Hi, long time lurker first time poster here. My friend just bought a G35 sedan and wants to increase horsepower. His idea is to get a z-tube with a stillen intake, full stillen exhaust and a programmer. I don't know too much about G's but i drive a mustang and for me, this would be a boatload of money for a minor bump in horsepower. I believe he should just save up for forced induction and get a better power to investment ratio.

What would you do?

 

You are correct!!

 

For those particular mods, it won't be a ton of money, but the gains will be minimal as well. Even a full bolt-on G35 with tune won't see too much increase in power, and collecting bolt-on mods gets expensive to the point where the cost to benefit ratio makes it not worthwhile to most people.

FI will net you the best bang for your buck, but keep in mind the maintenance costs as well as reliability issues will ultimately make it something he needs to think carefully about before doing.

I went the full bolt-on route with my last G35 (which was totaled) and regretted it in the end. It was a waste of money IMO. With my current G35 I'm going for tightening up the suspension and then basically looks. I want it to handle well and look nice, and that's it.

 

If he has the money to go FI, then yes, it'd be better. Although, he'd still need to get those mods you listed above to go with the fi.

 

and you have to remember even if the hp to $ ratio is better with FI, the initial capital outlay is signficaint. Reliability is a factor that needs to be taken into consideration as well.

 

What year? Pre-HR motor? If yes then those list of mods have an extremely low ROI.

Stillen products are okay and I like the intake and exhaust. I'd go with them if you can afford it.

But these mods will add more for XX money spent.

5/16" spacer from Motordyne.

If you are 6MT and have the revup motor, add the MREV lower manifold to this. Also from Motordyne.

High flow cats are probably another good mod.

Then top it all off with a Osiris reflash from UpRev.

 

It is 6MT and revup. I know the FI is expensive at first but i used to have a 94 Trans Am and in retrospect, if i had saved the money i blew on bolt-ons and just got a supercharger, i would have spent less for more in the long run. Even though bolt-ons seem cheap initially, once you get the modding bug you can't stop. And before you know it, you've spent thousands for a couple tenths at the strip.

 

Nos

 

Bolt ons + Nitrous = power when you want it

 

All of the n/a mods that Jeff mentioned in post #6 are good recommendations and typical of our cars. Those mods are will prolly cost in the $3K range. Now from what I understand, to force the VQ "right", it's gonna run in the $8-9K range. So i'm not sure you will have spent "less for more in the long run". It's more like you're paying more and getting more.

 

really depends on his budget, many of those bolt on's are useable/needed with FI anyway. and since it can easily take over $10k to get an FI setup if you don't have that kind of money might as well do some bolt ons

 

I'm completely stock atm so I'm just speaking from research and talking to people, but it seems to me that if you want real power you have to go FI. But the effective "bolt-ons" for NA g's really aren't very expensive. Mrev2 + spacer is like $600. Full exhaust with headers and hfc probably like $1500-$2000+. Anything else you do is probably just asthetics or suspension with little effect on power.

From a hp to $$ ratio, FI is where it's at. $3000 for prolly less than 50whp with a tune is not economical. But if you wanted a fast car you probably wouldn't be driving a g. It's a compromise for me. Gotta look good too.