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Wow, had no idea the those lug nuts were that "special". The Z shop guy said he did not have any as they do not do tires, but should have been a hint they are not common. Thanks on the tires. Yeah, I am looking forward to the new "feel" that I know will come with the good tires, so you make a good point. I would think if you are running the track it would be a huge deal. I know what they can do for a car, hence I spent the money to get good quality, but you know spending that same money on more horsepower is pretty fun too!
Wow, had no idea the those lug nuts were that "special". The Z shop guy said he did not have any as they do not do tires, but should have been a hint they are not common. Thanks on the tires. Yeah, I am looking forward to the new "feel" that I know will come with the good tires, so you make a good point. I would think if you are running the track it would be a huge deal. I know what they can do for a car, hence I spent the money to get good quality, but you know spending that same money on more horsepower is pretty fun too!
Spending on power can be awsome and is where most people spend their money first. Yet if you cannot control the power albeit by tires, suspension or brakes it is pointless and unsafe. I tend to go over board on tires even for daily vehicles. Used to work at a body shop and many collisions were due to crappy tires or worn brakes. Sometimes a combination of both.
Spending on power can be awsome and is where most people spend their money first. Yet if you cannot control the power albeit by tires, suspension or brakes it is pointless and unsafe. I tend to go over board on tires even for daily vehicles. Used to work at a body shop and many collisions were due to crappy tires or worn brakes. Sometimes a combination of both.
I had no idea that these Volk Racing rims that came with my car were a "thing". Seems to have a fan club. New tires go on at 9am, looking forward to them. Especially since the rear driver tire lost 6lbs of pressure in about 5 days! Hope I make it to the store.
Last edited by Jim Stephens; 10-26-2019 at 01:42 AM.
Tires. Probably the least fun thing to spend lots of money on, but very necessary. So, I went back and forth on this last night and this morning. Contemplated cheeping out and replacing just the rear tires. Went back out and looked at them again. I have three Nitto tires and one Continental tire. Nice. The three that are not damaged have some decent tread on them, but are getting there. Then, I thought, hmmm let me check the age of these tires. Ready for this. The Nitto tires were made in 2008 and the Continental tire on the front was made in...2004! That pretty much sealed the deal for me. I bought a set of Michelin Super Sport Max tires. front 245/35/19 and back 275/35/19 as recommended on the top 100 questions section in this forum. Ordered them from Tire Rack and should have them on the car within a week. I am CERTAIN this will be much better than my current situation. By the way, 6 years or older is point to replace them regardless of tread. I have seen many an old perfect camper tires go out for this age reason.
I am so appreciative of someone who does their research, and does it well!
I'll begin with the valve covers. As far as I know, there are not any special "bolts" or anything that are no longer attainable. The primary reason for replacing the entire valve cover is because Nissan made them non-serviceable..ish. You can easily obtain the gasket that runs around the outside of the valve covers, but the gaskets that seal the spark plugs tubes are basically "sealed" into the valve cover. Many users, myself included, have had excellent results with sawing out those spark plug seals and replacing them, therefore making the valve covers "serviceable". This costs only a few dollars each time you have to replace the gaskets as opposed to a couple of hundred for new valve covers every time. You seem like the guy who wants to keep everything as OEM as possible and I respect that, but it is always something to consider. Information on that can be had on this forum. Trust me, you will replace those valve covers a couple of times at least over the course of the car's lifetime.
I assume the shop meant an intake manifold such as the Kinetix? I do not know if I would consider these "high flow" as much as I would consider them "improved flow" since they both take in the same volume of air. The only difference is that the in-flow is less restricted. I'll be honest, I forgot what your ultimate goal was with the car, but I would hold off for now on the manifold. They run roughly $800 and that's a good chunk of change that could go toward other items that are deemed a necessity at this time. When the time comes to upgrade to that type of manifold the install is VERY simple and I have no doubt you guys could handle it yourself. It would be a great learning opportunity for you and your son to wrench on the car.
If he does the kinetix velocity intake they are less than 300
On average see more people making power with the velocity over the V+ for NA applications anyway. Higher boost the V+ is good as long as the welds don't break.
Not to challenge you, Rusty, but I think you have them backwards. Do you mean the V+ is less than 300? I did not find any velocity intakes (the chrome, straight-shot intake) for less than 750.
I am so appreciative of someone who does their research, and does it well!
I'll begin with the valve covers. As far as I know, there are not any special "bolts" or anything that are no longer attainable. The primary reason for replacing the entire valve cover is because Nissan made them non-serviceable..ish. You can easily obtain the gasket that runs around the outside of the valve covers, but the gaskets that seal the spark plugs tubes are basically "sealed" into the valve cover. Many users, myself included, have had excellent results with sawing out those spark plug seals and replacing them, therefore making the valve covers "serviceable". This costs only a few dollars each time you have to replace the gaskets as opposed to a couple of hundred for new valve covers every time. You seem like the guy who wants to keep everything as OEM as possible and I respect that, but it is always something to consider. Information on that can be had on this forum. Trust me, you will replace those valve covers a couple of times at least over the course of the car's lifetime.
I assume the shop meant an intake manifold such as the Kinetix? I do not know if I would consider these "high flow" as much as I would consider them "improved flow" since they both take in the same volume of air. The only difference is that the in-flow is less restricted. I'll be honest, I forgot what your ultimate goal was with the car, but I would hold off for now on the manifold. They run roughly $800 and that's a good chunk of change that could go toward other items that are deemed a necessity at this time. When the time comes to upgrade to that type of manifold the install is VERY simple and I have no doubt you guys could handle it yourself. It would be a great learning opportunity for you and your son to wrench on the car.
First time I have heard I might able to cut out the valve cover spark plug gaskets out and make it serviceable. Thanks. Where do you get the valve cover gaskets for the spark plugs? I will do a little searching on the forum for the write up. It did seem a bit crazy that you would replace the entire valve cover for a gasket leak on a single spark plug. Those valve covers are $300 dollars a piece so you looking at $600 to do both.
My idea for the car is to get it mechanically up to snuff with all known problems repaired first. I am thinking to do some mods to the suspension next and a few minor engine upgrades with an eye toward just a fun driver and maybe an occasional track car. After I get the airbags back in(kinda like to keep my son alive) then I am going to talk it over with him to see what he would like. He may want to do some modifications to the interior/exterior for the "look" of the car which I am fine with as I want him to have input into it.
Yes the intake manifold he quoted was a Kinetix. I think it was around $260 dollars or so. His logic was if I buy that while they are in there doing the valve covers there is no additional labor charge. I will check out the Velocity and V+ items discussed as well. I am going back and forth on which things I will do myself and which I am going to pay someone to do. Bit of a fear factor involved since I have not worked on cars much since I was a kid, but I am mechanically inclined and was actually going to become a car mechanic when I as a kid until my Dad talked me into going to college (IT/Software guy) instead. So here I am at 55 years, doing my first real car work with my son who also has interest in mechanical things.
Last edited by Jim Stephens; 10-26-2019 at 02:36 AM.
First time I have heard I might able to cut out the valve cover spark plug gaskets out and make it serviceable. Thanks. Where do you get the valve cover gaskets for the spark plugs? My idea for the car is to get it mechanically up to snuff with all known problems repaired first. I am thinking to do some mods to the suspension next and a few minor engine upgrades with an eye toward just a fun driver and maybe an occasional track car. After I get the airbags back in(kinda like to keep my son alive) then I am going to talk it over with him to see what he would like. He may want to do some modifications to the interior/exterior for the "look" of the car which I am fine with as I want him to have input into it.
You have a few different options. R&D sells a kit that includes the 6 spark plug tube grommets, a PCV o-ring and the OEM valve cover gaskets for $175. They send you an "alignment tool", which I have never used, which accounts for $45 of the $175. When you send the tool back to R&D they refund you $45 and provide a $5 credit for the return shipping. So all in all it is $130 for the grommets, PCV seal and both valve cover gaskets.
A little cheaper option some have gone with is to purchase the covers for the similar year Altima. The seals are supposedly removable since they aren't covered like the 350z's are. I have not personally tried this route, but some have had great success.
You would have to initially pull your valve covers and carefully cut the old seals out with a holesaw. From that point on you would simply pop the seals out anytime you had to replace them and pop the new ones in. I went a little further with this and placed a bead of hi-temp RTV around the inner diameter of the seal to ensure it was tight on reinstall. I placed the covers back on, let it cure for a day and was good to go. I am currently at 3 years with not a drop of oil in the wells, though I will admit the care has not been daily driven in a year, only around town once in a while.
If you do prefer to keep things simple and just replace the covers, Z1 and R&D both have options available that are much cheaper than going through NIssan. Courtesyparts.com currently lists the covers for about $223 a piece. Z1 has them for about $185 each, although I am not sure they come with the valve cover gaskets too.
New tires are on and the car handles so much better! Pulled out the headliner to start the window airbags install. No wires. Hmm. Going to have to dig around and find them. Good news is the headliner was very dirty and greasy. My wife broke out some mild European soap and hot water and my son and I cleaned the headliner. It was miraculous. Perfectly clean and with minimal effort.
Airbag - install. Yes, not your typical delete. So, my previous owner did a crude delete of the airbags and I have been re-installing it. So, I got the curtain airbags re-installed. The good news is I found where he clipped the wires and, then folded the wiring harness into the side door area. In the picture you see what I have. Two orange color wires with a resistor and two pale color wires with it's resister. I found the wiring diagram which tells me the two orange wires are for the Left side Curtain airbag and the two pale color wires are for the Right side Curtain airbag. Here is the big question. There is nothing on the wires that is different visually from the positive/negative of the wire set per airbag. If it did, I would think there were be some different markings on each wire. Not polarity sensitive? Does it matter??? In my crude thought process these air bags get energized and that sets of the charge in them and as long as there IS a postive and negative I would be good right? Either way would work right?
Last edited by Jim Stephens; 10-27-2019 at 08:21 AM.
Well, after a day of finding plugs hidden under the carpet and re-assembling and soldering cut wires the air bag system is re-installed. I am throwing one error code. It's a B1054 on the Driver Airbag of all things. That was the thing I installed that went smoothly. LOL Looked it up and this is what I got.
Faulty Driver Air Bag Faulty Spiral Cable Driver Air Bag harness is open Driver Air Bag circuit poor electrical connection
Anyone care to guess? Seems it becomes a process of elimination. I bought the steering wheel with airbag from a low millage car (low wear on the wheel) I going to research it some more, but in the one post I found it was the Spiral Cable for that person.
There is a possibility that the srs system may have to be reset or reprogrammed. Used to work for a body shop and at least once every 2 months there would be 1 stubborn car that needed a little help with the new product that was installed. I would recommend at least talking to the guys at Z1, bet one of their techs could be of assistance. Possibly the guys at IPP near you could help as well. Typically the clock spring (spiral as you posted) only gets damaged when it goes off. This could have happened before they pulled the components. They due eventually wearout but is much lower in probability
There is a possibility that the srs system may have to be reset or reprogrammed. Used to work for a body shop and at least once every 2 months there would be 1 stubborn car that needed a little help with the new product that was installed. I would recommend at least talking to the guys at Z1, bet one of their techs could be of assistance. Possibly the guys at IPP near you could help as well. Typically the clock spring (spiral as you posted) only gets damaged when it goes off. This could have happened before they pulled the components. They due eventually wearout but is much lower in probability
Certainly, this first suggestion should be the priority. Finding local access to a CONSULT 3 would be the best solution to this, as an experienced tech can pinpoint whether it's a hardware or software (reprogramming) issue. Most Nissan dealerships charge an hour of shop rate to diagnose, even if it only takes 10 minutes. You'll have to check your local area.
10-24-2019, 05:23 PM
