It is very hard to get good gains with NA mods. I spent nearly $1000 on a plenum, UR crank pulley, popcharger, and Z-tube. All that got me a whoppin' 223 RWHP on a dynojet. I actually made more gains by portmatching and polishing the throttle body, inside of the plenum, the lower plenum, and intake manifold. Total cost for all that was $60 for the polishing materials. I have a few threads in the technical and mod section here.thread

In 4th gear it made 260 HP on a dynapack (wheels taken off). The dynapack typically reads 10-15 higher than your standard dynojet. Even if it read 20 higher, I still made more gains on my own than with the various aftermarket mods.

 

exhaust and HF cats got me the most gains so far. well, that plus the chip.

 

i've only been here for a few days, and was hoping to find out more info on modding a G35, and how well it responds to all the mods out there... but i was seriously disappointed by the lack of quality info on the board.. and was especially discouraged by all the newbs posting about their grounding kits giving them considerable gains that they can feel with their butt dynos...

but BrianV and his posts have brought back some of the faith i first had in this forum.. this guy really knows what he's talking about... and his comments really shed some light on the mod potentials (or the lack of) for the G35... but seriously... modding is all about common sense... grounding kits wont give u 5+whp, pulleys wont give you 20+whp, and people here keep referring to gains in PEAK hp.. but what use is a gain in 10whp across 200rpm? it's completely useless... not to mention how many of the newbs tend to forget to mention the loss of overall hp across the <6k rpm range due to that gain in peak hp

 

Personally, I am not going to touch anything unless I go for forced induction. You might as well get your money's worth and go for 400+ HP at the wheels. I guess it's expensive, but hopefully that will keep me from modding my G35 and concentrate the mods on my Supra.

I guess if I were to mod my G35 "lightly", I would do just that, lower the weight: lighter suspension, brakes, etc, and get the benefits like better acceleration without worrying about voiding the warranty on the drivetrain.

 

That's kind of my thinking too. I've got a set of 225/50R15 11lb rims with BFG drag radials (35lb combo) I'll be using at the track. 15lbs less rotational weight on each drive axle, 2" shorter diameter for a 10% improvement in gearing, and the added traction should help propel my G35 to quicker ETs. All I really care about is getting some good ETs at the track because I'm not racing against a clock on the street. I'll yank the spare/jack, run a 1/4 tank of 95-96 octane, and pull any other loose articles out of the car. These auto 03-04 auto sedans are capable of 95-96mph trap speeds stock. With a 2.1 60', thats a 14.3 second pass. 60' is everything.

 

Everyone please read this thread (first post at least)

https://g35driver.com/forums/showthr...n+dyno+stillen

 

ditto, lots of good info here, and lots of dramas lol. anyway, Brian's point here is a good one for me because i prefer bang for the buck mods

 

That was a good thread. THis stuff has been revisited over and over. If you spend more than 800-1000 to get from 260 -290 or so then you spent too much. And it's easy to spend 1200 on a cat-back and be dissapointed for a couple reasons including noise. Getting the Z power is not hard - learning how to do it the hard way is not hard either.

Car's like Bossho, THX####, DaveO, NuttyProf and ILLG35 are testament to what can be done for lower cost, well moderate anyway for some. Starting with lower HP like we have @ 260 gives a lot more room for results before the NA limit is reached. I would think the 05 MT would be a tough one to play with. Maybe the plenum and the pulley would do much less for that car with 298 stock. Someone will report soon enough I am sure. I can't wait to see the results!

 

Bottomline: if you're into modding get a Camaro!!



j/k

 

or you could get a civic, and mod the hell out of it for cheap. you'll get loads of power... that is, if you dont mind people making fun of you LOL. =)

but i definitely agree that the G/Z is not a cheap car to mod. cant wait for those ITB's though. wow. 4000 bucks. cant wait to burn that money.

 

I'm with many other G35 owners who managed to get a few more ponies out of their VQ engine without big expense. I was orginally researching FI but the dollar figures were too high. I've decided to spend my money on suspension, brakes and wheels.

My future plans are to find a project car to restore/modify -- 240Z, 260Z, 240SX (S13 or S14) -- keeping in the Nissan family

 

It always amazes me that it’s actually the "newbies" that haven’t been on this forum for long that attack many mods, such as grounding as being "snake-oil". The members that have been here for several years, as have the members over at My350Z.com, recognize hyper-grounding as a valid, effective modification, and it’s the newbies that repeatedly come and criticize everyone else that claims to have found effectiveness in same!

Few claims have been made re horsepower gains, though grounding has repeatedly been shown in magazine testing with dynos, to increase power despite initial skepticism of the authors. Unfortunately, I don’t have copies of the numerous magazine articles nor dyno charts published to post here, but I’m sure someone has. But it’s really the increased throttle response and smoothness that is significant, regardless of power gains or not. The only analogy I can come up with is the difference that you might feel going to a good road bike from a mountain bike, even of the same weight. Can you measure the differences in power? No. Can you quantify the difference in feel with a formula? Probably not. Friction? Maybe. But I assure you, the differences are day and night! (sorry if this doesn’t seem like a good analogy)

Even the Turbo magazine article (September 2004) where they tested a "Grounding Power System" commented on the repeated effectiveness of grounding for power gains:

"Grounding kits make sense if you reverse-think the situation. With electronic fuel injection, and the ever increasing role of ECUs, it stands to reason that the electrical efficiency of an engine will impact the optimal operation of these vital systems. We were pessimistic, and we’ve tested ground kits from Sun and HKS extensively, and they work…There is little doubt that electricity will become a key factor in automotive performance."

Running several dynos using a Direct Power System that is said to expand on this effect, Turbo magazine obtained repeated increases of HP 6.5 whp in the mid-range and more than 12 whp at 6500 rpm on a bone-stock EVO VIII! They then tested it on a Sun Auto hyper-ground kit equipped 350Z hoping to see similar improvements over a basic H-G kit. They found that though there were increases (again repeatable), it was only 0.4 hp and 1.1 tq over the Sun kit which already made about 5 whp!

As a newbie on this forum way back, I too was an extreme skeptic, since I’ve done power mods like turbos and nitrous on previous rides. After doing research, I finally decided to try Hyper-grounding. I’ve had the Sun Auto kit, and then the Stillen on my G35. Even though they were only 5 or 6 wire kits, I was shocked to find that they really did make a significant difference that is easy to feel, even in "blind" tests!

This doesn’t even take into account that the most recent H-G system that I installed (GroundingGear), made a noticeable improvement OVER that of the other 2! (Again thanks Gord, for the R&D put into this).

No, I didn’t run dynos of my own, but I’m intimately familiar with placebo effects, etc. Based on all the reading that I’ve done over the past 2 years and dynos from various magazines, etc. there is a power gain to be had. There was even a dyno challenge that was done here on the forum (last year?) where Gord was asked to prove (and I think he did) that grounding worked. The newbies wouldn’t know that would they? (Hint: use the search function!)

As far as the critics that say it only makes a difference in the 5AT because of smoother shifting, it’s only Gord’s kits that have received that comment (actually better, more decisive, and quicker shifting). The smoothness and throttle response can be felt with you people with manual trannies as well! My buddy (biggest skeptic and anti-mod guy I know) with a 6MT 350Z even reported that his Z now pulls noticeably harder, especially in the mid-range! It’s probably the ONLY mod that he’ll ever do to his car!

So newbies, do a bit of research before you poo-poo any mod you don’t think will work, or don’t believe in!

If you want big power, do a turbo, S/C, or nitrous. But realize there are other mods that work as well.

 

after doing a lot of thinking about ground systems, i came across a question that has come up which really makes me wonder. at this point, im not really pro or con for the ground kits, but think about this....better grounds are cheap, so if they are so effective, why wouldnt car companies have their cars come w/ great grounds to begin with?

 

Multiply 'cheap' times thousands of units and you will see why the cost difference on something as small as fasteners is measured in pennies or fractions thereof. Look under your hood, inside your interior and tell me you don't see a cost compromise.

 

So do certain cars just benefit better from these grounding kits as compared to others? Seems that the kits are only available for the japanese makes. It just seems that if better grounding improved vehicle operation this much, the auto makers would pencil it into the next update. I mean, if you look at most of the other bolt-on mods, it's easy to see why the manufacture avoided them because it compromises some other element (i.e. noise, ride harness, mpg, etc.). However, better grounding for the body control module, DSP-based systems and ECU seems like a no-brainer if they stood to gain significantly better operations of all electronic systems.

To boot, they could market this excess grounding/control systems upgrade as a feature that appeals to a fair percentage of their target market.

Seems that they have alot to gain and very little to loose.