Mike Duffy

Anyone know (or any traders volunteer) a good place to get an underdrive pulley from? Going to be replacing mine when I put the engine back. I've heard of problems with belts being the wrong size, etc. It's for a '92 turbo manual. Cheers.

I know exactly the sound you mean. Like a police siren as you said. The more the boost, the higher the pitch. Mine did exactly this. It only did it when cold at first then started doing it more and more. The bad news is, I've just pulled my engine and took the turbos off. The exhaust side of one is full of oil and the shaft has a huge amount of side to side play in it. They're both going to Turbo Technics for a recondition tomorrow. Sorry if this sounds like bad news for you.

Took the engine out again yesterday to get the turbos sorted. Got the time down to five hours now which I thought was bloody good. I've updated the engine removal guide as there were a couple of ommissions. http://www.300zx.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=44738

I didn't say how old she was. She may be 36!

Thanks very much but less of the "Mrs" please. I've been hearing a lot more of the "sh1t or get off the pot" type lines recently!

You think I get into those sorts of do's for free? Did you not know about my sideline job?

Bugger! I uploaded the wrong two pictures. Never mind, they'll have to do.

Here's one with her curtains pulled apart slightly and another one with her tw@t on it. (Poor quality courtesy of camera phone)

I didn't mean by the moderators. I meant the sort of trouble that leaves you gathering your clothes up out of the front garden into bin bags and living with your mum again at the age of 35.

This is the cleanest one I could find. Got plenty more but I'd probably get in a lot of trouble!

New pads or new handbrake shoes? I replaced the handbrake shoes and this sorted out my vertical handbrake!

I've just finished the engine refitting guide as promised. Link to it below... http://www.300zx.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=48712 This is to compliment the engine removal guide I did some time back. I've also updated this slightly as well. http://www.300zx.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=44738 So if you took your engine out and were waiting for this, you can now put it back in again!

Yeh I was quite pleased with that too. I'm now considering whether it's worthwhile getting them both reconditioned or buying something bigger. I wouldn't mind trying to recondition them myself if I could get hold of a kit for them as per MTL's guide.

See previous post mate. About 80,000 miles, all on a de-cat.

Yeh I read that a while back and found it very interesting. However, my turbos aren't standard ones and are from Turbo Technics. I doubt I'd be able to get a kit to do it myself.

I don't think it's the inlet side leaking as the oil would be burnt before it entered the exhaust. Also, the balance bar would allow the oil into both sides of the engine, resulting in blue burnt oil smoke coming out of both exhausts. Can't see it being anything other than the exhaust side leaking. The car has been de-catted since before these turbos were brand new. The turbos have done about 80,000 miles. Anyone any idea how much Turbo Technics are likely to charge to rebuild both turbos once I've got them out of the car?

Plugs are fine. Did a compression test and all six cylinders are similar. They all read slightly on the low side however, but I think that may be down to a badly calibrated Harry Halford's guage.

Hi all I've not looked at the car for well over a month as I bought a second car as a run around (P Reg Astra 2.0). The other car's been trouble free and cheap, and as I've got a one year old baby boy, I'd used up all my favours with the other half when I did the work on the Zed in January. However, this weekend, I did a couple of hours on diagnosing it properly, before I remove the engine again. I took the angle-grinder to the exhaust and removed the connecting tube from the h-pipe, then welded stainless steel plates over the resulting holes. I'd got fed up with finding it hard to diagnose which bank/turbo was causing problems as the h-pipe effectively made it into one exhaust. And I've heard very little evidence that systems with the h-pipe perform that much better than those without. And I'd rather have a troublesome car that's easier to diagnose than have the benefits of the h-pipe. And if it does turn out to be really sh1t later when it's working again, I can always add another h-pipe connection. And the result? Now I get huge clouds of smoke and flames out of the drivers side exhaust only. These occur when revving hard, not on overrun. Oh, and the driver's side pipe is full of oil. The passenger side pipe has oil from the old h-pipe connection down to the back box, and is perfectly clean upward of that. Any new diagnoses from anyone? I'd find it very hard to bet against rear oil seal failure of the driver's side turbo.

Do you know any that will mirror my existing no claims?

As the zed's still bust I've bought a second car as a spare. Got an Astra 2.0 sport for £850. The zed is on my own personal insurance. If I register the astra in my company's name, can I drive it third party on my existing insurance? I am allowed to drive cars not owned by myself. Or does the astra have to be insured separately? Somebody told me my third party cover for other people's cars only applies if the other car has its own insurance policy in place.

COLT, yeh I agree mate. Haven't had the time or the inclination to go and look at it yet though! Good place to start though. WillyEd, nah not added anything else. And the ECU checks out ok with no fault codes. I've clamped the PCV lines to stop oil entering that way and it makes no difference. And the smoke definately smells oilly. I know the flames are a bit dramatic but would fuel problems really cause that much and colour of smoke? I'm really thinking turbo seals.

The engine ran fine for a week after putting it back in. This is something that just started to manifest itself yesterday. All sensors are connected and not indicated as errors on the ECU fault readout. The smoke comes out of both exhausts presumably because of the connecting pipe just before the back boxes. It appears to be worse out of the driver's side one so I'm guessing that's the side with the problem.

Cheers guys. I've stuck it in the FAQ section as well as I suppose that's the best place for it.

Yes... very smokey! I'm pretty sure there is an oil smell to the smoke. Apart from that, the engine runs perfectly ok. I was presuming turbo seals as the smoke doesn't appear blue so, if it is oil, I would guess it was added to the gases after the combustion chambers. And the flames and backfiring I would guess are caused by the oil burning in the hot exhaust/exhaust gases. And the real pi55er. I only just put the engine back in! The turbos were fine when I took it out. I only did the bottom end of the engine. Didn't touch the top end as that was all fine. Although the engine did take a bit of a knock as I dropped it slightly (about 18 inches! Landed sideways on its mount luckily but also caught the turbo downpipe) But let's not go there as that all starts to get a bit embarrassing!

I've finished putting together my engine removal guide, based on the photos and notes I compiled when removing my engine recently. Hope this is of some use to people. http://www.symatix.co.uk/300zx/EngineRemoval/EngineRemoval.htm I'll let you know how to put it back in again when I've finished the follow on document!