HELP HELP HELP!

I will give a summary as to what happened.

* Driving 65mph the other day on the highway and my engine completely shuts down like I ran out of gas, then picked backed up at 55mph

* 3 Hours later, I was driving in town and came off of a stoplight and it shut down completely! I pulled over to the side of the road and it will start in PARK, but as soon as I put it in DRIVE and give it gas, it died.

* I had it towed to the NISSAN Dealership I bought it from and they looked at it this morning.

* They started it up and it idled fine and drove around the parking lot without any problems at all. . . After 3 hours of running tests on it for everything (I don't know anything technical, so I don't know what they were doing)....they came back to me with this statement...

"Well Sir, we didn't find ANYTHING wrong with your car, however our reports are showing your car running extremely LEAN at 2500RPMs and up. This could be the cause of the problem. We noticed you have a K&N Typhoon Cold Air Intake and with their filters being lubricated with oil, then the cause is most likely to be the MAF Sensor being covered in OIL over time and causing the readings on our system to be giving out this LEAN printout"

I asked them what they could do and they said they won't touch the car until I put my intake back to stock with a new MAF sensor. I HAVE to get this fixed because it's my daily driver, so Jason @ Performance Nissan hooked me up with the parts I need to put my car back to STOCK and have them go from there.

MY QUESTION IS: Does anyone believe this ******** NISSAN is telling me? I know dozens of 2004 350z's with Oil Lubricated filters on their aftermarket intakes and not have any problem!

I put my intake on with my other Modifications at 1500 miles. I am now at 4000 miles and this problem JUST HAPPENED!

My list of modifications:
* NISMO Exhaust
* Random Technology High-Flow Cats
* K&N Typhoon Cold Air Intake
* 7 Wire Grounding Kit


What is everyone's suggestions?

 

its possible... not sure if Id call it probable. but certainly possible. a few people put down the K&N intakes because of this very possibility, and everyone else said it would never happen. I probably would have just tried cleaning the MAF first suprised they didnt.

Ive never had such a thing happen so I have no clue, but could he just look at it and see?

I mean in theory... gunked up MAF makes it think theres no air. so the engine shoots less fuel right? making a lean condition.

let us know what happens.

 

Check to see that the air filter is on tight.

When I had my engine replaced, the JWT Popcharger airfilter wasn't on tight. Actually, it wasn't on at all. Consequently, the engine would die if the car was in neutral or the RPMs would drop out. The MAF sensor is very sensitive. But, I doubt it's oil unless too much was put on the cone before installation. You can easily pull out the MAF card and check to see if there is infact any oil on the green board. If there is oil, it can be cleaned.

 

Could another possibilty be that there is a leak in the intake *after* the MAF? Just a quick thought....

 

All great ideas guys!

Unfortuantly, with my car being at NISSAN and in their hands right now with my parts to put my Z's intake back to STOCK with a new MAF and everything, I'm going to let them go that route and see if the problem is solved. IF the problem IS solved after this, then I know for sure that it had SOMETHING to do with the K&N Setup.

Does anyone suggest any other intakes aside from K&N that won't give me this possibility of an issue? I LOVE the sound of an intake on our Z's and with me keeping my car N/A and a RELIABLE daily driver, I need to go the best route where this won't happen.

Maybe just keeping everything stock is the legitimate idea for a reliable Z :-(

 

its a risk man, I think all CAI use oil filters. some use K&N even. look at the board and the hundreds that use them without problems.

 

I realized a TON of people have all types of CAI's and no problems. It blows my mind that I could be that 1 out of a 1000 that could have a filter that just had TOO much oil on it, or who knows what.

I guess I'll find out the truth on that when I get my CAI taken out and all changed back to stock.

Anyone need a K&N Cold Air Intake setup? I'll have one for sale!

:-)

 

Don't forget to keep your old MAF..

Cheers Amy -

 

if the dealer ship is complaining about lean im surprised they did not say anything about the RT Cats ..those would cause more leaness then the K&N I would think but both could contribute of course.

 

There is another discussion here that has been debating whether or not the RT Cats are causing the motors to run lean. Others have said that the engine might run lean at full throttle as the ECM does not monitor the MAF in this state. But my understanding is that under normal running conditions, the MAF is monitored and the computer should properly regulate gas/air mixture.

This other group has been examining their spark plugs to see if they are coated with white powder/condensate.

I was thinking about the JWT pop charger, rt cats and the nismo exhaust, but I am worried about this same problem.

 

I was thinking the RT Cats had something to do with it also. I will just wait until the stock intake is back on and see what the numbers show then.

 

Well this jsut brings back that question of "do the RT cats make your car run lean?"