As some of you might know, I'm the dork who floated his valves from a terrible misshift.

Does anyone have a ballpark figure on what a valvejob might cost? I'm sure it probably depends on the extent of the damage, and how long it takes them to fix it.. but can anyone just give me a ballpark figure?? That would be much appreciated!

I have about $3,500 saved up in my rainy day Z fund. I plan on paying for the valvejob myself. I'm not going to lie or play stupid. I want them to jump right on it and get it fixed as quickly as they can. I don't expect nissan to assume any responsibility for my mistake(or their shoddy transmission for that matter).

I eventually wanted to install more aggressive cams anyway, and now would be a good time to do it since the engine will be apart. They shouldn't charge any extra labor to install the new cams, should they? Are there any other internal upgrades worth considering at this point? Probably not? Will not running headers or HF cats be a problem until I can afford those upgrades too?

I just don't want to waste money in labor fixing a mistake without doing some sort of upgrade while I'm at it. Seems like too big of a waste to me.

Any help/suggestions/comments much appreciated! TIA!!

 

Are the heads damaged at all? If they are damaged they go to scrap yard. You will need new ones. You will also need to take it to a machinst to get the valve seats re-surfaced. Also new head gaskets. It would actually be cheaper if you can find a another engine just to replace the whole damn thing. Head removal is a good 6-8 hours on the VQ.

 

get the New RZZ heads and Nismo valvetrain. THat's About 3500 dollars and you'll get a lot more power, but you'll need an ecu reprogram for sure. Also you will have to check valve clearance, and make sure the piston's won't hit them.

 

Ok well, hold that thought!!

get this... i just left the car up at the dealership.... and "everything checked out fine"

 

well theres not much more you can do but check it out. obviously something doesnt sound right but you might consider that the problem might not have been as big as you thought it was.

Find out what they did to it and keep us updated.

 

Joe mechnaic: We checked your car out and everythings ok.

me: Are you sure? Are we talking about the same car?

Joe mechanic: Yep, the transmission is fine!

me: What? I didn't bring the car in because of the transmission

Joe mechanic: What is the problem?

me: I told the other guy, I missed a shift badly getting on the interstate and the engine has been very unhappy ever since.

Joe mechanic: Oh, we checked everything out. It's good to go. You can come pick it up now.

I guess I didn't damage the engine bad enough for them to acknowledge there is a problem, or they didn't even look. My guess is they didn't even look.

Now what?

 

dyno it

 

Do a compression test on each cylinder that is the cheapest way to go.

Remove all plugs insert them into the coils..be shure to ground the plugs.

Turn the engine over, hold the throttle open in 3rd gear with the clutch in keep the car from moving

 

Nismo heads!

 

Actually Znitro, I just had the mechanic do that.... well, kind of.

I went to pick the car up and drove it down the street. I turned around and drove right back. I asked to speak with a mechanic. Shortly after the guy who worked on it came over. We chit-chatted for a minute. He was under the impression (as i assumed) that there was something wrong with the transmission. I explained exactly what happend again. He asked if I hit the limiter. I told him I definitely exceeded the limiter and I think I floated a valve. Then I asked him if he checked the compression in all 6 cyclinders. He said he did not. My obvious response was "do you mind doing that?" He said no not at all, so we both went over to the garage. He ended up only checking one cylinder. It's good! he praises. So I'm like... next. Unfortunately we didn't get to check them all due to the time, so I'm taking it back in a few days. BTW, he used consult-II to turn the fuel off while checking the compression. The mechanic was pretty cool. I should have talked to him to begin with. My mistake again.

When I was paying for my oil change... the girl said I would probably receive a survey about the guy who took my order. I kinda looked at her funny, like.... how did you know?? She was acting like she knew he messed up or something, I don't know. Maybe it's standard procedure? I hate to give anyone a failing mark, cuz again, that was my fault for not asking to talk to the mechanic in the first place. I could have spelled it out for the guy, but I made it very obvious what the problem was and he failed to report the problem correctly. I won't do the survey at all, hows that.

Anyway, I'm sure the headache has only just begun. Maybe I might get lucky and nissan will take care of me?? I doubt it, but we will see. I've driven the car pretty hard already which is why I don't mind paying for it, or at least part of it. The thing is, I wasn't messing around or being stupid at all when it happened. I was just getting on the highway and accelerating pretty hard. I shifted too fast without paying enough attention. It's amazing how fast a simple yet catastrophic mistake can happen. Not to sound concieted, but I'm a pretty good driver too. It's a little embarassing that it even happened. I learned to drive on a manual nissan 240sx at age 14, and I have been driving sports cars ever since I was old enough to drive. My Z has under 10k miles, it hasnt been modified at all, and it has never been taken to a track. Of course I have played on the street, but I never did anything that I thought would damage the car. I followed the break in period and I had the dealership do all scheduled service. I might get lucky, we will see. I would be a nissan fan for life if they fixed it. I seriously don't expect them to though.

There really isn't anything I can do now, except wait and see what happens.