I picked the car up from a former business associate in 2002. It was essentially a rolling shell with no wiring/windows/hardware/brakes/interior. The car has been sitting on and off while I developed a C5 Vette track car, building out a new shop after buying and moving into our current home, the Porsche 996TT love affair/track development project, motorcycles, starting my company, and dealing with sick and dying family members on both my and my wife's side.

If I'd just had a year or two to just focus on this car evenings and weekends, It would have been done long long ago... But that's life... Just glad I have gotten it to this stage... The only work I didn't perform on this car was the cage and the paint, as well as the assembly of the pistons/rods/crank on the motor. Everything else, I'm happy to say I've developed or sourced over time...

Mike

 

this thing is awesome. my buddy has a 280z with a small block chevy in it...

 

So we did some windtunnel testing back in 2007, which I managed to scribe about in Nissan Sport Magazine's Winter 2007 issue. Some of the tricks we learned in the 30 tests run in "AeroDyn2"s tunnel were the use of these aero treatments:






I still have a few more things to work on, but after our testing, the stock body Zcar was horribly dirty. Doing some of these simple mods will help a lot!

Mike

 

This sub-forum has some good discussion on Z-car aero.

http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/...-and-analysis/

 

I know, I started that forum back in 2007. I am the author of the data referenced in that sub-forum and article. Much of the good bits tested in that series of wind tunnel tests has ended up on the Zcar... I'm eager to drive this car at Watkins Glen and VIR both in September.

I was a founding member and admin of that website until I bowed out in 2008.

Mike

 

More pics of the progress on the car...






And a pic of the engine bay with the wiring all cleaned up and everything functioning properly. This is how it ran as tested at Summit Point:


Mike

 

awesome build, you obviously know your stuff; kudos.

 

Thanks Man!

Mike

 

Heading off to the dyno with her this AM for some "safe" pulls and tuning...

Mike

 

So today was the "big day"...



We got the car over to EB3 Motorsports in Manassas Va. and got it on their dyno first thing this morning. We did 9 passes total on their Superflow AutoDyn30 Eddy Current flow dyno, which I realize is bad on numbers... Ev, the owner told me that if I wanted to compare the numbers from his dyno to say a dynojet, that I should add about 28-30% to the numbers... Based on the tests, the changes, which I'll get to in a minute, he said my motor was probably a 450-460 BHP 383 stroker and he was impressed with the car and the potential.
Ev had a pretty decent process of tuning. He'd make changes, do a pull, then do a second pull back to back to make sure the readings were repeatable. Every time we saw within one HP or one Torque reading of the previous pull.

So we started off with the car rolling 314HP and 318#ft. of torque. However, the AFRs were the big story. We were into the 11s from 2800-3900 and then back into the 11s from 4800-5300... Then it was in the low 12s. The motor wasn't rich enough, and under inspection, the timing was dancing around a lot once it was "all in".

So first we played with the jetting on the primaries, which helped with a part throttle stumble (down from 73 to 70) and we also changed the squirter down a size. After runs 2-3, the squirter was re-installed. After runs 4-5 we pulled the distributor appart and took at the 25 degree advance stop (smallest stop) and put a larger stop in. What we were seeing with the timing light was the timing bounce around between 31-38 degrees timing. Simple $.90 cent part fixed it and the timing was advanced to an initial timing of 16 degrees with 38 total in by 3500. We played with the timing a little to see if we could get the car to run more power with less time and found that was not the case. runs 6-9 found us zero-ing in on a safe and consistant back to back tune. The car is making a solid 325# ft. of torque and 323HP. When you apply his calculation of 28%, the car is making about 413WHP and 415#ft. torque.

This dyno is very "low" in its numbers. The owner told me he has new Z06s turning 374-385WHP. So the numbers, although low are put into perspective next to those Z06 numbers...

I'm very happy with this tune and the car seems to make plenty of power and very quickly... This car is gonna be a lot of fun!
Unfortunately we had an earthquake here in Virginia today and I came home to a bit of a mess...



After further inspection of the window that had fallen out of its frame and hit my Porsche twin turbo, it appears I had no damage to the car, and other than a few broken items inside the house, we made out OK.

Mike

 

I think your choice of dyno was a good one.

Our dyno dynamics twin retarder at Performance Power is nicknamed "dream crusher" because it always tells the truth rather than what the owner wants to see.

I'm still impressed by some guy in a dodge shadow who put down over 400 front wheel horsepower on that dyno.


Are you sure your dyno runs didn't cause the earthquake?

 

Hahaha! Thanks man...

Latest Gratuitous pic!



Mike

 

that thing is sweet looking! Nice work.

Ben

 

Latest shots from our trip to Watkins Glen:






Mike

 

Couple pics of the car on the track at Watkins Glen...




Mike