- 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.
