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| Subject |
Its good to have the Z back. my long story, reader beware! |
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| Posted by |
BoostedZX on August 28, 2002 at 2:16 AM |
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This message has been viewed 376 times. |
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| Message |
It all started out at what we thought was a bad throw out bearing. Turns out it wasnt. Still not sure what it was but I found this out after replacing the bearing. When we put the tranny back in, the 2 dowel pins that were coming out of the engine were slightly bent. This caused the tranny to sit at an angle and cause the clutch to wear out extremely fast. Now, we didnt bend the pins, they were bent from last time the clutch was changed and we had no idea when looking at them. So I had just had the clutch changed 8000 miles ago. I had put in an ACT street clutch which never felt right in the first place. So I bought an RPS clutch from Greg Dupree for $455 and I figured while I was at, Id look for a good used tranny. I found one out of a 94 TT with low miles for only $700 I figured I could sell my tranny for a good $250 (which I did) Now I had a tranny with a 1/3 of the miles and the better internals of the 94 and up trannies. I ordered the usual stuff for the clutch change and that was about $100. I also ordered some Redline fluids. So Im good to go. After waiting for misc. parts the car was done (one month after it started slipping) Labor was $300. So we start the car up. Misfire. Oh well, I didnt know what was the cause. Turns out I had a bad injector on #6 cylinder. Im thinking, ok, I should look for a good used set, but then I was like ok, might as well go with the nismo 555s. So my mechanic tells me I shouldnt drive it with a misfire. So Im like ok, Ive had the car for one mile after one month. Did I mention that this is my only car? I need to get a beater. So I look to see who has good deals on injectors. Chip @ Ginnmotorsports was doing an order on injectors. I didnt have all $900 then seeing as I just spent over $1600 I was left with $250 in my bank account. Chip said I could put a down payment and he would order the injectors and I could pay the balance when they came in. That was very nice of him and really helped me out. So I hit up ebay for the remainder and paypaled him the money. After about 3 weeks, they finally came in. By now the shop that had my car was booked with a lot of jobs, but I am extremley happy with their work so I decided to wait. I should have went to ZX connection, but they are 250 miles away and I was under the impression that I couldnt drive with a misfire. So I got the injectors for $900. I also ordered the reccomended parts (o-rings, seals, gaskets) which were about $200 from Courtesy. I also had new injector harnesses spliced on. When they finally got to working on it, which was like 2 weeks later, they were pulling the plenum and the connector on the IAC crumbled off. I call Nissan and you have to actually buy the whole unit which was near $300. I called Russell at ZX connection and he said he would sell it to me for $20. YEAH! I also needed new coil pack connectors so I picked up 6 from him. Nissan wanted $140 for them and Russell wanted $40. So instead of having them shipped, I drove up there and bought them because I couldnt wait. I get back and drop off the parts. 2 days later I call and they havent started back on it yet. Im starting to get pissed as I could have done it myself in a weekend. Finally they start working on it. They finally finish it and swap the ECU eprom. They also did a BG flush. Labor was $700! (they did the seals, gaskets, lots of hoses and the throttle body colant bypass) They said the car felt great to them. To me, it seemed slugish. I went to adjust my manual boost controller and it was adjusted all the way for max psi. Still only 14. Im like WTF. They said I had a boost leak so I ordered the hard pipe kit from the Group buy. That didnt fix it. Then I had another misfire 3 days later. Same Cylinder. Im thinking was it really the injector. (Ill have to test them to make sure) I spend a day looking and checking wiring. I switched the coilpacks, plugs, and checked wiring connections and tested the injector. Everyrthing was fine. I called Russell and he told me to check the PTU harness. That thing was so nasty. The harness started to fall apart in my hands. I could feel the wires moving around and one wire actually feel out (#6 cylinder signal wire) So, I cut off the harnesses and connected them directly to the main PTU harness and moved the PTU to under my headlight. Start her up, no misfire : ) I check the ECU and I get codes 21 and 34. Im like ok, I know 21, but 34? Could this explain only 14 psi? so I reset the ECU overnight and I now only get code 34. Im like great, the idiot pinched the wire in the plenum. Then I do search for the 34 diagnostics and I found a post from Ketan88. He had the exact same problems as I had. injector going bad to one month wait to saftey boost. I checked the 2 connectors for the det sensor and VTC. They were swapped. I was like hell yeah. I reset the ECU and good god. The car had never felt this strong. Then the next day, my new HOWE radiator arrives from Chip @ Ginnmotorsports (excellent service). This thing is huge. Its no where near as hard to install as people say it is. The fabbing was not hard at all. After about 20 minutes for pulling the radiator, I cut the fan shroud. I dropped the howe in and cut the hoses. Modded the mounts and filled her up. Lower hose was leaking at the clamp so I used another clamp and it fixed that. Started her up and drove it around. Great quality. The gauge doesnt move at all after being warmed up, even with the air on at idle. I would turn it off and turn back on 5 minutes later and it wouldnt get warmer like it did before. It used to go up to the 3/4 area. I guess that was heat soak for ya. Anyway, the Howe is great. So, the car runs awesome and its great to have her back. I know this was long, but now I have a record of my story. Total cost in parts and labor... $4040. Having the Z back... nothing could compare. I vow to do all labor work myslef and anything I dont do, ZX connection will take care of it for me. I couldnt have done it without you guys. You all have supplied me with great knowledge for these cars and I will be forever greatful. Thank you tt.net!
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| Follow Ups |
- Its good to have the Z back. my long story, reader beware! - BoostedZX
02:16:13 08/28/02
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