The NA Build - With Substance

[Pritchard]

The NA Build.

 

Morning lads.

So im currently spec'ing out the next stage of the Pumpkin Build.

 

as im sure a fair few of you are aware of now from the meets, that the missus is actively encouraging me to supercharge the car. (if i supercharge it, she gets a holiday. thats the deal ).

 

But, as much as i appreciate a charge, i am not and never will be a forced induction kind of guy.

so i've been spending alot of time reading through this forum and the US side to see what dynos exist for NA tuning- very few it seems!

 

I am working to a budget of around £8k, as thats seems to be the going rate for a drive-in, drive-out SC install at the moment. and from what i have been reading, bottom end on the DE is only advisable to about 400hp before it needs money on it.

in which case, i am assuming thats around 370-380 at the wheels (as a general guide, doesnt need to be argued. )

 

My requirements:

none really. MPG is going to drop. thats a given. drivability needs to be realistic, but as most of my driving is motoway anyway (3-5k rpm) things like a heavy clutch or rough idle isnt an issue.

 

 

Now for NA, things get expensive, and there is very little good solid information (in terms of dyno results) showing what can be acheived. noone wants to gamble £1000 on a part because no dyno results exist, only to find its not added any significant power.

unfortunately, this could be me.

 

UK side:

With the dynos that do exist, i am seeing some polar opposites: (all the below loosely quoted from dynos im seen from members. but remember these are different dynos, different days, different cars)

The stock DE is putting down figures of around 235whp (UK side. the Yanks are quoting nearler 210!)

With the usual intake, sports cat, catback, plenum spacers, and UpRev, results of 240-255 are seen. Not a great increase, as we know.

 

I have seen talk of cams being installed, with marginal gain but no dynos. mention of ported heads, big valves and big cams with poor results, but no dyno.

Cant see any results at all for exhaust manifolds, seems no-one runs then at all whom has been anywhere near a dyno. (yes i am aware of the cost implications for fitment).

 

There is however one nugget that i did find,

there one a dyno i found of someone that went to Abbey MS for cams AND a bottom end compression increase through pistons. Other than the intake & exhaust mods i didnt see anything else unusual listed. that made 307hp at the hubs (Abbey Dyno). My best result at Abbey was 271hp @hubs. theres HP lurking somewhere!

 

 

Stateside things get messy. the chat rooms are full of muppets vomiting ''NA is a waste of time'' in every thread, making unearthing useful information difficult. it gets even funnier when they all bitch after every dyno result that the dyno they used was inadequate and invalid because the dyno ''wasnt the right one'' (theres forum-wars out there of dynoplot vs dynojet, vs mustang vs dynodynamics etc)

however, some information can be gleaned:

Ive seen reports of a full head build by cosworth, ported head large valves, inlet manifold etc, that made 'poor power', but couldnt find the dyno.

There are back to back tests of the Cosworth inlet manifold vs Plenum spacer, and the spacer wins! (£100 vs £1000!! lol). actually there are a couple of the above test. appears the cosworth manifold is not superier to the plenum spacer at all.

 

There was another dyno i saw with ported headwork, again results were negligable.

 

Once we get into the realms of cams however, there is some better information coming through. most notably, the user SGSash that now runs Onpointdyno. there are some serious back to back tests of their dynos which are invaluable. im sure you have all heard of the 372whp NA zed? well, thats theirs. **(also worth noting now, this is a race space and is STILL less than a basic supercharger.)

but how they got there is whats interesting.

 

Looking at their progressive results, they cleared 330whp before the internals were even touched (exception of cams). big gains were seen from a custom inlet manifold and throttle body setup, and from a custom longtube exhaust manifold (about 25whp each). And then when testing cams, another 20whp was found over OEM.

There are another couple of dynos using long tube headers, and again clearing 300whp with ease.

 

 

Now to begin to price up the sort of route i will be looking at, the essentials are going to be:

Custom inlet manifold - spec'd and quoted at £1200

Ported TB -spec'd and quoted at £120 (not going for another, as it seems there are too many electrical and ecu issues to consider)

Camshafts - still considering journal specs, but £1000 is the ballpark for a set.

Exhaust Manifold - £1400 PPE is the only maker i can find. I got some custom quotes but they were beyond daft!

new custom exhaust - £1000 - due to the longer manifold, new cats need to be purchased and relocated.. etc

another remap: £400

 

plus general labour to fit the above, thats about £6k gone already. and from result seen, if i clear 310whp i'll be doing very well.

 

I havent seen any positive results from headwork and larger valves, so i wont be exploring that option. < unless someone else can dig something up?

which means the remaining 2k budget will be likely spent on the bottom end... although it wont go far! high compression pistons alone are about £1200, before fitment.

unless i drop another part and invest in the bottom end instead.

 

 

 

Its clear why the NA route is neglected.Hopefully the above information might help some other guys in deciding FI or NA without them getting the usual ''its a wate of time'' answer. at least theres some substance in the reasoning here.

...in my opinion yes NA is a waste of money, when compared to Fi tuning. But its my preferred tuning route. plus bragging rights of course for NA power.

 

 

if anyone knows or can recommend anyone for the following couple of parts that would be awesome:

- im looking for other inlet manifold options, outside of Kinetix and Coswroth. I have a quote from a custom frabicator whos running a VQ35 in a race car, but ive never used the guy.

- exhaust manifold, is there anythign else out there except for the PPE? apert from the tomei and ebay short manifold replacements?

- is anyone aware of a larger plug and play drivebywire throttle body. otherwise boring is going to be my only option.

 

*suspension and brakes are to be upgraded prior to the work.

current engine mods:

06 airbox with velocity stack

plenum spacer

cobra sport cats,

Y pipe, cobra non-res back

single mass lightweight flywheel

remap

271hp @ hubs.

 

but most of the above list of mods will need to go to accomodate the required route. but selling these can offset some cost

 

 

 

Pritchard

[Ekona]

That's a lot of money for very little gain. I'm as pro-NA and anti-FI as you are, but even I wouldn't dream of spending £8K on NA on the Zed, it's simply not worth it IMHO.

 

If you're fitting it all yourself and that's half the fun then actually, I'd get that. Doesn't sound like you are though, unless I'm wrong. You could buy a whole other car for that kind of money, and as a second car it wouldn't need to be remotely practical, and it would be a hell of a lot more fun. Or you could spend £4K on driver training and see a much more positive result in terms of pace you can carry, which would then set you up for life. Or that's a lot of tyres and trackdays!

 

 

I mean, kudos to you and I wish you well in your project, but I thought I'd give you a sanity check from someone who's not going to just batter you with the "Just go FI!" line. If you're going to do it, then at least do something a bit unique, like ITBs which would be amazing.

[Grundy]

Also you know PPE Longnose headers are Headers + Cats right?

[brillomaster]

Fair play to you for giving the N/A route a good go, and not going down the easy route of adding boost. interested to see how this turns out!

[GriffGTV]

^^^ +1 for MTBs .....or for the £8k, surely an LS3 or even LS7 must be the better option and soooooo much more fun to drive - Dont sound too shoddy either IMHO

[Bodyboarder81]

You have obviously done some reading up on it all and know roughly what you want to get / do . Are you after a faster zed ? I didn't really want to go fi on my zed but as you've said , once you've done the maths and worked out the bhp/ performance gains it's a no brainer . A zed with say 300 whp v one with 250whp is not going to feel vastly different and on the road dare I say it , it wouldn't be that much faster . I made 435 bhp with my set up .... I wanted a tad more .... A £90 pulley and £200 fitting / tune and I gained 30 bhp . The point I'm making with fi there is room to upgrade at a reasonable cost , which is why I decided to go this route . If I had spent 8k and only got 300ish whp I would be proper cheesed off .

[Bodyboarder81]

^^^ +1 for MTBs .....or for the £8k, surely an LS3 or even LS7 must be the better option and soooooo much more fun to drive - Dont sound too shoddy either IMHO

 

You wouldn't even get close to that conversion for that money

[Pritchard]

Also you know PPE Longnose headers are Headers + Cats right?

? not sure what you mean here.

the PPE headers required the OEM cats to be removed and replocated further down the exhaust system. hence why ive listed a new custom exhaust will be required. the PPE doesnt actually come with cats...

 

ITBS - yes that would be awesome. but price means other areas will be neglected, and also i cant find any solid dynos results for anyone that sused them. its a bit of an unknown on the Z. this puts me off.

 

LS# V8 - that was my original plan actually. but having spoken to Wasso the price was well into 5 figures. out of budget.

[Grundy]

Also you know PPE Longnose headers are Headers + Cats right?

? not sure what you mean here.

the PPE headers required the OEM cats to be removed and replocated further down the exhaust system. hence why ive listed a new custom exhaust will be required. the PPE doesnt actually come with cats...

 

ITBS - yes that would be awesome. but price means other areas will be neglected, and also i cant find any solid dynos results for anyone that sused them. its a bit of an unknown on the Z. this puts me off.

 

LS# V8 - that was my original plan actually. but having spoken to Wasso the price was well into 5 figures. out of budget.

Yes, the OEM cats are removed because the headers are essentially Decats.

[Adrian@TORQEN]

Oh, come on Aaron, you're not serious, are you?

[Pritchard]

Oh, come on Aaron, you're not serious, are you?

 

Yes.

you best get quoting

 

thanks for the earlier PM for that engine, but the low comp isnt to my requirements im afraid.

[Adrian@TORQEN]

 

Yes.

you best get quoting

 

thanks for the earlier PM for that engine, but the low comp isnt to my requirements im afraid.

 

It's like you're asking me to buy you poison, I won't do it!

 

Seriously, it's a huge waste of money, sell your 350z + £8k you're getting a nice 370z which has already the power you're trying to achieve NA. Or short block + TT on your engine. If you ever come to sell your 350z, not many people would want to buy that engine...

 

Take 1-2 more weeks to think this through before you start spending

[Floydbax]

Cough

 

http://www.onpointdyno.com/?p=1088

[Jetpilot]

First off i say, i love modifying cars and anything else in between So in theory, i understand but in reality....

 

Your not a forced induction kind of guy you say, any particular reason, have you had bad experiences of owning or driving fi?

 

Most of your driving is motorway, does throttle response etc come into play at that point that you may loose by going fi?

 

And "dyno, dyno dyno and some more dyno", whats the obsession with dyno results, you could have two different cars with 400hp and they will drive very very differently. If your going na and lumpy cams/long tube headers/ported etc that power will all be top end, as per vtech, great if your hammering round a track or b roads but cruising round town and a motorway, its absolutely wasted.

 

If you desperately want to stay na, either follow octets suggestion or do some breathing mods and stroke your current engine, ala 380rs.

[Adrian@TORQEN]

http://www.gtz-uae.c...e-throttle-body Edited August 14, 2015 by octet@TORQEN

[KyleR]

If I had money to burn, not as in disposable income, but as in lottery rich, I'd love to give this a go. Stick 10-15k into the engine and see whats possible, but as a normal working class person, I could never justify it, no matter how much i'd love to.

 

I had my car almost complete, all I needed was some suspension pieces before the inevitable happened and I would begin thinking about gaining power figures. And do you know what I did next? I SOLD the car! For the same money or possibly less than I would have spent in buying the zed, modifying it for the previous 2 years and then finally building the engine, I bought a 500hp V10 which will lose very little money over the next few years compared to the 50%+ I would have lost on building the engine.

 

My point is - if you're loaded and money gushing from your pockets then by all means, give it a go, I'd love to see figures, but for the normal working class, it is genuinely a massive waste of money. If you need/want more power, sell up and add a couple of grand to the selling price and buy an e46 M3, or add the full £8+ and buy an e60 m5 or something, much better way to spend your cash

[Pritchard]

cheers chaps.

 

stroker was the original plan Jet, with either the stroked 3.8, or stroked and bored 4.15, but again costs spiral quickly with this route.

[Stutopia]

I can't wait to see the build thread as it will be exciting new territory but I do think if the brain overuled the heart, Octet's on the money, use it to get a '70 and they've done the NA build for you (with a decent R&D budget too!) and they chuck in a better interior for free!

[Jetpilot]

Costs will spiral quickly with any na tuning. Your either in it for long haul with deep pockets and lots and lots of patience and no car to drive, or bite the bullet and enjoy fi or put the money towards a car with that figure na already.

 

As for na bragging rights, the guy with the fi zed who you cant keep up with literally wont care

Edited August 14, 2015 by Jetpilot

[brillomaster]

stuff

 

+1 if you want a high power, high revving NA engine, its got to be sell the zed and buy an M3/M5/M6. BMW have already spent millions making high power NA engines which are now well within budget of what you could sell your zed for plus £8k.

[docwra]

Sadly I have to agree too, the VQ doesnt have anything going for it that would make it the first choice to chuck loads of money at and frankly speaking neither has the car its fitted in

 

I could understand it in an M car, or a Porsche, or even an MR2 Roadster but it just seems like spending cash for the sake of it. It might be worth dropping a PM to Fake Ben Taylor on here though, I know he was having many of the same ideas not too long ago, there might be a better way of gettign to the top of the hill ........ but I doubt it

[allaboutthepasty]

Yes.

you best get quoting

 

thanks for the earlier PM for that engine, but the low comp isnt to my requirements im afraid.

 

It's like you're asking me to buy you poison, I won't do it!

 

Seriously, it's a huge waste of money, sell your 350z + £8k you're getting a nice 370z which has already the power you're trying to achieve NA. Or short block + TT on your engine. If you ever come to sell your 350z, not many people would want to buy that engine...

 

Take 1-2 more weeks to think this through before you start spending

 

This, 370. And coming from the guy who would be set to make a few quid from you tells you something?

 

Good luck with whatever you choose though and I'll be subscribing to the build thread if you do go the NA 350 route

[Floydbax]

Interesting

 

http://my350z.com/forum/shop-builds/389322-g35-na-stroker-with-itbs.html

[Adrian@TORQEN]

http://my350z.com/forum/na-builds/477743-kevin-s-vq35de-na-build-epilogue.html

[Pritchard]

Floyd Octet,

 

ive alrea seen both of those threads. Kev's in particiular is another exmaple of extreme headwork, and a poor result.

 

i've not seen any proper flow benching comparisions between the OEM head and a ported example, but im wondering if they are being overdone. theres many results of non-ported OEM valve heads that seem to perform just as well, or better.

just an assumption from observation.

 

 

*edit,

sorry Floyd! wrong name

Edited August 14, 2015 by Pritchard