Archives for : New Products

SZ Z32 Turbo Outlet Pipes

We are proud to release our own Z32 turbo outlet pipes.  These pipes allow for the smoothest transition to 2.5″.  This will make more power and make it easier to install 2.5″ intercooler piping.  Typical transitions made in the silicone hose (2″ to 2.5″) are too dramatic and turbulent.  Our pipes come in raw aluminum form and can be painted or powdercoated to suit your looks and needs.  These pipes also retain the use of the factory outlet hoses for an easy upgrade.  For a limited time only you can pick up a set for $149 + Shipping.

Melissa Drifts & Godspeed Turbos

We’ve known Miss Melissa for a few years now and she’s been a die hard drifter ever since she had the opportunity to try it herself.  There’s a good chance you’ll see her if you frequent the drift circuits like Irwindale in SoCal.  Her poor car has seen alot of abuse but it just keeps going.  She sent me a text one day out of the blue if we would install a pair of turbos on her car.  I kept an open mind and knew something like this undertaking was opening a can of worms.  Its not as simple as one may think, throw some turbos on and your done.  Doesn’t really work that way most of the time.  Melissa’s Z32 is pretty stockish in the performance department.  It packs a JWT Single POP, Boost Jets, JWT ECU, Stock Fuel Injectors, Genie Catback, SZ Clutch & Flywheel.  That’s it for mods.  So when she asked about upgrading turbos we scratched our heads.  There was plenty more to do before she truly maxed the stock turbos potential.  For those who missed it, this is the pride and joy (click me).

Godspeed hooked her up with a pair of their new turbos and intercoolers.  Our opportunity to see what cheap Chinese made turbos look & perform.  Chinese parts\copies have taken over our market by storm.  Its amazing that the consumer will buy the cheapest option, thinking only with their pocketbooks.  Anyways that’s enough of ranting, I can go on and on and on and on and on……..

To simplify things and minimize the can of worms we opted to install the turbos with the engine in the chassis.

Specs direct from Godspeed:

Compressor Trim 60 Exhaust Trim 63
Intake side inducer 46.48
Intake side exducer 60
Exhaust side inducer 53
Exhaust side exducer 47.12
Internal wastegate set at : 12 psi

We found that the wastegates were totally off.  One opened at 5 psi the other at 9 psi.  We set them for 13-ish psi.  Keeping in mind Melissa has no boost controller.

Dual port actuator is included.

It’s “hot” side.  4-Bolt housing.  Much larger housing than stock though.  Turbine wheel is a good size.

The “cold” side.  You’ll notice that the inlets and outlets are cast made to fit the Z32 configuration.

Turbo Manufacturer (JiaMu).  A quick Google search brings up some diesel truckers experiences with them.  Let’s hope they last for Melissa’s sake.

Stock cold side on the left, Godspeed on the right.

Stock hot side on the left, Godspeed on the right.

Melissa’s Z32, checkout her site when you have the opportunity @ www.melissadrifts.com

The results:

This isn’t a straight apples to apples comparison as you can see the boost levels were different along with supporting mods.  11 psi on the stock turbos, 13-14 psi on the Godspeed.  The Godspeed turbos also received a help from their intercoolers along with some down pipes & test pipes.  So I wouldn’t go off this graph.  This is just to show the difference on how the car ended up.  287 whp on stock turbos, stock pre-cats & cat pipes, and stock intercoolers.  341 whp on Godspeed turbos, intercoolers, down pipes, test pipes, and higher boost.  Just so we’re clear on differences.  No tuning was performed and the factory injectors are still performing fueling duties.  This power level is easily attainable on stock turbos as most already know.

We wish you the best in luck with your drifting quest Melissa, and let us know how the turbos hold up.  At least now she’ll be able to smoke the tires more effortlessly through the drift.  Rock on.

Clutch Disc Weights

A few months ago we weighed our own clutch discs and a competitor’s product.  This was all done to compare the weight difference in our High 5 Puck Disc.  We covered its release here:  http://specialtyz.com/blog/?p=45

In short the more weight the input shaft has to deal with the harder it is for it to go into the next gear.  The inertia from a heavier disc will cause more wear and tear on synchros especially for those quick shifters out there.

Here’s how the discs performed on the scales.

We’ll start things off with our modified street disc.  Coming in at 3.8 lbs.  Perfect for the driver who wants very silky smooth engagements and won’t be tearing it up at the drag strip.

Our 6-Puck comes in just a tad lighter than the street disc.  This disc is for those who are mean to the drive-train assaulting it with clutch dumps and high horsepower.

Next up is the competitor’s feramic disc.  This puppy comes in at a heavy weight of 4.6 lbs.  Feramic materials were developed for agricultural use (tractors, heavy equipment, etc.)  It is heavy duty and also heavy on weight.  Not really designed for the sports car enthusiast.  Notorious for welding themselves to your flywheel as well.

This brings us to our new 5 Puck disc.  Extremely lightweight and nimble.  Easy on your trans and gives the driver the much needed high RPM shifting desired without sacrificing transmission internals.  A must for the spirited driver looking for no compromises.  Our pressure plate that goes with this disc is also lighter.  Amazingly provides little harsh engagement and little chatter.

Zeetoyz Oil Cap

Finally an oil cap where the logo can be moved independently of the physical cap location.  Hooray!  Seriously though, this is indeed a nice feature and the quality is great.  I had to have this cap to add a little more blue and delete the Nismo oil cap.  Thanks Terry!

Z34 Header Test & Tune

Joe came in from Vegas earlier this week to do some testing for the Fast Intentions crew and for us to tune his slick white 370.  These cars are growing on me more and more.

Interior build is sooo much nicer than the old Z33 especially an early (03-04) Z33 for that matter.  The extra power it puts down definitely doesn’t hurt either.  We did a couple baselines to get an idea of where the car stood before F.I. installed a set of their new headers for the HR\VHR platform.  Joe’s already installed mods included Stillen Gen 3 C.A.I., F.I. HFCs, and catback.  This baby sounded wicked on the dyno.

Some stats on the headers:

  • They are long tube that will bolt directly to the catback.
  • Eliminates the OE CAT pipe.
  • Weighs in at 17 lbs lighter than the OE header & CAT pipe.
  • Made from 304 SS and includes a lifetime warranty.
  • No CEL(s) to worry about.

The set pictured above is a prototype using a different sized collector.

This is the 2nd set of headers installed and the first production unit installed on a Z.

These are the results from stock headers to F.I. headers & tune.  The AFR on this VHR was whacked out.  Rich down low and lean up top.  The Stillen intakes aren’t helping that.  Looking forward to doing some before and after results on those intakes to see how much power is made and how drastically the AFR is changed.  I’d also like to see stock air boxes on Joe’s car with some K&N drop ins.  Joe’s VHR was in dire need of tuning especially after feeling, hearing, and conversing with his engine.  It had a terrible drop in power resulting in a nasty hesitation that could be felt right around 4k RPMs.  This was taken care of luckily with a custom flash.  AFR after just the header install stayed the same as before with stock headers in case any one was wondering.  Peak power didn’t change much.  However a majority of the power-band saw a nice increase of around 10-15 whp and 10-18 torque.

SZ Clutches & Flywheels for the Z32 & Z33

Over the last 10 years we’ve worked closely with RPS in combining our research and product developments for the better.  We’ve licensed out the RPS line and made it our own.  This allows us to freely us our own ideas in clutch developments while keeping the quality the same or higher as before.  Our minds here are always crunching when we have the time to develop new things.

We’ve kept the flywheel the same as their wasn’t any more room for improvement in that arena.  We added our logo which is probably good for some horsepower and torque!  Well maybe it’ll make it lighter 😉

On the clutch side of things we’ve lowered pricing on the more mass market style of clutches.  The better part of it is that we’ve added two new models to the line up.

The pressure plates in our high clamp load line have some changes that really have improved them (High 5, Max Series).  The casting for the pressure plates are half aluminum and half steel. We need the steel for the clutch material to go against for durability.  The aluminum has allowed us to make the pivot point release amazingly better than has ever been possible.   In the past modifying a normal casting was the norm.
Utilizing this new hybrid we have much better release, lightweight, and lighter pedal pressure with the same clamp load of the old RPS Max line.

The new SZ discs………
Our new high power single disc set up we are calling the “SZ HIGH 5” This clutch will use our new pressure plate and has a aluminum 5 puck disc that is half the weight of the standard 6 puck disc and this allows butter shifting and is MUCH easier on the transmission. This set up will hold up to 800 HP (real-world testing)  and allow shifting at much higher RPM’s.  Getting into the lightweight benefits reveals much improved high RPM shift-ability.  There is less friction & drag to slow the input shaft down quicker to allow the synchros to mesh up better.  There is also less parts to break like the springs on the sprung hub discs.  The only down side encountered is low RPM load or lugging that creates noise transfer of the drive-train.  Engagement is surprisingly easy and daily driver street-able.

We also have a new Street Disc to go with the new high power pressure plate. The standard street Disc sold by all the companies have a wavy spring in the middle called a “Marcel” spring for a really long engagement and the Disc’s are normally only riveted for attachment. The problem with the street material is it is brittle and the small attachment area with these Disc’s can cause the material to de-face when you miss a shift,  or dump the clutch at high RPM.
To make a street disc much stronger we removed the Marcel spring to get more contact area to hold the material and we use a really strong special glue along with the rivets.  This combination is much more durable and the engagement is just like the stock organic disc.
The New SZ Street High Clutch!

As in the past our clutches include the throw-out bearing, pilot bushing, and alignment tool.  For ordering you can call us at the shop.  We’re in the process of updating our site so look for on-line ordering very soon.

Z33 guys, you will need to purchase the flywheel to make our clutches work.

We’ll have a write up for those unsure on what clutch your application needs along with the workings of the Twin-Carbon line of clutches.

Let’s go drive (shift) some Zs!

VQ35DE Exhaust Dyno Comparison

We had the opportunity to test out the new ART test pipes from Motordyne Engineering this past week.  The pipes are very interesting looking.  Based on the Helmholtz resonator design, one can theoretically have a quieter “open” exhaust system.  Our customer brought in his 2007 G35 for before and after dyno results.  I was a bit skeptical looking at them but after it was said and done I was pleasantly surprised!

The G already had on it aftermarket HFC (300 Cell) pipes in it so the gains to be had over stock are even higher.  NO OTHER changes were made, just the pipes.  We hopped in the car after the install and the customer confirmed they were as quiet sounding as the HFCs we pulled off!

The Dyno doesn’t lie, and in this case we confirmed additional power and torque to be had.  We saw consistent gains of 8-10 whp across the board and peak gain of a little over 8 whp.  A\F was pretty consistent between the two runs as well.  One thing to note is that the auto trans hard lines are real close to the resonator and will require some tweaking to get proper clearance.

Two thumbs up to Tony over at Motordyne!

Click on images for full view.