| I won the lottery!!!!!! Well, sorta. Numerous posts about the early '90 model make mention of soft valves deforming causing rough idle issues. In effect, as the valves wear they are "mushrooming" and no longer form a good seat. But from what i've read it should have only affected about 300-350 US cars, or less than 1%. Tom B(IN) had posted about it in Tech and seems to be quite knowledgeable on the subject. One of the things he said was that once Nissan acknowledged the issue, they covered it under warranty. It was up to the owner to bring it in within the warranty period demonstrating that the car had the problem. However, chances are that the warranty would probably expire before the faulty valves began to cause trouble (my interpretation). And once outside the warranty period, it really isn't Nissan's problem anymore. Still, the liklihood of having a car with this problem AT THIS LATE A DATE ought to be very rare. Conservatively speaking, most '90 Z32's have at least 100,000 plus miles on the odometer. Surely the problem would have surfaced before now. I bought my 2+2 from the Nissan dealership 3 years ago with 80,000 on the odometer. Now it has 115,000. It has run great for the last 30,000. Well, guess what... apparently I have the soft valves. In the last 2,000 miles the idle has been getting much worse. At low rpm's the car feels like a smoker with emphysema. Lots of sputtering and congestion like it wants to cough up a big ball of phlegm. I was hoping it would be something else. Here is what the dealership said: 115757 SUSPECT LOW COMPRESSION 1.5 VERIFY IDLE IS UNSTABLE.
NO MISFIRE IN POWER BALANCE TESTING AND NO CODES STORED IN
ECM. INJECTOR RESISTANCE IS ERRATIC, BUT NONE ARE HIGH
ENOUGH TO CAUSE MISFIRE AT THIS TIME. FUEL PRESSURE IS
GOOD. REMOVE #2 SPARK PLUG, OK SUSPECT LOW COMPRESSION DUE
TO VALVE SEAT WEAR. CUSTOMER DECLINES FURTHER DIAGNOSIS. I declined the leakdown test because i already figure we know what the issue is. 20% loss of compression in #2 cylinder, BUT no oil leaks or getting bad mileage. In fact, the car seems to be in tip top shape other than this. Over the past three years I have religiously switched to all synthetic fluids (Mobil1 and Redline), flushed everything, done the 120K service, new air filters, fuel filter, new spark plugs, and on and on. Tim (Woody) did a compression test 6 months ago before the car was experiencing the rough idle. All the cylinders tested very strong except #2, which was about 20% less. He suspected a bad valve. I asked Bernie about compression loss from wear and tear, but he said that usually starts from the back cylinders and goes forward. So... as i understand it my options are as follows... A) Replace the valve(s). 22 hours x $60 hr. + parts = $1500 minimum. B) Replace the engine. Guesstimating ~2K for NA engine plus labor = 3K? C) Join the darkside. 3-4K for TT clip plus labor and fabbing = 5K? Would need major help with this. But wouldn't that be cool! I guess Rbadger and a couple others have TT'd a 2+2. D) Sell it and get another car. Honestly i don't think this is a viable option because (1) i've invested so much in it already (2) a car with a bad idle will not sell, and (3) i'd probably have to sell it for a big loss. I am too tall to fit in the TT, otherwise i would've bought one out right. E) Do nothing. cost = $0 The problem has already happened, just keep driving with the rough idle and live with it. Besides the sluggish idle and anemic response at low revs (<2K rpm) it still runs fine at this point. Any thoughts?
____________________________________________________________________________________________ 
24"x46" Out of Print Limited Edition Dealer Poster
$40 plus shipping on fuji photo paper.
any size available upon request - send me an email.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
|
