If this is true, you have a clear cut case of California Lemon Law. A dealership (assuming it was purchased there) has 3 attempts withing 12mo or 12,000mil to rectify a problem. If not the buyer is awarded all money due at the time of purchase and any money spent fixing the problem(s). Check it out its in your owners manual. Dont let that time expire!

 

LEMON ALL THE WAY!!!!! that is rediculous!!!!! i would be so pissed!!!! u need to get that straightened out ASAP!!!!!!

 

My car would have easily fit the lemon law... but I'm afraid it may be too late at this point, plus I would lose everything I put into it. I just need to figure out the ignition problem so it will start on its own !

 

Stillen stage 3 (7 PSI)destroyed my engine in less than 20000 miles. Not driven that hard either. Engine started running rough and the check engine light came on.
Took it to Nissan and found 3 of the 6 plugs had the electrodes completly burned away and 2 cylinders had no compression at all.
Stillen claims they had never heard of that before.........................
Have had temp problems since the installation. In hot weather the temp will go to the bottom of the "hot" gap.
Nissan blames Stillen and of course Stillen blames Nissan.

 

oh snap

 

I take it you didn't get the extended warranty from Stillen?

Also, in defense of Stillen, in this particular case, as far as the motor running hot, I know of a completely NA car/motor, which when pushed would heat up, and on track days would do what you are describing here in regards to temp, this is in good ol southern cali, and on warmer days. Then he went with a supercharger and it got worse, and it wasn't a Stillen, I don't recall what it was at this time, perhaps vortech?

He had to go all out with koyo, and higher performance fans, thermostat, ran Some Rapid Cooling Agent to the water like Redline, etc..etc.. And all of this got his car to run almost normal.

Now my car for example, never heated up before under street/highways conditions, even when I pushed it consecutively, and on track days, it heated up repeatedly to just over half way, in the exact same spots on Big Willow and cooled off identically both before and after my turbos, what I am saying here, is that my motor, after the turbo upgrade did not behave any differently from when it was NA.

I haven't modded anything in regards to cooling on my car as I haven't experienced a reason to do so. I do want an oil cooler though....

So I don't if just like all motors, in all cars, some motors work great, and some motors don't.

As far as the rest that you had to say, it just sucks, sorry to hear it.

 

Stillen does not warranty the stage 3 kit.
Nissan warrantied the engine, I had to pay 1400 to get the supercharger swapped.

It still gets hot when weather is hot.
I am going to sell it though.

 

I bet your car knocked big time with that smaller pulley. Is there any way you can alter the pulley without Stillen knowing?

Roots = heat issues = knock = internal malfunction

 

first stillen blow-up (or should i say melt-down) i've heard of. how many miles did you have on the engine when you installed the sc, and did you have any over-heating problems prior to installing it?
ps: good thing nissan gave you a new engine. seems like they were within their rights not to.

 

I never heard it detonating.
Its too loud to hear anything anyway.
It had just under 50K on it when installed. I know, lots of miles. (mid life crisis I think)
Since I had Nissan install it, they covered it for me. Of course Nissan headquarters didnt know it was modified. No problems at all before the install. It has about 8K on the new engine now and no problems yet, other than the temp, but I monitor it very carefully. If it starts to get hot, I just turn off A/C and it cools down within seconds.
I am sure a bigger radiator would solve the problem, but am tired of throwing $$$ at it.
On top of that, summer is over and no more heat. I will sell it soon.
The car is awesome to drive. will miss it.......

 

i think miaplaya had some problems with overheating/thermostat. you might ask him what he did to solve the problem.
if you didn't have the problem when you were stock, but then had it on both engines with the stillen sc, it seems to follow that its the sc causing the problem.

 

Well there is a heat exchanger in the square-ish manifold replacement underneath the supercharger. Its supposed to help in cooling, but really doesnt. That 'stores' or soaks a lot of the heat from the engines coolant, and causes the charge air to heat up even more(less density) because of the heat transfer to other parts in the blower/ blower manifold. I think there is also a front heat exchanger. Not very efficient F.I. set up IMHO.

 

Blown Z- just remember you do not have to hear the engine preignite or detonate for it to be happening. It could be at a frequency the ear cannot pick up especially over the noise of a roots supercharger makes. You should have some type of spark knock light indicator or a way to look at the the frequency on a data logger. Play it safe than sorry.

 

I am now on my third motor and I've never had F/I.

I blew the 1st one at 28k with only one mod, technosquares ecu.

The second one blew at 60k with only an rsr exhaust added to the car.

On another note, Greddy has blow the most motors, and has probably sold the most kits.

The amount of blown motors is going to relate to how many kits were sold.
If we had a sales chart next to this maybe it would make some sense.

 

Hey Andrew! good to see you on here again so what's the status of your car now? I think we both have horrible luck with our Z's.... hoping to get mine running again soon.

 

I blew my motor somehow with either overboosting or over reving...not sure which caused it but anyways I have the pe kit and I was on low boost most of the time but did hit 12psi at one time.

 

Due to no one saying or just because the option wasn't there - Does this mean JWT TT have not failed? Just curious due to interest in getting one someday. BTW - I know about only four folks have one accourding to the poll on the site.

 

This post about the JWT TT not failing doesn't mean anything at this time, and again I don't believe that any of this products has actually failed, it's been the motor.

The JWT is one of the newer kits out there, as is the Speed Force Racing so I'm sure that given time those motors will have an oppotunity to blow just the same.

Motors fail all time, moded, blown, or NA and as virigin as they come.

I still think this POLL is poor at best, and most of the information just adds to the general confusion out there.

I just hope this topic has convinced people to do REAL homework, before they choose to do anything to their cars, vs just running out and doing what the last guy did.

 

Great response! I really appreciate that. I'll keep monitoring to see if I can gleen what not to do to not have to say - oh yeah I've blown an engine. Like to spend the cash on what I want not what I have to.....

 

I agree 100%. I really wish this thread would go away. The kit with the highest market share is likely going to have the most blown motors.....ding ding ding...Greddy.

The SC's are arguable gentler on the motor, as they dont have the trq snap at low RPM, so I would expect to see far fewer Vortech failures....even given their high market share.