Yeah, so I went to the track to run the Z, not the I35, but I thought I would make a couple of passes in it, without getting the the wife too mad.

The weather conditions were great, the track, for FWD cars, was horrible. When FWD cars ran, unless you had slicks, they place a barrel out to force you out of the groove off the line, which made it very slippery.

The I35 is riding on Toyo Proxes TPT, which already present quite the difficulty when launching, or pushing the gas at any speed in first gear.

That said, I only made 3 passes, which were all similar, without any major tire cleaning burn outs. I did not want to beat up on my wifes car, especially after the front and rear mounts were replaced. The car has 139K miles on it now, but rides and drives great, except for the right front strut bump, which is next on my list.

Anyway, as I expected, she ran very strong, even though I spun all the way through first, trying to modulate the throttle, going wot progressively, and not really reaching it until I was just shy of the upshift to second. It still spun all the way through first. Frustrated, I tried again, this time holding back a little more on the launch, and going half to 3/4 throttle through first, before reaching wot again, just before the upshift, and it stuck only very slightly better, still spinning, but trying to grab a little just before shifting to second.

On the third attempt it just spun badly, so I parked her after that, not wanting to improve on the times on this date, as the tires and the track were going to make it an abusive affair, and I was there to run the Z, not abuse Shannon's car.

The first two passes resulted in 14.645 and 14.615, with horrible 2.3 60's, and traps that were approaching 96. I was happy considering that I lost so much time and a couple of mph in trap spinning through first, while holding back.

Once she gets some new tires, which will be soon, since the Toyos not only are slippery on dry pavement, but even worse on wet, I will give it a shot again.

No doubt she has the power to go low 14's and trap 97-98 with traction, especially after these horrible runs producing low 14.6's. Even a low 2.1 60' could produce a 14.2.

Here is the video of the second run.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw5rUxJVqUA

Here is the timeslip. I had to use the yellow back copy, as the white slip is somewhere in the kids stuff, which was in the I35.

 

Very impresive. And both cars are stock? I am more impressed with the 350z time.

 

Nice run bro!

 

Yes, both cars are stock. I have been trying to get to a 12.9 in the Z. It has the power, but not the clutch right now.

 

After you run a 12.9, are you moving on to a 370z? I can't believe you have kept the same car this long. I need to find the time to go to Steele again soon.

 

That's one track I would never visit again. Put a barrel in the lane so you can't run in the groove? Last I checked everyone pays the same amount for T&T.

Excellent runs though even with the suboptimal track conditions.

 

Alot of the tracks around here do that now. They say it is for safety for the cars with slicks because street tires peel up the rubber

This is the only 1/4mile track within 2 hours of me, good thing I can't run street tires anymore anyway...

 

At least they let me have the groove with the 350Z.

I will be keeping the Z for a while, no upgrades either. I have been tightening up financially. I'm not 100% convinced the 370Z is much faster, as my 350Z has trapped 109.03 now. If I had the clutch to launch a little harder, a 12.9 would have been relatively easy.

Let me know when you are going Matt, and I'll bring the family out. Probably not too many great conditions left this winter. Last Sunday was as good as you could get there, weather wise.

I am convinced now that all VQ's run stronger with miles, as the 4th Gen times were blown out of the water by a very high mileage example. Our I35 runs way stronger than any other 02-03 Maxima autos I have driven, and the Z is getting consistently stronger as the miles go on, it has 56K now.

That said, the 370Z should start out faster and get stronger as well. Just waiting for some new owners to report on track visits. So far nothing.

 

There is no doubt that the VQ37 is not as big a jump as the regular VQ35 was to the VQ35HR. Couple that with the fact that at the dragstrip the faster you go the harder it is to get faster with a small addition of power. With that said, I still think in the hands of a driver like you the car will be at least 2 tenths faster in the 1/4 mile than the VQ35HR. The car is similar weight, has a better final drive ratio, and 20-25 or so more hp. Maybe you could meet someone at the track and drive theirs so you don't have to buy one.

 

I went there last weekend and they had the barrel there. I couldn't hook for crap and ran embarrassing times. (13.1's@113) This guy in an 06 GTO told me he was running about 6 tenths slower than usual with the same 60 foot. I'm just gonna start going to silver dollar...

 

Qucker than I would have expected, nice trap speed too.

I hear ya on the traction problems, I get on mine all the way off the line and it spins so hard it shifts into 2nd gear.

 

man, if i see those numbers from my stock max, i think i'd go home showing all 32 great times... i think ima try my stock 02 tomorrow