Hi I'm a new member and I've had my zed for 2 months now and wondered if anyone could help me please?

After many years I finally decided to go for the 300zx. Previously had a 260 and 280zx.

Decided not to buy from ebay as read all the stories of not getting the car home etc so found one with a fairly local trader, just imported and non turbo. Went for the test drive and fell in love. Had to wait for 2 weeks for registration, mot, service and cam belt change and got 6 months warranty - great I thought!

After getting home late on the sat, went out early next day for a good cruise and pose and managed to get 100 yds down the road! AA came out, cam belt tensioner stud had sheared off and come through the casing. Car went back to garage courtesy of AA and was hospitalised for 3 weeks for new valves etc etc (luckily had the warranty). On the way home again, new problem - car surges! Been back twice and had various things done but still got problem, not as bad as it was but bad enough.

In fairness trader has tried his best, but I havent got any faith in the workshop that he uses.

Can anyone in the Exeter or surrounding area recommend a garage or someone who other people use in this area?

I have seen 2 other zeds in Exeter if this was anyone on the forum then hi!

Any help or advice would be brilliant

Cheers

Paul

Hi Paul and welcome,

 

as you can see i'm pretty far away and can't help you on local specialists, but sorry to hear of your bad luck on first z32. On having owned a 260 and 280zx I would of thought you are a member of the http://www.zclub.net.

 

If not, I'm sure guys on here can point you in the right direction. best of luck fella.

Mick.

My black Z is in Exeter,Welcome mate. As for a decent garage in Exeter their is not many, but i have heard Tipton garage in Ottery St mary is pretty good, Specially for tuning and running on rolling roads etc. HTH

A guy called Chet Stroh mailed me the following information regarding surging. I think he wanted it published on my website, so putting it here first should do no harm :-

 

I bought my “91 300 Z 2+2 with 60,000 miles all ready on the odometer. Current Z owners may be happy to learn that my odometer now reads 246,000 and the car is still going strong.

 

Before buying the car, I took it out to put it thru the paces with the pedal to the metal. Once I had the car, I noticed that normal driving at 45 mph produced an irritating surge felt in the drive train. I took it back to the dealer but to no avail. I started experimenting on my own and discovered that if I disconnected the EGR valve, the surging was completely gone. I then concluded that the EGR valve was bad. Upon replacing the valve, it still had the surging problem. On an aside, it might also be of some interest that during the valve replacement, I discovered that the EGR return line on the passenger side was completely blocked with carbon. At the time I thought I finally found the problem but after clearing the line and replacing the valve, the surging was still there. After considerable consternation, this is now what I believe is the source.

 

As we all may know, the EGR valve introduces exhaust gas back into the intake manifold. This reduces the quantity of combustible fuel supplied to the engine which lowers the exhaust gas temperature to reduce NOX. The lowered exhaust temperature lowers the outlet exhaust pressure. The lower pressure results in less exhaust gas being fed back into the intake manifold by the EGR valve. Less exhaust feed back reverses the cycle raising exhaust temperature causing the exhaust gas outlet pressure to rise. Higher pressure causes more feed back of exhaust gas through the EGR which now once again drops exhaust temperature, repeating the cycle. This all results in cyclic variations in the quantity of combustible fuel supplied to the engine causing the observed power surges.

 

So what is the possible solution? The original design of this car has reed valves installed to introduce ambient air into the exhaust gas stream when exhaust pressures fall below ambient. The air is introduced just down stream of the exhaust exit from the engine. The valves on my car are no longer functional and my guess is that these valves compensate for pressure fluctuations which can upset the EGR system. I have not confirmed this by replacing the valves. As with everything else, the valves are somewhat expensive. However, I recently installed a new exhaust system with larger pipe id’s and less back pressure mufflers and this seems to have lessened the problem.