04/07/2026
Sometimes the gimmicks just absolutely destroy the efficiency of your engine. This 370z is a great example. Originally it was brought in for an intake manifold spacer, and a Takeda intake installation (along with injectors and a fuel pump to support E85). The car already had some throttle body spacers with some weird funneling machined on the inside to swirl the air. Unfortunately, after the installs were done, and I got on the laptop, the car was severely underpowered.
Post tune, the owner and I discussed what was holding it back with quite a few options… the intake spacer, the intakes because they neck down at the MAFs, and potentially the fabricated intake manifold, but I wasn’t 100% on the manifold because it looked like it should work.
The owner brought the car back with a ported intake manifold from Z1, 3” intakes from Z1, and a flexfuel sensor kit to make the tune a little more consistent between fuels. During the installation, I removed all the spacers.
Making power naturally aspirated is always a challenge. The package really needs to breathe efficiently, and the gains aren’t really there from changing parts here and there. Well that changed with the newly installed parts! I am still kind of shocked to see the car picked up 43 horsepower over the previous session on E85.
😳. Thankfully the owner is really satisfied with making 350hp in his auto transmission 370z
