(engine revving)
- The 300ZX was an
incredible car during its day
packed with a lot of tech heavy features
that put it ahead of its time.
Even by today's standards,
it's a great car.
But unfortunately, it
was because of all those
early 90s gadgets that gave the Fairlady Z
a mixed reputation.
It's called character and
it's what makes the 300ZX
one of the greats.
So today, we're gonna look
at some of those tech heavy
character features slash flaws,
starting with its infamous
twin turbo engine.
Then we're gonna move on
to its four wheel steering
and then we're gonna finish up with it's
surprisingly sophisticated,
iconic headlights that one
Italian supercar builder
borrowed for their own car.
Let's get after it.
(upbeat music)
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Now for any non 300ZX fanboys
or fangirls out there,
there are two versions of the
300ZX, the 1983 to 1989 model
which is called the Z31
and from 1990 to 2000,
which is called the Z32.
And that is the one we're
gonna be talking about today.
And the first thing I wanna
talk about with the Z32
is the motor.
The VG30DETT.
If your brain goes numb
when you see or hear
engine model numbers
like that, join the club.
I've always been one to kind of glaze over
those engine model numbers,
but it is surprisingly
insightful when you break
down what all those letters
and numbers mean.
So first off, the VG is the
engine code that Nissan used
for their series of V6 motors.
Did they name it VG, because
g is the closest letter
to resemble a six?
Sure, let's go with that,
let's start the conspiracy.
Next, is the number 30,
and that number represents
the engine's displacement of 3.0 liters.
Now, engine displacement is just the total
swept volume of all the cylinders.
It tells you how much air can
be pumped through the engine,
and we can calculate that
swept volume as long as we have
the bore which is the
diameter of the cylinder,
that's this measurement as
long as we have the stroke,
the distance at which the piston travels
and the total number of cylinders.
Now displacement is usually
listed in liters like it is here
with the 300ZX, sometimes
displayed as cubic centimeters,
which is used in
motorcycles or cubic inches
if it's an American muscle car.
Next is the D, which stands
for Dual Overhead Cams,
meaning one cam is used to
operate the exhaust valves
and the other is used to
operate the intake valves
and because this is the
V6, there's actually
four total camshafts in this
motor making it a quad cam.
We're gonna get to that
in a second so hold tight.
Now the E stands for Electronic
Fuel Injection and finally,
the TT stands for Twin Turbo #boostcreeps.
We started the game when
we were filming our series,
"High Low", if you haven't
seen it after you watch this,
go check it out and then
go to donutmedia.com
and get your own Boost Creeps T-Shirt,
they're freaking cool.
So now that we know what this
engine is, one of the features
that made it such a unique
motor was called NVTC,
or Nissan Variable Timing Control.
Before I can even explain what
variable timing control is,
we need to one, explain the
basics of a four stroke engine
and two how timing is controlled
in an engine without VTC.
It'll help us appreciate what VTC does.
Now, a quick way I like to
remember the order of operations
on a four stroke motor is SS
BB, suck, squeeze, bang, blow.
It's the sexiest way to remember it,
and if you can remember
that, you'll never forget
how a four stroke engine works.
Now if we start with the
piston at top dead center,
or at the highest point in the cylinder,
as it moves down, it sucks
air into the cylinder
through the intake valve above.
And the piston then travels
back up to squeeze all that air.
Fuel gets squirted in and that
compressed air fuel mixture
is then sparked and bang!
A power stroke pushes
the piston back down.
Now in the final stroke we
have to get rid of all that
exhaust gas we just made by
igniting that fuel and air
and the piston begins to
travel back up to the top
of the cylinder which blows all that gas
out the exhaust valve and the
process starts all over again.
So when we talk about
timing we're talking about
when those intake and exhaust
valves open and close.
So how is that achieved?
That is the job of the camshaft.
So the camshaft has lobes at various spots
along the length of it
and as the cam rotates,
so do those lobes, and those
lobes then push against
the valve to open them up.
Now the location and the
profile or shape of those lobes
on the cam, they control
three things in regards
to the valve.
They control the timing, that's
when the valves get open,
they control the duration,
which is how long the valve
stays open and they
control the amount of lift
or how far the valve
gets lifted off its seat.
By changing the shape of
those lobes or their position
on the camshaft we can alter
how much air the piston pulls
into the cylinder and when.
If we go back to our favorite
Donut equation of more air,
plus more fuel equals more
power, we can increase
the amount of power we
make by allowing the piston
to draw in more air
through the intake valve.
Now of those three variables,
we're going to discuss
the timing of the valve.
See, when those valves open and close
is extremely important, it
can affect the efficiency
of your engine, it can affect
the amount of power it makes,
and at a very, very
basic fundamental level,
it even determines if your
motor will even run or not.
Now in most engines, the
timing on when the intake
and exhaust valves open
is consistent throughout
the entire rev range of your engine.
And that is not always a good thing.
For instance, when your engine
is at idle, you don't need
a ton of air going into the cylinders.
Not necessary, right?
You're just sitting there, idling.
But, when you're ripping down
the track and wringing out
the motor you want as much
air in as fast as possible.
So cam design is basically a
compromise between those two.
But what Nissan did with
VTC is develop a way to get
the best of both worlds.
So, how did they do it?
(upbeat music)
On a standard engine, the
camshaft has a fixed gear
on the end of it.
Like I mentioned before,
that's the part that our belt
or chain hooks up to which
is driven by the crank.
The engineers over at Nissan
did something very clever
with that gear.
Instead of using a solid
gear, they designed
a multi piece gear with a
couple basic components.
Now you have the main
gear, which the timing belt
mates up to and on the
inside of this gear housing
is a cam phaser that's directly
connected to the camshaft
and that cam phaser that
is the part that allows
for variable timing.
That entire setup has passages
for oil to go through it
and it's pressurized oil that makes
Nissan's VTC system work.
Now when VTC is activated,
a solenoid valve mounted
on the back of the head
presses on a check valve
at the rear of the cam
and normally oil can flow
through here but now that
the solenoid is blocking
that flow of oil, this
forces oil into the cam gear
which then pushes the cam phaser.
And remember, the camshaft
is directly connected
to the cam phaser.
So when this happens, it
causes the camshaft to rotate
just a few degrees, effectively
advancing the timing
of the intake valves.
And when I say advance,
I mean the intake valves
open up sooner.
So at the tail end of
our blow stroke, right?
WWhile the exhaust gases
are being pushed out,
the intake valve is getting
a head start by opening it up
just a smidgen sooner.
So why would you want that, right?
What does it mean?
It means you get improved low end power
and throttle response, which is great.
That load is just a
calculation done by the ECU
so it takes all of that data
from the crank angle sensor,
from the engine temperature
sensor from the throttle sensor,
and from the neutral switch.
My point being is that
all of this is pretty
sophisticated stuff, especially
when it was developed
in the late 80s.
I mean, that is pretty incredible.
And on the flip side, again,
this was done in the late 80s,
meaning if you have a 300ZX,
you better have a lot of time
and patience to troubleshoot
any problems that may arise
if any of those systems fail.
Obviously, it's not impossible.
Cars today are more digital
than analog, but finding parts
or people to know how to
work on your 30 year old Z,
are getting harder and harder to find.
But hopefully by the end
of this video, you'll build
some appreciation for the Z
and you'll go out and buy one,
you'll keep all that knowledge
alive, which by the way,
if you have a 300ZX, put a
comment down in the video below.
Tell me is it as much of a
pain in the butt to work on
or do you still love it for
all its character that it has?
Now, aside from this neat
little trick to optimize timing,
the main thing that gets
people all charged up
about the 300ZX is its twin turbo setup.
(upbeat music)
The Z uses Twin Garrett
T25 turbos putting out
nine and a half pounds of boost.
That made the Z good for 300 horsepower
and 283 foot pounds of
torque, getting it to the end
of the quarter in 13.7 seconds.
It topped out at 155 miles
per hour but that was
electronically limited.
So, take that off, you go faster.
Don't do it though, I
don't, do it if you want,
what do I care? (laughs)
To give you an idea how good
that motor was in this car,
it made Car & Driver's top 10 lists
for seven years in a row.
And they compared this car
in magazines to everything,
the C4, beat out the RX7,
beat out the 911 even,
it beat out the 3000GT VR4.
Any import car that was
tested against the 300 ZX,
the ZX came out on top.
It's a great car.
And the next cool tech
feature on the 300ZX
that I wanna talk about is
Nissan's four wheel steering
called Super HICAS.
It's not called high
cass, It's called HICAS.
It's like, Hi kiss, (blows
kiss) and it stands for
High Capacity Actively Controlled Steering
and it is Nissan's way of
steering the rear wheels.
Now, you may have heard of
this before, Nissan used it
in their R31 Skyline.
But it came standard on
all the twin turbo models
of the Z32.
Now maybe the most dramatic
example of rear wheel steering
is in the monster truck world.
We did a Bumper 2 Bumper
on Grave Digger and James
talked about it then.
Go watch that after you finished this.
Now, they use rear wheel steering so those
big (bleep) trucks can make
tight turns in small arenas
like this.
(engine revving)
Now, the four wheel steering
on the 300ZX is quite different
in how it works as well
as why Nissan installed it
in the first place.
So first off, why would you
even need four wheel steering?
Well at low speeds, if you
have the ability to turn
the rear wheels in the opposite direction
of the front wheels,
you effectively decrease
the turning radius of the car,
hence why monster trucks use it.
Now, for the 300ZX, this isn't
very helpful as the system
is inactive under 30 miles an hour.
So what is the reason the Z uses it?
Well, they use it in
high speed situations.
So the HICAS system on the 300ZX
only steers the rear wheels
just a few degrees.
Your front wheels on the other hand,
they can turn up to 50 degrees.
So, it may sound like a
few degrees in the rear
is pretty insignificant,
but it actually helps out
quite a bit.
When you turn all four
wheels in the same direction
going around a corner for instance,
it improves high speed stability,
and with all four wheels
turning the same way,
you're less likely to have
the rear end (clicks
teeth) kind of kick out.
Also, at high speeds, your
front wheels aren't rotated
as much, you're not
really doing a lot of this
when you're going fast.
So how does it work?
Well, the Z uses the super
version of the HICAS system.
The Super version switched from hydraulics
to electronically controlled
system using an electric motor.
The ECU gets information
from a few different sensors,
it looks at the speed of
the car, the steering angle
and the speed at which the
steering wheel is being turned.
So it'll detect this versus this.
From this information, it works
out how much steering input
to apply to the rear wheels.
It sends a signal to that electric motor.
Now the system can also
monitor your intentions
before a corner, it can read your mind.
So using data from all those
sensors I mentioned before,
this is then looked up against a table
of pre programmed values
that tells the ECU
how far to move the back wheels.
This is continuously monitored
throughout the entire turn.
And all of this happens
in a fraction of a second
by the way, and all of
this happened in the 90s.
This isn't Tesla we're talking about.
We're talking about Nissan in the 90s.
Nissan, what happened to you?
Where did you go? (laughs)
Now let's talk about the front of the car.
(upbeat music)
So to achieve that iconic
front end of the 300ZX,
they had to figure out a way to produce
an entirely new headlight design.
Looking at a 300ZX headlight
today and you think,
no big deal, but back in
1990 designing a headlight
with such a sleek profile was a challenge.
Generally speaking, a lot of
the times the design process
of a new car starts out
with form over function.
And as the build begins,
designers go back and forth
with engineers and the two work
out some sort of compromise
so that it keeps true
to the designer's vision
but it still falls within the
limits of what can actually
be built by the engineers.
In the case of the 300ZX,
the looks were a main
driving force behind
some of the technology
incorporated into the car.
Now when the designer Toshio
Yamashita sketched out the car,
he wanted to make it look
sleek, but still aggressive.
He even traveled to the US to
figure out what people loved
about the previous Z's and
why they were such a success
in the States.
American cars at the
time were getting rounder
and more aerodynamic, so he
designed a smooth edge Nissan
and in his design, he shaped the headlight
so they mated up with
the hood and the fenders
clean and flush.
And the angle of the
headlights for 60 degrees,
and at the time, if you
wanted to maintain that angle,
the only way you could accomplish that
was the use of pop up headlights.
But at the time, we were getting away
from pop up headlights.
So when he brought his
design to the engineers,
they were like, "We can't really do that,
"we can make them like 45
degrees, is that good?"
And Yamashita was like, "No, no, no."
Nissan engineers that
nicknamed him Mr. Yadashida
because Yada loosely translates
to No, no, no, in Japanese.
You see, Yamashita was seeking perfection
and he wasn't going to allow
a bunch of whiny engineers
to stop him,
And as an engineer, myself,
I can call us whiny.
So he went out and he
found very small projectors
and gave them to the
engineering team to use.
Now Projector Headlights had been around
before they were put on the Z.
But to maintain that low profile of the Z,
remember, it was 60 degrees,
they had to have smaller
projectors and lamps and
bulbs and all that stuff
so that they can maintain
that sleek profile.
Now the lights were a
huge success, so much so
that Lamborghini used
them in their Diablo.
During the later years of
the Diablo's production,
they went away from pop up
headlights and instead of
designing, manufacturing and
getting all the regulatory
tests done on their own
headlight, Lamborghini used,
under license, the headlight
of the Nissan 300ZX.
Fun little fact, Lamborghini
actually tried to hide the fact
that they used Nissan's
headlights by covering
the top portion with a
strip of carbon fiber,
but if you have a Diablo, pop
off that carbon fiber piece
and you'll see the
Nissan logo right there,
that's pretty cool.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
If you didn't know, Donut
has a show coming out
every day of the week now.
We have a new Versha
show, we have The D List,
we got Money Pit with Zach
Jobe, which is just a beauty.
Follow Donut at Donut Media,
click that like button,
click the subscribe hit
the notification button.
Do you have a 300ZX?
Let me know about it,
put a comment down below.
Hit me up on Instagram,
show me some pictures
@JeremiahBurton.
I love that car, Is it as
much of a pain in the butt
to work on as I, as I hear it is?
I don't know, I don't have
one, but you can tell me.
I'll see you next week.
Bye for now.
(car engine rumbles)
- What's going on guys Jeremy Miller
from Springfield Massachusetts, also with
the Zebras drift team.
I have here my two Nissan 300ZX's.
- Hey guys, my name is Bethany Putney
and today I will be showing you
my 1990 Nissan 300ZX twin turbo.
- [Brent] How are you Donut Media?
My name is Brent and this is Blaster Z.
(car engine roars)
- I'm a little biased, but I think
this is a timeless design.
- [Kevin] What's up James,
Nolan all the other guys
at Donut Media, my name's
Kevin from New Jersey.
This is my 1990 Nissan 300ZX.
- [Long] My name is long and
I'm from El Monte California.
Here's my 1991 300ZX slick top
with a twin turbo conversion.
- Oh, I got something, hold on.
Oh dude, do I got something for you dude.
Look what I got.
I got a little calculator.
So while Nissan engineers
in the 90s were programming
all this cool technology into a 300Z,
you know what I was doing in the 90s?
Texas instrument.
Where my TI-89 fans at?
I was doing this, eight,
zero, zero, eight, s,
friggin (bleep) (laughs)
So dumb, so dumb.
I am embarrassed that I just did that,
and I know you're gonna
use it and I wish I didn't
but whatever.
All right, we good?
(engine revving)
