300zx gtz? SR71?, SMZ?, Wolf TT?

[kbflip02]

can anyone tell me the difference between these...ive heard they are all special edition z32 models w/ limited #s produced but i can find any info on most of them....

[evildky]

the SMZ was made fomr 95-96 and they made 300 of them IIRC, they were all black white and red with like 1 siver, thye got special wheels, wing shift knob and basic stage 3 mods, intake, ecu, and exhaust, I think they advertised 385 hp

the GTZ was pretty much the same deal but with bigger turbo's, intercoolers etc, I think there were supposed to be like 480 hp, not sure on how many but much fewer

the wolf TT wasn't officially a package supported by nissan AFIK, basically they made their own performance package

gt71 I've nver heard of, this is all by my crappy memory so forgive me if I got some of it backwards, I'm sure Jerry can shed more light on the subject, I'm more of an early z guy

[hotcurry's Z]

evildky is right on the other models but the sr-71 is prolly the most intense edition Z ever made. it was meant to compete with the zr-1 vette back in the day.

The SR-71 package is put together by Motorsport International of Waco, TX, at 817-776-0330. Randy Ball of Motorsport has been developing Nissan Turbo Zs in various forms for several years. Ball and HKS representatives met at an industry convention, where HKS offered to do a Twin Turbo Z for his personal use. Ball, though, saw a larger market on the horizon. He commissioned a study to see if a Callaway-type production operation could be done. The result, the Motorsport International SR-71, will be built on an assembly line in Waco. The car will be sold through Nissan top Merit Award dealers who choose to participate, as well as Motorsport International. Ball plans to build 500 cars per year through 1993. One hundred orders are already in hand. The car will carry the same warranty as the stock ZX Turbo, 3 years/36,000 miles, through the Nissan dealer network. The SR-71 will carry a price similar to the sticker on the ZR-1, and be pegged considerably below the Callaway Twin Turbo. (By the way, ZR-1s can now be bought below sticker). Motorsport bills it as a "serious car for a modest price."

The first serial-numbered customer cars will roll out of the Waco plant in November, 1990. The hard-core engineering work on the SR-71 has been done by HKS USA Inc., of Torrance, CA., a subsidiary of Tokyo-based HKS, a large engineering and manufacturing company that specializes in aftermarket performance. Todd Gartshore of HKS brought out the prototype SR-71 for performance testing at Pomona and Mrs. Orcutt's ever so bumpy Driveway. The HKS mods on the 3.0 liter Nissan engine boost power on 92 octane premium unleaded pump gas to 464 horses at 17 psi of boost. (The stock car makes an even 300 ponies). Todd Gartshore points out that those 464 horses are representative of what the car will do on the street. Over 400 dyno runs were made with the complete street exhaust system and all emission control hardware intact and functional. Oil and water temperatures were regulated to higher than what the car would eventually see during our speed runs at Mrs. Orcutt's: 225 degrees for water, 205 for oil. The outlet temp from the intercooler was held at 195 degrees, while only 165 degrees were observed at Mrs. Orcutt's on a 100-degree day. HKS did one dyno run with short exhaust stubs behind the turbos and 105 octane racing fuel.

The result was a 500 horsepower pull at 6,500 rpm. The finished SR-71 package will include the HKS-built intercoolers and a street-legal free-flow exhaust bolted behind the stock catalytic converters. HKS and Motorsports International are working on California Air Resources Board certification, and expect the car to be 50-state legal when production begins. The engine's torque is as impressive as its power numbers. It developed more than 400 lbs. ft. in a broad band between 4,000 and 5,500 rpm. Torque peak on pump gas was 433 lbs. ft. at 4,750 rpm. On racing gas, it saw 462 lbs. ft. Gartshore thinks the engine has more left in it. "In the dyno run, we made for flash power. We were running very rich. We did not maximize fuel curves to take advantage of the fuel. We believe that if we optimize the mixture, we could run a legitimate 535-540 horsepower."

This is the quickest street legal car we've ever tested. Of all the cars that have carried our test gear, only three race cars - the McLaren M1A, Shelby 427 Cobra, and Shelby GT 350 - could out-accelerate it. And the SR-71 could probably take the Shelby, given slicks and shorter gearing. (The Shelby GT 350 would redline at only 142 mph.) Gartshore emphasizes that all of this was achieved with no internal engine mods whatsoever. HKS took the engine apart, put in new bearings and rings, and bolted it back together. The factory cam with its variable valve timing is retained. Changes are limited to the induction, fuel, and exhaust systems. HKS and Motorsport are building a more radical motor. With balancing and blueprinting, cams, larger turbos, as well as extensive bottom end and head work, Gartshore hopes it will put out a reliable 650 horses. "I think that should give us enough to push the envelope to maybe 220 mph." The turbochargers have custom housings cast by HKS. The entire rotating sections are taken from production Garrett AiResearch T25G turbos.

As their sole Japanese distributor, HKS has a direct line to Garrett AiResearch. To use the output from the larger blowers, Motorsport adds HKS' PFC - Program Fuel Computer. The PFC raises the factory fuel cut point from an indicated 7,200 rpm (which HKS found to be a true 6,500) and the rev limit. The PFC eliminates the stock speed governor, which limits top speed to 157 mph. HKS removes the air mass sensor from one cylinder bank, replaces it with a relocated single sensor feeding just the left bank of cylinders. The right side is wide open, with no air mass sensor restriction. HKS found that the factory airbox was just too restrictive to meet their ultimate goals, so a pair of Power Flow air filters complete the intake tract changes. Gartshore: "Just moving the air mass sensor and adding the free-flow filters adds an easy 35 horsepower."

The PFC controls new 600 cc/minute injectors, replacing the stock 430 cc/min. injectors. The stock injectors in effect limited boost to 11.5 or 12.0 psi. With the 600 cc/min. units, a realistic 18 psi boost is available, with a maximum of 19 or 20 psi. The HKS package includes an electronic valve controller (EVC). Unlike factory wastegate controls, the EVC microprocessor does not signal the wastegate until 90 percent of the desired maximum boost is reached. Most street units begin opening well before that. As an example of its effectiveness, the addition of the HKS EVC on a Porsche 930 Turbo, with no boost increase or other engine mods, improves 0-60 mph times by 0.6 seconds and quarter mile times by 0.9 seconds over stock. The EVC on our test car incorporated another neat little three-letter acronym, the Scramble Boost Controller (SBC).

The SBC is an outgrowth of recent Formula One technology. It has three user-controlled functions: 1) Temporary increase in boost over the nominal EVC wastegate setting, from 10 to 100 percent, in 10 percent steps. So the driver can select a temporary "emergency boost" of, say, 50 percent over normal; 2) Time of overboost, in 3.0 second steps, from 3.0 to 30 seconds; 3) A driver-controlled trigger to activate the SBC, located in an easily accessed location such as a door panel or on the shifter. A small alarm tone warns the driver that the SBC is activated, and a warning light on the trigger goes from green to red. The SBC was not used for our steady-state top speed runs. It would be useful on the drag strip or in passing traffic. Under racing conditions, the SBC helps to economize on fuel, but makes passing power available on demand. Alternatively, it allows the car to be set up for low boost in corners for smoothness, with bursts of driver-controlled high boost available on the straights. The SBC will not be part of the standard SR-71 package, though. If you want one, call HKS or Motorsport for details.

To keep the turbos alive, the SR-71 has a Turbo Timer. This lets the engine idle after the ignition key has been pulled, to cool down the blowers. The idle time is user-set from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. Underneath, the SR-71 uses an HKS-developed suspension. Custom-made KYB shocks are 8-way adjustable at the rear by a knob at the bottom of the shock, while the fronts are 4-way adjustable by a screw at the top of the strut. For our high-speed test, the car was fitted with an especially hard set of springs for an upcoming test at Nissan's Arizona Test Center. At top speeds, the car must withstand high compressive forces on the banking of ATC's five-mile oval. In its milder street form, the SR-71's HKS spring package lowers the car 5/8 in. and increases spring rates by 22 percent. The adjustable shock valving will range from 5.0 percent below the present 300ZX Twin Turbo "soft" setting to 5 percent stiffer than the already hard-core factory "sport" position. (Around the SCI office we refer to the stock Z's suspension modes as "stun" and "kill." On that scale, the HKS setup on full hard would have to be called "phasers on overload.") The prototype SR-71 does not have a cockpit-adjustable system like the factory, but it will be standard on production SR-71 ZXs.

The SR-71 rolls on Goodyear Eagle ZR40s. P275/40ZR-17s at the rear, P245/40ZR-17s at the front. Wheels are BBS three-piece modulars, with forged centers and forged rolled rims, and they measure 8 and 9 x 17. A small tech note here. Until recently, three-piece racing wheels were not really safe for street use. Race teams crash test their wheels regularly; street owners don't. The light-weight racing rims fatigue in everyday driving. These new BBS wheels are road legal, both here and in Germany (where a rim failure at speed can have more severe consequences). In production, the SR-71 will have sticky S-compound Goodyears. Our skidpad numbers were done on standard full-depth non-S tires. Cornering should improve slightly with the S rubber. Outside, the SR-71 carries an aero package by Kaminari. The large rear spoiler makes a substantial difference in rear downforce, even at freeway speeds. A rear valance, side skirts, and a large front spoiler round out the package. All of this adds very little weight to the car. Todd Gartshore estimates that less than 50 lbs. have been added, mostly from the aero kit.


We tested the SR-71 on two different days, with two slight drivetrain differences. Drag strip numbers were run with completely stock 300ZX Twin Turbo gear ratios, representative of customer cars. For top speed, HKS replaced the 3.962 final drive with a taller 3.357 ratio. An automatic transmission version is planned for later introduction. On the dragstrip, the SR-71 is the first car I've ever seen throw a rooster tail of rubber dust. Most of the acceleration runs were driven by HKS' ace engineer, Shintetsu Sugimoto, as he is most familiar with the car. The Correvit test equipment recorded a 0-60 mph time of 4.68 seconds, well below the 4.79 of the Callaway Twin Turbo and 4.80 of the ZR-71. The quarter mile flashed by after 12.80 seconds at 117.6 mph (Callaway, 13.11 at 112; ZR-1, 13.28 at 109.8). The SR-71 lights its tires right off the line, launching at 4,000 rpm. And then the boost comes on. If the car isn't held absolutely straight, the sudden kick will snake the back end from side to side. "JJ" Sugimoto was powershifting at HKS' higher 7,500 rpm redline. On the skidpad, the SR-71 turned an average of 0.90 g, equal to the Callaway and stock Nissan Z and second only to the Ferrari Testarossa (0.92). As with Ferrari, power can be used to point the car inward while orbiting the skidpad. As a turbo, the power is just slightly less controllable than the Testarossa's normally aspirated output. A few days later, after HKS changed the final drive ratio for more top end, we headed out to Mrs. Orcutt's Driveway for high-speed tests. Due to its setup for the Arizona oval track, the ride during calibration runs was nothing short of brutal, no different from an all-out racer. Gartshore, who did the actual speed runs in this precious prototype, said it got smoother at top speed.

Before each run, HKS' "JJ" Sugimoto and Howard Hoshiko cooled down the radiator and intercooler with ice water and Freon-22 to give some extra insurance against high temperatures that can be deadly to a turbo motor, and to partly offset the high outside temperature of our desert test site. The first run was downwind, at 181.1 mph. For the return run, into a light breeze, Gartshore removed the spoiler and turned 185.3 mph at 6,400 rpm. (He describes the handling without benefit of added downforce as "busy.") A 183 average completely blows away the previous high, 172, set by the Callaway Twin Turbo Corvette. Right now, the Motorsport International version of the Nissan Z is the fastest gun - short of a Diablo, F40, or other such high-priced exotic - you can buy that is street legal and environmentally sound. The trouble with being a gunslinger is that somewhere, there's always somebody faster. We can hardly wait to see what'll come down the street, gunnin' for the Waco kid. One thing is certain: the Motorsport Z won't be easy to beat.

ive seen one guy on myspace have one