So I started the car up for the first time to check for leaks and such. No intake or exhaust leaks could be found with a stethoscope at idle. Yay!

However, I did wire the pump to the one of the fuses using the circuit adder that is provided with the kit. Hard to believe this is a difference between the 350z and G35 but all of the fuses near the battery are live even without the key in the ignition. As a result as soon as the battery is connected the pump starts running. I guess I'll need to find a nearby wire that goes live when the ignition is turned on and splice the relay into that. Any ideas on where I might find one most conveniently close to the battery or within the engine bay?

More improtantly though is I found oil leaking from the down pipe flanges. It appears that oil is getting past the seals and making it into the exhaust. Either the sending pressure is too high or my return system is not working properly. I tried repriming the pump by disconnecting the line from the turbo oil reservoir and using a 60 cc cath tip syringe to push ~200cc of oil through the line. THen I ran the pump with the line in a pan of oil to reverse fill the engine with about 5 qts of oil which it did in less then a minute. So it appears to draw good vacuum. The noise of the pump may have improved after this process or I might be just imagining that. However, the car still leaks oil from the downpipe flanges. Any ideas on what I should try next?

I am working with Sasha on this but decided to throw this out to the group to see if there are any other opinions. He thinks it might be condensation. The oily substance that leaks has a milky appearance to it so it doesn't look obviously like motor oil. The oil that I drained from the engine to run through the pump looks normal so I don't think I have an issue with coolant mixing with oil. I thought maybe the milky appearance was do to some foaming or mixing of assembly lube from the new turbo. It has a sticky feel to it. I haven't run the car long enough to get the exhaust very hot because I have a cat in my downpipe and I didn't want to screw it up by running a bunch of oil through it. This may be why I have not seen any smoke.

Sorry for the long winded post but it's been almost a month since I've driven the car and the suspense is killing me. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Water in Oil, looks Milky......

 

Bala, as per email I sent....this is not oil, it is condesation. Since the down pipe V-band warps ever so slightly when welded, it is the first place in the exhaust system from the headers that that condesation can leak out. The will be a bit of this at startup, but there is nothing to be concerned about. Oil does not dry up like that from a puddle.

As for the fuese, are you sure your winshield washer circuit is engergized when the ignition is on? It would not make sense that it was, but anything is possible I guess. I would use the fuel pump if there is nothing else.

 

A copy of the email I sent Sasha for anybody that comes across this thread during a search.

Cool. I let the car get warm enough to turn on the fans as I did some idle and free rev tuning. There was a little smoke, maybe white or grey, that I think had more to do with the tune than anything. Whatever was coming from the downpipe seems to have slowed. Time to put the wheels back on and do some street tuning.

In regards to the fuse. I never did find a fuse for just the washer. There are 2 fuse boxes. One near the battery which all appear live all of the time and another near the driver side kick panel. These appear to be broken up by ignition status. May just add some wiring and route the circuit adder there once I verify that one circuit is live only when the ignition is on.

 

Doh! Figured out what I was doing wrong with the circuit adder. I was plugging it into a fuse in the box marked with the red X instead of the green check. Found the second fuse box when I removed the cowl to try to find a grommet to route wiring into the cabin.

 

Dear everyone, I have an answer on what my tiny issue is but I am too lazy to investigate it so I'm asking everyone.

 

Huh? Your statement doesn't make sense.

 

as another note for the stuff on the ground.

You will get a minor amount of oil past the seals on shut down so don't freak out if you pull piping apart and find just a tiny amount of oil or maybe feel just a little bit in the piping. Anything more than that should be investigated.

The vband on the turbo does not have the recessed area for a perfect seal. When the car is fired up there will be a slight amount of condensation that the cold air pumping through the turbo will form and it generally leaks out at that vband connection. Mine usually leaves a spot just about the size of a quarter on the floor after cold starts. If you have one that is slightly milky and not just pure water that means there must have been a tiny amount of oil that was in the turbine left over and it mixed with the condensation. It takes very little oil residue to make water milky.

 

Good to know. Thanks. Whatever was dripping has stopped completely. The puddle initially was the size of a dinner plate x 2 locations, hence my worry. I readjusted the piping downstream from the ypipe and reclocked the turbo to raise everything a bit because the turbo seemed to hang pretty low. Glad I went through the trouble as I gained about 2 inches of ground clearance. Somehow this also improved my sway bar clearance. I've moved on to tuning. Car runs great with light throttle so far. Fun stuff.