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Finally getting an UpRev tuner kit, more mods in the Spring
I love the car as is, but there's a good chance I get confirmation that the dyno is a go for next week. I have no expectations; it's a freakin auto DE, the car pushes whatever it is it pushes then I move on to next Spring/Summer with the last wave of mods (is there such a thing?).
Current mods:
-Injen CAI
-Stillen HFC
-Borla TD
(Eibach sways)
(Stillen engine damper)
(Goodridge SS brake lines)
(WOT limitation at lower RPM removed using Hypertech programmer)
-Tuner kit purchased, just need a dyno and it looks good for next week, if not... April!-
2018 mods:
-Transgo kit
-Stillen trans cooler (Z1 still has some in stock; spend the odd day at the strip)
-MD Copper Iso-thermal 5/16" spacer kit
-2nd tune (or 1st, if no dice next week)
-Bilstein B6 HD's -- not quite sure I want to pull the trigger, but my only great option at stock height...
Do you guys think I would get better value/gains with different products (2018 mods)? Which ones?
--> MREV2: confirm it only yields marginal gains for my application (DE non-revup), therefore not worth $500+?
--> Headers: see above... can't DIY VQ headers and would have to fork out good money for headers (Tomei @ Z1, Stillen @ Andy's), don't want to spend it if I'm only going to see 2-4 HP across the power band.
--> NWP 75mm TB kit: only worth getting if fully bolted-on, including cams/manifold?
Adding all three of the above = $1,600 (USD) + shipping + duty + CAD conversion + all kinds of labor at the shop. We'll say $3,000 Canadian bucks. Add that to the '2018 mods' and it's eating a bit too much of daddy's personal fun money from the house proceeds, so I wouldn't do that part unless the feedback here was overwhelmingly in favor of those three additional mods.
I wouldn't go with MREV. Did a lot of reading and don't think it is worth it. I donno. Others know better.
It's also to my knowledge that cams and (preferably) good headers go hand in hand. Most NA engines are like this unless they come with fantastic stock headers (which they usually do not). I wouldn't put headers on it unless I intended to cam it at the same time.
Lastly, that's a very good looking car you've got there. B6's are a great choice for stock ride height, but wouldn't you be better off replacing with brand new (and much cheaper) OEM shocks? It isn't lowered after all and you didn't indicate that you track the car so excuse my confusion at the matter.
I wouldn't go with MREV. Did a lot of reading and don't think it is worth it. I donno. Others know better.
It's also to my knowledge that cams and (preferably) good headers go hand in hand. Most NA engines are like this unless they come with fantastic stock headers (which they usually do not). I wouldn't put headers on it unless I intended to cam it at the same time.
Lastly, that's a very good looking car you've got there. B6's are a great choice for stock ride height, but wouldn't you be better off replacing with brand new (and much cheaper) OEM shocks? It isn't lowered after all and you didn't indicate that you track the car so excuse my confusion at the matter.
I read a lot too about MREV2 -marginal- gains seen for non-Revup DE's vs. just having the 5/16" spacer and tuning accordingly... so no, probably not worth it.
It's a daily driver around the warm months (May to end of October), it's quite a bit better on gas than my G37xS; hence the B6's and the stock ride height for uneven pavement on the Ottawa/Gatineau streets. So I don't think I'm going to end up camming it, I'm not looking to beat NA records and I already like the car a lot.
The tune is a go, this Thursday afternoon.
Spacer and re-tune in April/May. Will not get the Kinetix Velocity, again not worth the marginal gains across the power band if I go by old threads here...
Uprev doesn't have a good rep with replacement on defective units and their cables and hardware is fragile and it's tough sht when it happens.
There is also a couple of things that could be a little better with it as well. Other than that cool man and good luck. Hope it wakes your Z up.
Damn, I think I should have read about long term reliability of the tuner hardware... genuinely did not realize that that the Uprev USB/OBDII cable is a risk, wouldn't be fun to have it fail and be stuck with a full on race tune without the ability to toggle back to daily (or can you do that using dashboard buttons? I forget..).
There's a much more potent car than mine getting tuned that day too, believe mine is up first. I hope everything goes well.
Well if you get a street tune and a race tune it should be into your ECU.
But if you ever want to change or tweak it and your cable or the port connector is junk you're SOL and out ANOTHER $700 to replace those and the licenses.
My cable has a huge gash going down it and it just been sitting on the pass carpet for a couple weeks. No one has even been over there and I don't know how it even happened. It almost looks like someone shaved a razor down it and skinned it.
And I take care of my cable knowing the risks and it still happened some how. Still works fine. But from the horror stories the question is how much longer.
That was a long day... got up at 3h30, on the road by 4h15 (from Ottawa East) and in Newmarket by 10h25.
No way to know what the car made bone stock, oh well; I'm happy with where the car sits with a SRI (the Injen CAI got shortened to SRI status before it went on the dyno), HFC and catback. The tune helped a bit throughout the power band, I cruised a lot on the way back and it got dark so I figured I'd give it a fresh go on the open road tomorrow morning. The 'UpRev throttle response' the tuner was talking about made the car a bit more twitchy off the line - I kind of like it to be honest. Round 2 should be around May.
I thought I saw 240 lbs-ft and 249 HP on the screen, from baseline figures of 230 & 236. The numbers don't show for some reason but my data log will stay on file until the Spring when I go for a re-tune (incoming MD spacer... maaaybe Borla headers after talking to the guys today). Upon re-tune I hope to be in the 250s, it's my Summer daily so that's where the bar is LOL... and it's closer to stock than most of the Z33s on the road today. Did I mention it's a lame duck auto?
Sorry if it's severely underwhelming for everybody on here, I'm wasting internet real estate... it still made my day.
Glad it was a fun day, and at least your car is probably running with a better air fuel ratio... Did they by chance mention what the air fuel ratio was before the tune?
As for future mods... If your happy with it I would just call it good and refocus your attention on other aspects of the car...
My reason for Z ownership is probably a little different then yours though.
Glad it was a fun day, and at least your car is probably running with a better air fuel ratio... Did they by chance mention what the air fuel ratio was before the tune?
As for future mods... If your happy with it I would just call it good and refocus your attention on other aspects of the car...
My reason for Z ownership is probably a little different then yours though.
I only recall a comment along the lines of 'you weren't running that lean', maybe I can email him and ask for the before/after AFR.
You're right, you probably track the car some or a lot - either way that's more than I'm bargaining for. I don't want to dive deep into all the suspension work that's involved with crossing THIS car. No coils, reinforced end links or camber/toe/control arms, poly bushings, k-brace, nothing like that is going on this car... in 10 to 20 years I'll be selling it and in Ontario/Canada, you need OEM suspension parts and settings to pass safety (came into effect in July 2016). It's not a MT so no clutch/drivetrain upgrades in sight other than the transgo and possibly a cooler. Wheels and tires? Possibly a fun set that I would store at my buddy's place and use at the strip for what, between 10 and 20 passes a year...?
Other than that, I love my daily set of wheels/tires (RaysV2's/Pilot Sport 4S), the med settings on the sway bars and the braking response that the Brembos/SS lines allow for. I'll be swapping my front stage for some decent 6.5" comps that run silk tweets, but that's about it - beside spacer & headers in the Spring. I would really like to get my hands on a S2000 short antenna but it's difficult to find them in Canada.
O no I don't track, race, or autocross at all... In fact I pretty much only drive the car once a week when the weather is nice, and maybe once a month once the cold weather arrives.
It is more or less my hobby car - drivable project... I think of new things that are needed, or not.. And go about trying to do them.
I have reached a point when I am pretty happy with the car, so of course I kinda am itching to rip it all apart...
Anyways I have similar modifications, but have never gotten a tune because I'm a little concerned with passing the somewhat strict state inspection... As it is currently im pretty happy when it still passes...
On the topic of headers... Most people will say they are not worth the cost or the effort, however the stock manifolds on the DE are really an ugly ugly piece... It wasn't fun but I would say it was worth the effort.
Uprev doesn't have a good rep with replacement on defective units and their cables and hardware is fragile and it's tough sht when it happens.
There is also a couple of things that could be a little better with it as well. Other than that cool man and good luck. Hope it wakes your Z up.
UpRev has upgraded quite a bit lately as far as a lot more "parameters" that you can select for doing a data log for the tuner to look at and create a tune for you. Plus, now they have the new ARC license which I think is about $100 (my tuner is coming into my town in a couple of weeks and we will go for a "live tune" using his tuner gear and will install the arc; has some nice features like pedal down shifting, launch control, etc.
Anyway I've always liked UpRev for about 7 yrs. Good luck with your car/build! It looks like you are pretty dialed in already as far as moving forward with that nice Z!
O no I don't track, race, or autocross at all... In fact I pretty much only drive the car once a week when the weather is nice, and maybe once a month once the cold weather arrives.
It is more or less my hobby car - drivable project... I think of new things that are needed, or not.. And go about trying to do them.
I have reached a point when I am pretty happy with the car, so of course I kinda am itching to rip it all apart...
Anyways I have similar modifications, but have never gotten a tune because I'm a little concerned with passing the somewhat strict state inspection... As it is currently im pretty happy when it still passes...
On the topic of headers... Most people will say they are not worth the cost or the effort, however the stock manifolds on the DE are really an ugly ugly piece... It wasn't fun but I would say it was worth the effort.
Oh I see... how bad is the state inspection in terms of looking at fuel management & emissions? I don't really have an appreciation of how often people need to pass inspections in the US, over here (except in one province) it's only required if you're doing a private sale with certification or conversely if you're a buyer who chose an 'as-is' car and needs a certification to put it on the road. Would they actually use a diagnostic tool to plug into the OBDII and see if you got a tune? They won't over here, but I suppose it could be coming as new legislation at some point.
Now for headers, my confidence level that it will mean/do something for my setup comes from talking to my tuner. He worked on my Uprev tuned, sometimes air/vacuum leaky '06 G35x and breezed through the few issues it had between 2012-2016. I had DC headers on the G and saw a mild difference in the bottom & mid range (what my butt dyno saw as quicker accels at those RPMs)... he's telling me that if I saw somewhat of a difference on the G back then, and because "your exhaust manifolds are now the bottleneck in your setup" (post-spacer that is), I should be happy with the increased throttle response with headers on the Z strictly because there is less power loss in it vs. the old AWD G - ergo any gains produced by the headers will be more apparent. We'll see.
We have a inspection once a year, we bring the car into a shop that does them... They pull the car into the bay check your lights, horn, wipers, ebrake, tires, etc... Then they jack up the car and check ball joint play etc... Then the plug your car into a computer and it does its thing and you hope for the best.
Some places suck and will fail you if you have any aftermarket exhaust or suspension, others are more friendly and will call it good as long as its not ridiculous... I was able to pass last year with DC shorty headers berks high flow cats and borla true dual...
Another point about headers, I went with dc over borla for the simple fact that my H pipe on my exhaust developed cracks from all the stress, and I was a little concerned the headers might do the same.
We have a inspection once a year, we bring the car into a shop that does them... They pull the car into the bay check your lights, horn, wipers, ebrake, tires, etc... Then they jack up the car and check ball joint play etc... Then the plug your car into a computer and it does its thing and you hope for the best.
Some places suck and will fail you if you have any aftermarket exhaust or suspension, others are more friendly and will call it good as long as its not ridiculous... I was able to pass last year with DC shorty headers berks high flow cats and borla true dual...
Another point about headers, I went with dc over borla for the simple fact that my H pipe on my exhaust developed cracks from all the stress, and I was a little concerned the headers might do the same.
I bet the whole concept makes for interesting discussions between service managers and tuning-inclined customers. Did they make a comment on the headers, as in 'good on you for getting a CARB exempt piece'...?
Your h-pipe cracked? What did Borla say about that? I didn't pull the one page warranty that was in the box, wouldn't know if it's voided by installation of non-OEM, non-Borla parts.
You're saying "all the stress"... meaning, pretty much every mile on the car is a hard driven mile?
The shop I've been trusting since 2012 north of Toronto swears by Borla, and via their supplier they can get Tomei, Megan, DC, Stillen and Borla as far as headers for the Z go. The Tomei's are $25 more expensive than the Borlas, and the non-304 SS Stillens are priced several hundred bucks above the Borlas (I forget the exact grade of mild steel, in the 400s anyway; ceramic coated). I'm told people combine the Borla TD & headers on G's and Z's and give him all kinds of positive feedback, every time.
So yeah, maybe I end up being a sucker by this board's standards for buying them but since those guys A) kept me good to go for emissions testing on a tuned VQ in the past, B) are all licensed Infiniti & Nissan techs who jumped ship to an independent shop, C) maintain the shop's G35 coupe racecar on a regular basis and D) swear by Borla I may very well trust my gut and see for myself whether they really do impede power with other bolt-ons on the car. It'll be the same guy, same Dynapack and SAE correction factor; 5/16" spacer + headers in the morning & afternoon, dyno early evening. Not an exact science on header gains, but still... the spacer shouldn't yield more than what, 8 to 12 HP by itself?
I bet the whole concept makes for interesting discussions between service managers and tuning-inclined customers. Did they make a comment on the headers, as in 'good on you for getting a CARB exempt piece'...?
Your h-pipe cracked? What did Borla say about that? I didn't pull the one page warranty that was in the box, wouldn't know if it's voided by installation of non-OEM, non-Borla parts.
You're saying "all the stress"... meaning, pretty much every mile on the car is a hard driven mile??
They didn't even look at the engine or anything else, I just had to beat the machine (computer) and because I have no tuning software and all my systems are running and not throwing any codes I passed.
I got my borla TD used I didn't bother calling anyone I just got the stress cracks welded up and called it good...
This exhaust had extra stress because it doesn't have any flex joints, thats why its a little more likely to develop cracks then other systems... On a positive note the flex joints also cause issues with some systems so really its a catch 22..
I think I googled cracked borla exhaust and read about a lot of cracked headers and thats why I steered clear of them. Im sure they would stand behind their products if they did crack, the thought of putting them on twice was also a factor...
Im sure if you get them from a shop that recommends the product and they install them for you... They will also stand behind the product and hopefully do right by you if theirs any issues. (One would hope anyways)
Booked the same guy, same Dynapack & correction factor for mid-May. It's scheduled late in the day so one or a few bolt-ons can be put on the car between morning and the dyno appointment.
I searched the 350z General, the Engine and Drivetrain and Intake & Exhaust sub-forums for a thread with before and after dyno charts of the following:
Before
-Stock 06 air box or short ram
-HFC or TPs
-Full dual catback
-Base tune (UpRev or otherwise)
After
-Add 5/16" spacer (optional for the purposes of this post)
-Add the dreaded, widely considered power-draining Borla headers
-Re-tune
I did find dynos that had headers as the only change between the before & after configurations, but none with the allegedly awful Borlas unfortunately.
Of course, the before & after lists of NA bolt-ons mentioned above constitutes my exact situation next May. High 230s lbs-ft, high 240s HP is the current dyno read for my first Osiris tune and I'm curious to see how the curves change after spacer & headers... isolating the gain (if any) produced by the Borlas is a crapshoot, but ballparking what the spacer makes should help in getting the Borla (approximate) numbers.
Projections, anybody?
I'm hopefully conservative in expecting the spacer to account for 8 HP / 7 lbs-ft around 4500-5750 RPM and the headers to make no HP but perhaps 3-4 lbs-ft around 3750-4500 RPM.
If you guys are crafty enough to link evidence of no-gain or negative results with just Borla headers as a before & after piece for a tuned setup I can get the Tomei's. The DC's apparently require the engine to be off its mounts for certain bolts to be tightened.
UpRev has upgraded quite a bit lately as far as a lot more "parameters" that you can select for doing a data log for the tuner to look at and create a tune for you. Plus, now they have the new ARC license which I think is about $100 (my tuner is coming into my town in a couple of weeks and we will go for a "live tune" using his tuner gear and will install the arc; has some nice features like pedal down shifting, launch control, etc.
Anyway I've always liked UpRev for about 7 yrs. Good luck with your car/build! It looks like you are pretty dialed in already as far as moving forward with that nice Z!
I mean more towards their hardware than their software.
I agree their software is pretty good. But their cables and OBDII is very cheap and over priced.
I'm hopefully conservative in expecting the spacer to account for 8 HP / 7 lbs-ft around 4500-5750 RPM and the headers to make no HP but perhaps 3-4 lbs-ft around 3750-4500 RPM.
Realistically it's hard to predict gains relative to a wide range of engine speed, so if I'm to make it a guessing game I would have to isolate it to peak gain.
Peak gain prediction for HP & TQ, based upon the before & after states updated below in this post.
Winner (closest regardless of over/under; 1 decimal) gets the 190 amp Maniac Electric HO alternator that's here doing nothing, just need to pay shipping and it's yours. It's the object of a thread in the engine & drivetrain sub-forum, I bought it 7 years ago and never had it installed.
Before (i.e. the 'after' curve above in this thread)
-Injen SP CAI converted to SRI
-Stillen HFC
-Borla TD
After (mid-May 2018)
-Add MD 5/16" copper iso-thermal spacer kit
-Add the infamous Borla headers
-Add a lightweight crank pulley (AMS or Z1)
...if my prediction wins, the alt goes to the 2nd closest.
10-12-2017, 07:54 PM
Finally getting an UpRev tuner kit, more mods in the Spring
