Thanks for all the help building and tuning it, Scott. Of course the car is about 5-10 seconds a lap faster on any track chosen with you behind the wheel of it instead of me! I am going to keep working at it so that the potential of the machine is not wasted on this driver! Part of the challenge is that I just find it so hard to believe that the car will stick in the corners the way it does. Approaching everything in this car is now a relearning experience. Going into turns that previously was "impossibly fast" is now no big deal. Compared to what it was doing before the engine and suspension changes we made, I have knocked ten or more seconds per lap off of my times from when it was supercharged. Part of that gain is the engine, but I would venture a guess that three of them is power, and seven of them are due to the suspension changes, including that terrific front strut tower brace. A huge factor is the tires....there is just a lot more rubber on the corners and that helps a lot. But it is an overall balanced combination.
Lots more learning to do, and now it is going to be "seat time" that will bring it about. Little by little getting used to what the car can do. The scary part is that with this much power and this much grip...when something "lets go" it is at speeds and situations that I never envisioned, let alone experienced, before. So I am creeping up on the limits in stages. That is a reflection of my lack of prior experience of course. Not like a pro driver that jumps in, has "feel" and flogs around the course for two laps and comes in and has a list of things that need to be tweaked, while turning screaming lap times. Like you did at Streets of Willow! Very impressive.

 

Ed I finally picked up the mag tonight and read it. GREAT write up!! I knot the numbers are way off but none the less the car is sexy and amazing. I cant wait to get back out on the track with you and the rest of VRT.

On that note I got the JWT clutch and flywheel in fresh oil and the car is back to lear jet mode.

 

Eagle 1, do you have an engine damper? If so, what brand and what are your thoughts on it. Thanks in advance

 

Avo, great to hear you are on the road again. The boost was dialed down and they had a guy sitting on the trunk (eek!) because they had some tie down issues and it was slipping on the rollers (note the choppy chart!), but that is ok. You have seen it on the track and I have Jim Wolf's tuning dyno so I am super happy with the set up.

Sundevil, I am using a Fluidampr harmonic dampener/balancer for the crankshaft. It is something used by a lot of drag and super high hp cars. Time will tell if it is helping or not. My thought is that with the "violence" of the hammer blows on the crank from the increased power that the Fluidampr will help to reduce the harmonic tortional distortion caused to the crank, and thus prolong life to the internals. That is the theory anyway. The car does seem to run very very honey smooth even under hard boost, but it should anyway. It is unlikely that one is going to "feel" any difference given the fact that at 5,000 rpms one is going to have 30,000 hammer blows per minute on the crank! But with that type of stress and the investment in the build, that pulley and the extra cooling/heat management efforts seemed to be worth doing. Mike B (350ZNV) got one in an underdrive size for his Z after we talked about it together, and I think he likes it a lot. He is running more boost and power than I am. We have been running a few tracks together and I think he is going to step up his cooling system to handle the enormous heat gain associated with track demands on a turbo.

 

Yes I will be updating my cooling system with Jet Hot coating and the pre-oiler so I can run 13 quarts as well. My car does alright at the track oil temp wise, but I live in Vegas and plan on running events all through the summer just as I have in the past. I am also adding a Nismo thermostat to the Koyo radiator as a last ditch effort to keep the water temps down. Also the ISO Thermal stuff from Motordyne helps a little with the air temp. The big difference, I think, will come from the thermal coatings though. In Vegas the air temp gets to 110-120 and I don't even want to know what track temps get to. I figure, if my Z can make it track racing in the dead of summer here, then it can make it through anything. I am going to be running only 8.5 psi of boost and 100 octane though to reduce the risk of heat related detonation though, unless my car's cooling system performs beyond my expectations enough to turn her up to 10 or 12.5 psi. My main concern now is overheating the tires and overheating myself in that Nomex driving suit.

 

Mike:
I am not sure you are going to need the nismo thermostat. At least I would hold off on that for the moment. You can get into other issues for the rest of the year if you are running too cool. The Turbo X coating on the manifolds (inside and out) and the turbo housings (inside and out), combined with Cermakrome on the rest of the pipes (other than the intercooler return) should help a lot. You might consider a thermal transfer coating on that return duct, and also on the lower oil pan, as long as you have the thing apart. I did not do the thermal transfer or expression coatings on those two parts, only the thermal barrier coatings....but now that I see how well they work, and how little marginal cost it is to do it....at least look into it.

The only way you will get up to the 13 qts of oil the same as I did it would be to put in that Amsoil BMK-13 dual bypass filter and pre-oiler. That sucker takes up about three additional quarts all by itself. Otherwise you will be running around 10qts. That is a lot of oil, of course, but the feature that most people do not pay attention to in heat gain for their oil is that one of the biggest factors is the microparticulates suspended in the oil, which attract and retain heat, and thus express it to the surrounding oil, creating higher temps for the oil. Standard high flow filters, even the outstanding Purolator and Mobile 1 filters, are only effective at eliminating microparticulates of 30 micron size OR LARGER. That is not enough to eliminate fricitional wear, and of course there is heat from friction as well.

The bypass filter eliminates particulates down to 1 micron in size. Thus a lot of suspended sharp edged junk is taken out. It fully services your oil reserve about every five minutes or so, redirecting about ten percent of your oil capacity through the bypass filter while the rest is routed through your normal high performance filter. The device is used mostly on big earthmoving equipment and tractor trailer rigs where the engines cost a lot of money. But it can be used on cars and light trucks with gasoline engines, and when it is, the wear on the internals is typically reduced by 75% or even more, especially with the preoiler. With most cars and light duty trucks it does not make sense to go through this drill. People use cars for a couple of years and get rid of them, so why bother with the long term, extended use scenario? But for an expensive engine that is intended to work hard, and work long, different story.

The additional capacity of the oil system also helps to absorb and distribute the heat into a larger "heat sink", and that helps with your temperature management as well, to a point. Obviously if the system cannot keep up with the heat gain, even the larger reserve will eventually be overwhelmed, it is just a question of time.

But every little bit of advantage you can give to your system by blocking out heat where it is not wanted and expressing it as efficiently as can be done, adds to the capability of the car when put to extreme use.

Pulling air over and then off the block efficiently will help too. A vented hood that actually works, rather than just looks neat, can assist with that, especially if there is an intake that will draw fresh clean cool air into the bay and create a pressure flow. Otherwise you are getting thermally "used" air off the radiator, intercooler, oil cooler, power steering cooler.....you name it...the front is jammed with stuff fighting for a breath and breeze.

Starting with air at ambient temps of 80 degrees is one thing. Starting with air at ambient temps of 110 is quite another. That just puts you at such a disadvantage in the battle against heat.

I have not found it necessary, and thus have not investigated, the pros and cons of cryo cooling approaches to the radiator, such as spraying carbon dioxide on the aluminum radiator. There could be a variety of negatives, including ingestion of C02 on the air intake. And I do not know how long after you give it a squirt the benefit lasts or how long it takes to be felt or observed. I would think that as with most things like that you would wantto do it BEFORE it becomes close to an urgent situation as it is a last gasp to hold down the temp gain, not something that all by itself might be expect to reverse the process and keep it that way. But it might also be extremely effective as a means of addressing the super hot summer time runs, by giving the car a spritz just as you grid up, and maybe again a couple of times as you blast around the track, then taking the unit off the rest of the year. It is not exactly a big deal to put it on or take it off, and the weight is not material. You might consider that as one of the final options to consider.

As for the driver....I think a cool suit shirt might be necessary. I am going to investigate that as well. As is the case with many things now for me, the car has way more capability to do most things than I do. Heat management is no exception. I did big Willow at 106 F degrees a year ago and it almost killed me...the track temp had to be 120-125 F. The car was great and I was just sweating like crazy. Must have drunk a river of water and gatorade. Very ennervating experience.

 

Yes, I was planning on adding the dual bypass filter as well, I just forgot about it. The thermostat will not do much, this I am aware of, but for the price and ease of installation I figured it couldn't hurt. As far as the hood goes, the one I have now is very effective as I can already tell the difference dramatically from the OEM hood. Plus, you can see the heat rising out of the vents which is another clue . I also plan on swapping to a different front bumper like the C-West N1 or modifying the OEM bumper so I can move the oil cooler and power steering cooler into direct airflow and also hopefully open up more direct airflow to the radiator. I was also debating manually operated electric fans with higher flowing cfm capabilities for the radiator. Thermal coating the oil pan is probably worth looking into as well. All of this, however, is pretty overkill seeing as I haven't experienced any problems with my cooling system yet, but I am a precautionary person. I am sure that I will end up with a few of the ideas above, but there will be no need for all of them.

As far as driver cooling goes, I have a friend who races a CRX here in town who is using a very low cost, effective, and removable system for direct airflow into the driver's helmet. He has replaced one of his quarter windows with a plexiglass version that has an intake hole in it. The air travels through a hose, which then connects to a pipe that runs through a small cooler. From there, is a hose that runs from the cooler to the driver's helmet. He fills the coller with ice as needed and straps the sucker down in his car. For the pipe that goes through the cooler, he used an intake pipe from some car. He is now thinking of drilling holes inside the pipe as well. That, along with the cool shirt should do the trick.

Ed, you are very educated in this matter and I appreciate all of your input. You have definately done all of your research my friend! I will most likely call you to discuss this before my car goes in to VRT for the new parts. I am glad that I am running Vegas before hand so I can see how the car reacts with 100+ temperatures on the track.

 

Guys, I just want to thank you for bringing such awesome informative posts to the forums. This is information that is not likely to be found anywhere else on the planet since it is from your own personal experiences.

I consider myself a novice compared to what you have both experienced. I also am driving a FI car and have recently been to track event here in Texas. It was a rather cool day for the area (98 F ) although with my pre-race prep work I feel the car was ready.

I don't have nearly the amount of precautionary equipment as you so I do what I can for precautionary measures. I changed my oil with Royal Purple 10W30, and drained the radiator refilling back to a 15/85 coolant/water ratio and a bottle of water wetter (Redline oil product) just two days before the track day. Once all the air bubbles were out of the system my temp gauge held steady a half notch below where it had always been. I had a scare when my temp gauge rose all the way to the top when it was starved of water temporarily.

 

Well it sounds like you are on the right track at least. I like it when fellow Z and G drivers and owners take this car to the track, no matter where they are from........wish more Z and G enthusiests would show up at more track day roadcourse events.

 

You should really read the write up on Eagle1s car on FreshAlloy.com. He started it before bring his car to VRT and it has a step by step process from day one on what he got, why he got it, and how it worked. There are 7 Chapters now I think and he is still updating as he goes to more events and gets more feedback. It is by far the most informative and best series of threads I have ever read.

Here is a link to Chapter 1...
http://forums.freshalloy.com/showthread.php?t=141998

Chapter's 1 through 6 are all stickied as well as a Links thread, and Chapter 7 is in there somewhere, but not stickied. Its a long read, but well worth it.

 

^^Oh yeah I followed Eagle1's write up from the beginning on freshalloy but haven't caught up since Chapter 5... Awesome information over there for sure!

 

Mike:
Let me know for sure what your approach to thermal management of the HUMAN is going to be. I have to believe that anything that is going to work well in the Las Vegas cauldron is going to be beyond adequate for most of the rest of us. (Probably just what the doctor would order for the deserts of California, Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Texas...but otherwise above and beyond the needs of everyone else). In any event, this old chassis needs some help even if his car stays cool! Let me know what kind of shirt you go with and why, please.

There are so many other issues associated with running in the heat beyond engine temps. For example, tire wear and adhesion. You get "greasy" a lot sooner when the asphalt is 135 F degrees! Did a day at 106 F on Big Willow running some Toyo RA-1 tires, and after a few laps it felt like there was Crisco on all four wheels. A Z32 in front of me corded his set of rubber and in the last couple laps had his back end doing the "dipsy doodle" all through the Omega section.

I have had some other thermal induced experiences in other ways recently as well.
You may recall my earlier set of brakes "cooked" at Cal Speedway, so I switched out to AP Racing. Well, those babies really held up well on a return visit a couple of weeks ago so I was very satisfied. Then on a late session I heard an "angry bee" on the right rear going down a straight, followed by a loud "thump" like I had kicked up a marble sized pebble into the wheel well. No problem with the car, but something was going on. So it was the end of the session anyway, in to the garage area. Everything looks good...except...an allen bolt on the brake assembly...is just....GONE. Broken and gone. Turns out that the AP Racing set is great for everything except, hard tracking, because the bolts heat up so much from the rotor that they sometimes will crack and break when they cool, and then on a later run they separate and fly out. That is addressable with a higher spec bolt set...but I kinda would have liked to know that before hand! So....word to the wise Sir Michael....check them and upgrade before you have a couple go flying, if for nothing else than courtesy to your comrades on the track. It is one thing to get smacked with rubber marbles when you come rushing up behind somebody. It would be quite another to have a steel bolt head flung at you when the driver in front passed over it with his tire. Or if that does not move your conscience, think about the right front wheel going through the ROVAL at 140mph and then starting to shed allen bolts with all that pressure.....and the wall beckoning. Time to get a bag of the good ones, a ratchet wrench and some good music to keep the beat to.

The other was that even with Redline diff fluid and MOC lubricant, my Nismo lsd got quite hot with the big rear tires (323mm treadwidth NT-01s) and some fluid expressed out of the diff case. Not a big deal, but a bit nasty (stuff stinks like heck as you know!). Need to think about how to address that one. Not sure that much can be done. I do not think a thermal transfer coating is going to make a meaningful difference there.

Anyway, heat is something to consider in a lot of places other than just the motor, when parts are working hard.

 

Ed

That is very interesting about the APs, I will definately have to replace those bolts. Did you replace yours yet? If so, where did you get the bolts?

As far as your diff heat problem goes, there are a few options. I have seen differential coolers on our cars, namely on the Nismo RS Concept Z I believe. I don't know if they were custom or someone is manufacturing them, but that could be your answer. It is basically like an oil cooler with a small pump, to move the oil throught the cooler and back into the diff. Partner that with a Nimso diff cover with cooling fins and you have a winner for sure. The diff cover is kind of tricky to find, but I was lucky enough to win one in a giveaway from My350Z! I have not installed mine yet though.

The tires truthfully are my main concern. I am thinking that the Sport Cups may be the best bet since they generally take longer to heat up and are a little harder to overheat than a lot of other tires.

I think for my engine temps, I will just go with the thermal barrier and bump the capacity up to 13 quarts with the pre-oiler and bypass filter. I really don't have a problem right now with cooling, but I think one may arrise at LVMS with the temps so high. I decided only to run on Saturday so I will use that as a test session with my current setup before I make final decisions on the steps I need to take to lower my temps.

As far as the driver goes, I will look into those cool shirts soon and see how they work and make a decision.

 

I'm a subscriber to SCCM... and your car looks F***ing sick man!

Great article, and great reading... VRT did an awesome job on your car.

Congrats!

 

Thank you. I appreciate your enthusiasm and support for the project. It has of course been a great learning experience, and that learning continues always. Many ideas and concepts were thrown out on these boards, and hopefully some value has been created for our community and some knowledge that helps spread around. I know that I certainly received benefit from many great ideas that came my way from this process, and am grateful for it.

The lads at VRT, Michael-Brent-Scott, have all been terrific. I think that they have also come away from this particular build with some new ideas and experience that will continue to push the envelope of performance and reliability for these cars.

I also had a chance to visit briefly with Jim Wolf and Clark Steppler earlier this week and spend a couple of hours talking about cars over lunch. What a couple of terrific guys! Their depth of knowledge is incredible, and their enthusiasm and outright fun in what they do every day is inspiring. Beyond that, the level of support and mentoring extended to VRT to be sure that it gets done "right" is an impressive testament to JWT. These are not men that are going to slap together an FI kit to ship in the biggest numbers possible to the market to grab profits on unit sales. (No comments on who has or has not done that, please, we don't need to do that here). THESE gentlemen are genuinely interested in performance results and patient as to when it will deliver profit. Reputation is everything, and when you spend a lifetime building it up as they have in the rough and demanding world of racing, one abuse or mistake and you lose it all, never to be regained. That is especially true when your name is on the company letterhead. There is way too much at stake in established business and relationships for "bulletproof" product lines to jeopardize. Can you imagine having to have conversations with business guys that buy your other proven products in volume, that sustain your company, when they say, "We love your cams and popchargers and clutches...but jeez, Jim, what is the story we are hearing about your turbo kits blowing up all over the place?". It inherently destabilizes the rock solid confidence in your earlier work, and more importantly the potential enthusiastic acceptance of the next product you are working on and are getting ready to release. The truth is that while turbo kits of the quality that he has are in demand, it is a relatively small community of buyers and the aggregate profits are not that great, and will disappear and rapidly become a negative if the slightest thing is not right. And the consequences to motors of the slightest thing not being right can be extreme.

Add to that the fact that, in general, the retail public is NOT sufficiently educated or informed about what they are doing with forced induction (have we not all cringed with some of the threads posted on the boards, knowing from that question that the LAST thing the person should be doing is going FI?), and that the kit supplier cannot control the installers to be sure that 1)they both know what they are doing, and do it right, and 2) they adequately inform the end buyer as to what to expect and have the discipline to not sell to people that really should not buy these units.......and the perception of overly conservative transforms to ...this is just common sense!

It has been a long time since I have been as impressed with the technical professionalism and the business ethics of a pair of guys like Jim and Clark, a very long time. While there is a strong demand for the best application out there to date for turbo charging, and I believe that a strong case can be made that as of this moment the JWT application is far and away the best for the VQ35DE, and there is frustration in the market place over not being able to get ones hands on it widely.....I think Jim and Clark are right. This is not like putting sway bars or a popcharger in a car. Life is too short to be dealing with the baloney of an installer screwing up and ruining some guys motor, then pointing the finger at JWT and saying the kit sucks. And the numb nuts installers will sell a kit and slap it on a car, or worse yet hand the box over the counter to anybody with the cash, to turn a fast profit without a second thought or moment of hesitation, as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow. Professional responsibility and genuine care about the ultimate consumer, about how these kits are sold and installed is to be appreciated and respected.

What you have at VRT is a Jim Wolf trained mechanic who really knows his stuff and has the skill sets to meet the high JWT standards, an enthusiast owner turned builder who feels and enjoys the car like all of us and had the inspiration (insanity?) to actually make it a business, and a hot shot race car driver who can diagnose what it takes to make a car truly balanced to a level most of us are not even aware of. And what separates them from a lot of builders is that they are in a category of installers (there are many of them across the US, the problem is you have to separate them out from the slugs) who are very concerned that you get a "proper" car and won't just do anything, and especially they won't do something that is unbalanced. They want you to get a responsibly assembled package. Turbos or SC are nifty. But so much more is associated with the braking and handling of the car. That is a responsible attitude. An attitude that I believe is consonant with the way Jim and Clark approach things and why they are willing to work with VRT, and precious few others. And they happen to be a couple miles down the road from JWT. So they can keep an eye on VRT, and VRT can tap into the genius resource when they need it. That's how it happened. That's how it works. It is not complicated. It is not magic.

But it feels like the car is magic when you get into it and go. And that is, at the end of it all, what it is all about.