Woodnutz78 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 16, 2018 7:51 am
Ditto on what the guys are saying above regarding NA power contraints... Typical bolt-ons are easy. A single POP charger intake is cheap enough for whatever gain you would get. Exhaust is also easy, but gets expensive pretty fast. To potentially save some money on exhaust if you decide to go for it, you can check the classifieds here or on twinturbo.net - IMO, the latter has more activity. As an example, while it's a much less significant piece, I had three options for a replacement PS cowl within a few days of posting a "wanted" ad. Yes, it's used and not perfect, but MUCH less expensive than a new one.
In reality the POP charger has been shown to not really increase HP, it's more about freer flow and the ability to clean it and keep going rather than replace more restrictive filters constantly, and the exhaust scenario is pretty similar in that a freer flow and better sound are the two main benefits from an exhaust change in addition to replacing rusted metal.
Nissan took the VG30DE to it's limit basically with their tech (intake manifold design/runner length, variable valve timing, and other small things) at the time, with turbocharging the general best path for more power and performance.
Yes, some have spent the time and $$$$$$$ to build some pretty wild NA motors, NoLimit has informed me of some of them and we had a member years ago (Artic Dragon, his posts could be searched) who went VERY far with his but the gains for the $$$ spent do not match turbocharging gains, and there was a LOT of research and some ballsy things done in his case to net what he got.
Bottom line is it works best to make an NA as best it can be as it is more or less, and if wanting a power gain look at swaps to TT or other platform to get that.