Should Nissan make a 300hp base model Z?

trackratZ

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For a daily I think 300hp is more than enough for most people.
Nope, with Challengers, Chargers running around with 700hp, the new Z needs more daily Hp to do spin outs and crashes, sure make great videos :p and gives Cars and Coffee proud!
 

Lin626

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I’d prefer no lower base so I don’t have to see 30 of them at every car meet. Around me, every meet I go to seems to have 30 current gen mustangs, 30 BRZ/86 twins, 15 civics, and only a sprinkling of Zs. Not that anyone stops to look at any of those cars. They all circle up to to take Instagram pics in front of the Porsches.
I see your point, but at the same time the Z has never been a super "exclusive" car. It's not a GTR or NSX. It's an affordable car for the massive.
 

RicerX

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Don't think it's financially smart in today's world for Nissan to produce two diff engines in the new Z, and one with less hp than the outgoing 370Z. From the 350Z on, only one engine was offered, not counting the tuned Nismos.
Agree with you - however that was not what I was arguing. Was pointing out that a lesser powered variant has been done previously with the Z.
Now that I’m less lazy, digging back to 1996, there was a $5,000 price difference between the base model and twin turbo 300ZX. Adjust that for inflation and you’re at an $8484 price difference in today’s dollars.
Not likely today’s spread is the same as that spread was in 1996 should they offer two versions of the VR like they do in the Red Sport Q50/60, but if you look at the silver sport vs red sport cars, it was roughly a $5,000 difference.
If you can use that to build a Z that starts at $29k for a 300hp version and $36k for a 400hp version, that’s a much wider spread of potential buyers you can capture.
Better yet, as the Z’s chassis and build overall better accommodates airflow to the engine bay and other overall performance configuration and packaging, who’s to say they can’t crank each variant of the VR to 350hp/450hp? You get a cost-friendly model that starts at the top of the line 370Z with power output and a performance model that nearly touches a first-gen R35. That could make a lot of sense especially if the GT-R is being retired.
 

takemorepills

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The price spread between the 300HP VR and 400HP VR has very little to do with the engine. There's minimal differences between the 2 versions of VR, turbo speed sensors, revised cooling is about it.
This isn't like the Z32 which used 2 wildly different engines. Not only did that car use different engines, it used different versions of the MT and AT for each version. Heck, the axles were different also.

In the Q60, some of the cost difference is in how the RS car is equipped. As far as I know, the 7AT and rear end, axles are the same. The rest of the cost difference is likely just Nissan/Infiniti inflating the price through a very small increase in actual cost. Kind of like how all Teslas can do FSD, but it's just the "software" that costs $10K.

Back "in the day" when one chassis had very different powerplants, there'd be totally different axles, trans, brakes, cooling, exhaust, fuel delivery, etc that would justify a wide price difference. The modern VR cars really are pretty close to how Tesla operates....just a download separates one performance level from another.

OTOH, if they do offer a 300HP Z, don't assume it's "less power" than the VQ Z, yes, peak HP is less on paper, but don't be surprised if a 300HP VR could edge out a VQ Z due to the much wider power band and increased torque which is also available across a very wide rev range.
 

jdm-rhd

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GOTTHEFUZZ

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So many Supra fanboys were butthurt after hearing about 4 banger model lol.
It sold so bad that alot of dealerships would lie and list them as 3.0's and people would call from outta state and ask and they would be lied to saying that the price was real and it was a 3.0

Then when the people made trips to these dealerships to buy, the salesmen played stupid saying they couldn't tell the difference and that they thought it was a 3.0

This happened a handful of times, there was articles about it too, and I still think if you go on cargurus you can find some 2.0 supras listed as 3.0
 

jdm-rhd

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It sold so bad that alot of dealerships would lie and list them as 3.0's and people would call from outta state and ask and they would be lied to saying that the price was real and it was a 3.0

Then when the people made trips to these dealerships to buy, the salesmen played stupid saying they couldn't tell the difference and that they thought it was a 3.0

This happened a handful of times, there was articles about it too, and I still think if you go on cargurus you can find some 2.0 supras listed as 3.0
wow...that's crazy!
you'd think they could figure it out by looking at the engine bay pics or the vin.
unless the dealer conveniently left those out of the ad.
 

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Classic, I know they would do to make people drive all the way out there and they're hoping that once they're there they just settle for the 2.0 since they already put in that much effort to make the drive.

I had that happen with the Civic Type R, a friend of mine drove outta state because a dealer and him agreed on the price and he gets there and welp....they changed the price real fast.

Classic bait and switch
 

jdm-rhd

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Classic, I know they would do to make people drive all the way out there and they're hoping that once they're there they just settle for the 2.0 since they already put in that much effort to make the drive.

I had that happen with the Civic Type R, a friend of mine drove outta state because a dealer and him agreed on the price and he gets there and welp....they changed the price real fast.

Classic bait and switch
please tell me he didn't buy it...
 

DrivingEnthusiast

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I see the market rationale for a ~300 HP Z, as a down-level model (just like the Supra, Mustang et al), but most definitely not using the existing 300 HP TT V-6. That engine is ridiculously over-complicated for only 300 HP, and is also very expensive to build - meaning the sticker price would therefore be much higher than necessary. I frankly consider that engine to be tactically obsolete...
... it was originally part of the Q's strategic GTM plan for a 200, 300 and 400 horsepower range. At one point that made sense... however it was the execution that was the problem. The 200 HP engine was a Mercedes turbo 4, with lousy output and the result was really dull to drive (I drove a couple of rental Q50s from Hertz, who marketed that car with that engine as "premium luxury"). That engine option is now dead and buried - where it belongs.
Look around the premium luxury market and you will see turbo 4s in cars like the excellent Alfa Romeo Giulia - which is a lot more fun to drive than the 4 cylinder Q50 ever was, and even more so than the older G37S was. On just a bit under 300 HP, and with much less weight over the front wheels.
And note that Nissan's own turbo 4 with it's odd variable compression is not at all a successful engine, with middling power, odd driveablity and apparently no improvement in mileage over a fixed-compression engine. And it's in transverse form only. So Nissan/Infiniti doesn't have a ~300 HP 4 and probably won't for longitudinal use.
And the 300 HP TTV-6 really doesn't make very impressive power for all the technology involved. It's 295 torque is especially lousy.
400 HP isn't that much in this day and age either... especially for a sportscar. And in this market, with these competitors, the Z will compete in the ~400 HP range - Supra a bit less, Mustang a bit more. So I think the 400 HP engine should be the only Z engine at this point. And followed by a further development of that engine for the future Nismo (and for a Red S Q50/Skyline I would hope) to around 450. Any more is wasted and it won't have traction.
The 400 HP engine is better than the 300 HP version, although not class-leading (both Ford and especially GM make more HP from this same size engine) and it's torque is very poor and surprisingly low: only 350. I think that low torque figure can be blamed on ye olde 7-speed auto and it's limitations... I am expecting to see tonight that torque has been raised to >400 since presumably the new 9-speed is rated much higher. And I'm assuming, and may be wrong given it's origins (troubles in the 350Z), that the 6-speed manual will also handle this much torque.
 
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