Tricky-Ricky

The top end rattle on a lot of cars on startup is down to hydraulic tappets not holding pressure well, drain down of the cylinder head is pretty much un avoidable, as nearly all filters are fitted low down on the engine block, and the refill time is a second or two, However low oil pressure during startup shouldn't be any problem with modern oils, engine design has changed quite a lot in the last 40-50 years mainly due to the development of oils, engines can achieve mega mileages (if maintained correctly) these days because of it.

I agree, the DE dipstick is abysmal as far as being able to get a decent reading, I too always take several readings making sure to wipe it every time, if your lucky you will get a level on one side and just a smear of oil half way up the other side of it.

Never heard of filters causing problems certainly not in the last thirty odd years, always used Blue Print filters in all my cars, which some would consider cheap. And as I mentioned earlier in this thread using low octane fuel and inducing det will certainly result in a holed block.

Common sense is so uncommon these days, it should be considered a superpower! Based on a fairly recent thread on here, I think it's clear what the reason for all these failures is... warming the engine up whilst stationary. Nah! I think its more a case of thinking the VQ motor is a torque monster and changing up at 2.5K RPM

Read the manual. It says about this. It says something along the lines of you can run on 95 Ron fuel if performance fuel is not available. Don't rev above 3500rpm and don't put the engine under heavy load. Fill up with performance fuel as soon as possible. Jez is an engine tuner mate. I think what he means is that it knocks at low rpm mostly and not too bad at high rpm. The good thing is the 350z has a knock sensor/controller at low rpm. Which kind of begs the question if the danger area is lower RPM high load on low octane fuel, and knock retard is not stopping damage, maybe Nissan should have been a bit more careful about their knock retard/fuel map. Mind you knock sensors do wear with age, the piezo element becomes less sensitive as it ages, so on an older car it could be down to bad fuel and old sensors.

I severely doubt that there will be any comparisons as far as oil is concerned, as said oil level and fuel octane will have far more impact, unless of course somebody has put totally the wrong oil in which these days is very unlikely. The DE is rather prone to det and although the piston ring lands are the most likely first casualty, this will lead to seizure and the next weak point of the engine is the con rods, which is what you see in most pics, a hole in the block where one has broke and gone through, big end seizure doesn't usually result in a rod thought the block.

I am not saying that there is anything wrong with holding onto gears until the red-line if the engine is still pulling hard, as momentum starts to play a part in things once you get the speed up, and on a track its almost imperative, but on the road your not looking for ultimate speed, so ragging the engine in the lower gears will not always make for the rapid progress your after, it really depends on how well the gear ratios are matched to the engines torque/power, as the old saying goes BHP is how fast you go and torque is how quickly you get there, holding onto RPMs to the red-line will certainly make for abysmal MPG though.

The limiter is electronic and can be removed using Up-rev software, its a soft cut also, there is no point removing the limit unless the engine is being tuned IE lumpy cams which will push the power band further up the RPM range.

I have always driven using the engine tone to guide me, mind you I have been riding and driving for a long time, If driving for economy to me its a case of matching the speed I want to maintain with a reasonable RPM without laboring or over reving the engine, and the engine note and feel tells me when to change gear, similar for making quicker progress, but hanging on to each gear until the engine reaches its peak torque in each gear, no point in taking it to the red-line if its already on the downward slope of the torque curve

Mark i was going on the premise that wide-band lambda being a more precise and an extended scale in comparison to narrow-band, so the ECU is setup for this rather than just upping/cutting the injector DC/duration in response to rich/lean, and would be able to have a pre calculated table for whatever amount of fuel to adjust each lambda feedback AFR back to the required figure therefor being more fuel efficient. I was under the impression that this was one of the prime reasons for the current lean burn engines fuel efficiency?

As there is nothing to be gained from fitting a tube induction kit, for the money they are fine, the filter is not all that but will do the job for six months or so, and then easily replaced, they will unclutter the engine bay and sound good, the long type will actually locate in a position that will give just as much cold air as the std box. I fitted one to my 350GT as I was damed if I would pay four or five times as much to achieve exactly the same result, after all its just an alloy tube with a cone filter no matter how much you pay.

Pull the fuel sender from the tank and clean the track, that may help, other than that could be a lambda sensor, The JDM VQ is pretty bad on fuel, I think the UK is better due to running wide-band lambdas, so fuel trim is a lot better, might be worth running a compression/leak down test.

Removing the cam coverer's is pretty straight forward, once you remove the plenum, as for clearances its probably best to download the manual then you will get more of an idea of how things go together. Whether you need new cams or just a re-shim will depend on what you find, if its been left for an extended mileage with over large cam to follower clearances it can wear the cam lobes prematurely, but its really a case of look and see.

Taken directly from a manual, nothing wrong with using a slightly thicker oil, 5W30 is usually specified for easier cold starting and emission's and economy, but not a great when ambient temps go into the 30C. However going one grade thicker IE w30 to w40 is not going to make a big difference to making the engine a lot quieter, and if the problem is down to mechanical wear in things like cam/lifters it really wont make any odds.

Amuseses me when people get on their judgmental soap boxes when somebody posts something like this on a car forum where most spend thousands trying to make their cars go faster, and only a fraction of them ever see a track, yet I see plenty of comment about how they are quite happy to exceed the national speed limit on an open road, or talk about the odd crafty drift.

Cant help with a place to do work, but I would advise taking it to a specialist for a second opinion, the engine dose really need to come out to change the cam chain however it can be done in situ, but I think that pricing is rather steep to say the least even with the cost of Nissan parts. What sort of mileage has the engine covered?

Yeah, lots of history there..... On a side note.... Im assuming the same Tricky from the supra forum Hi Graham, yes still lurk on a few forums, have you bought a Z as well as the GTR then?

Supra forum is not allowed to mention them, some sort of legal injunction, due to so many people reporting bad deals and cars from them, so they are definitely a company to avoid like the plague.

Bad luck fella, I know for sure that paul brown cars have a bad reputation, maybe get a second opinion if you not certain if the garage are 100% reliable.

Depends what you want to do in the shed, I use these in my fish tank, and for me they are bright enough, but the tank is only 40"x20" deep, to do anything sensible like working on something I think you will need two or three times that amount, I use a 4ft tube and a single 60w energy saver in my 8'x6'.

Yeah I thought they where, but it pays a lot of world wide companies to use Chinese manufacturing.

With a boundary layer effect the 1-2mm is relatively static and is in effect decoupled for the the airflow so doesn't raise the temperature of the moving air, the air temperature entering the intake system has far more effect on an N/A application, and the lower the better for power.your far better of spending your cash on improving the intake than fafing about with thermal decoupling.

Had a look at titanium stock and tooling prices, and the profit margin is bugger all for me anyway, I would strongly suspect they are manufactured by our Chinese friends.

In theory at anything over idle the heat transfered through the metal of the plenum will make no difference to the overall temperature and performance, due to what is known as boundary layer effect, its actually only the air within 1-2mm of the metal that heats up, the rest it has no effect on, same goes for the heated throttle, which was initially developed for aircraft as the fuel was delivered via carburetter before the throttle plate, and would ice up at altitude, this has been carried on even on fuel injected engines, yes the air flow can cause ice, but I have yet to see any other provable reason for keeping it on anything but arctic climates. Same goes for boost pipes on FI engines, a lot seem to think that lagging them is a good idea, but its just wasted money for the same reason as my first comment.

Oh my that is a piece of art..... I need that in my life.... Where do I find one ? Hold on I'll fire my lathe up, hows £150 sound