Well today I had a little run in with a Sentra SE-R Spec V. The owner happened to be at this automotive class I'm taking at a local tech school here. Anyway he knew my car from when I was at the local 1/8 track here 3 weeks ago. He said he had ran his car down there also and his best time was 9.8. That's pretty good considering my best was only 9.7. The track here sucks by the way so I'm pretty sure that if I were to take my car to a better track preferable a 1/4 mile strip then I could pull alot better times. Who knows though, I may just suck at driving, but I think it's the track. Anyway we took our car's out on the main road and just did a little 0-60 run. I was truly impressed with this guys car. He stayed about 1/2 a car length behind me the whole way. Now this guy had an CAI, headers, exhaust, and a lightned crank pulley. Although the intake was not on at the time because he had just got the MAF replaced and of course had to return the intake back to stock before Nissan would work on it. Anyway tell me what you guys think. Did the race go like it should or should I have walked him? Thanks for any responses.

 

It would be a good race at the track. With those mods he could pose a serios threat to relatively stock 5th Gens...

Tell him to remove his balance shaft stuff, then race again

 

off topic~~~ What tecnical school you go to?

 

Savannah Technical College. Evidently there Auto tech program is the best in the state of Georgia.

 

He had some other mods, but I can't remember what he said they were. I know he said he's going to get cams and some other mods done. With the mods I've got should he have been that close to me. I guess hwen I get the headers for my Maxima then it may be a totally different story.

 

..i too raced a guy in my area with a spec -v withe following add-ons, chip,cat back-exhaust,filter. From a dead start he hung with me until 55 mph then my Max pulled on him considerably. I shut it down at 100 and he was 2-3 car behind with no intention of catching up. But i was very impressed, to say the least......

Because of there light weight, and slightly aggressive gearing, they can be a worthy opponent if slept on. They put more of a fight than those gutless Si civics.

 

Yeah I could tell that it looked like that if we had started to push the cars even higher that I would have slowly walked him.

 

.....mid to high end punch. So he may still be nipping on your heals at the lower end of the spectrum. For more lower end punch you will need better gearing or internal work.Cams,lighter crank shaft,springs,bigger pistons w/bore,etc. Expensive yes, but who said performance is cheap..

 

Better gearing does not make the VQ35 cars any quicker. The 5 speed Altima has taller and longer gearing than the 6 speed Maxima and it is every bit as quick. A 9.7 1/8th mile is not impressive, you have much room for improvement as you should be running 9.3s or 9.4s.

 

Yeah I wasn't impressed with my time. In my defense though I didn't take out the spare tire or jack and I left all my crap in the trunk. Car care products...etc. Anyway I beat a G35 Coupe 6spd and a 99-up Mustang GT. That's why I say it's the track and not me.

 

I am talking about full inteiror with the spare and jack and at least 1/2 tank of gas.

 

If you have shorter gearing you will have better acceleration.Your top end will be considerably less, but your acceleration will be greatly increased. And vice versa with taller gearing.

Just like why the TTZ(90-96) guys always are looking for N/A Z(90-96) cars that have been in a accident. The N/A has 4.1 gears, and TT have 3.7. 3.7 is great for top end racing, but for drag racing you want the 4.1 gears.I should know i switched the rear end out of my TTZ and put in a N/A rear end.My top end dropped a tad but the 4.1 gears made up for it in acceleration. The car was more responsive overall in the lower spectrum of things.

 

Oh well maybe I just need improvement or I just plainly suck.

 

I wouldn't have said it if it had not already been proven. Explain why the Altima with the same weight, the same engine and taller gearing has the same acceleration. Also blubyu2k2's automatic will beat about 99% of all 6 speed cars from a dig to the 1/4 mile. His gearing is certainly taller than mine but I cannot beat him until third gear and I promise you that you can't either. Ther are many more factors that you are not considering such as torque curves and recirpcating masses that will negate any shorter gearing changes for the launch.

 

My intent of posting that was to encourage you to practice and get better so that you make him look pretty bad on your next run.

 

the torque curve is the awnser to your question.The Altima uses it torque throughout the rev band where the maximas crest then falls off.
In race speaking term the Altima will continue to pull hard all the way to redline.

Also like you said, there are many other factors too. If i remember correctly the Altima was putting out better times then the MAX to.
5.9-0-60 Altima, 6.2 0-60 MAx
1/4-14.7 Altima,1/4-14.8 Max

3.5 v6 comparison

 

I read about that in SCC. Cut the chain with a chain cutter. hehe. Interesting!

 

The Altima and Maxima have the exact same torque curve. And don't be a Mag racer.

 

Not a mag racer, just going by specs from what was quoted from a magazine.. Trust me , i have had my fair share of racing. Spec racing,Formula ford racing(open wheel),auto crossing, and illegal.

Never had an opurtunity to run against an altima. The only thing that i can see is that maybe weight maybe a key factor as why your friend altima is keeping up or beating you.Is he a better driver, is your car mechanically sound,are you a heavy guy? These are things to keep in consideration, you never mentioned these things in your post.And i am not about to go assuming and make myself look bad.

 

Let me rephase that, i never raced a Altima in my Max. I raced one in stage 3 TTZ though, poor guy didn't have a chance....i know apples to oranges.

 

I personally havent raced an Altima either but from all the track results I have seen they are equally as quick. Try browsing around the timeslip section for more track data. Most of us have postings in there including myself and blu.


http://forums.maxima.org/forumdisplay.php?f=46

 

cool.....i'll do that.

 

the fastest i witnessed was 14.7 in the 1/4 at e-town- and it was modded to hell- w/headers

 

I agree. I'll just add that I have run on a few occassions 14.7XX sec ETs in my stock automatic Max; I've yet to see a stock auto Alt run that. (Matter of fact when I ran my Max @ Etwon w/800 miles on the odo, an auto Alt 3.5SE was there with identical mileage and he ran a 15.9 best time versus my 15-flat.)

 

Link

 

i have a spec v, and with intake headers and exhaust the guy should do better than a 9.8in the 1/8.. he should be getting like 9.6s... i get 9.8s with just intake with my spec v... best time so far i only ran it twice.. best so far 15.2 at 91 mph.. and the best with the pops 04 max auto se is a 14.64 with a 9.4 1/8 mile

 

and the 14.64 is stock for the se maxima auto

 

If you use mags use the 6.0,14.7 1/4 that Car and Driver got for the 6spd 02 Max. It is certain that that 02 they tested could have pulled off a 5.9 or 5.8 it may have remember the 6.0 is the average number after a few runs, Altima manual is no faster, I for one think that the 02/03 manual would have been even quicker than 5.9-6.0 with a nice 5spd manual.

 

I think alot of the autos will, just look at some of our 1/4 times which are right their with some 6spd, but their trap mph's are higher. The 02/03's run so much better for an auto vs the manual per say compared to the 01/00 manual to auto where the manual would win in the 1/4 almost always.

 

i raced one of those spec-v's in my auto 2k and the guy had 1/2 car on me

 

You can actually remove the entire assembly by dropping the oil pan. You have to cut down the bolts like 2"...I used to have a link on it. It will add HP to that already stout engine...

 

I'm trying to tell you guys that it's the track and not us. I would have to take pictures of this run down pos for you to understand. But here's a brief desription of it. The entrance off the main road is nothing but, dirt, pot holes and little patches of grass here and there. Once you get in the compound of the main gates it's again the same thing and the actual pre-staging lanes are maybe 200 ft long of actual asphalt. Now the actual strip itself was of course filled with all the crap you just picked up from the road. Finally the little road you traveled on after racing was again full of pot holes and bumps. Now maybe you will all get a better understanding of what I'm talking about when I say it's the track and not us. Hopefully one of these days I'll be able to make it up to South Carolina were supposedly the best track is and of course it's 1/4 mile and not this pos 1/8 mile.

 

when I went to MO/KAN back in February, my best time was a 14.99, and this guy in a much less modded SE-R ran a 15.5. I am not sure if it was a spec-V or not.

i have since ran a 14.8, but those little 2.5L's are pretty hot...to bad handling is no good on our muscle cars...

-vq

 

Yeah no doubt my brother just picked up his Spec-V todays ago. I was impressed with the 2.5 engine. Once his car breaks in, were going to run them.

 

up to around 60 the Spec V isnt bad at all. However, at higher speeds they still trail the hp of a 3.5 by like 70 or 80... thats when the Maxima will pull away nicely. But the Spec V's are sharp lookin, nice handling little cars.

 

yeah my spec v is great up until 60 than the power drops off alittle when i bang third gear.. by the end of third gear it will pick up pretty good again... im in third gear by 60 though.. second gear tops out at 53 or so.. for a 4banger the car moves.. if i am doing 10 mph in first and stomp on it the tires will spin like a mo fo, alot of torque in that little car.. but the max is enough faster,

 

Now that your describing what you do, that must be the other mod this guy did. He was telling me about dropping his oil pan to do some mod. I didn't know what he was talking about. So that means he had CAI, exhaust, lightened crank pulley, headers and the mod done to his balance shaft. So I guess with all that he should have been able to hang with me for at least up to 60 like he did.

 

Bad launch? Are you a good driver? Maybe he has some internal work done to his engine?????

From 0-50-60ish they should hang with you , slightly modded w/ chip,exhaust,cone filter. If stock , they would hang less,possibly to 35ish mph. There top end is weak, on a highway there easy pickings,lack of Hp/trq just doesn't give them the muscle to pull to top speed very quickly.

Also don't you roll on 19"'s? If so that could be a problem as well....more internal work would solve that problem real quick. Cams, springs,valve job,etc. Exhaust,filter , headers are 15% of the equation to go faster, but the source for speed lies within,actually building the engine,will net better results then just f/e/h/c/. I guess the ultimate question is how fast do you want to go and how deep are your pockets?

 

if i trap at 91 or so with just intake the top end in the spec isnt that bad...

 

No that's too bad at all, but most of the 2k2, 2k3 Maximas trap speed is between 94-99 mph. Get some more mods and you'll be even faster. Trust me if the track here wasn't so crappy me and the guy with his Spec V would be alot faster.