nickz32

This!

Small update i borrowed a UJ off a good friend of mine so that my car stays mobile in time for this weekend (BIG milestone coming!) I removed mine and found it was utterly goosed, both notchy and stiff to move in all directions. JoelyP also pointed me in the direction of a recent FB post that identifies 350Z steering UJ’s as identical and half the price of 300zx ones! Nissan U.K. haven’t got any at the moment max but I’ve got one coming from European stocks that will arrive in plenty of time for my road trip in September

Good to see you back on here buddy!

Well on further inspection, I found I’d made a mistake when I reinstalled the rack when replacing the bushes. It appears that I’ve misaligned the column in the UJ, which has thrown the lower UJ out of phase with the upper…. While I’m not 100% sure it’s the cause of my stiff steering, it’s deffo worn out the lower UJ. I removed it today and found it to be free moving but very notchy. hopefully I can source a used replacement in the next day or so and I’ll look at getting a new unit when funds allow (theyre £240 for an OEM replacement!)

Ah nice! Let us know how you get on with them!

Turning left of centre the steering gets heavy and feels like it’s binding (I can feel it through the floor aswell as the wheel). At the moment everything mechanical checks out (column, UJ, wheels, hubs etc) so I’m going on the assumption it’s something hydraulic.

I’ve got a trip up to Snowdon at the end of Sept planned with my two closest mates in their cars (Gen 1 Legacy turbo and a 944) which I’m really looking forward to. ive still got a steering issue that I’ve got to figure out. I think im probably going to strip rebuild the rack as im running out of ideas as to what the problem is

Not yet, but completely agree. its going to be hard keeping it this clean with the amount of driving I want to do in it (let’s face it… I’ve got years of pent up z driving) but it’ll be a fun challenge!

Over the last few months, a friend of mine and I have been undertaking the most thorough detailing work I’ve ever undertaken. Just over 70 hours of work have gone into my car, from 2500 and 3000grit wet and dry, compounding, polishing, refining and ceramic coating. My back is utterly destroyed, so the pics aren’t as good as they could be, but I’m super proud of the results. I’d say I’ve achieved 99% correction (a couple of scratches couldn’t be removed), but she’s as good as I could ever hope to achieve #nofilterneeded

Pinged you an email

Yup I run a haltech elite drop me a pm

‘88 is Z31 not z32, so the concept z ones linked above won’t work

Who let this fool back in ?

Welcome back fella

I’d love to as I’m picking up my Z from mapping on the 28th, but I’m duty weekend at work so can’t get the day off

Well it’s been just over a week since she’s been MOT’d and all is going well so far. ive had a couple of small niggles to sort out with the Haltech. The long and short of it is that the Long Term Fuel Trim feature on the haltech wasn’t working. This feature basically looks at your target AFR number for each cell of the map, then looks at the AFR number the map is actually generating in that cell and auto adjusts that cell in the map to make the actual AFR fall in line with the target AFR…. It’s basically an auto tune feature. So after Haltech USA remote connecting to my ecu and having a look at what was going on, we could see that all the preconditions for LTFT were being met, yet LTFT wasn’t activating. We eventually figured out that my base map was corrupt. Haltech suspect that it’s either due to a cross compatibility issue with the basemap (that was written on an old version of the firmware, while my ecu is on the latest version) or at some point in the transfer from laptop to ecu it’s corrupted. Rick @ Haltech USA took my map and copied all my sensor calibrations, setting, inputs etc and wrote a new map from scratch for me, which did the trick and LTFT’s are now working properly. The advantage of LTFT is that road conditions and traffic load load the engine in such an infinite number of ways, it means that as a whole I should have a more complete map as well as leaving my tuner more time to focus on WOT tuning. She’s now idling as she should However, she’s just too loud for my tastes now. So I’ll be revisiting the exhaust setup in the near future to add another couple of silencers and a resonator to kill off some of the drone, for a more civilised exhaust volume

Be a shame if there’s no stand this year after the run of excellent stands we’ve previously had at the show

Looks like it’s been cancelled

Thanks mate! There are still a few niggles to sort through, but nothing that’ll stop me taking the tops off and enjoying it. Unfortunately I’ve got commitments this weekend so I cant make Simply Japanese, but i should be able to make any future meet and greets

All set for its first MOT in 3 years

Another job off the list was giving the coolant overflow a bit of a refresh as it was looking a little scabby. I used Bilt Hamber autofoam on the inside and Surfex HD degreaser on the outside with a green scotch pad…. Not quite “new” but not far off!

Been a busy week or so working on the Z. Unfortunately she developed a fairly significant oil leak last week that took an age to track down. After lots of time trying to trace it, I found it in the most unlikely of places. On the heads, these oilways are normally blocked up like the sludge traps on the crank. During the rebuild these were drilled out, tapped and sealed with a grub screw and sealant. Unfortunately, the sealant did not go off and set and the high oil pressure has basically pushed past it. One of those things that couldn’t have been expected. so I removed, cleaned and resealed with Ering Driko Grey high temp RTV, left it overnight to make sure it set and reassembled…. Have to admit, was nice to have a good look at my BDE pulleys again

New flywheel turned up today, which I promptly fitted. The positives, the car is now mobile again and the clutch is back to feeling how it should! the negative is that I’ve rediscovered a fault that I had forgotten about.... my power steering is notchy as hell! I suspected originally it was an air lock in the system, but now I’m not so sure.... looks like some more fault finding in the immediate future

Yup, can’t find them anywhere, which is why I ended up buying a new flywheel.... a touch annoying given the biggest advantage of the SZ flywheel was its serviceability