Q50 Base is FASTER than the Q50 Sport

Believe it or not, it seems to be true–and I’ve experienced this personally! The base Q50 tends to be quicker than the Sport Q50 for one important reason.

We’re about to hurt some feelings with this one the base model q50 is better than the sport model okay okay maybe not better but it is faster and i’m gonna tell you why in my last video i talked about some components that people add to their q50s and q60s that although they look cool they actually hinder performance go check that video out if you have an opportunity

But by the way thank you guys for stopping in if you’re new to the channel hit the subscribe button right now and hit the little bell notification as well these three videos every single week tuesdays thursdays and sundays and you don’t want to miss out because we got a lot of good stuff going on here on the channel but nonetheless let’s get back into this so the

Previous video talked about adding components to the car that actually slow it down uh and in today’s video i’m going to talk a little bit about why the base model or at least the non-sport model q50s are in my opinion better than the sport models because the sports believe it or not are slower than the non-sports and there’s a major major reason why i’ve seen this

Happen a number of times over the last couple of years being involved in this community is this something i’m going to call trim shaming the sport guys talk down to the the premium lux guys and those guys talk down to the base model guys and there’s a reason a lot of us choose the base model q50s in the first place but first of all just tired of this nonsense who

Cares what trim level and it’s not people choose a particular vehicle not necessarily because of budget or their ability to buy something or the amount of money they have in their bank account that’s just it’s just it’s a stupid argument to make anyway but now that that’s out of the way let’s talk about this because there’s one component in particular that the

Sport model q50 is equipped with that the other trim levels are not that make that sport model slower this might hurt a lot of people’s feelings but the big breaks the big breaks of the sport model q50s are uh one piece to the puzzle that actually makes that car slower and i’m going to give you a little i’m going to give you some proof i’m going to give you at

Least some evidence so you can use that to decide for yourself because i gotta say it is one of my favorite upgrades that i’ve made to my base model q50 and there’s a the reason i made it was because although the non-sport akubono breaks the baby breaks as some people refer to them they’re actually quite capable great stopping power they hold up really well in my

Experience running the cartel the dragon doing multiple laps up and down back to back uh i did start to experience a little bit of brake fade now there was a combination there i still had the rubber brake lines i still had the factory brake fluid we had we did have a little bit more of an aggressive brake pad and i did have drilled and slotted rotors but we needed a

Little bit more so i upgraded to the sport brakes to give me a little bit more surface area on the brake rotors uh give her give me those the dual piston calipers and went with a little bit more of an aggressive brake pad along with the stain steel sorry the stainless steel braided brake lines and the the dot the dot 5.1 high temperature brake fluid and that makes a

Massive massive difference but where i really noticed the hindrance in performance was in a straight line so my 60 foot time my zero to 60 time uh even eighth mile time the ones that i did uh did record on the street really took a hit when i upgraded to the sport brakes guys i i know this is an upgrade that a lot of you want to make at one point or another if your

Car was not equipped with it from the factory don’t let this video deter you i do have a solution for you so stick around i know there are a couple of other elements that were added to this car that that contributed to the reduction overall performance but what really told me that the big breaks were the culprit in terms of loss in my or reduction in my straight

Line performance was uh the last time the most recent time i’ve had this car on the dyno at soho motorsports we got some very interesting and very disappointing results this car’s been on the dyno at soho motorsports a total of three times the first two times were about a year and a half apart from each other the weather conditions were very very similar i think

The temperatures in the shop were like 55 56 degrees something like that and the car made very similar numbers in both of those sessions right around 334 horsepower 375 to 380 foot-pounds of torque something like that both times the the results were very very close to one another the third time i’ve had this car on the dyno however the only difference uh was the

Big break upgrade i actually had some lighter wheels on the car and that’s kind of what uh came to to mine right away like whoa are the wheels and tires different but the wheels are actually lighter themselves uh the and they’re the same size and the tires are the same size as well so the only difference was the big brakes and we know that the big brake rotors

The sport brake rotors are substantially heavier than the non-sport rotors the calipers maybe didn’t necessarily have an effect on the horsepower numbers but it certainly adds to the unsprawn weight of the car because those calipers are significantly heavier than the non-sport calibers as well so previously making 334 to and 334 horsepower to the wheels with the

Big brakes on the rear i lost a couple of horsepower and lost several foot pounds of torque so it was quite disappointing and that’s what that was the conclusion that we came to discussing what the heck’s going on here with the car uh it’s really just struggling to turn that additional rotating mass and then you combine that with the additional weight the unsprung

Mass both the front and the rear brakes it slows the car down in a straight line and this is another little piece of evidence that i have for you to sort of illustrate this in if you guys have been following along you saw essentially all of my draggy videos i’ve included them at one point or other in in any number of these vlogs in the past i was previously able to

Hit 60 mile an hour in second gear when i was hitting rev limiter at 76 7700 rpm in second gear i was hitting 60 mile an hour i could rev it all the way up and hit it now i’m only at about 54 or 55 mile per hour uh when i’m hitting rev limiter in second gear so i have to shift to third and that’s killing my 0-60 time so due to that additional weight in the additional

Rotating mass our engine is working just as hard but it’s not able to turn the wheels as fast as it used to so it’s it’s killing our 60-foot time it’s killing our 0-60 time unfortunately um but you know uh it sort of is what it is and like i said before this is one of my favorite upgrades in terms of aesthetics because the big brakes do look a lot better and it is

Certainly helpful in reducing brake fade one misconception about upgrading to the big brakes and a lot of people say oh i could really feel them by they stopped way better it’s it’s just not true the stopping distance from the non-sport brakes to the big brakes is not all that much better it’s probably immeasurable donut media i think a couple of years ago did a

Pretty good test on this and gave some really good insights the the big break upgrade the big brakes the sport brakes over the non-sport brakes essentially has no impact on stopping distance the benefit of the big brakes is the reduction in brake fade it distributes the pressure a lot more but it helps dissipate the heat a little bit better it reduces warpage and

Hot spots and resists break fade and and that’s when braking really becomes important when you’re doing those twisty roads you’re you know you’re on the brake pedal on and off and really you know really working the brake system brake fade can really become an issue especially if you’re approaching a corner with no guard rail headed off a 500 foot cliff you want

Your brakes to work when you hit them so in a straight line it’s not really you know it’s not going to be super noticeable but it kind of goes back to what the beginning of this video was the base model being better than the sport model oh better is subjective but don’t you know if you’re one of those kind of if you’re one of those types of people that likes to

Make fun of people for different trim levels because you supposedly have the top level just stop because there is a reason that people choose base model cars particularly those of us who really want to modify our vehicles and try to maximize performance because my suggestion to you would be if you are one of those people that really wants to pull peak performance

Out of their vehicle start with the base model because you’re going to be taking all the components from the factory off anyway you always change out the suspension you always change the wheels and tires you always do a brake upgrade one way or another whether it’s rotors or pads or a combination of both brake lines etc etc the base model is always lighter so if

You’re going to be reducing weight you might as well start with a car that is already lighter from the factory the base model is like 3 600 pounds for the sport or the luxe models are up there closer to four thousand so baseball is a better one to start with if you’re planning on modifying your vehicle heavily and that holds true for all different makes and models

Essentially so i did mention that i had a solution and i do the solution probably obvious now at this point is lightweight rotors z1 motorsports for example has two piece lightweight rotors for the q50 substantially lighter than the factory rotors i want to say something like 15 pounds per rotor in the front and like 10 to 12 pounds lighter each in the rear so

That’s 20 and 30. it’s a 50 pound weight reduction in unsprung weight that’s gonna be a massive difference by itself but then considering the fact that it’s a rotational mass a reduction in rotational mass as well that’s going to be huge you’re going to feel that in your 0-60 times and you’re going to feel that and how the car handles as well so uh you guys with

The sport brakes from the factory and you haven’t changed your rotors up sorry i’d rather have a base model if you’re just going straight line racing but if you do have those sport brakes or you do upgrade to the sport brake package find those lightweight rotors if you’re really trying to dial in your 0-60 times or get off the line quick or you know improve your

Quarter mile time because again you are going to feel the difference and i’ve witnessed it myself i’ve seen physically the the reduction in horsepower and torque numbers that the car is making and i’ve seen the reduction in performance as i track my zero to 60 times um just i mean the most obvious part of it is hitting rev limiter in second gear and not even being

Close to 60 mile an hour or before i was hitting 60 right rev limiter in second gear uh and having to shift right at that when you only have a couple of mile per hour left to hit that 60 point that’s so frustrating so frustrating but guys that really that’s just the point i wanted to make today that you know we want to maximize the performance of our vehicles we

Want to make them accelerate faster stop quicker handle better and we start doing things to try to achieve those things but we have to really think about how every modification interacts with one another so you know we upgraded to bigger breaks but we got to think about the fact that we’re adding additional weight and additional rotating mass and how that’s going

To affect the performance of our vehicle so if you have sport brakes already get the lightweight rotors if you’re upgrading to the sport brakes plan on getting two-piece rotors just to help you keep those horsepower numbers up because you might experience a difference in a negative way yeah we don’t want that so just something to take into consideration something

To keep in mind as you start uh you know messing around with your car adding some modifications and um chit chatting having conversations on the facebook groups and trying to call people out or make people feel bad for getting lower trim level cars because guys line them up see which one’s faster thank you guys very much for watching i appreciate the continued

Support let me know if you have any questions down in the comment section below i appreciate the continued support more stuff coming for the q50 and the 350z i hope you guys will stick around we’ll see you in the next

Transcribed from video
Q50 Base is FASTER than the Q50 Sport By Speed Culture Studios