WillieO

When this happened to mine you could identify the side quite easily. Find a clear quiet road - floor it for 10 seconds - it won't be that fast - then stop open the bonnet and have a smell on both sides. The siezed side will have a very hot exhaust manifold due to the restriction placed by the siezed turbo. My engine would smoke a little on the siezed side as oil and muck was baked off the very hot manifold. You could also smell hot rubber! On mine it was the drivers side one that died after 140k miles.

It's bound to cause imbalance at high throttle openings. The balance pipe would be busy passing boost to the other bank. Its not a good idea even if it works enough to be driveable.

and when one turbo seizes the other cannot produce enough boost to even get the boost guage past zero. .... as I unfortunately found out but it was after 140k miles on the original turbos.

I have the Japspeed one in my garage for over a year now. Its going on soon. I could not believe how good the welding and polishing is. The X pipe is fully siamesed and welded all around. It seems a shame to have such a shiny piece of work under the car. I'm glad to hear good reports about the sound as the present system on is fully fabricated with 3.5" diameter pipes and 5" end pipes on Apexi cans, Its just a bit on the loud side for long distance cooling but does sound great in tunnels.

About the same as half a tank of petrol! Are you being serious? A passenger normally weighs between 50 - 80kg.

As Ossian says seized pistons are favourite in these cars. I had the same. If you find it hard to push back the pistons to fit new pads then this can be the reason. Tried skimming the discs but it did not get done correctly and juddering remained. New discs cured the juddering and vibration. But I found the 2 inner caliper pistons both sides were really stiff and it took massive pressure to pop those pistons to change the seals. The outer bellows were perished. You can clean up the pistons but once the rust has broken the machined surface layer the piston is pitted and going to rust again at that point. When the scarred bit reaches the seals and contacts air and moisture again it will seize again and once more you have crap brakes. The pressure from the working pistons then cause the other side of the disc to heat normally whereas the stuck pistons do nothing leaving that side colder. Result unevenly heated brakes under braking and next thing is a warp and juddering. I am convinced that when most people refer to 300zx brakes as crap then this is the problem. The only have half a caliper each side working. When they are working properly they are pretty good but obviously not up to track work with repeated hard braking. New pistons are available. they are same size as used on Scoobys I have some to be fitted - Box says BCP4025 http://www.brakepartssuperstore.org.uk/contents/en-uk/d11046.html

Why not just fix the wobbly joints you must have on yours? Also if your rear shocks are stuffed that can have the back end doing all sorts of things over manhole covers etc. Properly working HICAS is actually pretty good.

There's small hoses above the thermostat that run to each cylinder head that can leak only when its really hot and make like the water pump is finished since the water runs down the pump. However it stops quick when the engine is off and the pressure is gone in cold weather. Another favorite is the small hoses to the turbos at the rear of the engine - sometimes seen as steam and smell of anti freeze just after switch off. Radiator cap another loss point. Good tip is to squeeze the top rad hose when the engine is well warmed up. Its should be firm (and hot). If its soft then you have a leak someplace.

The UK/ Europe rad is supposed to have about 30% more cooling capacity than the JDM one. They also have a diff oil cooler as well. It was all about being able to cruise continuously on unrestricted autobahns at very high speeds. I agree with the stuff on thermostats. It is pointless using a lower temp one. It is also a fallacy that a giant radiator will make for it to run any cooler than the minimum size radiator needed to dump the maximum heat output on the hottest day. The correct thermostat regulates the heat dumped to the radiator and if it doesnt need to dump much then it wont. Just try to get an engine with a broken jammed open thermostat to warm up! It doesnt happen. It just runs cool and drinks fuel.

That sounds terminal. Maybe they just cleaned the filter of bits of debris the first time but the symptoms you mention are exactly those of a terminal transmission. Been through the same. The fluid will be brown and smell a bit burnt instead of red and clear.

Sorry but this is often a sign of a dead autobox.

Pop a bit of oil in the bush - not difficult result silence

You prolly also got a duff rear shocker maybe on RHS making the rebound kick the car to the left

I actually araldite epoxy'd the broken ear bit back on the starter motor again with some small metal struts in the epoxy to brace the edges and wrap over the corner where the hole is. The starter motor was then put back on the car to get it going temporarily. Another starter motor was then bought ready to replace it when the araldited bit would surely break again. That was more than 3 years ago. It is still working fine and the spare is in the garage! The nuts work loose and the starter motor breaks its mounting flange when it tries to start the engine while it is half hanging off.

It just means it is more of an insulator than air. It does not mean that your connections won't make conductively. The connections are mechanically forced metal to metal and the more you can exclude air from the bare metal the better chance the connection has of staying sound long term. The age of these cars and our damp climate means that copper oxides form easily and in doing so slowly force connections apart giving high resistance and various problems. O2 sensor conns, coil pack conns, temp senser conns and injectors are all candidates for problems from oxide plus others.

You might need to lag that pipe behind the heads as there are a couple of hoses round the back, turbo coolant etc that are going to cook with the heat from there.

Don't think you need to remove the plenum to get at fuel hoses, only the cover panel in the middle over the throttle cables. You should then be able to get at all of them. I think!

The boost would always equalise with the balance pipe. All that could happen is that the one with the restrictor might try to work the hardest when on boost but the pressure would never get up to the levels with both turbos on the same conditions. So technically no bad or good thing. When one turbo is seized the working one can never make enough boost for any positive pressure but that might be because it leaks past the vanes on the stuck turbo via the balance pipe.

Make sure they really are duff first! Thought one of mines was but it turned out to be green oxide in the connector.

Gearbox mount can sag as well adding to the problem. The propshaft centre bearing can be temporarily padded using strips of 5mm ish thick rubber or polythene to pack it up. Same with the autobox mount. You have to gently jack up the shaft near to the centre bearing so that you can see a gap in the cracked up bellows effort as the bearing lifts up. It is riding on the bones of its ar5e so to speak and out of line. You pack a couple of 5 mm thick ish strips in there and let the jack down. Result the shaft is now centred better and vibration should be gone until your new part arrives. The strips eventually work their way out of place tho.

http://www.hypertechscotland.co.uk/ They swapped transmissions on mine and also turbos on another occasion. They know zeds!

There's different versions on Euro and JDM cars.

Take the oil filler cap off when its idling and look inside. You should see plenty of oil washing over the camshaft indicating good oil flow. As others have said the stock oil pressure sender is not reliable and tends to wear out in the bits of its measuring range where it usually sits in. So you can find it works great when the oil is cold and the pressure really high then falls away to hardly anything when hot.

First check it isnt one of the two hoses to the heads that are just above the water pump and behind the top radiator hose connection. They are favourites to fail every few years and when leaking look exactly like its coming from the water pump. Obviously if the water pump bearing has gone you'll feel the play!

Might make you think about water spray for the intercoolers - just set up a couple of windscreen washer motors and a some tubing and jets - Viz type top tip for improved intercooler operation!