turbogrill

never owned a turbo car in my life but I googled the same thing a while ago and my conclusion was that for a typical street setup the gains are small but not worth it. For a well matched turbo and everything being equal spool might start 150-500 RPM earlier. Not sure about max hp. I would spend that money on tuning instead. I am planning a turbo race car so I might get one just because they can handle more abuse.

I will be using a stockish N47 head or maybe a P79 if I am lucky. Either flattop or dished pistons. So no modern stuff here. I cant run water injection either and no race gas. Its in Texas and it does get warm during summer. Seems like going low on compression might be the best strategy, the extra power from higher compression is not worth the devastation of detonation. Street car maybe but not enduro race car. Even if I get a stable tune things can break and mess things up, so having something robust is not bad. Also 300whp is plenty for a 280zx amateur race car weighing 2700 lbs with driver and fuel. (My current racing league doesnt allow cars below a PWR of 10:1, so probably need to detune it even)..

Hi, For a 300-350whp turbo race car what would be a good strategy for compression? The race car will live at 3000-6000 RPM and hopefully be on boost all the time? Does it make sense to run 7:1 compression to really really avoid getting detonation? Most posts on this forum indicates that >8:1 compression ratio is very doable with modern engine mangement and good intercooler. It significantly Improves off-boost conditions, but unless drivers scews up there shouldn't be any off-boost conditions. From what I understand a 300whp NA race car also sucks under 4000 RPM. Would be on high octane pump gas and Megasquirt fuel and spark.

Would the .540 cam be beneficial in with a head that only has a diy cleanup (smooth out the vale bowl) and not a extensive port? Seems like mild home porting typically improves flow at lower lifts, but over 400 the flow saturates. (Where a race port is different). Its easier to deal with 480 lift, probably no valve relifs, only outer spring, maybe stock retainer and the ford seal. Please correct me if I am wrong.

That's some cool graphs. How did you calculate them? Did you estimate the 0.50" lift?

Hi, In terms of performance, what is the difference in going from a moderate (0.480" lift) to high lift (0.540") cam given that the duration is the same? Does the higher lift only make sense if your head is ported for it? From what I understand a mild clean up on the head really helps on the lower lifts but doesn't do much at higher lifts, reshaping of the ports are needed for that. Rebello has a few cams with similar duration but with different lifts. I guess the lower lifts are for "budget" builds where stock pistons and less care to the valve train is required?

Sad to hear, seems like you were prepared and then it all went to the drain. But the car is running good now right? Nothing broke? The *only* thing you lost was the money for the dyno day?

Agree that Megasquirt pro might be overkill. Spend that money on something else like tuning. Godzilla raceworks sells a "plugin" MS2(?). I am using Microsquirt works well and not missing any features.

Are you talking about just the coilover conversion or a full suspension swap? The full swap has some involved and I think the question is if it's worth it. Sure the S130 rear suspension is not the best design but you can still make them handle OK (BMW E30 has a similar design and seem to be a popular race car) I kept the S130 suspension and put my resources into tires and aftermarket suspension components. Are you saying that the 300Z components somehow have been adopted to work in 280zx?

Hi, I have a moderate lift cam that I have measured to about 0.480" (Shadbolt M445). When the valve is open max there are some margin between the top of the seal and the top of the retainer. What is a good safety margin? Rebuilding the head, curious if I should get stock seals or the Ford ones (ford ones seems harder to install).

The rules are clear, non-OE cylinder head is 100pts. If Derek gives me one for free I would be happy to stress it for him. It would involve irresponsible drivers and ziptie loving mechanics...and somehow beer.

Thanks!

Wow! mindblowing For us that hasn't followed the 50 pages in this thread, is it possible to get a 3-4 sentence summary regarding progess, cost and expected use case?

Aha that makes sense! Good thing I didnt start whacking up the head. Thanks Curious about that tiny ridge between the valves. I would think you want the air to follow a smoot bent surface. Like a sinus bent shape or something. Removing that ridge would cause and abrupt opening. (Lots of homemade theories being developed here...)

haha...I meant "look at he exhaust side! You have to be balsy to remove more material" I did find a great picture in a thread.It's posted by BRAAP. I didn't realize that you also can remove so much stuff close to the sparkplugs. It's marked red in my picture below, he also smoothen the ridge around the valves (blue): This is BRAAPs before: See how much material around the spark plug it is, the red area in my picture above. After BRAAP: Not a whole lot of material removed on the side of the vavles (where the red and green arrow is in the first post picture). But plenty removed above the intake valve. The ridge under the vavles (blue in the picture above) also seems like it's gone. BRAAP also mention that on L heads the first thing he will do is to remove area around the vavle curtain area, I assume that is the blue line in the image above and also on the side of the vavles. Obviously on a race head he might do more but improving vavle curtain area seems to be the most important thing according to him. Not sure if it applies to all heads. The thread can be found at: However, whitehead performance seem to only remove material on the side, they ignore the ridge that BRAAP has removed: (http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/headporting/index.htm): In BRAAPs head it seems like that ridge the arrow points to have been smoothen out.

Hi, How are you guys unshrouding your N47 heads? It doesn't seem to be much room to work on for on the intake? Exhaust seems to have a little more room. Looks like they are already shrouded from factory? Here is a picture with the gasket on, red arrow is intake and green is exhaust: Here is a picture without the gasket:

I use the microsquirt and it works very well. It took quite some time to get the harness done but you can buy a premade harness from softztop on this forum. That should save you some time. Tuning with Mircrosquirt is very fun

Those pictures are the best! I always thought it was a 2 man job, obviously not.

Oh...more than 245..yes you are probably right. 245 is plenty for me

What is wrong with 15x10? For something grippy, street legal and durable you can fit RS4 or VR-1 245s. Larger wheels are just heaiver and more expensive.

I think you can calibrate thst in tunerstudio

Not sure what you are asking. But you can use the S13 TPS, the mounting holes don't line up so you would have to do something about that. A simple bracket of somesort.

There is about four fingers between the strut and the wheel in the rear, about one finger in the front. I don't get any rubbing but my car is lowered and the fenders are all banged up from "incidents" on the race track. Maybe they will rub in on a stock car, don't know.

So is a half cage just the rear? Why not a full cage, weight and cost? I like to look at real professional race cars for inspiration. You could also add add bars from strut towers to firewall as well or get a nice 4pt strut bar. I got one from RaceTep, but that think broke...snapped. This is from a 280zx:

I have a full weld in cage in my 280zx race car. Its the only thing keeping it togheter. The cage really stiffens up the car, specially the rear since its attached to the rear strut towers. Is there any thing in particular you are curious about? Cost is between $1000-$4000 depending om what you want.