help with perfomance upgrades for Z31?

[KUTTER]

just purchased a 86 300zx non turbo runs good has 123000 all stock timing belt done going to do tune up was thinking air intake, headers, exhaust and performance chip but heard they are B.S. can anyone give me some tips or feedback on these upgrades and some products thanks

[evildky]

Welcome to Nico and congrats on the Z! Sounds like you are off to a good start by taking care of the timing belt first. Being a turbo car headers aren't really an option, there are a couple of small boutique fabricators that make tubular exhaust manifolds for the z31 but unless you're north of 400 whp it's not really worth pursuing. A cone air filter isn't a bad idea, it'll increase the surface area of the filter element and make it easier to get air in. A free flowing exhaust is also a good choice, Certified Muffler is the vendor of choice for Z31's they have a few options that are high in quality and low in price, but their turnaround time isn't the quickest. The biggest gain will come from adding an intercooler and a boost controller. There isnt a lot of aftermarket here, it's largely finding the intercooler that will package the way you want and routing the pipes in the way that makes the most sense to you, it seems no 2 are alike. Stock the car is 190 hp at the crank, with the intake, exhaust, intercooler and boost controller you can expect to get 280ish whp, thats a huge step up and can be had for very little cost if you can handle the work yourself.

[KUTTER]

thank you for your reply. this is not a turbo thats y i was thiking headers but i wanted to ask can i add a turbo kit to the motor? i want more prerformance but don't want to go crazy are there any decent kits ?

[evildky]

My mistake, I say only the "turbo" my brain missed the "non' in front of it. There are no "kits" you either buy a turbo car or buy the parts from a turbo car. You need the front crossmember, drivers side motor mount bracket, drivers side manifold, turbo, downpipe, oil fitting, oil line, oil pan, fuel injectors, and ecu. It's a days work if you know what you are doing.

For an n/a, the air filter and exhaust might add a few hp, think single digits. The headers etc aren't really worth it imho, I think I heard with every bolt on and some tuning you can get 160 whp, or for less money and time you can swap to a turbo.

[KUTTER]

thanks i will see whats out there

[AZ-ZBum]

Any performance chips are snake oil.

Want to go fast? Turbo charge it. The kit is one you make from donor parts.

Read:
http://redz31.net/pages/turbo.html

[BadQ45t]

Just get a cold air intake, a free flowing cat back exhaust, advance the timing by a degree or two and call it a day. Face it the car isn't fast...but you can make it a fun car. Get rid of the stock suspension parts and put on some nice bilstein shocks, see if you can find some leftover lowering springs, add a larger front sway bar and then put on some sticky tires. It will make it a fun car to drive.

[G-E]

Just get a cold air intake, a free flowing cat back exhaust, advance the timing by a degree or two and call it a day. Face it the car isn't fast...but you can make it a fun car. Get rid of the stock suspension parts and put on some nice bilstein shocks, see if you can find some leftover lowering springs, add a larger front sway bar and then put on some sticky tires. It will make it a fun car to drive.

Spoken like someone who knows nothing about z31's haha

They _can_ be fast for very little money, with nistune you can take a non-turbo ecu and run 450cc-600cc injectors and pump out 20psi from a cheap holset... yes little supporting mods like fuel pump/wiring, intercooler, etc, will be required, BUT, nowhere near the work to boost a 350z similarly

[KUTTER]

thanks for the info. getting some things done on it when i can. not looking to go fast ? just some pep

[G-E]

What's peppy to you?

There's a large number of "mods" that really don't do much besides change the size of your wallet, for example:

1. Cone air filter - the stock filter box is one of the best factory ones, the biggest cone filter gained less than 5hp on a dyno
2. Stanza throttle body - 60mm up from 54mm, again gained nothing on the dyno, made modulating throttle harder
3. High-flow cat - if you don't upgrade to proper headers or a turbo setup, you might change the sound a bit

Things that do add power, also cost money:

1. Exhaust - non-turbo: full 2.5" exhaust with a header kit like msa/paeco / turbo: full 3" system for a turbo-back
2. Cams - huge gains to be had here, moving powerband up or down, used with adjustable cam gears for extra fun
3. Gutted plenum - makes the engine breath better, especially good for turbo engines

But there's a lot more...

[BadQ45t]

Well GE, I owned my Z before you were probably born and know more about these cars in 1985 when you were probably in nursery school. I have looked at every possible path to make the car faster in non-turbo state. I said "cold air intake" that would be a cone filter, I will you with a little translation there. Second, the stanza throttle body. Right that will drop .002 second off your 0-60 time. I had several that friends put on in the 90's and they make very little difference for a bunch of work.

Cams, good luck finding some, you will have to do a bunch of work to find one and even more work to install one. Again, not a big enough power difference to for the work.

Kutter, don't listen to Mr. GE with his 21 big posts....I have owned a 84' 300ZX for just short of 30 years, bought brand new Feb 2nd 1984. I have done what is really possible and it does give you a bit of pep at not a huge amount of surgery. If the Cam were easily sourced and installed I would have done it long ago and the throttle body is something that my mechanic in LA (Z Expert has worked on my 84-89 Z's than any shop on the west coast) suggests only when rebuilding the throttle body.

[evildky]

Cams, as in plural, sorry that just bugs me. The vg30e is referred to as a single cam but there are in fact 2, one per head (our OP might not understand this). Cams generally don't add much power, they mostly move it, great seat of the pants improvement, much more area under the curve but peak won't improve a lot. Cams like the turbo swap are only worth the money if you don't have to pay for labor. They are labor intensive and would cost a mint at a shop but if you have the tools and the skills neither is really that difficult IMHO.
Things like the TB, gutted plenum, injectors and tuning are only really useful to get the most out of other mods, so unless you've already done the turbo conversion these things are not worth the effort IMHO.
As stated before, Intake (read as cone air filter and resonator delete as all 75-96 Z's had "cold air" intakes from the factory), cat back exhaust (does more for the sound than the power on an n/a), a couple degrees of additional timing and call it a day. If you do a turbo swap later the intake and exhaust both carry over.

[G-E]

It's alright, lots of people are wrong, I remember how z31.com resisted change back when it was even relevant... oddly we're not disagreeing, that was just a cheap backhand for no reason

Evildky is right though, there's a lot of things that may seem like a ton of work, like changing cams, but if you've ever done a timing belt, it's not even that difficult...

Cams are only hard to "find" if you're looking for new items to purchase like JWT units, what people _actually_ do is get their own cams reground by one of the million cam companies like kelford, isky, schnieder, they will already have profiles for various turbo and non-turbo goals, if in doubt, ask them what they recommend -- cost will be around $200-300, labour is less than 2hrs per cam, it can be done with the service manual and common hand tools

Obviously modifications help each other, but consider 200hp an upper limit for non-turbo, 220hp if you get into extensive changes, the cheapest option will always be turbo, as a comparison: 450hp boosted will cost you less than 220hp non-turbo

[AZ-ZBum]

It's alright, lots of people are wrong, I remember how z31.com resisted change back when it was even relevant... oddly we're not disagreeing, that was just a cheap backhand for no reason

Nobody resisted change on that site. But everyone was actually doing things, not just talking about it. Butter, Adam, Mike, Tim, Ken and many others were pioneering a lot of things from coilovers to suspension swaps to custom manifolds to whatever else.

[G-E]

I was there remember

We just seem to remember the attitudes and opinions of that era differently, but I'm glad a lot of the pioneering work has been fleshed out let's say

[BadQ45t]

Hey, you posted "I obviously didn't know anything about Z31's" I was on the site when it was Morgan's site years ago, sounds like were too. I bought my car Feb 2nd 1984 GE, how long you owned your car???? I looked into and evaluated every possible mod for this NA over the last 25 years. Cams, throttle body, chips, etc. So saying I knew NOTHING was insulting and I wasn't going to let that land.

I started to hate Z31 when it became a 20 something tuner-kids site with street lingo and hates turned backwards. I have been active for the last 13 years around the Q45 site and for the most part it is grown men speaking opening, occasionally disagreeing in a respectful way. I for one will try to make the Z31 side mirror that manor of interaction. I expect to keep my 300ZX for the rest of my life so this will be my lifeline.

[AZ-ZBum]

GE wasn't around for the beginning of z31.com. He clearly doesn't remember how it all started and where everything came from.

[BadQ45t]

No many of us old timers left.....If not for Z31 I would have searched for parts that were never available.

[evildky]

Z31 had lots of great info and was very helpful to me over the years. Thy were also good at chasing away noobs.

[AZ-ZBum]

Z31 had lots of great info and was very helpful to me over the years. Thy were also good at chasing away noobs.

I miss those days.