Blew headgasket, what else should I upgrade?
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Blew headgasket, what else should I upgrade?
So I blew a head-gasket 99% sure. While I don't want to blow money for no reason, I was thinking about upgrading a few parts while the engine is apart.
-ARP Head Studs & Bolts... are these different than L19, why half the price?(https://www.extremepsi.com/store/pro...roductid=21002)
-HR Head Gasket
-what else should I upgrade that's easy/inexpensive to do so while it's apart?
Trying to keep the price reasonable, not trying to upgrade rods/pistons, etc... unless I found them for super cheap somewhere.
-ARP Head Studs & Bolts... are these different than L19, why half the price?(https://www.extremepsi.com/store/pro...roductid=21002)
-HR Head Gasket
-what else should I upgrade that's easy/inexpensive to do so while it's apart?
Trying to keep the price reasonable, not trying to upgrade rods/pistons, etc... unless I found them for super cheap somewhere.
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Hm, this seems to be the idea I see now. Found a guy selling HR head gasket & head bolts, but waiting on reply. I want these like - tomorrow lol.
Edit: Couldn't wait for a reply, Z1 Motorsport only had 1 set left, so I snagged them. Anyone know the specs on how much I have to shave the cylinder heads down to use the HR headbolts on the DE, or what exactly?
http://www.z1motorsports.com/350_g35...oducts_id=5010
http://www.z1motorsports.com/350_g35...oducts_id=4033
Edit: Couldn't wait for a reply, Z1 Motorsport only had 1 set left, so I snagged them. Anyone know the specs on how much I have to shave the cylinder heads down to use the HR headbolts on the DE, or what exactly?
http://www.z1motorsports.com/350_g35...oducts_id=5010
http://www.z1motorsports.com/350_g35...oducts_id=4033
Last edited by mcarther101; Aug 19, 2013 at 12:58 PM.
You don't want to shave cylinder heads more than it needed for resurfacing/cleaning. Otherwise, you will raise CR ratio too much. AFAIK HR bolts are longer but they should fit DE block. You need to grind coolant passages for using HR head gasket I believe.
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Thanks, had a more experienced mechanic come by today, and he doesn't think it's the head gasket. Now that I really look at the white smoke, and after already noticing there is no coolant smell, overheating issue, or otherwise... I am inclined to agree with him hoping it's just a sensor. As engine RPM increases, white smoke increases correspondingly (unburnt fuel)... and car falls through idle 90% of the time into a stall now. I'm going to replace the camshaft pos sensors in the hopes I don't have to shell out a G to fix this.
I would suggest changing both cam sensors and the crank. From experience when you change one the others will fail. Working at the dealer I saw this a lot and even with warning the customer about it they would come back a few days later to buy the others. Better to do it right the first time then to spend more time on it then necessary.
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I would suggest changing both cam sensors and the crank. From experience when you change one the others will fail. Working at the dealer I saw this a lot and even with warning the customer about it they would come back a few days later to buy the others. Better to do it right the first time then to spend more time on it then necessary.
Edit:
I noticed more oil than usual in the plenum when I removed it to get to the camshaft position sensors. A lot more than 900 miles worth of driving's oil, and it seemed dirtier than the usual slightly off brown oil residue you find in there.
Last edited by mcarther101; Aug 19, 2013 at 06:59 PM.
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Reading on other people's posts with similar experiences I am wondering if I have a faulty fuel injector perhaps leaking obscene amounts of fuel into a cyllinder?
I decided to go for a short drive, and go WOT, then I would really blow whatever remnants of a headgasket I had left if that was the problem I thought
I noticed at around 3/4 of the way to 6600RPM, I got a momentary jolt in acceleration, then back to super limp powerless mode. Maybe that "moment" where it accelerated was the "moment" it required just as much fuel as a broken fuel injector was constantly spraying regardless of RPM? 
350z with similar problem:
From this thread... https://my350z.com/forum/maintenance...ease-help.html
Similar problem on other cars:
http://forums.nicoclub.com/running-r...p-t537337.html
http://forums.nicoclub.com/rough-idl...e-t518039.html
I decided to go for a short drive, and go WOT, then I would really blow whatever remnants of a headgasket I had left if that was the problem I thought
I noticed at around 3/4 of the way to 6600RPM, I got a momentary jolt in acceleration, then back to super limp powerless mode. Maybe that "moment" where it accelerated was the "moment" it required just as much fuel as a broken fuel injector was constantly spraying regardless of RPM? 350z with similar problem:
ok here ya go
FIRST THINGS FIRST,,,,,are you absolutely 100% positive there is no oil smoke??? Thats what i thought also, but unless its a huge cloud youwont tell....i smoked at anything over 2500K rpm when accelerating somewhat fast, it was a small cloud...but if i wot it would shoot out a larger cloud then stop, it would also smoke if i did city driving then say i pull in somewhere and rev teh motor a few times it would smoke the worse....didint really notice much smoking during down shifting....
now the fix,,,,i took it to a Z specialist (Z tech longwood florida) this was after i took it to nissan and they did a comp check and ecu check,,,,they found nothing wrong with the car,,,perfect compression and nothing on the comp,,,nissan couldnt explain why my car would smoke accelerating and while city driving for no reason.....at Z tech the owner ran my car for a day....home and back and to lunch,,,he wasnt sure where to start and he also did the comp check and comp check,,,everything was fine....he decided to flush the engine....3 TIMES
Now he did this because in the Left side of this motor runs alot hotter then the right,,,oil sludge is very common here....he took the valve cover off and cleaned all the ports....now i bought my car used, and when i purschaced my car the first thing i did was switch to AMSOIL OIL and TRANNY fluid....this can be bad if the person before you ran regular oil and was kind of lazy on the oil changes.....as you know amsoil breaks up sludge so it caused it to break up all sludge build up and put it everywhere.....causing the motor to work harder in higher rpms or when motor was warmed up.....
now after these flush's we took the car for a test run, "white" smoke still appearing....now we are really confused...comp wont pick up a damn thing and his engine flush didint work,,,no oil leaks,,,
next something with the fuel....we decided to clean all injectors....after he cleaned the fuel system, the smoke had decreased by 75%.....i ran it for a while and it would smoke but not near as bad....I stopped into advance and bought Fuel system cleaner that they had there.....i think it was an STP injector and fuel system cleaner...it stopped completely for a while....then started smoking a little two weeks later......
finally Jim at JWT.....Avee at Z tech knows jim personally so we decide to call Jim and see what he thought about this mystery......he thought we should do what we already done....engine flush,fuel system clean.....and other then that he HAD KNOW IDEA WWHAT TO DO....he was clueless and didnt have any ideas on what do to on this car,,,,never herd of this or seen these symptoms on a non-turbo car
here we are today my car has randomly stopped smoking for a month now dnt know why or how neither does Avee at Z tech , or Jim at JWT.......so thats y i say " good luck"
now you know why i didnt type the first time
FIRST THINGS FIRST,,,,,are you absolutely 100% positive there is no oil smoke??? Thats what i thought also, but unless its a huge cloud youwont tell....i smoked at anything over 2500K rpm when accelerating somewhat fast, it was a small cloud...but if i wot it would shoot out a larger cloud then stop, it would also smoke if i did city driving then say i pull in somewhere and rev teh motor a few times it would smoke the worse....didint really notice much smoking during down shifting....
now the fix,,,,i took it to a Z specialist (Z tech longwood florida) this was after i took it to nissan and they did a comp check and ecu check,,,,they found nothing wrong with the car,,,perfect compression and nothing on the comp,,,nissan couldnt explain why my car would smoke accelerating and while city driving for no reason.....at Z tech the owner ran my car for a day....home and back and to lunch,,,he wasnt sure where to start and he also did the comp check and comp check,,,everything was fine....he decided to flush the engine....3 TIMES
Now he did this because in the Left side of this motor runs alot hotter then the right,,,oil sludge is very common here....he took the valve cover off and cleaned all the ports....now i bought my car used, and when i purschaced my car the first thing i did was switch to AMSOIL OIL and TRANNY fluid....this can be bad if the person before you ran regular oil and was kind of lazy on the oil changes.....as you know amsoil breaks up sludge so it caused it to break up all sludge build up and put it everywhere.....causing the motor to work harder in higher rpms or when motor was warmed up.....
now after these flush's we took the car for a test run, "white" smoke still appearing....now we are really confused...comp wont pick up a damn thing and his engine flush didint work,,,no oil leaks,,,
next something with the fuel....we decided to clean all injectors....after he cleaned the fuel system, the smoke had decreased by 75%.....i ran it for a while and it would smoke but not near as bad....I stopped into advance and bought Fuel system cleaner that they had there.....i think it was an STP injector and fuel system cleaner...it stopped completely for a while....then started smoking a little two weeks later......
finally Jim at JWT.....Avee at Z tech knows jim personally so we decide to call Jim and see what he thought about this mystery......he thought we should do what we already done....engine flush,fuel system clean.....and other then that he HAD KNOW IDEA WWHAT TO DO....he was clueless and didnt have any ideas on what do to on this car,,,,never herd of this or seen these symptoms on a non-turbo car
here we are today my car has randomly stopped smoking for a month now dnt know why or how neither does Avee at Z tech , or Jim at JWT.......so thats y i say " good luck"
now you know why i didnt type the first time
Similar problem on other cars:
http://forums.nicoclub.com/running-r...p-t537337.html
http://forums.nicoclub.com/rough-idl...e-t518039.html
Usually when your cam sensors or crank sensor are bad the car will do what you just explained "momentarily jolt in acceleration."
I would suggest going to an autozone, o'reilly or whatever stores are around you like that and have them use there scanner and see what codes your car is throwing. Cheaper then going to the dealer. Then just reference those codes with google and you should find out what needs to be replaced.
Based on what you said I'm almost certain it's the senors.
I would suggest going to an autozone, o'reilly or whatever stores are around you like that and have them use there scanner and see what codes your car is throwing. Cheaper then going to the dealer. Then just reference those codes with google and you should find out what needs to be replaced.
Based on what you said I'm almost certain it's the senors.
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Usually when your cam sensors or crank sensor are bad the car will do what you just explained "momentarily jolt in acceleration."
I would suggest going to an autozone, o'reilly or whatever stores are around you like that and have them use there scanner and see what codes your car is throwing. Cheaper then going to the dealer. Then just reference those codes with google and you should find out what needs to be replaced.
Based on what you said I'm almost certain it's the senors.
I would suggest going to an autozone, o'reilly or whatever stores are around you like that and have them use there scanner and see what codes your car is throwing. Cheaper then going to the dealer. Then just reference those codes with google and you should find out what needs to be replaced.
Based on what you said I'm almost certain it's the senors.
Car has 3, 2 cam sensors and 1 sensor for the crank. As I mentioned just have autozone/o'reilly use the scan tool and see what codes pop up before going in and throwing parts at it you don't need. Easiest way to diagnose the problem.
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Also, bought some OEM 335cc injectors off a forum member for $60, might as well right. I'll probably replace crank pos sensor to rule it out, and pull spark plugs to see which cylinder is having problems, if any one in particular.
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Update, initial diagnosis was accurate: blew my head gasket or cracked a cylinder head. Likely not the latter but the former, we'll see.... but I guess I am one of those 1% of drivers that is too much for the stock '03 VQ35DE's tolerances ...or at least I prefer to think that 
Other thread detailing the final diagnosis of the blown head gasket:
https://my350z.com/forum/maintenance...-hates-me.html
Rebuild thread started:
https://my350z.com/forum/na-builds/5...cams-port.html
Other thread detailing the final diagnosis of the blown head gasket:
https://my350z.com/forum/maintenance...-hates-me.html
Rebuild thread started:
https://my350z.com/forum/na-builds/5...cams-port.html
