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First of all, I'd like to start by saying thanks to all the people that I have helped me with my Z build over the past few months. Madhatter 10-6 has put as much time into my Z as he has his own. Seb and Greg at SpecialtyZ have been very helpful in answering any questions I have had and supplying me with all the parts I have needed. John Parham at Z1 has always been great to deal with as well. Even when I call him with a simple question, it still turns into a 10 minute phone call just because he's cool to talk to and very knowledgeable. Some other names that come to mind, SilverTwin(OH), Joe at ZSpeed, Ash, and I am sure there are some others I am probably forgetting. On to my long and drawn out process that was supposed to be a simple build (I know they are never simple). I have owned my Z for over 7 years now and I have absolutely loved it for over 6 of them. These past few months are making me wander. We have done work for a lot of fellow Z drivers and they are always happy and so are we. My Z started as an bone stock NA automatic. About 6 years ago, I had Brett and Tim Davis (SilverTwin) convert it to a Stage 3 TT but decided to keep the automatic for the time being. I lightly modded it for years until about 3 months ago. I had been casually planning a 5 speed swap for years and piecing together the parts for a swap. I got a used transmission from a customer that had the notorious 3rd to 4th gear grind. I bought a rebuild kit and took it to a shop to have it rebuilt. The place that was rebuilding it had an unfortunate incident 2 years ago and the garage burned down. So I had to buy a new transmission and their insurance wouldn't cover my transmission so I was out about $500. No big deal, stuff happens. So last fall I bought a used transmission from a local guy and we were going to do my 5 speed swap the upcoming weekend. However, Wednesday of that week, I shattered my heel and was on crutches for about 6 months. Needless to say, adding another pedal to my car didn't make sense since I couldn't use my foot to push it. But my foot is much better now and I started to get the 5 speed bug again. We had just finished installing a built engine and 675 turbos into Madhatter's car and I started to get the itch. After driving his Z with Joe's new shifter modifications, I wanted more power and I wanted a 5 speed. I was always afraid that bigger turbos would give me more lag than I wanted but with all the breather mods and exhaust mods on the market today, lag isn't really a problem anymore. So we bought a car that had a built engine, sport 530's, and a bunch of other mods. When we got the car, it ran terrible. It had boost leaks and the boost controller wasn't working right amongst other things. So we decided to part it out. All the mods had less than 2K miles on them. I knew this because the guy I bought the car from had pictures of all the work and when it was done. About this time, the turbos in my Z started smoking like a train. So I decided to keep the built engine and sport 530's and buy the other supporting mods. That was my first mistake. I also kept the new wiring harness out of that car but the blue connector broke when removing it and we depinned it. I decided to keep the harness anyways and repin it into a new connector after we feed it through the firewall. Mistake number two.
During the next couple weeks, my Z went through a lot of changes. New speakers, new amp, sound deadening everywhere, new keyless entry, 5 speed sway, new engine, new turbos, new intercoolers, new IC piping, and the other mods found in my profile. I also chose to delete pretty much everything in the engine bay that wasn't necessary. AC, PCV, etc. I live in KY, my Z is a vert, and I never drive it in the rain. So I never used my AC. We hit a few minor snags along the way, but nothing major. It was time for the first drive. We went to start the car and the fuel pump didn't arm. It was because of the wiring harness. We had made some mistakes repinning it. Because so many of those wires look the same, we had a few of them mixed up. After about 15 hours of trying to get all of that squared away, we finally got everything how we wanted it. Code 55, Timing set, TPS set, everything ready to go. So we drive it around the block and it wasn't shifting right or boosting right. Every shift was very, very difficult and it didn't hit 8psi of boost until about 5K RPM. So we drove it back to the garage and started the diagnostics procedure. The shifter was a combination of needing to adjust the clutch pedal, bleed the clutch again, and adjust the Z speed shift bracket a little. The boost however, we were unsure of. It drove like it had a really bad boost leak. We checked it, but it was air tight. You could pull the dipstick after over a minute and still get a large "Poof!". There was also a very strange noise coming from the passenger side turbo area. We decided to pull the engine and as it turns out, the retaining clip for the passenger turbo wastegate had fallen off. So we had found our smoking gun for why it was boosting so poorly. Basically the DS turbo was having to do all the work. So we fixed that and went for another drive. It was significantly better and had very good top end power, but still nowhere near what it should have been on the low end. We brought it back and started diagnosing stuff again. We couldn't really find anything. It was running good, just didn't have great TQ. So we took it to a dyno to check AF ratios, etc to get a better feel for it. My AF was below 10.5 for almost the entire run. We also disconnected the VTC to see if that was working properly and it made no difference in the dyno. So we once again had found our smoking gun for why the low/mid power was not great. So I started diagnosing the VTC with a lot of help from Seb at SpecialtyZ. I was able to manually trigger the VTC solenoids and I could hear them click, but I could hear no audible change in the idle when I triggered them so we assumed the VTC check valves were left out during the engine build. However, I removed my valve covers and VTC solenoids to find out that they were in place and I just couldn't hear the idle change I guess. So yesterday evening after I drove it, I decided to do a compression test only to find out that my highest number was 131 and my lowest was 119. All this time trying to fix a car and I have been working with a bad engine. I still have my old engine which ran great, so I will likely be putting it in my Z sometime down the road as I am currently sick of the car. I used to love seeing my Z sitting in the garage but it has fought me tooth and nail lately and I am growing frustrated with it.
Sorry for the venting but I figured some of you could use the Monday morning read. So I will conclude my rant with a couple questions for you guys. I am considering selling my Z and I am wondering how many of you sold your Z and regretted it? I am starting a new occupation this year and I expect it to go fairly well. I am considering just parting ways with my Z and putting that money towards a GTR in the future. Is it worth the difference for those of you that have driven one? Here are a couple of my dynos and pics of my Z spread out over the years. I don't have any pics on my computer from when it had stock wheels because I didn't have a digital camera back then. 
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My decling love of my Z. Monday morning reading material. - 
