Update:

- I finally decided to put test pipes into the vehicle and swap out my OEM stock Cats (i know..i know.. about time, right?!) Test pipes will be going in tomorrow.

- I am swapping out both AFR sensors for very low mileage AFR sensors (~10k) from a healthy car (thanks to Husam for this) --> This is to further diagnose the source of the P2A03.

- Eugene is willing to help with a smoke test to see if there are any leaks they can detect with this method after putting in the test pipes & swapping out AFR sensors.



I figured if the P2A03 still comes back after putting in test pipes, and swapping out my current AFR sensors for the very low mileage ones, then I am just going to disable the code at that point, and call it a day -- as long as the AFR numbers are fine still.

It can't be a bad injector because I was driving the Red Z for 3 weeks with those same exact injectors and no code was thrown (before I crashed it).

Update:

- Found source of P2A03 code that I've had for so long. Turns out it was a bad cat. The idiotic shop I brought it to did not inform me of this so of course I would have never checked it if I never decided to remove my cats.

- Code hasnt shown up so far after being driven for 80 miles. The combination of new brakes pads and front rotors that just got put on is working extremely well so far.

- The vehicle sounds a lot better than before after replacing the cats, also breathes a lot better.

- Only making around 9psi on average but I'm happy with that.

- Performed exhaust leak: Nothing detected.

- Performed Boost Leak: Nothing detected.

- Will replace front 2 wheel hubs this week since the front 2 are not spinning well at all. It is not smooth

On that note, I am curious however to see the exact boost I'm running. Anyone can recommend a boost gauge I can purchase that is under $75? I'm not looking for anything fancy, and I dont care how it looks or mounts / doesnt moint in the car, just want to measure my boost using a gauge :)

/End Update

I have a Defi Blue Racer gauge I will sell to you for $75. They are known to be top of the line in the industry. Also have Defi Blue racer oil pressure if you want.

PMd :)

I second Defi being legit. I’m currently running the Defi Advance RS gauges (oil pressure/oil temp/boost) to match my green interior and I love them. :tup:

Update Recap: (Finally getting my car back today!)

A friend took care of the vehicle ever since I pulled it out of the idiotic shop that I brought it to. In the last 2 weeks, since July 3rd, he has found some time to work on my car and fix it up once and for good lol.

- Removed driver side door panel to take out a random screw from behind there (dono how it got behind there in the first place, it was there before I purchased the car lol)

- Inspected and put in a new gasket for the passenger sided cam shaft cover, and put something on it for extra protection. So far no oil leak is showing (he put cardboard under the car when he isnt driving it to see if anything leaks, so far nothing)

- Replaced all 4 of my brake pads with brand new EBC Yellowstuff Akebono pads

- Replaced front 2 rotors with 2 brand new slotted cryo-treated rotors

- Swapped out transmission mount with brand new Polyurethane transmission mount

- Cleaned engine bay and also under the car

- Swapped the ECU for a new one which fixed the misfiring in 2 cylinders that occurred after I got it back from the shop

- Pushed and tightened bolts to get rid of the rubbing noise on subframe of car when in reverse mode

- Got rid of some odd noise that was occurring in the back of the car (dono what it was but it bothered him enough to get rid of it)

- Filled up washer fluid tank with water, so no more warning light on for an empty washer reservoir tank

- Replaced driver side fender liner with a brand new one

- Fixed slight belt rubbing against the overflow tank

- Put car cover back under the car

- Replaced front two wheel hubs with an aftermarket for one side and OEM for the other

- Boost & Exhaust Leak Test: Detected nothing.

- ECU Mounted properly - found a bolt inside glove box that the shop didnt put back on for when putting the ECU back in, so he fixed their mistake/idiocy.

- Swapped out cats for TPs & swapped in used o2 AFR sensors (10k miles)

RESULT:
- Driven for 100ish miles all kinds of hard and no code, nothing broke, all solid.

- Engine Poly Mount will go on at a later date in 2020 since there is a tiny oil leak in the front driver side timing cover area that's occurring but because it's a big job, will wait til likely January 2020 to fix it along with putting in putting in the Engine mount.

- Will need to buy a 19mm deep socket & breaker bar to put in trunk since I guess my car doesnt have these things in case of a future flat tire (now that i recall, I dont think it had it in the first place when I first bought it lol) -- the lugnuts I have are aftermarket and the default sockets for OEM does not work



CONCLUSION:
- Heres hoping I can finally enjoy the vehicle until the next set of upgrades as I be a responsible little kid and pay off what I owe so far :)

Thank you to everybody who supported me the entire time and even a little bit. Here's hoping that I only post positive things as a result of an issue free, working and driveable vehicle! (IE: dash cam videos!)

Are you planning to retune to account for the TPs?

I do need a retune.

Talked to Eugene and he said yes, he still needs lots of data to finish it -- since it has TP's now, which is what I figured.

But other than that, car's groovy :D

You're driving it incredibly gently since the car isn't tuned for the way it sits now, right? You said "Driven for 100ish miles all kinds of hard and no code, nothing broke, all solid" which is a terrible idea until you get the car back to your tuner. Honestly, you probably should either immediately retune it or not drive it. Beating on it when it's tuned for a different setup is a quick way to blow the motor.

I would respectfully disagree. His car is barely making 6-7 PSI by redline, and more like 2-3 psi mid range. It's going to be very very hard to blow it up especially considering it has a built motor.

My friend was driving it unfortunately. lol.
If it was in my hands, it would be , as you say it, incredibly gentle.

He said he drove it all kinds of hard and logged it and everything and in his opinion .... says it's fine.

If something goes wrong in the future because of that well nothing I can do but sulk.
But I trust him since he has GTR Turbos in his car and is still running strong to this day.

It was tuned for everything except for the test pipes as soon as it was installed.

Eugene did tune it for 2 hours before the test pipes were in and now the only difference is test pipes between now and then.
Let us hope that the motor is still healthy lol T_T

True, but with all of the ecu problems and constant misfiring he's not starting with a healthy setup. God knows how it was treated by the other shop he had work on it.

Ok, that's better. But why did you let your friend beat on your car? Haven't you had enough problems with people and shops you trusted turning out to be idiots and sticking you with the bill?

We found out it's actually making like an average of 9 PSI now, well depending on whose formula you use for calculating boost.

Eugene's formula I think is:
{Current Atmospheric Pressure -- which depends on the conditions of the day at that moment in time} - {Manifold Absolute Pressure}

Sebs formula as well as Husam's formula is:
M.A.P. (-) Fixed 14.7 = X bar

I might be wrong here but I'm pretty sure this is what my friend and I discussed the other day -- in regards to the difference between my current tune and other's tunes


Hence, why I'd like a boost gauge. To see what the gauge says I'm making and not based off of a formula in a tune.

I told him to not give it back to me until he knows its 100% driveable.
That I didn't want a car back that if I beat on it in the future, a piece of hardware would fall off or fall apart.

That's really why I didn't mind if he did or not, it was to test his own work on the car, and he would take responsibility and fix anything that went wrong if it did. He guaranteed his work to me last night and said it was good to go, and is ready to be beaten if I so chose to do that (which won't happen often in my hands lol)

The misfiring was because of a faulty ECU due to whatever the hell the shop did to it.

THat problem is fixed with a cloned ECU Eugene gave to test the misfiring coming from the ECU and the ECU only. He did not drive it hard with the misfiring of course, he knows better than to do that, thankfully!

And they swapped in and out the faulty ECU twice to make sure it was that ECU causing the misfires in cylinders 4 and 6 and not something else -- which it was the culprit haha.

It's good that it seemed to work out for you, but most of the time when people say things like that they ghost you when their work breaks. Just keep that in mind going forward. Especially if he was just an individual instead of a shop. At least you can apply some pressure on a bad shop by getting the word out about their crappy work.

Thanks man. You're right. Most people will ghost and run away from things they make mistakes for on cars that isn't theirs.

I feel really blessed and lucky to have him as a go-to mechanic that is willing to fix, repair and make honest charges for labor he performs on my vehicle.
He's worked on my vehicle in the past and I continue to go back to him because he is about the only reliable, fast working, efficient, honest, and caring person to work on my car. Others that have worked on my car have some of those traits but he is the only one that I've personally come across to have all of those traits which I think, is very rare to find!

On top of that, he takes care of the car like his own (I know alot of mechanics say that, but we both know they really don't lol)

Oh believe me, I have tons of screenshots from their facebook chat on that shop that will prove to others they are not professional. If I showed you guys all the screenshots you would face palm yourself and then yell at me even more for why I chose to bring it to that shop in the first place, and stuck with them LOL.

He is planning to open up a shop in the future after he finishes his business degree which I think will be awesome. I told him I would 100% support him and his shop any way I can because he's always been there for me through thick and thin with my never-ending car issues and treated me well beyond what I deserved lol, so the least I could do is support him and his mechanic shop when he /does/ open one!

Update:

My buddy drove the car to my house to drop it off and I drove him back to his house right after, last night.

Boy oh boy do I love the polyurethane transmission mount. I didn't know it made such a noticeable difference! Speaking for automatic cars (because that's what I have), it makes the shifting from gear-to-gear almost unnoticeable compared to before where you feel that /jolt/ or /jerk/ each time it changed gears as the RPM's went up.

Now it feels more of a solid burst of speed as the RPMs go up which I think is pretty cool in my opinion.

I also love the new brake pads on there with the new slotted front rotors. When I brake, that thing BRAKES! haha, that's all I got to say.

Overall I'm really happy with the work my buddy did on the car

[09/20/2019] -- Update: --> This time, a positive, exterior type update!!! Yay!

https://imgur.com/a/4o3ECSR --> This link shows all of the designs that people have created for me over the past 3 weeks. If you're interested to see all in one nice imgur link!


So for the past 3 weeks, every day, I've been doing tons of research, talking to various people, and making lots of decisions, backing out of decisions, asking trusted friends / people / public for their opinions, etc. I've been working on a project for the exterior of my vehicle.

It's not a well liked idea by many in America, but in Japan it is ;)

I have been researching on how to wrap my car...BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE...!
Not just any wrap...I've been wanting to wrap my car Itasha Style.
For those that don't know that term, it's a term used to describe those vehicles on the roads with anime characters / anime-esque vinyl images / printed images on the vinyl wrap on their vehicles.

As you guys already know, I'm an asian kid. So yes, I'm a total weeb! :D

After sifting through various designs that people have helped me create digitally for 3D Mockups as part of the pre-planning phase of this project, I came down to two - three designs that I absolutely fell in love with.

I thought I would share with you guys as well, since all of you deserve to know what's going on with me and my car lately. Well, here it an update!

I've also decided to take up Instagram again thanks to a friend who urged me to start one so he, and anyone else who is interested in seeing my build for the perfect vinyl wrap design (in my opinion, perfect xD)!

In about 2 weeks I plan to get this vehicle wrapped in reality.

You can see a quick fast forwarded summary of the #VinylWrapJourney for my Mustard Zeed!

https://www.instagram.com/iliveinabox7948/

Thanks guys for your unending support!

Gosh it feels good to finally post something positive for once regarding my car, and not something that is related to negative issues that affect my car's performance in a bad way...

The final color of the wrap will be:
- 3M Satin Neon Yellow

Does anyone have any advice or knowledge on weather I should laminate it or ceramic coat the entire wrap? Does it matter which one? If so, why?
The shop I'm working with suggested that I ceramic coat it which comes free with the entire cost of the installation and work they will do on my car when the wrapping comes to fruition -- as they usually charge $500 for an entire ceramic coating but will come free if I get it wrapped at their place.

He said I could laminate it as well if I so choose to, but he said I honestly probably don't need it unless I want to protect it from scratches and such, or something like that???

I don't know much about vinyl wraps and the nature thereof~ , only what I researched, heard and learned in the last 3 weeks lol.


[PS] -- I'd absolutely love to do the first attached image design, but I was told by xpress skins as well as my local vinyl shop that to do the faded, ghosted image in the middle of the two characters on the side of the vehicle is not possible. They said it is not possible to print on neon wrap like that which made me super sad to learn lol.
So I was thinking to have someone design that exact image to match the exact color of the wrap (3m satin neon yellow) and then have the shop print it out over white vinyl for a sticker, then cut it out and place it in that spot in the mockup design just as you see it... so that it can still give the /ghetto effect/ of the ghosted / faded image I really wanted.

I don't know if the above is possible, but it was an idea lol. Any one have any input about anything I should know about neon wraps, images, etc in general? Would be much appreciated! Thanks!

#ThankfulToBeAlive

That is a, uh, bold choice but one that seems to fit your style of doing things.

He has a style all his own.

Nothing wrong with that.

Itasha / Anime Vinyl Wrap almost complete!!!! Check it out! Looks like a car you'd see displayed at anime conventions~~~
Just needing a few final touches and a ceramic coating to top it off.
Will pick it up October 16th, 2019!

Been a long journey folks. Endless research, trial and error and all the pre-planning bore this golden fruit of a product!!!

I can pick it up next week anytime (Wed) because that's when I get home from work.

- They'll add a ceramic coating on the entire car for an extra +$300 (normally charges $500 for this).
- They'll add a few things to make the orange color not showing so much on the sides of the car (if you can see it)
- They will put on the hatch back perforated sticker for me (as I asked)
- They will dress up the rims and tires a bit for pictures when it's done so they can post it on their website

Then after all that, I can pick it up on wed morning!!!


[PS] -- And yes, I know my rims are terrible. It is just plasti-dipped black for now. But I will powdercoat it a different color in the future, lol.

After that whole saga, I am glad you are finally happy with your car.

Is that yaoi?

Very nice work they did congratulations I’m glad that you are happy with it.

that wrap makes it look like a young asian boy drives it orrrrrrrrr a pedo :bowrofl:

wtf :facepalm:

:eek::eek::eek::eek:

Lmao.
I'm a 27 year old young looking Chinese kid xD who looks not one bit Chinese but more Filipino x.X

Its true. You look like you are only old enough to have a permit.

Hahaha not gona lie, you definitely 1,000,000,000% right on that.

But it's okay, I embrace my youthful looks <3 them asians never die!

soooooooo you're saying a nailed it?

:wtf2:

Update -- Completed Images on pickup morning (today)!!!

Fully ceramic coated with CQuartz!

Between every drawing I had redrawn (used and unused because, as usual, I changed my mind multiple times on what I wanted and what I didn't want), Vehicle Wrap material, Labor, an added Full Ceramic Coating using CQaurtz, and everything from start to finish I spent about $2600 - $2700 USD.

Not bad at all in my opinion!!

Also found a legit place to powder coat my rims for a decent price as well.
I think I may do them dark purple after seeing photoshop colors of different options!

what? xD a nailed it or i nailed it or you nailed it or who nailed it? :o
confused!!

lol wait. yes you nailed it. i didnt realize you were the one that guessed about the asian boy or other option xD Yup!

What's this I hear you' re selling the Z?

Also, what other issues you having with the Z?

be nice duuude...

:shakes head:

Just asking questions duude.

His name is dudet….. Get it right next time.

Based on that wrap job, I assume it's already sold?