I'm definitely going this route but you know the season- many shops are busy right now getting people modded out. I know MNR has three full engine rebuilds going on now so I actually have to book in. Back in the day I could just show up and they could deal with it... now they've just run out of room.

I'll definitely post a review once we're complete... but it may be a few weeks before I can get the car in.

 

I said F it I am back to 2.5" I am not going to miss a few ponies anyway as soon as I got in the car after the 2.5" was back on was so much more relaxing not that +600whp cars are supposed to be relaxing

 

Uprev tuner cable inbound. Knowledge, here we come! (I hope!!)

 

*thumbs up*

 

I'm going to be spending a lot of time HERE

This guy basically worked through Osiris from the ground up... Awesome job- though I'm not sure where it ends up... Started reading it out of interest before but had nothing to associate it with. Now I should be able to match things up and learn.

Really quite excited at the prospect of helping others and not always just being helped!!

 

Just remember if you make any changes in the rom editor you have to save the rom and reflash the ecu before they become permanent...

And if you make changes in real time tuning you have to first save the .rtt file on the desktop, then open the rom file in the rom editor, under utilities you will see a spot to "load RTT to map slot". Do that to import the .rtt file into the rom file, then save and flash to make it permanent. If you don't the changes will be lost when you shut off the car :/

 

Talked to MonkeyNutz Racing today (through email kind of) and the orders are in for the new couplers and the coolant crossover hose that stretches across the front of the block. The hose is kind of an afterthought... described as a "whoops, we have to get coolant over to THAT side as well" moment by engineers when the first car was rolling off the assembly line. Anyway... I'm that guy... I think red couplers will look disGusting- though on a lot of applications it may not. We shall see!

Apparently they're a special order item so they may take awhile. Talking to Rob from Z1 it didn't seem like it would take that long... unfortunately he isn't around as much as he used to be so I was committed elsewhere. (Sorry Rob).

The stainless round tanks from Sxexcx (sean) will be going in and those race mufflers installed (assuming they'll fit)... failing in that I may sadly have to resort to the 2.5" TPs. Like Gord said- the benefit just isn't worth the trouble. I'll keep them, in case I upgrade the turbos to something heavier because I really think they're the weakest link at this point. If I ever did the turbos I suspect the heads would be next and I'm nowhere NEAR ready to invest money like that until I get some trigger time at a track and see what this thing can do. I have yet to fully commit my foot to the floor on the car... I think it MAY have reached 2/3rds one day- but until I have some open area where I can learn to anticipate how that Quaife is going to manage my relatively poor traction- I just don't want to do it.

Some douche canoe in a Hemi Ram 1500 pulled out of a Tango Hotel in front of me yesterday and floored it as he made the turn with predictable results. Not sure all that was damaged but he hit the curb with the back end sideways... folded the rim / tire way over and it broke off... Idiot.

Anyway- I don't want to be that guy.

I promised myself I'd stick to cosmetic mods only but- 275s aren't friendly to this power- particularly S Drives... and speaking of putting power to the ground all this hubbub about Aluminum vs CF driveshafts is intriguing. From what I'm reading stock two piece DS on our G35s anyway are 30lbs and change... while the CF with aluminum ends are about 13 and aluminum shafts are 15. That's a significant difference. But... more power to the tires... it really is just time to commit to new wheels- 10.5" in the back, 9.5 maybe up front... Decent offsets and get rid of those spacers. Yes, all that talk about spacers before still has me a bit on edge.

One of the better points I'd heard against the Aluminum one piece shafts are that unlike the CF shafts that will "broom" in the event of failure, something solid like al would potentially penetrate the passenger compartment during a collision or a failure. Not sure how likely that would be as I've never seen such a thing- but GTR / 350z are stock CF... possibly a good reason?

For weight and vibration (of which even guys with 3.7s were saying there was none anyway with the AL) and safety there can be no argument about the CF- except that it's 15-1600 dollars unless you get in on this group buy they're trying to get a second round out of...

AL however runs 4-500 bucks or so... has no reported vibration and weighs merely 2lbs more.

Z1 Motorsports has them- at least those are the ones I've been reading the most about... and everyone seems more than pleased.

I'm surprised there is so little dyno activity to substantiate gains- but most before and afters are performed when other mods have been installed in addition to the DS.

Anyway- just a couple things I'm looking at for the car. Pretty soon focus of the thread is going to be documenting my experiences with Cipher and tuning this beast. It's still FI related... so I think I can drift a bit while staying on topic.

 

I recently installed the AL DS and although I didn't dyno it I ran it at the track and compared my previous timesheets... the improvement it made at the track is negligable at best in terms of E/T -- my margin of error is about a tenth of a second and I'm not seeing any pattern of improvement. But my launches are quicker (e.g. leaves the line _sooner_ when I pop the clutch) and the car feels 'tighter' on the street -- less slop in the drivetrain and lighter on it's toes at low speeds. Is it worth $500 in gains? I am not convinced. Was it worth it? I guess. My tech mentioned the U-joints on the stock DS wear quickly at high power levels and mine were no exception at 50k miles. That's probably where the 'less slop' is coming from.

 

Well- that's a valuable perspective and it makes me wondering if the AT would show something more substantial given the amount we lose vs the MT. I'm not 100% on the mechanics of where we experience all that loss- (up to 20% that I've heard)...

Thoughts?

 

Its actually the torque convertor that robs the power.

 

First bigger issues started to creep up. The guys had mentioned the crank seal was leaking a smidge about a month ago... A couple days ago the smidge turned into a pretty significant drip. Well- significant enough to me. Fluid stains are starting to creep onto my parking spaces. The trans fluid pan has also Been weeping a bit. I've thought about a pan with more capacity but frankly my temps have not even come close to being a concern- in fact it takes forever to warm up.

Also the little Spiggot off the rad where the hose attaches to the fill neck was apparently broken at some point and "glued" back on. This has been proving to be a bit of a leak issue as well so that has to be dealt with. It's coming out of the car for proper welding in the meantime salt from the roads has been absolutely pummeling my polished TC cover so they're going o put a finishing polish on that again. We're looking for one sort of sealant compound that will protect the polished finish and withstand the heat. Any ideas?

And by the advice of a member here and my350z- who can take the credit if he chooses- I requested the omission of the J- bung on the custom 3" down pipe while the race muffler was installed. The race muffler install didn't get rid of the whistle I've been implanting about (that was addressed as well and though a couple of piping /gasket leaks were fixed- the whistle remains). The j bungs were said to interfere with the Ecu's ability to make finer narrowband corrections in afr and from what I've been noticing during normal operations the removal of the j-bungs have helped. Ill describe it more when im not typing on an ipad. Now I just need to adjust the tune and polish the cannonball.





Last but not least I got tucked into cipher and am working on fine tuning the cruising spots in my tune- they arent horrible but I'm certain there are hiccups that need to be smoothed over. I'll be posting a bit more diary entries as I get more comfortable explaining what and why I'm doing certain things.

 

I had big ambitions with cipher but haven't been able to mess with it much yet. MNR did help me out while on the charity poker run and smoothed some problem areas out. One of their guys was on the run and also fixed a boost leak that was causing a rather abrupt "crash" when I hammered on it. We also test fitted an Apexi air filter- its lower profile fit in the bay a bit better what with the less pliable couplers we put in. It wouldn't fit on the stock MAF tube as was so went back to stock jwt. Had the plastic thing swapped out anyway and now it's a thing of beauty.

Hit a raised manhole cover about 2 weeks ago- road construction issue... Whacked my transmission pan and the stock resonators on the greddy exhaust. Both were fixed but I was glad I hadn't transitioned over to the deeper pan (yet)!

Also voted against the greddy 9 plugs and decided that for my driving style they are simply too cold. We chose them originally because of the extra safety during the tune but the tune was already reasonably safe because of the transmission... I was getting some bad rich backfires- which I have immediately noticed are gone. The plugs were in good shape but it was time to just admit I went a bit heavy with the 9s.

Also had gone with a stainless set of tanks for ATF and coolant overflow but couldn't get the ATF one to work properly- just kept leaking and wouldn't hold a prime. The coolant overflow tank may be a bit small for hard use and this caused trouble on the poker run. I don't drive that hard very often so we left that one- but the ATF one needed to be replaced despite numerous attempts to modify it. MNR fabbed up a new one with a slightly different design and all good so far. I don't want to deter anyone from buying the tanks- the vendor supported and trouble shooted me till the bitter end. It just didn't work for my car- which has proven to be a bit of a hangar queen.

OEM battery was finally replaced but not with anything special. I'd been having some trouble with the car being dead within a week so when I noticed it was the stock battery so i just pulled the trigger on a new battery. Looked at that Xs power d1200- not really available here and seemed like massive overkill for my needs.

Also crank seal was replaced. Heard these often get put in wrong- though not sure if mine was put in wrong or just worn. Goes without saying for the price of the part just remove all doubt and replace it if you're going through an install or rebuild. The hardest part is moving the exhaust out of the way... I'm told. Otherwise it's a quick job.

 

sounds like you got a lot of your issues worked out, good to hear!

 

Yeah and I'm sure the new ones are lining up!

 

Little photo line up of the progression of the engine bay. I know some aren't a fan of the colour matching but sometimes it doesn't look too bad. In fact, I'd go out on a limb and say the red looks okay!

This was taken after the rebuild at Intec Racing. Minimal engine bay work though it was cleaned up substantially from when the hacks at Progressive Auto in Victoria were done with it. A polished plenum acts as a centerpiece:



Then Intec put the Cozie in there, and later MNR did a wire tuck and fabbed up a harness cover for me. The catch can is installed but still a little ugliness from the clunky JWT air filter, black MAF tube, and plastic PSF / Coolant overflow tanks:



Finally, in its curent form a bit more of a colour coordinated theme with the red couplers and crossover hose... Stainless tanks in place (not without hassle), new lower profile Apexi Air Filter, stainless MAF pipe and a re-polished TCC. Driving in the winter last year as well as a pesky coolant leak earlier on had DESTROYED the polished appearance on the TCC- MNR was kind enough to put some work into it for me!