- There's oil dripping all over
the the hot side of the turbo,
so, it might catch on fire.
- [James] $225 cooling system
- versus $500 cooling system.
- [Nolan] does more expensive mean more better?
- Let's find out.
- Go.
(upbeat music)
- We bought two identical Nissan 350Zs
and we've been modifying them to be fun daily drivers
that you can take to the track.
- [James] One car got a bunch of really cool expensive parts
and the other car got a bunch of cheap stuff.
- Then we test them to see which components
are actually worth spending your hard earned money on.
- [James] We've compared coil overs, brakes,
wheels, tires, seats.
We turbo'd both of our cars.
- And turboing your car makes it run a little hot,
so, today we are installing some cooling kits.
I'm getting a $195 Megan Radiator and a $30 universal fan
for a total of $225.
- I will be getting this $300 CSF Radiator,
$200 Mishimoto fan system
and $200 worth of hosing.
Not only is this kit far superior to Nolan's,
it is also going to do a great job keeping your boy
cool, calm, collected, 'cause sometimes, Nolan, I get hot.
- All right, so here's the fan we're installing
on low car, and it's $30 and you know what, I believe it.
There's nothing special or remarkable about this fan.
- I bet if you plug it in it'll turn on.
- [Nolan] I actually really like this,
this is really nice. - I think that's
a quality unit, the welds are nice,
everything seems solid, it's good.
So, what does $500 get you?
If you have a really keen eye,
you might notice that there's two fans,
where Nolan only had one.
Which is twice as good.
You'll notice this big metal stuff all around it,
that's called a shroud, that allows it direct more
of the air into the radiator.
- Ooh.
There's a audible ooh and ah through the office.
Yours is so much thicker than mine, James.
- Whereas Nolan's radiator fan is gonna be held on
by zip ties, ours was designed to bolt directly onto
a stock 350Z Radiator, so it fits like a glove.
- We've taken low car out to the canyons
and it's over heated a few times, which isn't fun.
Hopefully, this stuff alleviates those issues
and we can stay cool as a cucumber.
- Yeah, man, as a cucumber?
- Yeah.
- Did you make that up? - I did.
- That's good, dude, cucumbers are cool, dude.
(laughter)
(engine roaring)
So, we are on our way to our super secret canyon test track.
The goal is to get both these bad boys hot.
- Hot as hell.
- If you guys can remember, back in Albuquerque,
the car got a little bit hot on the track,
so, we're gonna try to recreate that here,
weekend warrior style, out in the canyons.
We're pretty positive the car is gonna get hot again,
but we wanna see what the limit is,
that way when we move to the new radiator,
we'll be able to tell the difference immediately.
- To accurately gage the temperature of the car
we're gonna be using this thermal camera here,
very cool equipment.
And we're gonna be looking at the temperature gage inside
the car, make sure that's reading accurately as well.
Let's go.
(engine roaring)
- Woo hoo, this thing feels good.
That lake looks beautiful,
thank you, Donut for giving me the opportunity,
this is a dream come true.
(engine roaring)
Woo hoo hoo.
- Ah, it was getting almost to the point
where it was unsafe,
but, I definitely didn't boil it over too bad.
(bleep) Read.
We'll get some readings right now.
- Radiator is at, say 225
- Coolant hose.
- 200.
- Turbo feed line.
- We'll say 180.
Good? - Yep!
Immediately, the car is already getting hot.
(engine roaring)
Just got done with our test,
we were originally gonna do four laps,
but, because the car was getting so hot,
it was cooked after three, so we had to stop the test.
We didn't wanna endanger anything or catch fire.
- The base temperature for the radiator was at 190,
after our third run it was at 225,
our coolant return hose was at 165 degrees,
on run three it was at 200,
but, I mean, across the board, huge temperature spikes.
- Massive.
(upbeat music)
- No signs of overheating yet,
we're still plugged right into the middle of the gage.
God, it's beautiful up here.
- [Nolan] Radiator is at 165.
- What are those brakes looking like?
Ooh, those are some hot boys.
- They were running about 10 to 20 degrees
hotter than these guys, I wasn't expecting that.
This (bleep) is so fun.
- (laughs) I love this thing.
Temp gage still looks the same after coming up,
car still feels great.
But, boy, I bet we're cooking some stuff in there.
(bleep)
We ain't makin' no boosts.
I think I broke it!
- What did you break?
- I don't know, I think we lost a charge pipe
or something, it's not making any power.
- Interesting.
It sounds like it's revving a little weird, too.
(engine revving)
But it's really struggling to even rev out,
kinda need to take it back to the shop.
- [Aaron] So, we just got back from the canyon.
- And we've got a big old radiator right here,
and a big old fan right here.
- I'm not huge on that fan, at all.
Most of the time, O.E.M. fans are very good,
and then after market fans are just big pretty things
that usually don't work, unless you get
something really high end, that is shrouded,
much like high car is set up.
You're not really utilizing what this fan is capable of,
cause' there's no sealed surface.
I think it's in our best interest
to try to utilize our O.E.M. fan on the back of this thing,
we might have a fitment issue,
'cause' it is thicker than this.
If we're forced to use this (sighs).
- That's kinda my last option,
honestly. - Yeah.
- I don't like the idea of using that thing at all.
- Me either.
- I think this is the first time on the show
that a low part is our final resort.
It should go perfectly smoothly here at low team.
(laughter)
(upbeat music)
I just took off the front bumper,
we're gonna dive in here and start taking the radiator out.
- We're hoping that this is the drain
for the O.E.M. radiator right here.
And then we're gonna have to release the pressure on top,
and it should flow nice and free.
- Wow, dude, come on, dude, stop pissing on the seat.
- [Aaron] Quick little check,
make sure there's no oil in there.
Looks pretty good.
- Got the car in the air,
inspected all of the charge pipes, all the couplers,
the whole turbo system, and there don't appear
to be any boost leaks, so, the other thing that's going on
is that the sound of the engine has change a little bit.
And that a little concerning, so my next thought,
after boost leak, is that we may have jumped timing
and if not, well, we'll talk about that later.
- It'll come out, we just gotta coerce it.
(upbeat music)
- [Nolan] There's just a lot of stuff in the way.
- [Aaron] Just give it a quick tug.
- A quick tug, wow.
That was actually remarkably easy.
All I need are a few quick tugs, you know?
I'm a little embarrassed it take only a few quick tugs,
but I am very efficient, I will say that.
(laughter)
It just needs a little bullying.
- Watch your finger, though.
- Yep.
- Watch your finger.
- Yeah, I'm watchin'.
- Argh!
- Oh, (bleep) dude.
- It's okay.
- No, it's not!
- Go, go.
- Nolan, we got some good news, man.
The stock shroud fits on the radiator.
- Looks like it's pretty much a perfect fit.
- We should be good. - Great.
- Timing seems to check out, we don't have any boost leaks,
we also don't have a check engine light.
We did find two spark plugs that had cracked porcelain.
We'll replace the cracked spark plugs
and see if that helps, hopefully it will.
(upbeat music)
- [Aaron] Things are looking real good.
- [Nolan] Well, I'll be damned.
- So, the turbo compressor sits right here,
and these ribs are preventing it from fitting down there,
and there's no way we're gonna take that turbo off.
I'm gonna take these ribs out,
try to make room for it to clearance right past the turbo.
I hope it's enough.
(saw buzzing)
- Did you get that?
Oh, wow!
Just gonna finesse it in a little bit.
I think I heard a crack.
- Fingers crossed.
(engine starts)
Tough to really tell, I don't know.
(engine revs)
It doesn't sound right.
(engine roaring)
- So, we got the radiator in, the fan shroud
bolts up to it very nicely.
Looks like this is gonna work.
- My only concern is just making sure
that we get it back together correctly.
- But, what you see, what she sees.
- [Aaron] Oh my God, give me that, give me this.
- Something is really wrong.
- Everything is buttoned up, thanks to Aaron here.
- Thanks to Nolan here.
- Oh, man, thank you.
So, we're gonna wait until tomorrow to fill up the radiator
and bleed everything out,
'cause we wanna do our test driving during the day
when it's safer.
(upbeat music)
- So, low car's cooling bits are almost installed.
Unfortunately, we're still having issues
and we're under a bit of a time crunch
because this is a video series,
so, we brought it to the dudes at Specialty Z,
these guys are Z masters,
and if anyone can fix it, it's them.
(motor whirring)
- That rattling, like a box of rocks.
- Oh, yeah, okay.
We got a little rattle in our driver side cat here,
so, we're thinking maybe it is just a dislodged cat
that's causing our issues.
- That one's starting to melt,
and you can actually see fuzzies.
- Go ahead and rev it for me.
(engine revving)
Well, so, that's actually the other cat
that just blew up, that's cool.
You don't wanna be breathing that.
- Yeah, cover yourselves. - That was cool.
- [Mechanic] That's precious metal.
So, hopefully, we just messed up our cats
with too much power maybe,
and we can replace those and get back on the road.
- Honestly, this could have been so much worse.
- Got a puppy today, figured out our issue.
- Cats and dogs.
- Yeah, cats and dogs, ah!
- So, finally we're on to cooling stuff,
we got a lot of heat, now it's time to cool it down.
We've got this big old thick CSF aluminum radiator,
way thicker then the stock one.
Should transfer a lot of heat.
We're gonna install these dual fans by Mishimoto.
This boy is thin, so it should counteract any fitment issues
that we have by adding this big old thick boy
of a radiator, and they're gonna be pretty loud.
And since this is a race car, that's a win.
- Splash mountian, baby.
Ah, too splashy!
Our old coolant is coming out and it looks bright green.
That's a good sign, if your coolant looks a lot different
than the color it was when you put it in,
you probably got some sort of an issue,
so, you want it to come out lookin' like that.
- Dinky, dinky, dinky.
Hefty, hefty, hefty.
Now let's go jam this big fat thick daddy in there.
(machine whirring)
(upbeat music)
- R.O.O. radiator officially on.
F.O.O. fans officially on.
H.O.O. hoo, hoses officially on.
S.H.O.O. shoo, silicone hoses (bleep) on.
- All right, so this is what we just pulled out
of our old cooling system.
This is anti freeze, and what you will find
in about 99% of cars on the road,
this prevents your cooling system from freezing.
- But, we're in Southern California,
so it doesn't really freeze, ever.
- Yeah.
- [Nolan] What are we gonna do instead?
- [Aaron] We're gonna put 100% distilled water,
into our new radiator.
- [Nolan] Distilled water actually disperses heat
a lot better than the coolant.
- The draw back though, is that it freezes.
But since we still have 50% of our coolant system
still in the block, mixing the anti freeze
with the distilled water it's gonna give us
a pretty good mix of what we're after.
- Sweet.
(upbeat music)
That's one.
- Ah!
- Leaks, any leaks?
Not yet.
So, we're gonna pour some more water in here,
I got Pumphry in the car, he's about to start it up,
get the water pump moving, fill all these hoses
with new fluid, and as it does that, air will bubble up
to the top of the radiator, so we'll leave the cap off
and we'll just keep putting juice in
until it don't take no more.
Hey, fire it up!
(engine revs)
Oh yeah.
- Our reservoir is gettin' pretty full right here.
You'll pretty much know when all the air is out
of the system, when the reservoir
doesn't bubble over anymore.
- I'm watching the temp gage right now,
it's slowly climbing, not any faster than it normally would,
which is a good sign.
- I'm actually really happy right now,
because we're having to hold the RPM really high
in order to get the fan to come on and off,
that means the radiator's already
doing a better job than the old one.
- So, we got our radiator and fan all buttoned up,
got some fresh coolant and distilled water in there,
time to go back to our super secret test facility
tomorrow morning, do another heat test
and see what difference all this stuff made.
(upbeat music)
- Okay, so you may remember a couple of days ago,
I melted down the stock cats on high car
when we were trying to do the cooling test,
I'd love to replace them in the future
with some high flow cats but,
that's gonna take time, and I don't have any time.
What I managed to do was get Fast Intentions
to whip us up these sick little test pipes
that will replace the cats altogether,
should free up some flow and some ponies, let's go.
(upbeat music)
Looks good.
(engine starts)
(engine revving)
Ooh, all right, we gotta go hit the track, baby.
(upbeat music)
- High car, temp test two, high car temp test two.
Okay, she pulls.
Give 'em hell, Zach!
♪ Let's give 'em something to talk about. ♪
- Radiator is at 140.
- Temp gage looks good,
and the car was running good the whole time,
so that's really uplifting.
Round two!
(engine roaring)
- I wanna point out that there probably are
more scientific and more accurate ways
to test these components that we just put on.
- You're absolutely right.
- Driving it up and down a canyon is just a lot more fun.
- [Radio] Donut, is the car coming all right?
- Sounds like "Need for Speed II".
- Yeah.
- Coolant hose is 160,
coolant overflow tank is 120.
- [James] Jack it, dude.
(engine roaring)
- That's freakin' hot, dude.
- That's a sign of a good machine.
- God damn, this car is so amazing.
Did we do it, did we get hot?
- Did it get hotter?
- Car feels great, per the temp gage on the dash,
we're still good on temp, which means our radiator
is doing its job, our fans are doing their job,
and our hoses seem to be keeping the fluids in.
(upbeat music)
- We're feeling good, our initial impressions,
the car already felt like it was running cooler.
So, I'm really excited to get up the hill
and see what this thing can do now.
(engine revving)
- Woo!
Okay. (laughter)
How's the temp gage?
- It's gone up a little bit, not gonna lie.
(engine roaring)
- Low car (bleep) cooks, bro.
- Yeah, it does.
Oh, I smell everything, I smell everything.
- All right, oh, wow, radiator,
200, wow.
- Temperature is coming down.
Before, it was not coming down,
it would chill too high, I don't know, man.
I think it's working way better.
- Yeah, but you've definitely got a pretty good
oil leak at the turbo.
- [Aaron] Where is it coming out?
- [Zach] It looks like somewhere
at the center rotating assembly.
- Well, I think the car is running cooler,
but there's oil dripping all over the hot side of the turbo,
so, it might catch on fire.
- But, that's unrelated to the test, the temperature gage
stayed in the same spot the whole time.
I'm really impressed with this radiator.
Although, it's not that surprising
as it's twice as thick as the stock one.
- I think capacity and overall efficiency is better,
but, low car strikes again, let's get it fixed.
(engine revving)
- So, does more expensive mean more better?
You guys might notice that we are in our respective
living rooms, that's because we're doing our part
to self quarantine and level the curve.
Take care of yourself, wash your hands
and don't get coughed on.
That being said, coolant, in both cars,
the upgraded radiators and fans lowered the temps.
High car started off in a better spot.
- And I think that has a lot to do with
the turbo placement between both cars,
low car we got big turbo sitting up there
right in the engine bank, next to the engine
and the coolant lines and all that,
it's generating a lot of heat,
Aaron was really pushing the car
to make as much heat as he could,
and that's just gonna make it hot in there.
But, the temperatures came down,
in fact lower than our baseline with the stock radiator.
- At this point with these cars, nothing exists in a vacuum.
We've thrown a lot of after market parts on both of them.
We're sort of paying for the sins of past parts
and compounding issues
that we've been building along the way.
- You know, I think I would go with the high parts.
$500 is a little pricey for the low car spectrum,
but, the fit and finish, especially of that fan shroud,
you got for your radiator, it's so, so cool.
- $500 generally is like my guilt threshold,
so, I think that I would go with the high parts as well.
Thank you guys so much for watching "HiLow",
make sure you tune in next week,
we've been working really hard on making both
these cars faster, but next week, we're gonna make
them both furious-er.
I'm talkin' neon, baby.
Under glows, headlights that I can operate with my phone.
We had a blast making it, we hope you guys
have fun watching it
- Be kind.
- I love you.
- See you next time.