3 kit and Stage 2-3 Upgrade kit. Tomorrow I can inventory everything used and figure out the pricing etc.
I didnt actually drop the twin pump in the tank today, I just used an old twin pump prototype flange and bolted it to the tank with fittings so that we could finish all the plumbing. (This is why today I havent posted pics of what the plumbing looks like in the fuel pump compartment, because the old flange i have on the tank right now is hideous) I will install my own complete twin pump into the tank next week when I get more of them back from the anodizer... I just needed all this S3 upgrade stuff finished because we have a customer waiting for one.

I apologize for the crappy cell phone pics, ill get more later.

What we have here, is the pair of -6 lines coming off the twin pump flange, headed down under the car. They Y together into a single -8 hardpipe which is a 180 bend into the fuel filter inlet. Out from the filter there is a short -8 SS braided teflon hose that connects the filter to the back of the S2 hardpipe. I chose this location for everything because the area is an empty void under an aero panel... it is all concealed and protected in there. I really like that the side of the aero panel that faces the exhaust is steel. So this S3 conversion for my previous S2 kit consists of the 2 -6 hoses, the Y, 180 SS pipe, aeromotive filter, and a -8 teflon line, and all required fittings/adapters.


concealed and protected by the OEM aero shield.


Had I chose to not use an external filter in the S3 upgrade, those -6 lines would be going right into the hardpipe. But after lots of consideration, I decided that it will be very important to most of our customers to have a true fuel filter to protect their expensive fuel injectors. While the fuel pumps in the twin pump assembly do have the typical pick-up screen filters on them... its not like a small micron filter that you are supposed to run after the pumps. If it were only for my car, I wouldnt have personally bothered with the filter... but my car was used for mock-up for something that is going on customer cars, so it needs to be right.

I feel a great bit of satisfaction from completing this today. It is something that we have needed to do since we released the twin pump assembly (almost 100 units ago now), and something we have been asked about many times. It is cool knowing that I can now tell someone that we have an absolutely complete drop-in ready to run 1000+ HP fuel system, and that there is really nothing else to compare to it.

and wow... the 350z was like a dream come true for running the fuel lines from the bottom of the car to the tank... i used to think it was hard and then I was doing it for the 370z fuel system kits... now that im back on a 350z its cake. 370z is a NIGHTMARE to run those hoses.

 

Sorry I dont have this all complete, I will be filling in the information/pics as I have time

 

WOW!!! that intake manifold looks amazing!!! Can't wait to see more!!!

 

Nice work Op!

 

That intake is sick. I just want to hear it.

 

Great work phunk - I've been following your updates here and there, great to see it all in one thread w/ pics....

 

Nice job getting it all together in one place for everyone. Looking really good - love the intake!

 

WOW..... just WOW

 

thats just ridiculous reminds me of an ls set up kinda, nice work cant waite to see dyno #'s

 

thanks guys! im going to try and have this all filled in with everything up to where i am now by the end of the weekend... I dont know if I will be adding anything else today or not, perhaps tonight.

 

I definitely want to see the final result of this one!!!

 

Looks great!

 

Lookin good man. Can't wait to see that thing finished.

 

Should I keep the valvecovers OEM black? Thinking of doing the wrinkle red or a gray.