Guest bastaad525 Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 I got 20 mpg with triples. If you got less then that' date=' you need to learn to tune.[/quote'] You say that like it's such a simple thing tuning them can be a real pain, but it's not impossible... with a good dyno I wouldn't think it's even that hard it's just that you have to have access to different size jets and what not and it can get expensive in a hurry. I will say you're the first person I've heard of that got anywhere near decent mileage from tripples... most people I've talked to got only around 12-13mpgs, maybe up to 17mpgs if it was mostly freeway driving. I guess I"m kinda biased against them for a street driven car... my friend had 240 with built up 2.8... his motor was almost exactly the same as mine in just about every respect. I had rebuilt SU's, and he had I believe 44mm Mikunis. We did a little swaparoo test drive of each others cars... now, mind you, his was dyno tuned by a shop that supposedly knows what their doing with these kinds of setups... well I drove his, and my first impression was man it was a SLUG on the street. You HAD to get it above 4,000rpms to get any real oomph out of it... once 4k came on man it SCREAMED, and though we both had roughly the same cam specs, his car felt like it pulled very hard all the way to 7k, whereas mine always felt out of steam at about 5500. So my impression was, yeah it would be an awesome car for someone who races all the time, and sure felt faster than my car, it must have had so much more top end, but for a daily street driven car, it sucked. My friend came back from driving mine, and his oppinion pretty much boiled down to "I gotta get SU's back in my car", no joke, no exaggeration. Of course, who can say for sure that his tripples were really tuned 'right' but he said the shop he took it to had a dyno and had been doing performance N/A Z's for a number of years, so who can say? That ride was enough to convince me that I did not need nor want tripples on my 2.9, and that they are not the right setup for probably 75% of Z's out there that see more street time than anything else. On a bonafide track car I wouldn't hesitate... but then, if I REALLY had the choice, I'd just go EFI and if I wanted it to look the part I'd go with those awesome individual throttle bodies that look like triples Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 I get about 20 mpg on the highway... What about me Bastaad? Tuning Mikunis is a little difficult, but it's not impossible. I had a buddy who knew more about it than me when I started, and I can now say with some certainty that I know more about them now than he does. It just takes some practice. I can say that a drag race style start is faster with the Mikunis than my old SU's, but if I drive an autocross and have to pull from 2K, then the SU's are faster IME. I have yet to find a shop that knows how to tune them, but I'm sure they are out there. I think I've got some more hp that I can squeeze out with a dyno day, too. Jon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 That's what I'm saying, SU's are much better for low rev pulling, and it IS hard to find people who really KNOW how to tune them RIGHT. One thing I DONT agree with is when people say then need more 'upkeep' tuning than SU's do... SU's have a reputation for being 'set and forget' well I can attest to the fact that that simply is not true, you do need to mess with them sometimes especially when the weather changes, or if you're gonna be at a different altitude for extended periods or whatever. However they are SUPER simple to tune so it was no big deal... the hardest part was taking off the air filter box But many people who've never run triples (and some who have) seem to be of the mind that they need to be fiddled with much more often... well the people I"ve known and everything I've read about them all agree that this is simply not true... they are every bit as much 'set and forget' as the SU's are. Even in the tuning department, most people just drop a set of SM needles into a built up Z motor and leave it at that. My extensive dyno testing showed that the SM's were not well suited at all to my setup... so I can see how, if you wanted to get them just right, via custom needle profiling, it may cost every bit as much as it would cost to get the right jetting on your tripples. So in my oppinion, the real deciding factor of SU's vs. triples should really be how you are going to be driving the car, more than anything else, because in everything else they really are comparable, as far as cost, tuning, etc. and as I said... IMO 75% of the people aren't going to drive their car often enough in a way where the trips would really be beneficial to them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest szlash280z Posted December 2, 2003 Share Posted December 2, 2003 if I didn't rebuild my entire engine and buy lots of new parts "just to make sure" then my turbo swap would have only cost me around $600. $500 for the engine and stuff and almost $100 for Gas to go get it! Damn gas guzzling Dodge Ram! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidh Posted December 8, 2003 Author Share Posted December 8, 2003 so can triples get around 20+mpg and still be succesful in like quarter miles?? there was a post on here some where a guy by the name of norme. he was doing 20+mpg and was a daily driver, and made 12 sec passes in quarter. can triples be the same like that. arn't triples better then su??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 Triples can do what you say, but where they really make their presence known is on a road course, more than a drag strip IMO. I don't have a good 1/4 mile time for you to judge that type of performance, although I did do a GTech run just before swapping out my stock clutch which was slipping REALLY BAD, and according to it I had a 1/4 trap speed of 108, with an ET of 15.5... 108 while slipping in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. Take that for what it is worth. IMO if you want to build your car for drag, get a turbo. Jon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vintage-TechZ Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 well long ago I had decided if I ever got the time that I would build a "blow through" Solex 44mm turbo system on one of my early Z's.And since my fiance' was killed in her Nissan Maxima this past June,I've been walking around with my foot nailed to the ground for months. Well anyway I've begun the Blow through on my small bumpered 260-Z. I'm fabricating the airbox out of some aluminized carbon fiber(silver).Just to keep things simple at first,I'm only using the stock F54 t-manifold and a T/3 turbo with no Intercooler since boost will be under 10 lbs. Just the 2.5 stainless exhaust that I pulled from my 73' turbo show-car and I'm bolting in the MSD 6al w/msd boost timing master in series. If all goes well then I'll put the forged piston motor with a ported N47 hard seat head in .(stuff on my shelves from old projects) So I hope to get the best of both worlds here,the great sound of howling triples and the V-8 beating horsepower that I've enjoyed in my other Z's. If anybody is interested,post it and I'll stay in touch. Later.........Vinny-Z Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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