| So I just drove my Z for the first time in 7 months. Last summer, I discovered oil dripping from (what I thought at the time) the turbos and a hell of a lot of oil being burned. I shed a small tear as I sent it to the shop. After the engine was taken apart, we found out that 2 of the pistons were cracked and leaking (which explains the oil). Not ever wasting an opportunity to spend money, I decided to upgrade the pistons, overbore the block, and add 555cc injectors. Having put in Garrett T28s, I should have done this before, but I'm stupid. Let this be a lesson to everyone else who is thinking of upgrading turbos. To round out the upgrades, I added a twin JWT intake, Ashspec ECU, split downpipes and BOVs. Once the engine was finally put back together, I was excited by the prospect of having it back... and then disaster struck. Timing belt tensioner bolt snapped on the test drive and bent all the valves. I came very close to giving up at this point, but the shop ended up covering it and the brand new pistons survived. Only cost me a couple of weeks. I was practically jumping for joy on Tuesday when the Z rolled off the trailer. I drove it right away and had a blast. Initial impressions: I'm not sure if it's the split downpipes or what, but the T28s seem to spool a lot faster now. I've never actually driven a Z with stock turbos, so I'm not sure how fast they spool, but it's really quite fast for initial pressure to build. Shifting is solid and the engine overall is very responsive. I'm only on 300 of the 2000 km I've set for breaking in the engine so I haven't done more than about 0.5 bar boost, but it seems solid. The only problem I'm having is a little idle issue. When I break too hard, the engine tends to stall. I've adjusted the idle, but that's only helped a bit. Could have something to do with the twin intake, but I don't know. Either way, I've fallen in love with my Z all over again. It's like a whole new car, and I'm looking forward to taking it to the track/dyno when it's broken in.
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