Well I have been slowly tearing down my motor and last nite When I took off the oil pan i found that nissan left me a little present in the oil pickup. A 8 inch long piece of rubber gasket was sucked into it and coiled around the suction point of the pickup stick. from what it looked like I estimated that was restricting about 20-25 % of flow. Will post the amazing picture soon of the find as soon as I get all my pics off my digy.

 

This would not surprise me if there was excess gasket applied at the factory between the block and the upper oil pan. I have had 3 vq's apart now and the 2 that came from Infiniti in Japan had very little gasket overflow wherever it was applied. On the one 350Z motor that was made in the US, the gasket was squished out everywhere....where the oilpan gaskets are, as well as the front timing cover.....huge difference in the attention to detail.

 

I must say this had to be a US built motor because the gasket overflow was beyond EXTENSIVE for both the timing chain covers oil pan and bottom case. A good 1/8 inch at some points

 

All the 350Z's are built in Smyrna,Tennesse. I noticed as well that the US motors tend to use a dark grey gasket material while the Japanese versions use the light grey.

 

I thought all 350z's were built in either Tochigi or Oppama(pre-2004), Japan and shipped over here? Did they change this at some point?

 

All the motors I worked on were 04's so yes....the 03's may be different.

 

Mine was built in Tochigi, Japan:
http://www.courtesyparts.com/specs/vin.html

 

Is there gasket squirt all over the front timing cover?

 

I found a 2 inch piece of gasket when I opened up my pan.

 

Pics?