Engine bay overhaul
 

Wire tucking, hose deleting, polishing & painting - all that crap. Will post detailed pic's, before, during & after. Read most if not all I could find via google but nothing regarding moving the vacuum equipment located on the back of the upper intake plenum. Tried the search on this site but no luck. Anybody no where to look or have suggestions about relocating, shortening lines, etc.? Would rather see what other pioneers have done than attempt to reinvent the ****ing wheel, naa meee!:thumbup:

Any luck
 

I am interested in this as well

Did mine. It's an FX35, so more room & more work, but similar. You'll have to look around this link a bit to see what I did w/the vacuum equipment if that's all your interested in. Lots of photos. Here's the link;
https://www.infinitiscene.com/thread...-redux.230572/

Glad you enjoyed it toogood131! I put this together for appreciative people such as yourself.

Oh ****, I forgot about this thread. I can answer all my questions that my past self had. If only I could go back in time and say "hey dumbass, pay attention to how the check ball and spring install on that valve body". :suicide:

Yes. I've been back and forth for over a year. Almost pulled the trigger on a vortech & all the goodies to go with it and backed out at the last minute. The FX is dramatically faster than it was stock, dropping 1 1/2 seconds off the 1/4 and nearly 2 seconds 0-60. BIG difference in this overweight 4 door Z. I do believe I'm going to go with the HKS supercharger, the new version 2 unit. I'd use the large pulley for a bit which shouldn't jeopardize the stock engine/transmission and then once I get these built, install the smaller pulley which supposedly will provide 500hp/400 tq to the wheels on an otherwise stock engine BUT I'm AWD so there's some added drive train loss there BUT I'm not stock so perhaps 500/400 is in the cards. Guys putting down too much torque too soon on these auto transmissions end up braking them, even when they're built.
I might as well throw some info on this thread seeing as I'm somewhat of an authority on tucking the bay. I've got new pics of the bay as I just did a few things while diagnosing what was a camshaft position sensor issue. If you got any ?'s you can't answer or find out for yourself, just ask. No need to sign up on the FX site. Kinda dead over there anyways.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....c233a12cc6.jpg

""" If u decide to go fi I’m with u. We will help one another and cry on each other’s shoulders."""
That's probably the #1 reason I backed out, that and once I finished all my current mods, I was so pleased with the outcome that I figured I'd take more time to think about it. I still like and prefer a nat. asp. build, somewhere around 11-11.5 compression, jwt cams and water injection which would be good for something at higher compression levels and then a 125-150 shot for special occasions.. I know I can get into the 11's on juice and if I really think I can get into the LOW 13's n.a., then Ill stay n.a.. It's more reliable with the benefit of being less expensive, and so I'd feel less guilty spending more on the interior and exterior. Winner winner chicken fricken dinner. :spot:

Thanks for offering pics but I can see everything in the FX. The bay is big enough to fit a Z. :bowrofl: If I could keep all wheel drive, I'd swap in an american v8. That would be swell.

You should definitely updater your thread though. Lots of pics. People don't put enough emphasis on pics. I do and here's an updated pic of the bay. Possible cam position sensor fixed without replacing the sensor, so while everything was apart, I removed the old hvac insulation in favor of some leftover dei form-a-shield and painted the t.b..
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....73e3b29964.jpg

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....4d0b6a0ea7.jpg

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....8c6f48436f.jpg

subscribed ... gonna be going down this road

No **** B. Getting rid of the Z and getting an FX? :icon21: I'm kidding. :bowrofl:

nah - but will be wire tucking / cleanup and cutting the seconary fire wall out!!!!

If you're gonna relocate the brake lines, that's a good place to hide'em. When my drive train comes out, that's where some things are gonna disappear to.

I stole all this from my thread on the FX site. I'll look around and grab more of it. Z's and G's shouldn't have to add length to any wire anywhere as I understand it.

Wire tucking the looms on ether side isn't too difficult. No photo's. Sorry. Most wires are 18 or 20 gauge except for the radiator harness which is 14 gauge. Materials needed; 20, 18 & 14 gauge wire, 33 or 88 3m electrical tape, 1/4" & 1/2" wire loom, soldering gun & 40/60 soldering wire, heat shrink assorted & grommet assorted packages & some harness clips to fix harness to body.
There are holes on either side that you'll see once you remove either wheel well. Passenger side hole is below the fuse box against the firewall which can be accessed with some patience. The passenger side has a plug which, once you cut out the center makes for a perfect grommet. There are 2 holes on the passenger side actually, both with their own plugs ready to be made into perfect grommets. Just cut out the centers. One hole for your pass. side loom & the other for your transmission loom, which conveniently routes right into the engine bay. You will need to provide a grommet for the driver side.
All wires, save for the loom that carries all plugs for all sensors between the radiator & front bumper/facia (also to include the pass. side fog light, which needs no extending), will need to be extended on the FX35, period. This loom that I just spoke of has the airbag sensor on it, horns, etc. Again, this loom needs no extending. The rest of the wires on both sides are for the headlights & fog lightsonly.
The plugs will mostly all fit through these holes on both sides. Driver side is the pita. If/when you've got to cut'em, cut'em, pass the wires through & then tape the plug to the wires, this way you can continue until all are in the wheel well & move on to the next stage which is measuring/mocking up & soldering.
Best advice is to add enough length to each wire & check/trial fit your wires & the wheel well together as you go & give yourself a day per side, especially if you've never done this before. Passenger side hard plastic loom harness doesn't want to come off, but it will. You'll want to cut the zip tie style fasteners that you'll find in the battery & brake bays to get more slack & move these looms in order to run the wires through their new holes.

Below are a few photos of what can be seen after the side looms have been tucked, which is not much, as well as the bay before the main loom tuck, of which I do have plenty of photos.
https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...51-jpg.423560/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...50-jpg.423561/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...52-jpg.423562/

The main loom & transmission (awd) loom tuck is below, hopefully all in one shot. Time constraints have me typing my ass off but want to get this info out to ya'll as it was info found on this site as well as 350z/g35 sites that have gotten me this far. Thank you for that. No cutting of any wire is necessary. Some may seem as though they need to be cut to get them sorted out, but they do not. Be patient & separate what you can. Use painters tape to mark your plugs & sensors, especially your 6 coil packs! Remove only what loom you must remove as you go. Get everything for the passenger side to the passenger side then concern yourself w/the driver side. Save yourself some grief & forget about unplugging the fuel injector plug & the plug to the rear of the driver side cylinder head by removing the fuel injector rails. The injector plug is a ***** & I left it alone.

Started with what you see below.https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...36-jpg.423574/

It's nice to be able to stand in the engine bay (sorry 350z & g35 guys & those w/t's or s.c.'ers). Biggest pain in the ass with these two looms is the fatigue of standing on either side of the bay for hours. Remove the cover below the engine & you will be happy you did. I tossed the engine splash guard a long time ago. It may serve a minor purpose in terms of aerodynamics? Maybe to direct more air to the radiator? Perhaps it's there solely to keep the engine clean? What if you develop a leak? That splash guard might prevent you from knowing until it's too late. I tossed it & removed the long rubber seal & two small seals that sits atop all the plastic paneling at the back, from the battery bay to the brake bay. The rubber seal might keep the leaves out but if your garage kept, who cares? Cool air enters from below & the heat rises & escapes where these seals were, like a ridge vent on a roof. Every time I pop the hood during the summer, there's no big rush of hot air hitting me in the face. I've seen guys installing hood spacers & **** like that. No need.https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...37-jpg.423575/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...40-jpg.423576/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...41-jpg.423577/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...38-jpg.423578/

Lets start with the transmission loom. Disconnect the negative battery terminal 1st. Pull the battery. There's a plug below the battery box. Hard to see but easy to feel for. It's below the indentation, the point where the engine bay tucks under that battery location. You'll see it once the battery tray is removed but removing the battery tray will most likely be an unpleasant task. There are three bolts. One of the three sits @ the bottom of the tray where water & acid will stand. Infiniti left two holes w/ready-to-make grommets for a clean wire tuck but failed to provide a weep hole @ this bolt? Your bolt is most likely rusted to the point that a socket will not catch it. I'm in the south - no salt & mine was trashed so take your hot soldering iron & pierce the plastic tray, all the way around the bolt. It'll take 5 minutes but you'll cut through the plastic & the tray will come right up, rather that struggling with it & possibly damaging something else. You have 2 bolts left.
https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...59-jpg.423579/

Now, snatch out the rubber plug, cut out the center & put it back in place. There's your grommet.https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...57-jpg.423580/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...58-jpg.423581/

Now, remove the transmission loom from the positive battery terminal. You may choose to do this before you remove the battery as that ****er is on there tight! Make sure to support the positive battery terminal with one hand as you brake the bolt with the other. Might as well brake the bolt for the alternator as well @ this point if your doing a temp. relocation or have already plotted out a true & permanent relocation route. Alt. wire loom is short, fyi.
Now take that loom, bring it around behind the engine & through your newly made grommet & up into the battery box. Plenty of room inside battery box, especially if you've already tucked the pass. side loom & there's plenty of length to get it situated properly.Thereare multiple points you can use to fix this loom via zip tie so it's not just laying there behind the engine. I used one which was plenty, fixed to a bracket behind the driver side cylinder head. You'll find Infiniti laid another loom(s), sitting right on top of the transmission. The transmission loom has the yellow tape on it which you will not see until you remove it from it's original location. Keep in mind, the battery has room to shift left & right before you tighten the hold down.https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...61-jpg.423582/

I intend on relocating the alternator loom as well as the 2 8 gauge crutchfield grounding wires I added awhile back. Will have to drill & grommet down below & will do a write-up on that when it's done but for now I switched the alternator loom to where the transmission loom came from to lower it a bit. Took 5 minutes. Now you've got the transmission loom in the back & alternator loom in a better location.
No cutting of any wire is necessary. Some may seem as though they need to be cut to get them sorted out, but they do not. Be patient & separate what you can. Use painters tape to mark your plugs & sensors, especially your 6 coil packs! Remove only what loom covering (rigid plastic) you must remove as you go. Get everything for the passenger side to the passenger side then concern yourself w/the driver side. Save yourself some grief & forget about unplugging the fuel injector plug & the plug to the rear of the driver side cylinder head by removing the fuel injector rails. The injector plug is a ***** & I left it alone. Wait to remove the plastic loom on the plug end as these areas tend to be a pita & you can probably just leave'em as I did some.

Upper/lower collector removed, fuel rail removed, wire loom stripped & all sensors & plugs marked. Note the "hard loom" to the upper left engine area, near the coolant bleeder. That is hard plastic & is just like the hard plastic loom that sits atop the passenger side fender, but with some patience, a pair of nimble cutters & a small utility knife, you can cut that down to allow you to shift the harness 90 degrees as 80% of the harness will be running along the back of the engine, not the passenger side.https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...62-jpg.423583/

Cut that hard loom back. I didn't remove it, just cut it down to reroute then ran new loom to & down, inside of it about an inch, wrapping it all up in 33 3m electrical tape afterwards. You've got wiggle room in there. This photo is taken before I cut the top off this hard plastic loom.https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...63-jpg.423584/

Fuel rail is very flexible. Put it off to the side while still connected, once connected valve is unplugged from wire loom. That big mess of wires on top of the engine is for the two plugs mentioned above, fuel rail & driver cylinder head. The wires laying on the driver side fender are the maf, t.b., cam sensor, a/c. The o2 sensor wires can all stay at the back & bound up in your new loom(s).https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...64-jpg.423585/

Lots of extra wire that frankly I didn't feel like cutting & soldering back together, so I ended up with 3 looms. Leave yourself some extra space & keep the looms from coming too close to the fuel rail or else you might not be able to get the fuel rail back on. No ****! I came close. The loom hanging from the hard lines on the firewall is the ground package that originally bolted to the front of the engine, on top of the timing chain cover. Now it's bolted to the back bolt of the lower intake collector, the bolt sticking up between the end of the green tape & the squiggly hard line connecting the two fuel rails.https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...68-jpg.423586/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...70-jpg.423587/

Routing the wires to the backside of the coil packs, which will no longer be visible underneath the intake collector assembly. The power steering, alternator & a/c wires tuck behind the cam sensors.https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...67-jpg.423588/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...72-jpg.423589/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...73-jpg.423590/

This ****er is tucked, almost. Got the alternator & added ground wires to deal w/soon. Hopefully all the extra photos will add many thousands of words. Other minor details like plasti-dipping the intake, which by the way does actually keep it a little cooler. Painted the t.b. & lower collector, cleaned the lower & upper collector as well as the manifold (oil in the runners pre-catch can). Cleaned the whole damn bay.
Previously, deleted all the useless heater hoses & idler pulley, wrinkle painted the overflow reservoirs, installed the mishimoto baffled catch can & painted many bolts after cleaning w/an industrial ultra-high-temp flat black paint & fine artists brush.
Prior to this, installed kinetix v-plenum & h.f. cats, invidia dual, my own custom 4" intake which added 8hp. & 5ft.lbs. over a z-tube w/all other baffles deleted & drop in K&n (poor air filter took a beating trial fitting the intake), osiris software, lightweight wheels & tires, shift kit that I ****ed up & needed to be bailed out of & I removed exactly 250 lbs. so far. Ran a 15 flat before much of this crap & believe I can get this pig down the 1/4 in the mid 14's @ this point. Looking for high 12's on the stock block & trans after rear mounted turbo or vortech but will be happy @ a very low 13.

Hope those who read this enjoy it & gain @ least something from it. Any questions, I am happy to oblige.https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...82-jpg.423591/

More tucking photos. The wrinkle paint is a VHT product. Some have had poor results w/it, so apply it heavily. Don't handle it for 2 days. Cannot "bake" plastic but over time, under the hood, it cures. Very durable.
Flat black swatch'o paint on the top of the timing cover is a test spot. Not looking for polished anything inside the bay. May do the flat black or G2 in silver but can get away without pulling everything apart using the flat black (it's very thin) & go right over the bolts. Dremel w/wire brush attachment works well removing oxidation from all metal. Where a face mask @ minimum.
MAF moved close to T.B. for more accurate tuning. 4" intake will not work without tuning. Fuel needed to be added & larger pipe measured, k value adjusted bla bla bla.
Vacuum once attached to back of intake can now be dropped down out of sight.
Cut the vacuum hose to pcv fresh air side that attaches to the underside of the intake pipe in 1/2 then installed a 1/2" copper plumbing 90 degree fitting to invert the 2nd 1/2 to get it to fit the new hose bung. Running breathers to replace the pcv system is not a good idea. Did it & fuel suffered, possibly power as well. Positive crank case ventilation cannot be "positive" unless crank case is being actively ventilated via vacuum, not to mention unmetered air enters the system as it's no longer in closed loop & engine smells like a damn lawnmower.https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...71-jpg.423593/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...74-jpg.423594/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...75-jpg.423595/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...77-jpg.423596/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...78-jpg.423597/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...79-jpg.423598/

Trimmed the coolant overflow hose to reservoir & ran behind rad. bracket & down below. Cleaner & out of the way. New rubber gates hoses & oem hose clamps (they come black now) & installed HR thermostat w/housing to aid in deleting old oil filterheater hose assembly. You also need the HR oil filter stud & 25(?) mm star socket to do this. Hard line for this heater is behind the a/c & you must move the a/c unit to get to the bolt.https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...82-jpg.423599/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...83-jpg.423600/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...89-jpg.423601/

https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...85-jpg.423602/

Here's more that might be of service to somebody. I don't have any diy on the multiple heater hose deletes, the idler pulley delete or the oil filter heater (some call it a cooler :bowrofl:), but they're on this site.

Dealt with two of my own grounds & power to alternator. There's an existing hole down there, just have to enlarge it to 1" & fit a grommet. 1" or 1 1/8" hole saw & tapping oil does the trick. Vinyl plugs from Lowes fill the 2 old holes on passenger side & 1 hole on driver side. 2 old cuts for my 2 added grounds, which were relocated, are the only marks left behind from all the surgery.
https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...31-jpg.425420/
Inside the battery bay. Used perm. gasket maker to seal & make sure the grommet stays locked in place for this alternator power line (on the right). Trans. plug (oem & on the left) converted to grommet is beefy & very tight-fitting compared to these aftermarket grommets, hence the gasket maker insurance policy. My added trans. ground ran between trans. power loom & grommet. Snug but not too tight.
https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...23-jpg.425421/
Large blue/grey plug for accessories was routed completely under the intake, along with ground from timing chain cover to t.b.
https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...32-jpg.425432/
Ground from batt. to t.b., t.b. to trans & t.b. to timing chain cover. Had all grounds @ one point but these are the only added grounds necessary imo. Stereo improved & so is transmission. Replaced ground from muffler to chassis & improved all other oem grounds.https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...33-jpg.425433/
All necessary equipment for the ****ing tucking & 2 bags full of useless crap I've been collecting since I started modding this thing. www.wiringproducts.com has quality automotive wire in various lengths, good from 140 to 180 degrees. Go get u some son.
https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...29-jpg.425435/
Finished product except for timing chain cover & accessories, until I build, then brake lines & whatever else can be dealt with will be dealt with.
https://www.infinitiscene.com/attach...30-jpg.425434/

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....32cd4826c0.jpg
This is my car, check rusty's slow build thread in media share and also my albums

FOREVER and thank you. That's retaining as much of the existing loom as possible. cux350z has a thread of his 350z tuck but I think many of the pics are lost do to photo****it's :bsflag: I was able to do most of the tuck from inside the bay while standing in front of the block and still suffered serious leg fatigue (hamstrings) from leaning forward for hours, several days in a row, day and night. I'd say from cleaning up the bay to deleting everything that's been deleted and tucking the looms, probably 80 + hours, not including intake mods or headers, etc. 1st time for me and did it all alone.

Looks good and no rust rusty? How ironic. :bowrofl: Hay, try some Turtlewax ICE on all the plastic parts like the cowl and even the core support. That stuff lasts a LONG time in the bay and will really darken up these pieces to match the other dark black components like your intake for example.