No lift life SUCKS. Can't wait to see the results, gonna have to go easy on that AT though :ugh2:

Definitely agree with you sir!

No lift = Life sucks, can't agree more lol.

And yup, I will definitely get a boost controller and limit it to 10 - 12 psi max until I get the RJM fully built transmission! haha.

My friend noticed that one of the impeller fins is bent a little bit, from the inside. The scammer dude hit the impeller on something. Thing is that they can probably fix it he is guessing. He said he doesnt think its a big deal, its at the edge of the impeller.

I told him if its like that they will highly likely replace the entire impeller lol.

What do you think?

He said its barely noticeable, very very small bend. The scammer hit it on something most likely.

I called 928 and notified them when it should be arriving (the 12th) so he said he knows its coming soon and its already scheduled in. Yay

And yeah, Vortech wouldnt touch my blower lol so thats why I decided to send to 928.

Im going to just use what they give me back for now but will eventually save up and upgrade to the Novi 2200x blower, and figure out a way for an air filter to fit on that with our cars, since that uses same bracket as the current v3s, and is the counter part blower to the V7-Ysi-Billet blower.

Maybe sell the fully upgraded working 928 blower down the road as well when I change blowers.

If you try to bend it back. It may crack at the base of the bend. That's been my experience with impellers.

Yep. Not touching it. Ill let 928 deal with it and inspect it to see if its worth fixing or replacing.
Honestly if I have to get a new impeller so be it.
I know for sure im paying for a new oil slinger since its not even in there.

For impeller, not sure but ill be prepared to pay for a new one.

And for bearings it should be fine since they both are im there brand new just not put in properly due to it spinning not freely as it should as it gets caught up in something as you try to spin it.

And for seals, I sent the rear seal since we didnt put that in, and the front seal was put in and still brand new.

So hopefully at max they charge me 700 total or so for everything.

We will see though!

Got a call back from Carl at 928motorsports regarding my blower.

He told me it is not repairable by them due to the impeller shims / washers missing. This caused the impeller to hit the casing and metal shards to be transferred.

He said the transmission part is still good to go (the housing) but the impeller may need rebalancing.

He also stated that it needs an oil slinger, unless whoever takes this will want to make it externally oil fed, then they do not need an oil slinger.

The bearings and the seals are still fine as well.

I told him to ship it back to me since the expensive ceramic bearings are still good. At least, I could sell those, if not the entire head unit as is to someone for a very cheap price.

I am willing to let it go for $200 - $300, the entire thing as is.

If still interested, let me know.

Thanks!


I will also be saving up for the next few months for the Paxton Novi 2200x Supercharger, built by ECS (East Coast Superchargers)

Since it is the same bolt pattern as our current bracket, I can fit it into our car.

I just need to find out a plausible solution for an air filter to fit.

/blower sold.

... Long Awaited Update ...

Hey guys! Cupcakez here! Just wanted to give you guys an update on my car.

I know you have all been /DYING/ to know what has been going on.
I'm still alive folks! Just been a very large struggle in the past month or two to try to prepare everything to make sure the car is up and running in one go.

So earlier this month, I had to buy pulleys from Stillen for the SC bracket. It turns out that during a blower swap last year, I happened to accidentally swap brackets with my friend and the bracket he had did not have the bottom idler pulley that goes on the SC bracket, nor did it have the stock top idler pulley next to the jackshaft 9psi pulley. Oops! ...So I ordered the stock pulley assembly from Oreilleys and got the pulley the next morning since the warehouse wasn't too far away from the actual Oreilly's shop.

The install went smooth. I was extremely excited... only to find out that the bottom idler pulley of the SC bracket was missing! Everything was fine, up until we ran into the issue that is caused none other than myself. I have nobody to blame, not even luck itself, but myself. We are missing an idler pulley that goes to the left of the subaru idler pulley on the Supercharger bracket. Friend A did an amazing job today and, as always, goes above and beyond every time he works on my car. I love the guy, don't know what I'd do without him in terms of my car running or not. So thankful that my tuner ByThaBay introduced me to him last year. One of very few best, most honest and caring people I met last year.

We finished installing the Quaife differential first. Then we ran into the issue of attempting to pit the rear subframe on. One side would be flush while the other remained gapped for a mysterious reason. Only to find out that the gap was caused by the actual subframe being slightly bent (probably from a speed bump I went over causing the back to be scraped? Or maybe I bought the car like that, not sure!)
But he fixed the issue by bending it back through a funny method that worked lol. K so now the rear is done - exhaust, brace, and subframe all snug.

Onto the Supercharger assembly and install.
We had issues fitting it in the vehicle, as it had to be clocked multiple times until we got it to fit exactly where it needed to be. Took a while but he did it! And then during the assembly, we find out that we are missing a bolt and washer for the supercharger pulley, lol. So I freak out, Adel calms me down and says we could get it at Oreilleys or Autozone. We head to Oreilleys and he carries the entire bracket assembly with the supercharger head unit on into the store, LOL. We go in, and the store manager helps us out by finding the exact bolt needed to fit inside the pulley. At first we couldn't find the right size and thread. Dude opens up a $12 package thinking it has the right bolt we need only to find out.. it isn't in that package! LOL. Then we switch to looking at metric sizes and low and behold, we find the correct size and threaded bolt! Haha. Bought a pack of those and a pack of washers, headed home, fixed up the bracket assembly and it goes in the car!

Only issue preventing me from starting the car is an idler pulley in which another friend saves my day and immensely helps me out by helping me find where I can get one. Thankfully he found one from Oreilleys and so I called them and ordered it, and they said it would be in the store tomorrow morning at around 11:15 AM. I am super lucky for this to have happened.

Now I'm onto worrying about the bottom idler pulley, the specs of it, the hardware, where the heck do I get it?!?!

After /Over 9000/ phone call spams to Stillen and countless e-mail spams, I finally hope this is the last straw for what I need in order for my poor little sweet Mustard Zeed to live again! I told them exactly what I needed. Should be at my house in 2 days or less. If any of these parts still do not fit where it is supposed to go, then....it's all bad!

We are almost there. I'm thinking...
"Stillen, please do not make me regret doing business with you!"

The last time my sweet little mustard Zeed was working was early October 2018 then I got screwed over with the local mechanic who scammed my money and broke my blower, and didn't tell me about it. Got a replacement blower only to have it taken away 1 day later because my friend found out he needed to give it back to the shop he took it from lol, I got my money back for that.
Sold my blower in late December for a steal price of $250 to a local person.

Then Mr. Kao sold me his V3 Ti blower and I finally got it last week.

Put that bad boy in the car, swapped over my Quaife LSD at the same time.

Started up the car today and here's a video!

After 4 months of struggling and endless issues, the light of the end of the tunnel has been found. Video speaks for itself. A huge thank you to my mechanically inclined friends Friend A, Friend B & my tuner 'ByThaBay' my who played a huge part in getting this to work. Im super thankful to each of them and also very very thankful to those friends who I raged, complained, QQ'd, and cried to in the last 4 months for always positively supporting me. Couldn't have done it without each and every one of you.

Nice to see you again my sweet sweet baby mustard Zeed!

https://vimeo.com/317386271

^--------PROOF THE CAR WORKS-------^


The only issues that I can see right now after daily driving the car for about an hour around town is...

(1) Minor oil leak from the front of the car: I saw some small oil drops on the garage floor. Need to get that checked out to see where it's coming from.

(2) The oil temperature...Not sure if the oil cooler is working anymore even though it was working the last time I drove it and we didn't even touch it since then! It would not go past 180 degrees back then, but now it would stay at around 195 - 200 when casually driving it around town. Not sure what changed. Maybe something is leaking in the oil cooler or idk!

(3) The coolant temperature used to stay around 90 degrees Celcius the last time it was working. Today, it was sticking around 99 - 102 degrees Celcius. Not sure if that's bad. But it could also be due to a few air bubbles still in the system and the large amounts of water we poured into the car to add "coolant" to it. I may just take it to Nissan to have them do a complete flush and fill up of proper anti-freeze again since where I work it snows sometimes (as it snowed last two weeks, so I definitely cannot have pure water as my coolant in the system if I am to be in that weather parked for 3.5 days straight).

(4) The serpentine belt got skidded a bit due to it being way too close to the overflow tank in the front of the engine bay. I will just trim off that tiny part of the overflow tank to make sure it doesn't touch the belt again -- that would be terrible to have a semi-eaten up serpentine belt in which my overflow tank ate up due to both of them being way too close to each other!

(5) I have a few more things to install later this year:
- Polyurethane engine mount
- AAM Oil Pan Spacer Kit
- New Brake Pads & Rotors (Planning to get genuine Akebono brake rotors and stuff)

Other than that, I will be spending the rest of this year driving her safe, paying everything off and then think about saving up for a house, and /THEN/ I will do phase 2 upgrades of this car (Upgraded 7AT, Return Fuel System unless I need it earlier then I will get it, etc)

Thank you guys for following my thread and staying with me this entire time.
It's been a really rough ride so far but 2018 is over and I am really hoping I don't have 2018 luck anymore.
2019 has been treating me way better than 2018 has so far and I hope it stays that way!

"We finished installing the Quaife differential first. Then we ran into the issue of attempting to pit the rear subframe on. One side would be flush while the other remained gapped for a mysterious reason. Only to find out that the gap was caused by the actual subframe being slightly bent (probably from a speed bump I went over causing the back to be scraped? Or maybe I bought the car like that, not sure!)
But he fixed the issue by bending it back through a funny method that worked lol. K so now the rear is done - exhaust, brace, and subframe all snug."

Let me get this straight. You dropped the sub-frame to change the LSD in the diff? Correct? The only time to drop the sub-frame is to change the bushings. :shakes head: You don't have to drop it to work on the diff. :shakes head:

So installing the sub-frame. You ran into a problem. I just got done installing the SPL sub-frame bushing in my Z. From what I went through. One of the studs caused the sub-frame to hang up. Bet the same thing happened to you. Your sub-frame wasn't bent. If it was. You have a major problem with the body being twisted, and you have a bunch of bent suspension pieces.

No sorry. I forgot that my friend came last month to install the bushings. He also changed out the center bushing as well which was a *$&#$& to do.
That's why the story didn't make sense!
It's all whiteline now! Haha. Even the center one! I have the old broken cut out one as a trophy in my garage!!!

And yeah , I think you're right about the subframe cuz all the other pieces wasn't bent at all lol. ^^

You changed out the 3 diff bushings AND the 4 sub-frame bushings that mount to the body?

Nah it was just the center bushing since on the subframe since the LSD From red Z was being swapped in which already had all the other white bushings in the diff case.

We also ran into the issue of bolts for the diff to the axles. The bolts we had that was on the red Z was a tad too short for the Yellow 09 Z which was odd. So I had to go to Fastenal (bolt place) and buy the same type of bolt but a bit longer (10 of them in total I think it was). Even then when we put it in it was a bit difficult, had to use a vice grip to hold one spot in place while we put the new longer bolts in.

Lol.

i went for some driving right now cuz theres nobody out and i heard a PLAP! and all the sudden lights turned off, got really foggy in my car cuz it was drizzling rain, and battery light turns on, brake light turns on. steering wheel becomes stiff because power steering is no longer in session. so thankfully i was like 5 min away from home so i drove home and i made it home safely.

opened the hood.

found out the serpentine belt slipped off the system.
OOPS!!!! :rofl2:

You can also see the belt how it was rubbing against the overflow tank, lol.
I need to really sand that part down of the overflow tank that way it won't happen again.

Going to try to find out what the cause of this belt slipping off was.

I was driving it all day today under casual daily driving conditions -- no hard pulls or anything and it was fine. The moment I made 9psi and pushed it a bit hard, i heard the PLAP!

So it seems under high RPMS it slipped, but low RPMS it was fine.
Hmm.... I wonder what the issue is.

Possible Causes I can think of:
(1) One or more of the three pulley bolts we touched was not torqued down enough (Bottom Idler, Top Idler on the SC bracket / 9 PSI pulley on jackshaft serpentine side).

(2) Whole bracket was not tight enough so it flexed and caused this to slip off?

(3) Auto-tensioner went bad somehow?

(4) Any one have any other ideas?


Also, does anyone know what the torque specs are for these pulleys? Are they all the same or are they different for each pulley?

I have the two idler pulleys on the front of the SC bracket (Top stock one, and bottom idler pulley of the SC bracket). Then I have the 9psi pulley. I looked as much as I could but could not find any information on the torque specs for these pulleys on the bracket. Even the Stillen SC manual does not state it!)

Thanks guys!

PS -- I understand that as the belt is heated up it expands in diameter a tiny bit, so maybe that's what could have caused it? No idea.
Any feedback is welcome and thanked!!

Found out that the compressor Idler pulley popped off last night during my 9psi pull. LOL
Getting a replacement

Damn !!! I thought I was gonna be the King of "If it can go wrong" for life and here I am dethroned in a couple posts.

Murphy has nothing on this boy. :rofl2:

To be fair, this idler pulley popping off means it wasn't torqued properly to begin with. Which means this is 100% IPP's fault.
Nobody touched that pulley ever since the engine was given to me, because there was no reason to touch it.
Am I going to call IPP and tell them it's their fault? Probably not.

Unless the pulley came out and cracked my block causing a hole somewhere which makes oil leaks that will cost a fortune to fix, only then will I fight IPP for that. I'm still under warranty technically since it's only february and I didn't purchase the block and get it to me until like April / May ish of last year.

Lol.

So many issues I'm laughing about it now at this point.

I'm thinking to bring it to one person who is extremely mechanically inclined, and having them look over the entire car and look for any critical issues that may be, and have it fixed then and there.

Tired of playing the exponentially growing whack-a-mole game with these issues haha

Get it to Eugene.

I dunno what to tell you about your build but my IPP stage two is on the left in the picture just like it came off the pallet. Everything else was transferred from my block on the right.

Oh man. I think you're totally right haha

Now I know who to blame for that pulley then, thanks! Good thing you reminded me cuz i actually never saw the block when it came in from IPP.
I assumed it came with pulleys and everything but nope.

It was actually my mechanic who worked on the Red Z last year.

Damnit. Okay.

On it already. I let him know that next week I will bring the car to him either if it's drive-able by tomorrow I will drive it there sometime next week, or I will get it towed there using 1/4 of my AAA tows of the year.

He said it was alright to bring it to him.

He was actually supposed to look at it anyways but the car broke before I could even get it to him and it was raining over there too so that's another reason why he told me not to bring it to him.



EDIT:

I'm having AAA tow it to his house tomorrow morning. Since they are least busy at that time and least traffic too since Saturday morning!

Rough Ride :icon14:
Hopefully you’ll get everything straightened out :ugh2:

Hey, man. You like to play cards at all? We get a game of poker going every now and then... :icon17: Hope your luck changes for the better, soon.

You and me both man.
I really hope it changes for the better too.
Tbh, 2019 has been better overall than 2018 has.

Last year in the first 2 months of 2018 my engine threw a rod causing 3 giant holes in it.

This year first two months I only lost the compresser idler pulley lol.

And yes I love cards xD

I appreciate you all and for following this rough journey of mine, and for always supporting the entire time. It really does mean a lot and I wanted to share that with you all :)

My hope is that leaving the car with Eugene for a few days, the car will be street driveable without something popping off, leaking, overheating, breaking, etc. Haha.

Will defs keep you all updated!!!

I don't think Eugene will let your car leave his shop if it's NOT street driveable, if something is popping off, leaking or overheating. With your track record, I don't think he can guarantee the breaking part. 🤣

Haha you know what I mean you silly!!!!
I just want it better off than what it is now.
Ofc i cant get a gaurantee but hey i honestly feel safest with the vehicle in his hands than anyone elses' right now xD
Your absolutely right though!!!

*** Quick Small Update ***

AAA is currently taking my car to Eugene's house shortly.
Eugene has asked to keep the car there for 1 - 2 weeks as to make sure it is safe for when I drive it back home.

I really appreciate the guy more than this statement says.
I didn't expect him to diagnose the car at no charge, and even more -- I did not expect him to ask me to keep the car there for 1 - 2 weeks.

He told me he will do the best he can (and I know he will, especially with how meticulous he is with his work. And that he will even want to put a couple hundred miles on it to make sure the car is running safe and healthy, as well as do a lot of tuning on the car in person which I'm really happy about.

I told him that if my budget allows it, I will ask him to install the AAM Oil Pan Spacer kit as well as my yellow stuff brake pads that I left in the car in case, as well as if the budget allows it -- some brand new genuine akebono rotors as well.

He asked if I wanted to put it on the dyno machine not for tuning for power, but to make sure a few other things is okay with the car. I told him if the budget at the time allows for it, then sure, because it will cost about $600 to do so.

But before any of that I want to make sure it is free of all coolant, oil, transmission, blah blah blah you name it liquid leaks as well as the bolts are torqued to spec, and the parts on the car are genuine OEM parts and not any made in china parts. (I believe the pulley I purchased from O'reilleys was made in china -- the stock idler pulley that goes on the top of the SC bracket next to the jackshaft lol on the serpentine belt).

I also have a new polyurethane engine motor mount to swap in if time / budget allows it but that's not my concern right now so I will highly likely put that off til another time.

There's also some oil leak occurring somewhere in which I don't know where so I'm hoping to God that it is not from a cracked block due to the pulley popping off and hitting my block somehow causing oil leaks, as I saw there was oil above the oil pan and I'm hoping that was from the oil pan itself while driving which made it splash up there and nothing major. But we'll find out.

Stay tuned folks! Updates Updates Updates! Thread's alive again! haha.

Love you all <33

*Quick Update*

- Ordered two brand new stub axles to match the 09 Z

- My engine & transmission was being held on by a few bolts (maybe a 3rd or half of the bolts I was supposed to have -- they were completely not there!!!)

- Car has been in Eugene's shop (ByThaBay forum user) for about 4 days now.

- He found a whole slew of issues with the car, but I know it will all be taken care of.

- A custom adapter was made for the oil cooler sandwich plate because the previous one sucked

- Lower Oil Pan was re-gasketed correctly

- As for the stock idler pulley on the engine that slipped out a week ago, Someone damaged the threads before, There is a thread insert in the hole so the original bolt that supposed to go in there doesn't fit -- we need to find right bolt that has correct shoulder for threading to match the thread inserts. Eugene brought it to a machine shop and is getting this taken care of. Guy says he will try to find the correct wider bolt but if not he will find a solution for it somehow, so that's good news for us!

- He recommends I get a new rear control arm, and possibly go back to stock height / stock suspension and get rid of the KW V3's (Not sure if I want to do that though, I love my KW V3s) -- Instead I may just invest in some airbags to deal with any speed bumps / potholes I may run into on the road. He recommends this to avoid a lot of potential damage, since there's a lot of damage under the car from bottoming it out against things and if I put it to stock height it will be a lot safer for me to not damage the car

- Ordered a new battery for my car and wants me to return the YellowTop Optima battery (~$300 for that fresh battery), thankfully I can return it.

- Ordered new differential stopping plates because I was missing them in my car (I don't even know what those are tbh)

- The wiring harness / engine bay harness was redone and took ~5 hours to put properly with the engine still in the car because the wiring was all bad and messed up / in dangerous positions

- Needs new tires because the ones that came with the car when I purchased it are bald (I'm thinking to get R888's or something)


*More updates to come*

Dang man, you sure you didn't end up with your old car again?? Jk

R888s are great but they become really dangerous in anything but warm weather and perfect road conditions. A little rain will send you all over the place. They are a hair away from Drags.

Hahah that's what I BE SAYIN!!!! Am I sure my yellow car isn't red underneath? xD

That is good to know. I may not get R888s then since it tends to rain here where I live / travel to often. Definitely not good lol. I may look into some all weather tires then!

I wouldn't go as extreme as all weather. You do live in California. Just find a performance tire that's good in wet conditions. Like Pilot super sports or something. Not cheap but worth it. Trust me.

I definitely trust and value your opinions!
I will take your advice and look into a performance tire that is good in wet conditions (Pilot super sports since you mentioned that I will look into that when the time comes for me to get new tires!)

It's okay I keep the same sizes as the stock tires you think? That way I can use the same rims and all that or what do you think?

Go as wide as you can fit on your rims. The larger the meat, the more hook. Install a Quaife lsd if you have the $.

Oh! I have a Quaife LSD already :D
Okay as large as I can get - more traction, got it.

I may go 305/35/19s then except this time, I won't buy the Mickey Thompsons I had on my red Z that helped contribute to my crash lol.

I will get a different brand this time like the ones you mentioned!

Thanks man! Thankfully the Quaife LSD is already inside the differential housing unit which is already on my yellow car!!

I'm not sure if it's normal though:

When I was driving it in the rain for the first time (the Quaife LSD), every time I would do a U-Turn or a sharp turn of some sort, the rear tires felt like they were rubbing or locking up, as if I was going to slip out or slide if I went any faster.
So i tested it and just let the car do a U-Turn on its own without even pressing the gas pedal at all (like 5 MPH or whatever it is) and it still made that weird noise / feel to the rear tires.

is this normal for the Quaife LSD to do in the rain?

When it's dry I never felt any of that! Might be normal and something I've just not ever felt before.

One way, 1.5 or 2?

1.0

:iagree:

As far as the bolts you need go, I think you posted all the info you need to order them. If you need shoulder length, I can measure some for you.

Thanks man! Yeah I was trying as much as I could to dig up information on them.

M6 x 30mm (Pitch = ???) -- Need (x7) total.

M8 x 30mm (Pitch = 1.25) -- Need (x4) total.

I am going to head to Ace Hardware tomorrow and purchase M6 x 30mm flange bolts from them in pitches 1.0, 1.25 and 1.5 just to cover all my bases.

The shoulder length someone told me via facebook group that since these bolts are reused OEM bolts from the stock block itself (aka generic bolts as he put it)...the shoulder length is of no concern since they are the same on all 'generic' bolts. I hope he's right about that.

He told me the only bolts directly from Stillen are the ones that go directly on the supercharger belt side (M10, and two M6 long ones) that is on the next page of the Stillen Manual after the Supercharger Assembly page.

If any of this information is false, please someone correct me before I go buying the wrong stuff!

As for the tires:

I was looking at these specs for front & rear.

Front: 275/30/19
Rear: 305/35/19

Both Michelin Pilot Super Sports

So if you reuse the OEM bolts then they would thread in 3/4 an inch less ( width of bracket). Not buying it.