Hi fellaz,

I had a rather worrying experience yestoday. Coming back from Harry's the car started with the HICAS warning light on. Thought ohhhhhhh shiiiiiitttttttt. Drove down the car park with no strange/lack of power steering. Turn the ignition off and restarted and HICAS warning light disappeared, phhhewwwww. Car drove fine after that. Errrrr, should I be worried as this could be a warning of future Zed sickness?????

Today, got the wheels/ tyres sorted out i.e. left wheels on left side of car and right wheels on right. Things were looking goooooooood.

After work I took a colliege out for a spin in the Z. Everything was fine until I sensed that the Z seemed sluggish. He didn't notice ofcourse and I thought perhaps it'll pick up later. Later on it played on my mind and so took it for a spin. I noticed the boost wouldn't go passed 7psi. Remembered........SAFETY BOOST being mentioned on this forum. Became VERY worried. Got home and got on this forum to read about safety boost....got even MOOOORE worried. Even though I am an atheist, I prayed, touch wood etc. Opened the bonnet wiggled any connectors I could see (it was dark) and get my fingers on. Took the car for a spin. Warmed the engine first before heavy footing. WOOOOHOOOOOO. Turbo boosts back to normal. Thank Jesus ( I'm slowly warm to his possible existence). Coming back to Derby I drove slowly to allow the trubos to cool down and noticed strange vibrations at rest and slow acceleration. Ah, had this before-loose coil connector. Stopped the car and pushed the rear right connector back in (loose by 10mm). Took the car for ANOTHER spin to make sure things were better. They were but I noticed half of the bloody petrol had dissappeared and I had only done 20 miles. Could this be because of excessive waste of petrol from the one cylinder????

Time to cool turbos down again. Stopped at traffic lights. Mercedes C200 pulled up next to me. He had a bird with him. Thought C200 vs 3litre twin turbo...NAAHH not worth it. The bloody git put his foot down and laughed with his bird as he pulled away. Wanker....that's it. Put my foot down and left the f'er standing. That'll teach him a bloody good lesson. He kept behind me after that, tosser.

I'm in love with my Z again even though it has picked up a constant screeching noise from the front left brake disc today.

 

Sorry is was rather long winded but then I'm not called a wordsmith for no apparent reason.

 

Laterz,

Van

 

Your HICAS light may just be alerting you to a low fluid level; the stuff expands with heat so the light will go off when the car warms up.

 

I think I'm right in saying that the safety boost 'mode' is cleared when you switch off, so there still might be something wrong that will set safety boost again. I'll leave this for someone more knowledgable though!

 

As for your mysterious disappearing petrol, I recently had misfiring problems too (assuming thats what you just had) but didn't have any abnormal loss of go-juice, other than what the Z normally guzzles its way through. Dunno, check for smelly puddles under the car... but avoid naked flames in the meantime, eh?

 

Raz

 

Bloody hell Mister Bran Van Shakespear 3000.

I thought I babbled hehe

check:

Brake Fluid level - numero uno cause of Hicas light coming on then mysteriously disappearing. (the fluid heats, therefore expands, therefore meets capacity requirements, therefore Hicas is satisfied)

I would pay no attention to stock boost gauge, as reliable as a Metro, but trust your instincts on your cars performance - your boost gauge wont tell you your in safety boost, but if you like to drive hard you can kinda tell if it aint pulling right - sort of a zed 6th sense. But if your gauge goes right up normally to good boost levels and then all of a sudden it sticks at 7, then yeah safety boost. Grrr at it

Its horrible and makes you sweat and cuss - find the reason for it.

Do this http://www.ttzd.com/diagnostic.html

Bare in mind that the wiggling of connectors probably had nothing to do with getting your full boost back, if you turn of the ignition the ECU resets and will only instigate safety boost next time it reads a problem.

There are 101 different reasons for the curse of the evil safety boost and really it is upto you to do some reading on twinturbo.net and try and suss out the problem, either that or book your car into SE and let them sort it

The screeching from the wheel is probably the clever little device Nissan built into the brakes to tell you the pads are shot. It is called metal rubbing on metal, its very simple and it works

Glen

 

Glen,

Bloody hell. Are you trying to take my place in the babbling stake???LOL. Fluid level is fine. Brake pads are fine as I checked whilst Mr Tyre had the tyres off. I did clean the calipers whilst the wheels were off though.....It's a case of 'if it ain't broken....' I suppose it could be the brake pads but then again.....the noise stops as soon as I brake sooooo I would assume it couldn't be worn pads. Bollocks, my instinct tells me that this could be one of those really irritating things that will take ages to sort out.

 

Van

 

[This message has been edited by Van300 (edited 28-09-2001).]

 

[This message has been edited by Van300 (edited 28-09-2001).]

the brakes, I had this on a car a while back, a horrible noise when moving and then it disappears when you brake. I thought that the metal stips are sprung behind the actual bit that makes contact with the disk, that way when it wears to a certain level the sprung stips pop out a rub on the disk - the manufacturers idea of when you should change your pads is understandably different to yours ? £££££

The front are fine-still about 7mm of pad left . I did check the rear brakes........and OK they need replacing, d'oh. Should I get the Nissan rear pads or are there better ones on the market???

Laterz,

Van