really not feeling the new hood…
new colour for the 07…
Yeah. I don’t know if I like that hood. I guess the new vq35hr plenum is a lot more square then the old one. It sort of looks like the Stillen hood
Not a fan of the hood, either, but I’d happily live with it if I was in the market for a brand new Z (I would have imported it from the US). That new HR engine looks to be a monster!
i wonder if the new hood is out of necessity to fit the new engine, or just a design change. It’d be pretty bad for the aftermarket companies to have to make a new hood for the car.
How much power is this one pushing?
That is one weird hood. Could it be to make more room for aftermarket? Or maybe just the HR is that big.
I’m still pissed at the fact Ford stole the long reflector on the bumper and put it on a Focus of all cars
New VQ35HR DOHC 3.5L V6
306 HP @7500 rpm
268 lb. of torque
Haha, don’t get me started about the the “stealing” bit with US cars. That solstice front end is nearly the same as the Z, and the pontiac G6 rear tails look offly like the Z as well.
at least the paint looks a lot more chip resistant than my 1st gen craptacular paint 
yeh what a terrible hump
Necessity. The damn thing is quite a bit taller in the engine bay. I guarantee you Nissan, nor any other manufacturer, would EVER consider the aftermarket when designing their products. They’d all wish tuning and modding would go away.
yeah more like a flat hump.
atleast the rims aren’t that bad.
car manufacturers want tuning and modding go away? Care to explain why? the aftermarket industry is pretty huge…
Both of the rims are unchanged from 2006.
I bet the first thing the 2007 Z owner will do is change the hood to a Stillen one or something. That’s what I would do.
the hump on the stillen hood might not be wide enough, plus it’s still ugly. I think i’d rather have OEM 07 hood then the Stillen hood.
wow, they have a new engines
I pretty sure you need the hump there. I saw the plenum of the new HR and it doesn’t slope down like the old one. It’s really square. You don’t need a plenum spacer now. Look on the bright side… 2 intakes and 2 throttle bodies and equal length headers… NICE…
Can’t wait to see who comes up with a new twin turbo setup for this engine.
heehee, i wonder which plenum is better, this one or the one cosworth had on display at SEMA.
Yes, the aftermarket industry is huge, but by and large the car manufacturers don’t see that money. And the aftermarket options the auto manufacturers DO provide are rarely anything beyond some visual mods or the odd suspension bits. But that’s not the real reason manufacturers wish tuning would go away…
It’s US! How many times have you heard of people modding their car with nitrous or some form of boost, then blew the engine, and tried to part the car back to stock for warranty work? How many owners of Mitsu Evos (in the states) and STIs crank up the boost, blow shit up, and then expect their factory warranty to cover it? How many NA cars, like Civics, 350Zs, etc. do people **** up in some way or another, with improperly installed suspensions, or hydrolocked engines from running CAIs into a puddle, etc. etc.
The answer, as far as the auto industry (and their laywers) is concerned is TOO much. And honestly, I don’t blame them. I have no respect for people who mod their car which they know voids the warranty for that given aspect of the car, and try and pull something on the car companies. It’s this reason that most cars now are built with tolerances not far beyond the stock power levels… because it’s cheaper than overengineering, and it’s easier to spot the modders.
Now, on the OTHER side, I can’t stand it when manufacturers and their service stations deny car owners warranty work when they discover mods that either haven’t caused any problems, or are obviously completely unrelated to the problem (i.e. having a CAI but you come in with a complaint of a blown stock suspension). Of course, although many dealerships are just greedy, lazy pricks, others take this stance out of necessity, because they’ve been burned too many times by owners that pull the stunts I listed above. Then, you have the car owners who feel they’re justified in these unethical tactics, because they feel (and very well may have been) ****ed over from previous, honest dealings with an unscrupulous dealer.
It’s the “chicken or the egg” theory… which came first? I personally, don’t care, and I don’t think feeding the cycle is the way to go, which is why I take the stance that I do. One thing I am sure of, however, is that we are seeing the effects of these problems with our newer cars. One look at the engine bay of the newest gen Civic Si only goes to support this: it’s more cramped under the hood than EVER before, intended to discourage modders from trying to cram a turbo in there.
That depends… how many throttle bodies can you bolt on to the cosworth one?
I agree with you about the warrenty fraud thing, but the “solution” of removing the aftermarket industy seems insane for me.
That’s like saying microsoft is going to stop producing software because people pirate their stuff.
To me, the issue should be solved by awareness on both the parts of the car owner and the dealerships. Dealership needs more awareness in order to detect damage due to aftermarket parts to prevent fraudulent claims. Owners can raise their awareness by knowing the effects of their mods so that dealers can’t pin every little thing on “mods”.
I’m sure car manufacturers aren’t only taking modding into consideration when they make their engineering decisions on the performance of individual parts. It could very well be that the engineering process has improved, and they can meet their requirements to a more exact degree to reduce production and design costs. Civic engines bays aren’t getting tighter because they want to keep turbos out, its more likely to maximize the space and weight available in there. As engines are getting increasing complex, it’s not difficult to see why engine bays are getting filled up.
I believe that the car manufacturers are getting a piece of the aftermarket pie though various means. one, they have in-house engineers (like Nismo, and AMG for example), or they sell their cars to the aftermarket companies in order to perform their tests.
IMO, modding has its good and bad sides. You seemed to have focused on the negative aspects of the industry. There are reputable companies that work hard to make sure that their products are engineered to work well and improve the performance (not strictly power) of our cars. I mean you yourself want to make suspension changes and get new rims. It’s upto people like us to make sure people understand that modding isn’t all bad.