Our last article on the 370z/G37 supercharger install left off with Covid-19 rearing its ugly head and re-shuffling our tuning as a low priority in life. Over the weeks while we waited and tensions eased. A window of opportunity presented itself to get our car tuned at Specialty Z for our G37 Supercharger tuning. We’ve worked with Specialty Z on our N/A 370z build and we encourage you to read more about that car. During the research phase of our build, Specialty Z came up over and over as the go to place for tuning Nissan’s and Infiniti’s. It was also convenient for us to use them as their shop is a relatively short 35 miles from the MotoIQ shop.
Remote tuning is always an option these days where you provide a datalog file to your tuner. This is an option but there’s a lot of back and forth involved in that process. Having the car at your tuner is a much quicker process to turn things around and diagnose issues. Finding a tuner worth trusting; now that’s an entirely different discussion.
At times when we’re writing these articles it’s hard to emphasize our impressions without having them come off as hyperbole. But in all honesty, from the moment our car came off the tow truck to the moment we left Specialty Z we were treated as the highest priority. As they say on their website ‘we only sell what we believe to be tried & true…you can count on ONE thing from us…NO BS!’
Before we arrived, Sebastian asked for a detailed list of all the parts we had on the car. What he was doing was preparing a tune while we were in route. We paid for Sebastian’s time and as stated he got right to work, no BS. He confirmed the parts we had on the car and hooked our car up to a battery charger. Why charge the battery? Apparently, it’s an extremely painful process to recover an ECU if the battery dies while the ECU is being flashed. At Specialty Z they have been there and done that.
To get started, a new Omni Power 4 Bar MAP (Manifold Absolute Pressure) sensor was installed. This sensor provides 99% accuracy from 32 degrees to 180 degrees and records true linear pressure. This accuracy is important to prevent tuning problems at various altitudes. At best this can result in a poor idle and at worse an out of tune engine can cause catastrophic engine damage. The Omni Power 4 bar MAP sensor can calculate boost pressure from 1-43 psi while providing OEM drivability (sku omni_4bar).
Sebastian then asked what our goals were for the car. He went on to explain that we could utilize 4 different maps with an included valet mode that limits speed and RPM. We opted for a 91 octane map for the terrible pump gas available, a 98 octane map for a mix of race gas and pump gas and a 100 octane race gas map. Sebastian also added a hot weather map which will be especially useful if we get stuck driving the car on those extra hot days in the middle of summer.
4 comments
It seems like a simple 90* or cobra 90* to a giant air filter makes the most sense for the blower. When I saw that filter in the earlier build articles I shook my head immediately, the actual filter area is like an inch wide, it’d be great for a lawnmower. It is weird that the descendant of SCC didn’t just laugh at the filter and get a good one before tuning, it seems like such an obvious bottleneck.
I’ve seen 3 different Air-to-Air setups that build upon Stillen’s supercharger system like this. All of them use this short filter if they run a filter. The blower guard will of course make great numbers but I’m not sure it’s worth the risk of having an object sucked through the inlet and destroying a $2,700 supercharger.
Stillen has an interesting looking hose that necks down from the 3.5″ inlet on the supercharger to what appears to be either 2.5-3″. It also hooks up to their bypass assembly which we don’t need. All 3 of the Air-to-Air setups abandon this intake. I’m sure one of the reasons is having a short intake run like this makes more boost. You are right though the actual filter area is small but there is the top media element in addition to what’s on the side. A lot of the mustang guys who run these setups have the same issue as well.
I think the cobra 90 is probably our only option without some major fabrication work.
Just clean it often since dust will migrate through it quickly.
The clearance is so tight for that air filter, the blower assembly has to be removed to remove the filter.