Awesome! Wish I could have made it.

 

11's in the making

 

My best run of the night was a 12.05 @ 114.5mph w/ 1.90. If the track prep was half decent, then I would have definitely run an 11! My best 60 foot on these 20" slicks is a 1.82. So I know my car can do it. But I'm not completely convinced that the 20" slicks are any faster than my 22" slicks, even though the gearing is better and the 60 foot is identical.

Oh well. The more I race this new engine, the more I learn about it. With the VE, it was much faster and more consistent when the coolant was around 150 degrees. But the VQ35 produces more HP and is more consistent when it's up to operating temperature, which is around 170-175 for me.

 

One more thing to add is that I did some comparison runs with and without the air filter in place. I have a ram air duct that I put in place of the headlight. At first glance, I can't see any difference in power. In fact, I may be making more power without the ram air. With the VE, it was a noticeable improvement. But everything is different with the VQ35 engine.

So I ran all my 12.0s and 12.1s without the ram air duct and with the filter in place. I ran several 12.1s with ram air. AFR between the comparison runs were identical and same exact timing map.

Also, last month I found out that my stock fuel pump doesn't like it when I remove the alternator belt, which gives my system only 11 bolts or so with the engine running. So, all my runs were with the alty belt in place.

For my next track visit, I plan to test the 20" and 22" slicks back to back to see which are better for me. I am guessing there will be no difference in ET from what I've seen so far. And the 22" slicks have a much better chance of getting traction.

Also, according to my math, the 20" slicks shine only with good track prep and conditions. The 20" slicks give me the ability to do a low/mid 1.8 60' due to the shorter gearing. While the best I can hope for with the 22" slicks will be high 1.8s and low 1.9s. So, I should say that the 20" slicks are better for me only if I hook up, which is very tough to do on these street legal testing nights at the drag strip.

 

very impressive!!

 

Congrats on your new PB!

I have a couple questions for you.. How did you get your VE to run at 150 degrees? Modified thermostat? How much can your rear suspension compress with those spring boosters installed? How much do they lift the rear?
Just out of curiosity how much do your bumper supports weigh? I was thinking about removing them next time I go to the track. I'm just not sure if it's worth it or not. Do you have any other tips for easy weight reduction on the 3rd gen?

 

I had a Nismo Tstat in my VE that allowed me to operate at around 160-165. In the staging lanes, you simply leave the engine off. Crank it up for 2 seconds to pull forward and shut the engine down and coast. Leave your coolant fans and heater on.

With the VQ35, my Tstat allows me to operate around 170 degrees. If I want to be able to start my burnout at 150 degrees, I have to do the same procedure. Keep the engine off as much as possible.

Bumper supports weigh about 25 lbs each. You'll have to make special brackets to put the front cover back on.

The rear suspension still drops a lot even with the rubber spacers in place. But it does help a little bit in preventing weight transfer. Not sure how much higher the rear is. 1/2" to an 1" maybe.

 

Thanks to whoever updated my title! Would you mind if you stick "NA" in the title somewhere?

 

SOUNDS GREAT, AARON

 

You wouldn't happen to still have your nismo ve t-stat, would you?

Hmm.. If it'll shave off ~50 lbs total, I think I'll remove 'em for track time.

FWIW, I've had front limiting straps for quite a while. I noticed a slight increase in traction on the street. I recently made some rear limiting straps (kind of like these). When I first made them, the rear would not squat at all. Before I installed them, I had absolutely no traction in 2nd gear on the street. After I installed them, I had about 95% traction in 2nd gear. After driving with them on the street for a few days, they began to stretch a little and traction got worse. After about a week or two, they broke. I kind of expected them to break and I know that rear straps like these should only be used at the track. I'm going to change the design a bit and only use them at the track. From my experience, I can say that these definitely help ALOT.

Something else to consider. Raising the rear doesn't help with traction. Even though you'd think it would. Raising the rear raises the center of gravity which creates more weight transfer.

When are you planning on heading back to the track to pick up an 11 second slip?

 

welcome to the next generation of fast youngsters...great times Aaron well deserved results!

 

Depends. My rear setup is stock OEM springs and AGX adjustable shocks. I plan to run spacers to raise it up another .5-1". With the shocks at full the car has no rear end squat whatsoever. Even bouncing up and down in the trunk wont do much. So in this case raising up the rear a little bit will help with putting more weight on the front end.

Anyone know where you can get some custom springs with different rates? I would really love to get some really stiff springs to put on for track days. Changing springs in the rear is a 15 minute job for me.

 

If the rear end doesn't squat at all, I wouldn't worry about getting springs.
Where did you get your rear AGX shocks? Maybe I'll get some for my car.

 

12.05? ur fcuken flying, Whats the record for NA VQ35? I know the 350Z/G35 guys are probably out of the question too heavy, only sentra people that u would have to worry about.

 

I don't know if I'll see 11s this year. The weather was pretty nice when I ran 12.0s. I don't know if the weather will get in the 50s again this year.

Tstat is still for sale:
http://forums.maxima.org/1st-3rd-gen...s-up-sale.html

Thanks

Hmm, not sure. I wouldn't be surprised if 12.05 is the record for any NA VQ35 including S13s. But a nicely built VQ35 Sentra weighing 2300lbs with driver can run 10s NA and may compete with some of these 10 second NA Civics. I doubt my Maxima can ever be that light! I am running out of things to do to lighten it. The next things on my list are removing the ABS system completely and installing a fuel cell. But that may only shave 40lbs.

 

Getting closer and closer. Your right about the sentras. I've raced against a 12.9 all motor QR and got beat of course. Imagine if it had a 3.5 in it!

Also I always race with my air filter out at the track and friday I did some comparison runs with and without it and my times didnt change.

 

Yeah, it's easy for a Sentra to get high 12s with a basic VQ35 swap. I'm sure we'll start seeing some high compression builds in a full race spec Sentra running 10s NA.

When I remove my air filter, my AFR leans out a lot. So I have two different maps with the same exact ignition timing maps. Both are pretty smooth at 12.8-13.0 AFR. All I do is just switch to Map 2 on my UTEC remote map selector switch. Makes it pretty easy.

I may hit the track again this Thursday to do some more tuning. It won't be at Coastal Plains though. KDS is much closer to me. I will probably only be able to run 12.3s there this time around due to the traction always being poor.

Things I'd like to do comparison runs for are 20" slicks versus 22" slicks, ram air versus cone filter, and rear bumper cover versus no rear bumper cover to see if the drag is noticeable. The Civic guys claim it is very noticeable even with a trap speed of 110mph. That's why you sometimes see large holes in their rear bumper covers. If it is a noticeable drag, I'll make a rear diffuser to allow air to move around the rear bumper instead of IN it.

I'd rather do all this testing at the track and actually see ET improvements rather than doing street dyno runs. Street dyno runs are very accurate when you want to look at changes in HP. But as far as changes in slick sizing and rear bumper drag, I'd like to do that testing at the track and compare timeslips.

I feel this car is pretty consistent too. I may get into bracket or index racing as well as heads up import racing. Whenever I hot lap, my ETs are usually within 2 hundredths of one another.

 

I thought about building a B12 sentra with a VQ35 in it for awhile. Car would weigh almost nothing and definitely would hit some 11s for cheap. I don't have room at my house for another car though.

I am interested to see the results!

 

congrats on the time! look forward to a 11 sec pass soon

 

I've also seen flaps cut out of the rear bumper that open to let air pass through. I like this option far better than cutting round holes all in your bumper.

The weather is warming up fast. I doubt I can do 11s with the temp in the 60s. But maybe I will be able to dead hook with the 20" slicks and get a low 1.8 60'.

 

Activetuning used to sell them. They're basically rear Z32 shocks with the coil perch removed.

 

Damn, that sucks that they don't sell them anymore.

 

i think one of travis' sentra swapped 3.5's has run into the 11s NA, not sure exactly what the times were. Might be the same car that has ITBs now and IIRC is getting a nicely built engine.

Anyways, nice work on ridiculously fast times, I doubt anybody is going to catch you anytime soon

 

I haven't heard of any VQ35 NA Sentras running 11s. I've seen some Sentras run 12s NA, but that's it. There are projects and builds going on that should definitely see 11s, but I haven't see any timeslips just yet. We will see them soon though, that's for certain.

 

I spent some time last night at KDS making comparison runs. I knew I wasn't going to set a new record, but my best time was 12.15 @ 115.9mph. The trap speeds at this track are always optimistic though. I'm probably only trapping 113-114mph at best.

I learned a lot about my car last night. The comparison results I was able to achieve were, ram air vs no ram air, 20" MT slicks vs 22" MT slicks, rear bumper cover vs no bumper cover, and TC lockup in 3rd gear vs no lockup in 3rd gear. Here are MY findings on MY particular 3rd gen VQ35DE. Your results will more than likely vary drastically since every car is different.

I have crunched all my numbers and analyzed my timeslips. I made sure all weather conditions were equal as well as identical 60 foot times down to the thousandths of a second.

I was able to see no discernible difference with the ram air duct in place of my removed headlight and simply having the headlight removed with a K&N cone filter in place. AFRs were kept identical by having to switch fuel maps. I have also done many comparisons over the past several months as well with the exact same finding. Just last night, I was able to perform much more accurate tests to prove to myself the findings. At BEST, I saw a .03 ET reduction. But I hesitate to claim that much of an increase. It definitely doesn't appear to be making me slower.

I am not going to stop there. I plan on conducting several before and after road dyno tests with the car actually accelerating in 2nd gear. I know there is a gain to be had. I just want to figure out why I'm not seeing a difference at the track. Also, right now, I have a black ABS plastic duct sitting in the exact same spot as where the headlight sits. The best spot for a duct would be to cut into fresh undisturbed air. So I will need to design a ram air duct that sticks out in front of the front part of the bumper.

My VE saw a pretty large difference with the duct in place of the headlight, but it could have been strictly due to the AFR being leaned out, not because of the increased air coming into the engine. I did not datalog my AFRs with the VE engine.

My next test was to determine which set of slicks are best for me in the 1/4 mile. In short, the 20" slicks give me better gearing and shave .05 in the 1/4. The 22" slicks were tested with the same exact 60 foot, 1.892. So strictly due to the shorter gearing, the 20" slicks are better for me since I'm more in the power band in 3rd gear and since 1st gear is so much shorter. That allows me to get above 4K rpm faster where I make all my power.

Also, for some reason, I had several poor runs with the 22" slicks. I had a couple high 1.9 60 foots with these slicks. The wear indicators near the outside of the wheel have almost disappeared. So, it may be time for new slicks. But when the 22" slicks did hook, I ran a 1.89.

The 20" slicks gave me very consistent 1.89 and 1.90 60 foots all night long. I have had a 1.83 60 foot from these slicks before. So I know if I can get them to dead hook, I'll get some good times. When the 22" slicks dead hook, the best I can hope for is a high 1.8. That's all the power I have.

Next test was to see if the rear bumper cover was causing a noticeable amount of drag since my rear bumper support is not in place. In short, no. I saw no distinct difference in my trap speed or ET. But your particular car may vary. With the rear spare tire well in place and with the stock muffler removed, there was no difference in what I could see on my timeslips.

Next test was to see if locking up the torque converter in 3rd gear helps shave time. Once again, not with my car. The ETs seem to be exactly the same on every one of my passes. The trap speed MAY... MAY have increased by .3 mph. But that is optimistic. I was hoping to see at least a 1mph trap speed increase with some time shaved from my 1/4 mile ET.

I'll continue to experiment. But maybe these tests will help someone. Please do not consider this the end all proven test results for Maximas. Every engine and every Maxima is going to be different. I would hate for someone to think that a ram air won't help their car, when it has been proven time and time again that it can help produce more power. I just haven't seen my particular ram air setup to be beneficial. I know there is a gain to be had though. I just gotta find out what works for me.

 

I am planning on visiting Coastal Plains Dragway in Jacksonville, NC Friday night, Oct 29th to attempt to beat my 12.05 record. The weather is looking like it will be pretty awesome. As long as I can hook, which I bet I can, I'll see 11s All Motor!

Gates open at 6pm. They run from 6:30pm to 10:30pm. $20 for car and driver. $10 for spectator.

Who wants to come?

 

What have you changed?

If you run quicker NA than I ran FI I'm going to be pissed, btw. lol

 

Good luck man!
I hope you get into the 11s!

Sent you a PM as well.

 

Good luck Aaron! I wish I lived closer so I could come watch that beast!

 

i hope you can track 11 sec on tomorrow @ night cuz degree is soo low? right?

 

Yeah, I'd love to watch it too.

 

My stall has been increased from 3000 to 3600. It's still not where I need it to be (4100+), but it'll help reduce the lag I have on the launch. My engine doesn't make any usable HP until 4100rpm.

Traction was horrible when I set the 12.05 record (1.90 60'). So if I'm able to hook up even a little bit (<1.85 60'), then 11s will be easy. Now that I have the Suprastick programmed to allow for automatic 2nd gear burnouts, traction is much more consistent for me on these tiny 20" slicks.

Also, I am now running 20" MT slicks, which help reduce that lag on the launch even further and helps my overall gearing for the 1/4 mile.

I haven't tuned that car in a long long time, so my AFR may be a little off. I'll probably have to do some tuning in between runs to make sure the AFR is where I want it.

11.7s (your best ET) will be tough for me to do tomorrow. I'll be happy with an 11.99. But, I know this car has an 11.7 in it once I get the right converter in it.

Yeah, I got it. Since the org was having problems being flagged as an attack site by google, I haven't been on the forums for several days now. I'll respond right now.

 

Great Times like always killing the 1/4 in a Maxima!!

 

Results from your last visit?

 

I ran a 12.04 @ 113mph w/ 1.82 60' for a new record. I did get a new personal best 60 foot time for being naturally aspirated. But, I am still in the process of experimenting with torque converters to find the best one that will allow me to launch in my peak power band while not sacrificing top end HP.

You will find more details about my torque converter project and track times in my VQ35 swap thread: http://forums.maxima.org/all-motor/5...ss-thread.html

 

nice!

 

Inspiration to the Maxima community!