[Build Thread] -- Journey to 700+ WHP [Supercharger]

[cupcakez]

I think to be safe, I am going to just keep the car sitting in the garage until it is time to bring it to Sebastian 4 months from now. The P2A03 code is annoying, and I just had a smoke test done today to see if there was any leaks from the engine bay ... nothing was found other than smoke coming from the air filter of the supercharger, lol which is normal since everything leading to there was closed and sealed off. So that eliminates a boost leak I would assume, which leads me to believe either the belt is slipping (hard to believe cuz the belt seems tighter than a stock car belt since Eugene wrapped it around very well, and even wraps around most of the crank pulley.



I am going to save up every penny possible until then so I can have enough funds to fix every remaining issue found that needs fixing.

He told me he is going to be out of town the week I wanted to drop off the car but we can still schedule it for that time for me to bring it in (Week of June 27th) so I asked him if I could bring it in the week after when he comes back, since I told him I want him to be working on my car. Unless he is okay with me bringing it in the week of June 27 and then him working on the car when he returns? Going to wait on his reply for that.

The way I will transport the car from my house to his house? Not sure.
Either I will pay a shipping company to flat bed it all 363 miles, or I will call AAA and have them tow it three times (100 miles each tow) after I drive it out about 70 miles from my house toward that address then having AAA tow it three different times which would be a hassle but would get the job done. Then I'd take a train back or fly back home, until he is completely done with the car and then fly back down there to pick it up and drive it back home, worry-free.

If all goes well and as financially planned, I should have 4500 - 4900 saved up to pay Sebastian. I hope this will be enough to fix all the issues. We'll see.

And if after getting it back, something else goes critically wrong, I am thinking to just sell the entire car to someone else lol, for like 20k or something. And buy a different vehicle, keep that stock, and only modify cosmetics. I'm thinking a Lotus Evora or something!

I hope it doesn't get to that point, I don't want to do that but that is my backup plan in case all else fails. Need a backup plan! And that's mine, lol.

Other than that, I won't be doing anymore updates for the next 3 - 4 months until it is in Sebastian's hands.

I will also let you guys know when I am going down there in case any of you want to see this infamous problematic dirty of an engine bay car, lol.

Thanks <3

[FPenvy]

based on your issues and also living in cali (which seems like a waste to even think about modding a car now especially to your extent).......


how about you save up that 5k......


give it to me.......


i'll kick you in balls......


and we call it a day. seems to be how things have gone on this build since day 1.

[sx moneypit]

Originally Posted by FPenvy

based on your issues and also living in cali (which seems like a waste to even think about modding a car now especially to your extend).......


how about you save up that 5k......


give it to me.......


i'll kick you in balls......


and we call it a day. seems to be how things have gone on this build since day 1.

[*J*ap***V*et*]

I have followed this journey since post one...Cupcakez is it time to just grab a GTR and call it a day lol jk bro!! Good luck with the re)build! 👍

[Zoren 370]

I would have just spent my money on fuc*ing dolls if I have 5K to burn!

But thats Zoren I dont know anything about cars!

https://www.loversire.com/150cm-164c...iAAEgK0KPD_BwE

[cupcakez]

Originally Posted by *J*ap***V*et*

I have followed this journey since post one...Cupcakez is it time to just grab a GTR and call it a day lol jk bro!! Good luck with the re)build! ��

Right? You don't know how many times I seriously thought about doing that T_T
Thanks buddy! c:

[cupcakez]

Originally Posted by FPenvy

based on your issues and also living in cali (which seems like a waste to even think about modding a car now especially to your extent).......


how about you save up that 5k......


give it to me.......


i'll kick you in balls......


and we call it a day. seems to be how things have gone on this build since day 1.

Lmao.

Nah. I have the smog issue resolved legally. I found a coworker who allowed me to use their home address to register my vehicle in that county. No smog checks are done in that county. So that is a positive thing, I can modify my car however I choose to now, without worrying about that.

That, and I actually do have an update.

I ended up bringing it to the Nissan Dealership this morning, and they checked out the code. Said the voltage was off on bank 2. Also, I asked if I replaced the AFR sensors at all, I said well yeah, we did but that was last year and we did have this code for a while back then too, just never was properly addressed since then since I never really got to drive the car to see it!

They did an idle relearn and now the numbers are fine. The short term fuel trims were both identically stable at 103 103 at a freeze frame during a random time in the idling process, and instead of seeing 125% at 2k RPMs and such which was way too crazy for that RPM.

He test drove it at a couple thousand RPMs to see if the code came back, and it did not. Idled it in the shop for a while and kept the graphs running constantly the entire time -- code never came back up and graphs banks 1 and 2 are now identical. No more waviness.

They fixed the code.

Before you guys flame me for bringing it to the Nissan Dealership:
They have a tech who I have been working with the past few times I have been here, and they only have one tech that deals and knows a lot of knowledge regarding aftermarket parts, and performance vehicles. The advisor also knows me pretty well too. They both know what is on the vehicle.

Both banks ran evenly according to the graphs they showed me versus how it was before. I wish I asked for the paper work but I forgot, since I was too happy about it being fixed.

He said the code actually wasn't due to a leak but an idle relearn process that wasn't done when we changed out the AFR (upstream) sensors last year.

He charged me $120 instead of $160 which was really nice of him.
He always takes care of me when I visit, and this is why I am always going to come back. Both the advisor and tech are very honest and reasonable about pricing instead of the usual /dealer scams for money/ mindset.

I'm blessed to have both of them working at this particular Nissan dealership in my city.

They said if the code comes back, then to come back to them to let them know.

They also found no leaks due to the smoke tests they did on the exhaust system and what not, after doing the idle relearn process.

I can now safely drive the car around without worry, and will be able to drive it to Seb at the end of June assuming the code doesn't come back up between now and then - or any other critical issues. I'm still going to baby the car for a while, but the great thing is it is safer to drive than before, and I feel confident driving it.

Yay!

Next on the list is to clean the engine bay.
It is so dirty it looks like the loch ness monster is living in there.
Then detail the exterior of the car with all my car wash items sitting in my room that's been waiting to be used!

And of course, dealing with the possible boost peak issue at 6psi, if that is still an issue? Not sure. Because I haven't pushed the car hard to find out or not, since I'm paranoid from the past experiences every time I tried to make boost lol.

I'll get there slowly though! If that issue is still persistent, I am sure Seb will fix it!
Regarding Seb, I did get a confirmation email from him that I made an appointment officially to drop off the car at the end of June this year! So that's set in in stone unless something crazy happens between now and then that doesn't allow me to do so anymore! Knock on wood!

[JARblue]

Originally Posted by cupcakez

I have the smog issue resolved legally. I found a coworker who allowed me to use their home address to register my vehicle in that county. No smog checks are done in that county.

Ummm... lying to the government about your home address to skirt emissions requirements is not a legal resolution

Originally Posted by cupcakez

They did an idle relearn and now the numbers are fine.

All that messing around with your engine and no one ever performed the idle air reset procedure? lol

[cupcakez]

Originally Posted by JARblue

Ummm... lying to the government about your home address to skirt emissions requirements is not a legal resolution


All that messing around with your engine and no one ever performed the idle air reset procedure? lol

Nope, lol. Crazy right?

I didn't lie to them about my home address.
The option was to change the mailing address not home address.
So technically it is still legal.
The home address is still my home address as it was for the past 20 years xD

[ZontheRocks]

I genuinely miss this thread.

Any news on progress?

[cupcakez]

I'll update it soon. Lots of unexpected things came up. Long story short, financial issues came up so I had to tell Seb I couldnt bring it to his shop. Details coming soon!

[jwick]

Shocker of the year, ‘lots of things came up.’

You don’t say...

[cupcakez]

Originally Posted by jwick

Shocker of the year, ‘lots of things came up.’

You don’t say...

xD i can't tell if that's an insult, said to make fun of me or not..but i hope not. i mean i dont want to update this thread anymore if people will just continually talk down about the things happening...x.X

if it wasn't meant as anything negative then i apologize!

[wideglideleon]

With all our builds , THINGS come up! It's just the nature of modifying cars in general.

[cupcakez]

Short Story Didn't bring it to Seb as I originally wanted to do, financial issues came up so I couldn't do it. He was okay with it, communicated it to him in a timely manner and all was resolved. Brought it to a local shop (read below for my experience with them)

Long Story -- Read Below lol


So, Between June 05 - July 03...


I recently brought my vehicle into an aftermarket local mechanic shop to fix a few things (boost leaks and an SES code). The time it took took to fix these three things was a total of 4 weeks. Mind you, this is after I had scheduled with the shop before-hand that I wanted to drop it off at X date. I let them know a whole month before hand, and told them the things I wanted done.

This shop charges $149/hour

They work on GTRs, Q60s, Hellcats, all sorts of 1000+ HP cars and so I decided my Z should be no problem for them! First week goes by and they don't touch the car. I call them and ask what's going on and they said they work on cars with a deposit faster than the ones without. I said uhhh. why didn't you tell me that? I would've put a deposit in a long time ago! So I did put in a deposit of $500 about 1.5 weeks in after dropping it off.

Then they finally work on it, and the way they work is so unprofessional (Communication wise, and organizational skills wise)...very poor.

Then after about the 3rd week, they say they are unable to talk to my ECU. At this point I'm like ?!?!?!?!?! I brought in a working vehicle and now it's not working? And so they said it could be this or that issue blah blah and said might have been something wrong with my ECU or something. They did not even THINK to check the fuses before removing the ECU.

The owner of the shop says he will remove the ECU for me so I can bring it over to my tuner who will bench test it and make sure it's still in working order.

Guess how long it took him to remove my ECU from the 370z 2009 base edition? It took him a whole 45 minutes! He also light weight complained that it was "some intense labor" to remove.

Let me remind you again... This is coming from a shop that charges $149/hour and works on all types of crazy cars as listed above! Then...the unprofessional shop I brought it to that I just took the car out of..they left a set of mitsubishi car keys in my car / engine bay, lmao At first, he thought it was mine when I was getting my car back, and i said no. Then he brought me my keys. I also didn't know he put the mitsubishi keys back in the Z until about 8 hours later.

Oh, and they ended up charging me for the parts they bought to replace the broken fuses that occurred between the time I brought the car in and picked it up (clearly their fault) but instead they said it is nobody's fault, it's the car's fault and "that's why we aren't charging you labor"

And not to mention...they thought that something was wrong with my Throttle Body! They showed me some exposed wiring and showed me some powder to "prove" that it was shorted out. He said that they would charge me for the parts to replace that too if needed, when clearly was not there when I brought the car into the shop! The heck?!?!

K...That makes sense right?

So the question is:

- Should I wait 1 month before I return the keys back to the shop while anonymously mailing it after a month?

- Should I call them ASAP and let them know I have a set of keys that isn't mine from their shop?

- Should I charge them $16.88 for the fuses that they charged me for as well as wait like an entire month? lol


-- The three things they fixed? ---
(1) Sealed up my MAF holes properly as it was leaking from there when they performed a boost test

(2) Fixed my BOV which wasn't properly installed / seated... not sure how it got crooked but it did lol

(3) Found out that one of my cats (yes I still have cats...!) was gasketless, so they put new gaskets in properly.

===============================================

So I finally take the car out of the shop on July 3rd, and have AAA tow it straight from there to a friend's house who can do everything the shop did in 1 day instead of 4 weeks! This person has worked on my car before and knows my car inside out, and has never done any wrong when making installations on the car or helping with maintenance needs.

The things he did to my car so far:

- Changed out brake pads to brand new Yellowstuff EBC Akebono (Front & Rear)

- Will fix an oil leak coming from the top passenger side timing cover area that he found

- Will put in new front rotors because my current front rotors are bad (I just ordered a pair of Cryo-treated, Slotted Stop Tech Sport Rotors which will be delivered on Monday to his house)

- He saw that the belt was rubbing against something so he will adjust it accordingly and fix that issue

- Putting in a brand new fender liner on driver side because my last one got destroyed lol

- Will fix an odd rubbing noise that my supercharger makes against the subframe only when in reverse (sometimes, not all the time).

- Took out a stupid screw that somehow got behind the panel of the driver side door that was there since the moment I bought the vehicle at the end of July 2018, lol (just an annoyance)

- I may ask him to install my polyurethane CPZ motor mount as well since it will raise the height of things and give more clearance to things underneath the car such as the oil pan, etc.

- Try to find the cause and source of the P2A03 code I still have on my car, and hopefully get rid of it once and for good. Still, nobody knows the source of this code. I am starting to believe my car is cursed with a cold case of P2A03 lol.