I was having clucking, grinding noise i thought it was tranny. I took the car in today nissan looked at the problem, they found the problem was the plenum spacer touching the strut bar as it flexes during acceleration. They also found the bolts on the plenum are wrong and could result air leak. You can see it on this pictures. The gold bolts needs to be replaced. I went back to the shop who installed the spacer AAM motorsports, they adjusted the strut bar to give more space between the plenum and strut bar thats fixed now. Now the bolts, they didnt replace it they said i will be fine and theyve done it on so many cars with no problem even on boosted cars. What do you guys think??
How will i know if it has a leak???

 

isn't that just an alignment piece?

 

alignment piece??

 

Hello,

By alignment this means those two points are used to locate the spacer, it is not necessary to pull those studs and replace with bolts.

When anyone installs a plenum spacer/intake/throttle bod/etc. the first sign of a leak is usally through an uneven idle. If the car surges at idle (ie. rpms go from 500-800-500-800-500-800rpm back and forth) or the idle is higher (ie. 1,200rpm vs. the normal ~700rpm) this is normally the first sign there is a leak.

If the car idles normal, this is a good indicator you do not have a leak.

Other indicators may be a high-pitch sound at idle that wasn't presently there - but you have to know what to listen for as the factory PVC system makes a lot of air noise on the VQ35.

Hope this helps,

 

I replaced those bolts (the ones pictured above) with new longer ones that actually thread. I was surprised at first when I installed this because it seemed as if there were missing screws. Turns out - it's meant to be that way! "Greeeat..." I think AAM should have provided replacement OEM bolts/studs for the customer's piece of mind, I couldn't sleep well at night knowing my plenum was being held down by half the screws that were originally on there. However, on a good note: you'll get rattles regardless (had the same problem). I put 3 washers on the driver's side strut bar and 2 on the passenger (it still rubs by like 1/2 a mm) but it rubbed enough to sand down the upper plenum to a point where it no longer touches (yes I know...ghetto!!!!) A friend of mine has the same spacer and his plenum also smacks the strut bar (barely).

 

Hey,

We've tested the angled spacers to 600rwhp without the stud, no problems and it worked great! Many times the factory goes overboard with bolts, etc. It is common for those who get into racing their car to remove up to 1/4 of the factory bolts throughout the car for weight reduction.

I noticed you were in the MD/DC/NOVA area. If you and your friend would like, feel free to stop over. Its can be pretty difficult the first time so we'll help adjust your strut bars for you. When adjusted properly the factory strut bar will have sufficient clearance to not touch the intake manifold - even on the 06's!

Hope this helps,