rustyschopshop

For me was a really straight forward job but then again i forgot about how much i cleaned up in my bay. Probably could do my covers now in under 30min taking my time. Glad to see you are getting her done. Still loving all the work you are putting into her

Jim Stephens

Thanks. The bottom line is I don't have any experience, so everything is a steep learning curve and takes me 4 times longer. I am enjoying it though and by the time I am done I will know that much more. Things went well today and I stopped at the right spot. Going to try hard to hunt down a plenum in the morning. Two z shops are about 30 minutes from me.

rustyschopshop

The great thing is you guys are learning together although your boy missed out on some today. Always a learning curve even when switching platforms. Personally like to learn at least 1 thing a day, great way to progress

Jim Stephens

So...I am about to by a plenum spacer or the kintex(plastic one) and I see this video.... according to this guy and the dyno (more importantly) for an 05 and up it is of little value. He does like it for the 03 and 04. hmmm. Do I buy it or not?

Jim Stephens

New day. Ready for what I hope will be the day I put it all back together......successfully...LOL I am going to wait today and have my son be involved with the gaskets for the valve covers as well as putting it all back together. I replayed the above video and it is interesting. Seems like the 03 and 04 had some air flow problems and were helped by the spacer. 05 they corrected that. Then, in 06 they were full over to the HR motor and it seems to also benefit from the spacer. So not all bad, just possibly not needed for my motor? Or, I can just drop the money and go get one "Just in case" . LOL... still not sure if I will do it. Perfectly willing to spend the money if it makes a difference, just not spending it for nothing which the dyno completely shows for an 05 just like mine.

Oh, another funny story. So, yesterday morning before I started this project I drove my car over to a Rim repair shop. The tire guy said I had a bend in the rim when he put the new tires on. I do not "feel" it at all, but decided to check it out. It took awhile, but the guy found a slight bend on the outer bead of the rim. He then said it was a 1 week job and I needed to just drop it off. He then said the rim was difficult to work with and that "VOLKS" is mainly a "show" rim. LOL. Kinda true as they are 19" rims. I told him, wow, others seem to think these are really great rims. I then asked, what aftermarket RIM would you recommend? To which he said, "I don't care if they are 500 dollars or 5000 dollar rims, they all are not as good as Nissan OEM". Get yourself some Nissan OEM rims and you will be much happier. Pretty friggin' funny considering they actually also sell aftermarket rims inside the shop! hahaha. I was definitely talking to the mechanic, not the sales guy. LOL I can only guess, he is bitter because he fixing aftermarket rims all day. LOL Seriously, he may really be just saying the OEM rims while maybe heavier etc. are far more sturdy than the aftermarket rims? I did admire is frankness though. I will be taking my rim in later to get repaired as he is definitely honest in his opinions. Just cracked me up.

dkmura

iTrader: (64)

Jim- my take on the plenum spacers is, without a tune, they really don't help that much. Every part of the VQ series can be second guessed and developed, but Nissan really spent the R&D funds to get the most they could out of their V6. My street '03 Z has a few mods (including a plenum spacer) on the VQ35DE and a UpRev tune, but I wouldn't say it is a huge improvement. Meanwhile, the VQ35HR in my race Z is on it's 12th season (without a rebuild) and usually only gets parts to restrict its performance (like flat plate restrictors) in SCCA races. Hoo boy...

This opinion also bleeds over to your wheel tech comments as well. It's well known that Nissan used companies like Rays and Enkei to source the OEM wheels. Their specs for aftermarket suppliers are demanding; both in tolerances and pricing. The Rays forged wheels are highly thought of, and produced in the same factories that Volk is sourced from. The tech is probably tired of fixing what he considers "fancy" wheels, but hey, it pays his bills and keeps the work coming.

rustyschopshop

definitely agree with dkmura on both topics
Personally am planning on getting the z1 spacer this year. Way past needing a tune so may as well get it and get my tune finally.
Even though the sales guy gave you his opinion on "fancy" wheels, honestly this is not good business. If the wheel was made by a company like rota and has many issues would be one thing to steer a customer away from a particular wheel. We all know your wheels don't fit this catagory. IMO he should have left out his opinion on your wheels and set you up. Making you even happier to see him again if needed.

Jim Stephens

Well, we continue on our slow motion pace, but made some progress today. Really not putting a ton of hours each day in as my son has other things going on. Mostly he has a crash course(bad pun) in driver training since we paid for it and we are up against a deadline or they will hit me up for more money. So he is driving every day in class during his time off from school. I got the rest of the wiring harness cleared out of the way and pulled the driver side Valve Cover and then waited on my son to come home to have him put the new one back on. I showed him what I was doing and seated the valve cover. Then handed over the bolt torque diagram and then talked him through the steps. Away he went on it. I started working on removing the passenger cover while he worked. Well, he gets to the 2nd round of torquing it down and a bolt breaks off in the head! Crap. A dark moment in the garage. I check the torque wrench and it was set at 80 inch pounds. The high listed in the manual was 82 inch lbs as I recall. So, not his fault really. I told him just bad luck. In hindsight we probably should have torqued them to the low end of the range. Learning as we go.

As luck would have it a gentlemen from Austin arrived with his son who is 16 years old to buy my old exhaust system 10 minutes after our "event". Super nice guy doing the same thing I am doing with my son! His son was a very nice kid and had lots of questions. He has a 2003 with high miles 170k, but what he could afford and was very excited about working on it. Very Cool. I told the Dad (From Australia I believe) what had happen just 10 minutes ago and he leaned in and looked at it. He says, "hey go to Autozone and buy a back out tool to reverse it out" . Nothing to lose, so after he departs my son and I go over to Autozone and get little help from the staff, but I find what I think will work and buy it. I ask my son what are the odds of this working, he says "60/40", I say I am at "50/50". It is a small diameter bolt so there is very little to drill into and it was difficult to get to the hole to drill it. So, I do it, having never done this before, and as I reverse the puller into the bolt I feel it grab the bolt and I have to tighten the chuck because it is slipping and the bolt came right out!!!! Wow. My son and I literally cheered and hugged. haha. Great moment from a bad situation! Still, we are feeling like "winners" tonight. So, a quick call to the Nissan dealership, they had five valve cover bolts in stock, drove over and picked those up. Again, they treated me great at that dealership. Gave me five of them for like $3.50. Think they were left overs.

So, we completed the driver side valve cover successfully, got the passenger side one off (has one bolt in particular that is really hard to get at in the back). We started working on getting the gasket glob cleaned off at the front of the block and then agreed it was time to call it a day. Covered it up and will start again tomorrow some time. A good day.

Jim Stephens

I agree with you. I was "shocked' at what he said about my wheels, then rather than getting upset about it I asked the key question, which was, "What rim would you recommend if you do not like these". When he said "none" except OEM, that cleared it up for me. LOL. Must have been having a bad day at work. The place has super high reviews from many customers, so they must do good work, but it was a something else for sure.

rustyschopshop

reason the bit was slipping in the chuck. its too far in, back it out to where the teeth of the chuck bit into the square part of the bit
Glad you guys were able to resolve your first broken bolt. Sad how even when you torque bolts correctly they still sometimes snap. Now you will have more confidence on your next, although i hope you do not break another.

Jim Stephens

Makes sense on the bit. I used a dremal to drill the pilot hole because the bit was so small. The first thing I noticed was how soft the metal was in the bolt. No wonder they are easy to snap. Also, the replacement bolts, while exactly the same in dimension and design appear to be a completely different metal. So much so that the bolts are silver in color not gold?

rustyschopshop

both sets of bolts that i have from 2 engines are silver. Very possible they changed bolts though

Jim Stephens

Yesterday I worked solid on this project to get it finished. I must say putting it back together is much faster, but I have to reflect on the 1000 bolts involved in the intake compared to my old Oldsmobile days LOL. Also, I took a lot of pictures when I took it apart and that was invaluable when figuring out where all the brackets and hoses went. Well I got it all put together and my son and sat back for the moment of truth. It started, and then it felt like it was missing, then smoke started coming out so I killed the motor. hmmm. I took a quick look and thinking oil leak since I just did all this valve cover work, I just turned off the lights and said screw it, let's go inside as it was dark and the end of the day. I was thinking we had botched valve cover replacement and that was causing the smoke and rough idle. Already was planning on towing the car to the Z store to fix my failure. LOL My son's comment was "wow' I can't belive it at least started on the first try. He considered that a great accomplishment considering all we had done AND there were no bolts left over. LOL

About 2 hours later my wife comes in and says, honey there is green stuff draining out of the garage. I have never been so happy to see radiator fluid. It was not a lot of fluid. I start digging around and sure enough, I missed a hose that goes under the throttle body. My theory is that it spray fluid right on the ignition coils on the driver side. So, there is hope to still have success with this project I think? This morning I am going to get that water line reattached. Check to ensure everything has dried out and then start it again.

So, I have watched a few video's on bleeding the cooling system. Guessing that will need to possibly be done given what happened right? It also occurs to me I may have zapped a coil or two with the fluid? I will report back after I fire it back up and see what happens. Wow. Soooo happy it's not the oil leaking. LOL

Jim Stephens

Interesting, might be why the bolt failed? Cheaper replacement bolts were used possibly as they were gold in color not silver. Like I said the metal was really soft when I was drilling the bolt out. Who Knows? 15 year old car, many things could have happened right?

travlee

iTrader: (8)

Make sure you got the coil pack wires correct, there are 2 that are commonly swapped by mistake. I cant remember which two off the top of my head

Jim Stephens

Thanks! hmm. I did number them and the plugs on the passenger side so I am confident those are correct. On the driver side, I numbered the coil packs (tape), but then unplugged the coil packs and did not think to put numbers on the plugs until two out of three were disconnected. It is possible I screwed that up. I may have a "picture" of it before I did it that might help me confirm whether I messed it up.

Jim Stephens

Heck yeah. I do have a "before" picture. I will take a look at it. Driver side.

Jim Stephens

So, looked hard at the driver side coils and indeed it is apparent I reversed the second two coils order. If I am just starting from the one I know is correct (Closest to the front) and the order is as they come off the harness then the second two were inverted. So, made that change, connected that water line I had missed and gave it another try. The good news is no fluids spilled out and no smoke. The bad news is it is still missing. Idles at 1500, and then kicks down to below that and really starts to stumble. I can smell raw fuel, so one of the cylinders is not firing at least. On the passenger side I labeled the plugs and the coils and was careful to match them up. Even so, I went over and looked carefully at those and they look correct. I ran diagnostics on it with an OBDII reader and it confirmed what I am hearing and smelling. I will read around on the error codes, any help appreciated. I had read somewhere this morning that a rough idle may be cost by air in the radiator system? That does not make any sense to me, but thought I would throw that out there since I most likely need to bleed it.

Jim Stephens

U1001 NISSAN Possible Causes
1. Harness or connectors (CAN communication line is open or shorted)
2. ECM


Ok.
1. Given I had fluid go all over the driver side of the car with the leak, maybe one of the connectors is shorted back there?
2. I do remember a single green wire that is a ground that bolts on to the front of the block. As I was tightening it shifted and I held with my thumb. Possibly that ground wire broke or is not making good contact?

The easiest thing for me to do is:
1. Go recheck that ground wire off the harness that is connected to the front.
2. Just start at one end and re-check every plug and connection off of the harness.

I am guessing if the CAN is shorted out or an open circuit that would certainly cause misfires to occur correct? My uneducated guess is the computer is controlling the firing sequence and if it is having a problem with the circuit that could cause it?

rustyschopshop

Looks like i missed alot already today. Glad to see you got most sorted. Would definitely check your grounds first, 2nd check to make sure your connections are dry. Coolant can be worse than water. Takes much longer to dry out. If you find a connection saturated would recommend cleaning it with electrical contact cleaner since coolant has oil in it.