This is no joke. Starting about a week ago I noticed one night while making a fast left turn that a red light lit up on the dash and then quickly disappeared. I didn’t think much of it but then it happened again 3 days ago while in another fast, maybe 0.80 g, left turn. This time I was able to catch what had light up, it was the low oil light. I went and picked up a quart of oil and yesterday morning checked the dip stick while the engine was cold. The oil line was at the very bottom tip of the dip stick, way off from the normal operating level. It was also very dark for just 2000 miles since my last oil change. I added the oil and took another measure of the oil level. It had rose maybe 1 inch but was still another quart from the bottom of where the criss-cross hatch indicating the low oil level is. Tonight I added another quart and it finally rose just to the bottom of where the cross hatching starts on the low end of the dip stick. So I am assuming I would need another quart of oil to bring it to the middle of the low and high placements on the dip stick.

I think I should give a little background to what has happened to my car. But first of all, I have an ATI Procharger at 7lbs for 5 months and 10k miles. The past few weeks have been an array of events that could have caused this immense lose of oil. About 6 weeks ago the greater Houston area encountered a weeks worth of flash floods and I did drive through some high water area. When I was driving through maybe a foot and a half of water, I managed to choke the engine and eventually stalled it. The car later ran and would bog down as soon as I gave it some throttle. The next day, I detached the intake pipe from the SC, right before the MAF and started the car. Immediately, about half a cup of water shot out the intake pipe leading me to think the FMIC had a pool of water. The car then ran like nothing had ever happened so I assume no damage was done. About 3 days later I went into the dealer to have my oil changed as a precaution, and have the coolant replaced with Redline Water Wetter since ive been wanting to do that for a while anyways. The oil and filter where changed, but the dealer tech had drained all the coolant out of my car and filled it with nothing but Water Wetter and water. The directions on the bottle of Water Wetter specified to replace half the coolant with water and Water Wetter, but I assumed the tech knew what he was doing. I then left the dealer and the car immediately begins to over heat. The needle climbed maybe 80% of the way up from C to H on the thermostat. The car even began to run a little ruff at one time, but I didn’t see any smoke coming out. I drove back to the dealer which required me to go another half mile running this hot and shutting the engine off 2 times to keep the temp from climbing any more. The tech then said that the car needed more antifreeze and less water so he then drained maybe a quarter of the coolant and filled it with antifreeze. He then test drove the car around and the temperature was back to normal. I later found out form a friend that antifreeze raised the boiling temp of the coolant and that water alone would have caused my car to over heat like it did. I would think a Nissan tech would have known better. Since then, the car has been idled a bit ruff with a slight clanking sound at idle like the intake tube was rubbing against something. This noise progressively got louder and more common when I was at idle. It has been 5 weeks and 2000 miles and now that Ive added 2 more quarts of oil, the idle has smoother out quite a bit and the clanking noise at idle is much softer. Ive driven the car as normal with the occasional romps of the throttle because I was not aware that I was losing oil and the oil pressure gauge has barley changed even when running 3 quarts low. It shows maybe 5 psi lower then what it has always shown. I have never lost more then maybe an eighth of a quart of oil in 3000 miles between oil changes. And one other note, I noticed about 2 weeks ago some oil under my car on the garage floor. Its about where the oil filter is, maybe half a foot closer towards the rear. Is it possible that the oil filter or oil plug wasn’t completely tightened and is slowly leaking oil? I have had the ATI SC for 5 months and 10k miles with my PCV hoses open to atmosphere but they never dropped that much oil onto the ground. Plus the locations of where the hoses are and the oil puddle in my garage don’t match. Well, that’s about it, sorry for the long post. I plan on taking the car back to the dealer and having them check if indeed the oil filter or plug is not tightened. If so, should I ask them to pay for the cost of an engine replacment? Just how tight should the oil filter and plug be exactly? I want to be there when they lift my car or should I take it to another Nissan dealer? Should I get a compression check or oil analysis?

 

Take it back to the same Dealer . Remind them of the over heating caused by them . Between the water in the intake and the over heating....you have IMO ...damaged the cylinder walls. Have them check compression in all cylinders . Have them check for the oil leak...it may be a bad head gasket....per the over heating...good luck

 

I would have thought a mixture of water and Redline Water Wetter would have been adequate for your application, yielding a 250F boiling point using the stock radiator cap (15.6psi or 1.1kg/cm²). Considering the operating temp of the VQ35 is 170F (154F if the low temperature Nismo thermostat is used) the engine must have been running over 80F higher than normal operating temperatures for it to boil over (assuming the cap and thermostat are defective).

A 50% glycol/water solution only has a boiling point 15 degrees higher (265F), so there isn't a huge difference in boiling point.

I ran just water and Water Wetter, but I used an 18psi cap (like the 350z Nismo cap 18.5psi or 1.3kg/cm²) on a high-output turbo application (400whp from 2 liters).

I think the tech might have under-filled (left air pockets) your cooling system the first time it was filled.

I'd check the coolant temperature...if your supercharged VQ35 is really running at an operating temperature of over 250F then it might be time to get a better radiator.

 

I just wanted to make a correction from my first post. The oil spots in my garage are actually where my 2 PCV hoses vent to atmosphere. I am now leaning towards excessive blow-by as the reason why i have lost so much oil.

lacartus, I think you might be right on the air pockets in the coolant system. I watched the techs as they worked on my car and they did not seem to know where the the bleed valve for the coolant system was at first. Even after the Nissan tech drained some coolant and refilled the radiator with more antifreeze, the car would run hot for a few seconds every so often and then go back down to normal. This contiunued for about an hour before it finally settled.

 

on a worst scenerio, do you think you may have bad piston rings? the reason I am asking is when I had my turbo Integra, the piston rings was not "tight" as it suppose to be, so there were some blow-by from the bottom or the pistons to the top, so it burned the oils.. I had to pour 1qt of oil every week..

Maybe you should do a compression check... like you said.. it will have a peace of mind, imo..

 

Enron, definatley sounds like the cooling system was not properly bled and filled. It wasnt the water wetter that caused the high coolant temps...it was the fact that your idiot tech probably just drained the coolant and filled the radiator back up, without opening the purge valve near the firewall. If you do that, you'll only have about half the coolant running through your system and air bubbles gallore. Same thing happened when my tech installed my turbo kit. Ran the car for 5 minutes and the temp guaged spiked. We diagnosed the problem together and fixed it up. You can always confirm you have sufficient coolant by checking your heater. If the heater isnt working, then the coolant was not properly filled...since the heater core is the last area to recieve circulating coolant.

That said, I think its highly unlikely you lost 3 quarts of oil from blow-by gases...that is unrealistic. If you had a leak at the oil filter or drainage plug, I'm sure you'd see big puddles of oil on your garage. The oil filter can be hand tightened, and the drain plug doesn't need more the 20-30lbs of torque to do its job...it also has a crush washer to prevent the bolt from backing out.

If I was a betting man, I would think you have some damaged pistons rings. Like the previous posted said, get a compression test done ASAP. Good luck man! I hope its nothing serious.

I am very concerned with all of these post about damaged F/I engines...many of them right around the 10,000 mark. I hope its not a trend that is developing, there there have been 5, at least, blow ups in the past month or so. My car is approaching the 10,000mile mark as well.

 

I think its blowby. Mine burns a lot too, without any of the other problems you mentioned. Stillen and dealer both said blowby. (1qt/1000 or so)

 

You guys are scarin' me! I'm at about 7K on my ATI Procharger right now. As far as I know, no oil issues yet.

 

lol same here!! I only have 3K on my procharger and no oil issues so far [knocks on wood] but i did learn something in this thread... I had no idea that a radiator cap could help cool your engine??? I have the Nismo "racing" radiator cap and I swore the temp needle didn't go as high as before but I had discounted it as my imagination?

--mike

 

even N/A Z's have blow by, last oil change I did I realized I needed one when I was accidently about 500 miles over. I noticed when my oil guage would sometimes dip down to like 1+psi when I would take a turn pretty good. It turned out to be a helluva lot of oil had been lost, no leaks. No smoke (other than black sometimes from running rich). I'm going to keep an eye though on my oil consumption form now on to hopefully see what this is all up to.

engine has 50,000 miles on it. This time I've been monitoring it and havent noticed any kind of oil consumption though.

 

youve got 50k on your z??? you must drive a lot

 

The blow buy gets routed back into the intact track...so regarldess of your setup, if you are blowing oil through that valve you would see a drop in oil level.

My point is that blowing 3 qts or oil is highly unlikely unless you are burning oil in the combustion chamber due to low compression/ring leakage.

 

I've also got an oil consumption problem. Mine was there NA...it burns 2+ quarts per oil change. When it was in for a tranny replacement they replaced the valve cover gaskets as it seemed they were leaking a bit, mostly residue IMO. In any case, the gaskets were replaced and I now have the SC on and it's exhibiting the same consumption issues. It's down about 2 qts after 2k miles. I'll be bringing it in to get their opinion, but I agree with what several have stated here.....bad rings.....means new engine.......means new car.

--wes

 

there's been a bit of underground talk about a good number of the Z's burning a lot of oil. Just seems like to took a while for it to rear it's ugly head, unlike the tranny issue which didn't take long.

 

I just took the car into the dealer and the service manager said that a real overheating problem would have caused my car's head gaskets to give and white smoke would then blow out the exhaust.

 

Enron,

What dealership are you going to. Have you found them to be responsive to your unique (FI) issues?

Whats up with Houston? Luck?? Heat??

 

I went to Baker Jackson Nissan on 290. The Service Manager was approachable but he wanted me to speak to ATI first about my open PCV hoses first. He also doesnt believe overheating an engine will cause the excessive blow-by or oil lose that i am experiencing.

 

I just went and checked the dip stick again. Looks like I lost another 3/4 quarts of oil in 800 miles. The car is going in for some tests Monday.

 

Good luck man. Keep us posted.