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Got some stuff back from the wrapping company I found. These were items I tried to vinyl wrap and exceeded my technical ability pretty obviously, so I farmed them out.
Pulled the passenger seat out today for a few reasons (below) and of course it spiraled into never ending preconditions LOL.
Battery tray bolts were disintegrated, so needed to drill out the remainders, tap the holes, and get new ones. This time I painted those suckers with a thick coat of plasti-dip. Had to clean battery terminals again despite the felt washers, and it looks like my battery has expelled acid at some point - I'll be glad when this thing dies so I can get an optima or other sealed battery. Looks like water has been dripping down the windshield under the cowl and dripping into the HVAC vent opening too - no harm no foul, it just drips out the bottom, but grr another thing to fix.
Bit the bullet and poked the oil pressure gauge wiring through the firewall grommet. Well, OK, I over-engineered it of course. First, I cut the gauge wiring and made an extension harness that connects about 4" away from the grommet with a WeatherPack connector - big and overkill, but waterproof and automobile-intended design. The wires that go through the grommet run through heat shrink and I put RTV in the open end before shrinking so it makes a sealed mass at the engine-bay side. Poked a hole with an awl instead of slitting the grommet and used my wire spoon to stretch it out enough to get it through, and then RTV'd where it went through. The wire inside has shrink tubing for about 2' so I can run it over towards the driver's side but after that just 6" wire tie as I would an aircraft harness (it's milspec wire, so why not?) LOL. Sorry, no pics yet - was working fast to beat a rainstorm.
The seat is out so I can easily get my noggin in the footwell on that side - I'm going to hit the AC coil with frigi-fresh to kill the odors after removing the blower motor temporarily, then run the gauge wiring over to the driver side, then reinstall the trim and the glove box for the first time in 3 years. While out, I've got a flawless leather upper skin from a junk car to put on the seat to fix the cracked sidewalls, and leather conditioner to hit the whole thing with.
I've realized that I have only 2 more weekends to prep the car for Z Nationals, so I feel some of my work-from-home days will be spent with the work laptop hooked to the TV in the garage (it was free) so I can do email in between working on the car. Regardless of what I need to do otherwise it needs to be clay bar and waxed. Think I'll wait till I get to my buddy's in ATL to re-plastidip the wheels - looks great when fresh.
Last thing - measured the ground-body seam and ground-wheel arch with the 370Z Nismo red springs and Konis on it - 6" front almost exactly and 6.125" rear. Front wheel arch is 27.5 and rear is 27. So I think I need to go up 1/2" in the rear for me to be happy with it. I've got the stock springs for sale, but maybe I put them back on the rear? The spring rates are higher with the Nismo spring tho.
Last last thing - got the cupholder insert (along with my cupholder assembly) back from @iCrap along with a final print of my OBD2 gauge clock replacement bracket so I might be putting the interior back in (gasp).
Actually... I've got a bin full of plastic parts, and other than obvious stuff like the kick panels, I'm not sure where half of it goes.
To add... there are some things I wanted to do that just won't happen before Z Nationals. Since I'm getting the car tuned the day after, I need to focus on what I need for that first - I've got to remake a VQ37 fuel rail to fit the VQ35 lower intake, swap both intakes to the car, and it looks like my pretty 2.5" honeycomb MAF housings won't fit my long-tube setup as it currently is (they're much longer than the altima MAF housing). I'm debating whether to send the injectors that came with the spare 37 fuel rail to Witchhunter to get them cleaned - the timing will be tight if I do. I guess I could always do that later - if they're dirty now at 70K miles I think the tune would still be OK just the long term trim would change some. Should I do new plugs too? (for the tune; the car runs fine now).
Some things like the PCV catch cans, rear spoiler, RJM pedal, fog lights, painting headlights/demon eye install I just don't have time to do. I'm not sure I have time to compound/polish the trunk lid to remove the shadow of the infiniti/fuji emblems to put my skyline/370GT emblems on, or mod the taillights, or or or... sigh. Crap, I need to either finish the Q50 mirror install or reinstall the G37 mirror temporarily too...
What I really need is a week off to wrench on the car, but it's the busy season at work and I'm lucky I can take the Monday after ZNats off.
Found a company selling on eBay (from the UK!) that sells the boot with a 3d printed frame already attached. Nice work, looking it over. They didn't sell exactly what I wanted but customized without a problem (black suede white stitching).
Making some compromises in mod timeline so that I have time to wrap up before ZNats.
No headlight mods. Might not even have time to sand them clear again.
No trunk spoiler.
No fog lights - just black duct tape over the holes.
No new leather on driver's seat - the passenger seat has taken me 4 days already.
No painted center caps.
No RJM pedal install.
No modded VQ35 LIM/VQ37 fuel rail to mount the VQ35 UIM without slotting
Probably no port matching, knife-edging and polishing of throttle bodies
No cleaned injectors for dyno tune
Possibly no JDM emblems (Skyline, 370GT)
No OBD2 gauge replacing the clock (it will just be a hole for now)
Off the top of my head, that's it. There were already things I had decided not to bother with for ZNats like the modded tail lights and purple demon eyes since no one would see them with the car off. Wanted to run the wiring while running other wiring, but ran out of time and wire.
Last edited by rotarymike; 10-05-2021 at 04:16 PM.
Thank you! I do go back and forth on it - in some light it looks like black camouflage (what my wife calls it) and in some light it's clearly carbon. Didn't want carbon twill that everyone has, thought about ebony woodgrain but the vinyls all look super fake so... I'll live with it a while. The center stack is a bit much though.
News from Georgia. ZNats was a hoot (I'll post pics in the event thread when I get caught up on sleep). Had a good weekend with friends that have really adopted the quirky parts of Atlanta. And Monday 314H@6800 / 273T@4920.
So. One of my back-burner projects has been to swap the upper intake manifold for one from a VQ35. Different length and resonance runners change the torque peak, although it would also reduce peak HP some. Link here https://www.myg37.com/forums/intake-...e-vq37vhr.html for a thread about how to do it.
I still believe the proper way to do this is with an unmolested VQ35 upper AND lower, and modify the VQ37 fuel rail to fit. But, running out of time I half-assed it. TL;DR: it worked anyway.
Started by making a template (what would have been a gasket in another time).
Helps that I had a VQ37 lower intake by itself to jig this all up.
Instead of the cover/clamshell plate that Motordyne and the above post's author used, I decided to use the bosses built into the top of the manifold bolt holes. Since they were now off by a bit, I'd need washers that sat in the bosses but were slotted to allow the offset. Since the manifold only sees atmospheric or a light vacuum, this is more a don't-come-loose proposition than a clamp-to-prevent-flying-apart one as with a cylinder head.
Last edited by rotarymike; 10-13-2021 at 05:30 PM.
One bolt (#5 counting from the front, not including the nut) just wouldn't go - too close to the wall. That one will need another longer bolt and a larger washer... but for now, left it out.
Other things not mentioned in the thread mentioned above. The Throttle Body crossover/coolant pipe assembly at the back of the manifold won't fit without judicious bending. I think I have a VQ35 one, will give that a try to clean things up. The PCV reroute to the lower rear manifold nipple is to put it mildly, a hack. So will have to re-engineer that one so it isn't sucking too much vacuum / oil. Possibly including catch cans.
Monday I had it tuned with John at Z1. Had a conversation about why the hell I would put the older manifold on there, but the proof is in the pudding - nice, smooth torque curve down low.
Last pull was the olive green one - 314 HP at 6800 RPM, 273 ft/lbs at 4920 RPM. No issues with the manifold at all.
Power affecting mods: FI resonated HFC, FI Catback, VQ35 upper intake manifold, Z1 after-MAF tubes, 2.75" MAF housings with honeycomb air straighteners, 2.5" intake piping to RC Engineering filters in front of the radiator panel. That's it, and that's about as far as I need to go.
From looking on the web, it seems like the driveline loss is between 13 and 16% so that means 355-364 HP and 308-316 ft.lbs. Not too far off the Z1 400 HP package that also includes headers and test pipes.
09-19-2021, 05:20 PM
