The inventory of parts is near complete, the reboot should start sometime around October unless I decide to get a couple last items which could push things to around December.. What's another month or two right?

Rods


Head Gaskets


In the meantime I'm still puttin the car around @ just 14psi

 

Glad to see the parts coming in!

 

RJ Manufacturing Closed Deck is in, will probably start building this outside the car and do the swap sometime later this year.

 

Sooooo many questions, too many to type out on my iPhone while at work. I will I enjoy living vicariously through you and the build. Excited!

 

Nice list of new parts you've got going, Tony! Can't wait for future updates!

 

Ok...so I've not done a lot of research on closed vs. open deck with this particular engine design. Are there any drawbacks to a closed deck block driven on the street? Do they run hotter?

Assuming RJM presses a machined insert into a stock block, correct? And the main reason is it keeps the bores more stable in the block?

Rods/pistons...are you able to keep the weight the same as the stock components or lighter? Speaking of which, what pistons are you running? What are the specs on those?

Cams. Why Tomei over JWT's cams?

Any porting happening to the heads? How bout crank work other than rebalancing? Is any additional work even necessary on our cranks? I've never looked at one in person.

Apologies for all the questions, just really curious about the thought process and component selection.

 

On the street I highly doubt temperature differences will be noticed. I do wonder how it will perform on the track after a few hotlap sessions, but I feel that the benefit of the design will outweigh any temperature concerns. I guess I will be a guinea pig as I have yet to see any of these closed deck blocks running in that scenario. I was told that Forsberg is running a block guard, but for this season it is not an RJM product. However, it seems like he most likely will be running one next season.

Yeah from what I understand the block and deck are machined and the block guard is pressed in, but for IP reasons they do not disclose the exact methods used in the process. Yes the theory is to keep the sleeves stable at the top, afaik the major difference between VQ HR/VHR blocks and VR38 blocks is that they are closed deck from the factory and those blocks are holding 1500+ with no modifications.

I don't know about the weight differences between the Carrillo rods and the stock rods. The main aspect of switching to forged internals would be for strength, but usually forged materials also weigh less as well. As far as the pistons I would be reusing my Arias 10.5:1 HR pistons.

JWT HR cams are 262 duration vs the Tomei 272 grind that I am going to run.

Heads were already ported and polished the past build, but they will get treated again when rebuilt. Crank will be a stock VQ37 crank, there isn't any need to do any additional work on the crank for my power aspirations.
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With Harvey having such a huge blow to Houston there are so many things that the city has to deal with. Thankfully my family and I were blessed enough to make it through the storm fairly unscathed. A roof leak sprouted in our home, but it is so minor and insignificant compared to what my neighbors and community have gone through that it doesn't even register on the scale.

Things have slowly started to go back to normalcy the past two weeks and reevaluation had to be done as far as the car rebuild is concerned. I originally wanted to wait a few months to upgrade the turbos, but with a property tax hike looming that is just not in the cards anymore.

That means this is one of the final pieces of the puzzle - a Suckerpunch Motorsports Oil Pump! This combined with the Tomei cams and ATI Super Damper should allow me to safely raise the redline to 8500rpm and possibly even 9000rpm (if we are daring enough to try).



The only thing I'm waiting on now is for a new set of custom pistons which have been ordered and should be 3-4 weeks out, after which the rebuild will begin.

 

Gotta make mods to the intake side of the heads to rev that high, unless you've already done that. There's info on the JWT cam thread, 370z forum. Plus, with turbos, there's no need, just run more boost! At 8500/9000 rpm, you'll have far less time to fill the cylinder than at 7500rpm.

Very glad you guys made it out ok. I've been through this several times and my old (last) home just went through Irma in Naples, Florida. I've got a guy from Houston coming to look at my car who lost his G in Harvey.

As for property taxes, it'll be maybe two years before they start raising rates. I know Abbott's already talking to the Feds about emergency funding for schools which are paid for by property taxes. Could get ugly all across Texas.

But again, glad the family is ok and can't wait to see your car back together and kicking ***. Just come to San Antonio and give me a ride.

 

The hope is the higher rpm would help the larger 272 intake / 272 exhaust 10.8mm lift Tomei cams shine! Also it should eliminate the 3rd to 4th gear shift at the end of the 1/4 mile runs which is a little annoying/time consuming.

The HR heads were ported and polished on the last build, but I'm sure we'll have them refreshed again. I'm also switching to ported VHR lower/upper intake manifolds and ported TBs. I'm not sure I saw any head work done by MAMotorsports with the JWT VHR cams, what other mods are you referring to? Also keep in mind the JWT VHR cams are exhaust only.

If I ever bring the car to SA I'll hit you up and if you're ever in Houston I'd be glad to take you for a spin!

Oh I also forgot that I plan on taking the car in its current condition to two different dynos in Houston to get some "before rebuild" numbers. Also I will be trying to do it on the same day to get comparisons between the local shops' Mustang and Dynojet offerings. For science and so the local guys can know what to expect as differences between the two.

 

It wasn't MA, there was another guy who had the C2 cams and commented that the valve train could not handle revs that high without some additional parts on the intake side which currently (at least at the time of posting) didn't exist but was being worked on. I'll find the post and copy/paste link here.

 

Probably related to VHR with VVEL issues. There are numerous 350z HRs running 8300-8600 rpm with Tomei 272 cams.

 

Valve float and yes, VHR VVEL issues. Found the post: Nissan 370Z Forum - View Single Post - Jim Wolf Cam testing for the VQ37VHR -- Results inside!

 

Yeah thankfully I don't have VVEL so that isn't a hindrance in my build.

 

FYI, Tony. My redline has been raised to 8200 RPM's on my 3.5HR. Although I'm not making 700 HP, but currently have nearly 50K miles on my set-up with no issues.