no where at all did i say that you cant drive it at all, i did say however you cant drive it aggressively stock thats why nissan added a oil cooler BECAUSE of the number of complaints they received. also define what you mean by hpde because it includes a VAST number of driving experiences if its some of that short track autox then that isnt really doing much running the car for under 2 minutes.
i can definitely tell you it would be impossible for my driving style to drive it stock the newer ones with a oil cooler MIGHT just stay out of limp home mode an issue i have none of with the vq35de. you dont seem to get that your actually proving my point further every time you post especially with the guys you know, running FI, oil coolers and being expensive. what your not getting is that they have to do all of that just to keep the engine out of failsafe at 260 degrees F, you also seem to be over looking is that the non vvel engines can make SIGNIFICANTLY more power, run longer, drive just as aggressive or more so and still BARELY hit the 180 degrees F to open the sandwhich plate to even send oil to the cooler. past 180 degrees engine oils oxidation rate doubles every 18 degrees and its ability to lubricate drops. even if they are able to keep down to around 230 with MASSIVE coolers engine oil has lost around 45% of its ability to lubricate if it is held there for any length of time, 260 is about 65% if your hold if it sees that temp for more then an our it begins to drop dramatically. Even worse? its not a temporary thing, when the oil cools back down it dosnt spring back up to 100% lubricity it stays exactly where it was left even if you only have 10 sessions getting it up to that temp of 10 minutes each the oil has taken a significant hit. thats on TOP of regular driving, these are things most people dont know, nor even realize there has been massive amounts of research done on the subject.
overall this alone makes the vq37vhr a SIGNIFICANTLY worse performance engine vs its predecessors which is the point i was making that it is a inferior engine to the vq35hr and vq35de.
as far as wheels, rays has ALWAYS done rotary forging they are one of the company's that pioneered it and since the tsunami almost all there wheels are rotary forged that is coming directly from my supplier. ssr is another of those "forged" companys that actually are just rotary forged take a look at this picture, see that grainy stucture in the breaks of the wheel? thats a cast face, a truely forged face would shear and be shiny with no visable grain structure as the grain has been compressed under 60+ tons it would also elongate and deform before reaching that sheer point.
http://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/1060794-ssr-gtv-series/
the stock GTR wheels are most definitely cast faces, i have seen them fail in person, remember the crowd i hang out with is turbo/supercharged z06 vettes, gt500s, modified gtrs and supras, zl1's, zr1's, 40+ psi scoobys and evos. even our slowest guys run in the 10's
not only that some of the fastest time attack cars out there have been running on cheap wheels including some of the fastest evo's and sti's running rota's and varrestones(sp?) although they are too heavy for my taste. on lsd motorsports scale they weighed te37's, rpf1's, and my tsw interlaggos. all in 18x10.5 and the weights came out to 17.8 lbs, 20 lbs and 21 lbs respectively with prices at the time i bought wheels and before the tsunami of $550, $250, $150 needless to say the choice was easy, especially since most of the extra cost in the volks was shipping them to the states before the store even saw them
btw im well aware of my tsw's being rotary forged, the point im making is that you can get QUALITY wheels and tires for under 3k hell you can get a track dedicated setup for under that. the whole "jdm tite" thing is overplayed and not what its hyped up to be especially since going with an american company(weld wheels) i can get a lighter, better performing wheel for cheaper then a te37 although more then what you would pay for rpf1's or my tsw's. in fact the track guys i have interacted with and can actually get the wheels for their cars absolutely love tsw's ive seen interlaggos and nurburgrings everywhere. most of the proponents of "name brand" wheels are hard parkers because the track guys dont want to mess up a expensive wheel, te37s in big sizes are up to 800-1000 per wheel now.
RicerX wrote:jerryd1987 wrote:thats the thing though is the very fact it NEEDS one for performance or pretty much any aggressive driving(we had someone local who had oil overheating issues with aggressive street driving and thats only 85 degrees here, i cant imagine in the 90-95 ohio sees regularly or the 100+ in some other states) my thermostat is close 99% of the time with my 24 row on a vq35de i literally need to be running my 850 whp tune for at least 30 minutes racing for the cooler to even open and its only open mayby a minute, i can go at least a hour on 600whp. thats not something thats possible on the 370z, ive repeatedly seen complaints from people that the car goes into limp home mode within 10-15 mins on the track bone stock.
it would kinda be like them selling the GTR but you needing to buy aftermarket tuning software to rev it more then 3k, not a good idea to sell a specific type of vehicle that requires modification from the factory to do that job.
as far as 3k minimum.................. that r compound territory, tsw interlaggos will run you 1k and are forged something people dont seem to understand with the "forged" name brand wheels is that the only thing forged on them is the barrels the face is still cast, te37s are a perfect example, half the pictures of broken "reps" are actual volks because they are in reality a cast face with a rotary forged barrel. 60% of the current cost of volk wheels is because of ripple effects of the tsunami still being felt(heck you cant even use HR headstuds because they became junk after the tsunami due to damages to the plant) and shipping, your looking at $200-250 bucks a wheel just to get them to the store in shipping that you pay when buying them. so 3k can get you a decent set of wheels on toyo r888's
We know two groups of people with 370s then. I know plenty of guys running forced induction with oil coolers and an oil pan spacer that have no problem on HPDEs. It can be done right and work just fine. It's not cheap, and I think that's why a lot of guys toss their hands up in the air and go back to a 350 if we're talking about guys that are currently looking into Z cars. You're making it sound like the 370Z cannot be driven at all in stock form and I say that's a bit overzealous.
As far as the wheels go... agree to disagree here. I can't find Advans for $3k total by themselves in 19". Real Volks or Rays are easily $3k+ without center caps, valve stems, lugs, or tires. Badger brought up the other part of what I was going to say as far as monoblock forged wheels. I doubt Nissan is using cast-faced Rays on the GT-R. Either way, not sure where you were going with that argument, especially considering that the TSW wheels you cite are rotary forged with a cast face, and that's straight from their website:
http://www.tsw.com/alloy_wheels_interlagos.php