S.O.S. - Signaled Out Sedan

[tonyHTX]

I have my build thread going on the various G forums, but I thought I should share parts of the current stage over here since I have been frequenting these forums more often and learning quite a lot from my Z cousins around these parts. (and brother jwick )

HUGE Thanks to everyone on the370z that has helped me out on the past few months as I completed the next stage of my build!

I'll try to add dates to the relevant posts for this initial post.

Background:
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I used to own a 350z back in 2006 and when the 370z Nismo was announced for 2009 I knew THAT was going to be my next car. Unfortunately life happened, I had to put my sports car aspirations aside, and I had to find myself a family hauler. My requirements for my next car were now set: Four doors, RWD, Manual Transmission. I had grown fond of the VQ platform and sometime in 2009/2010 after 4 months of searching I found my car: 2007 Infiniti G35s 6MT.


The car was daily driven for 5 years and was involved in 4 accidents; it was very close to being totaled at one point.


I thought about trading it in a couple of times, but it was finally paid off in 2014 and I decided I did not want to take on anymore debts.
So, I concluded to start treating the car as well as it had treated my family and I; despite the battle scars that it had obtained over the years.

In mid 2014 I finally got the exterior level I wanted with the main highlights being:
G37 Sport Front End Conversion
Full Carbon Signal Kit
Volk RE30s
Painted exterior Lexus Crystal White 072 (From the very beginning I wanted a white sedan with black interior, but those are quite rare to find in 6MT)






After that I started formulating my plan for the next stage, which of course, was to add MOAR POWA.
Around the time I had saved up enough funds to start, AAM Competition had announced their new TT kit.
I jumped on the presale train and then I started ordering parts.
I'll let the transcribed the posts do the rest of the story:

-------------------- Start Previous Posts --------------------

12/2/2014:
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I am also starting to horde some second hand parts in preparation of 'the build':
Southbend Stage 3.5 DXD Clutch
Southbend Billet Aluminum Flywheel
Z1 34 Row Oil Cooler
Aeromotive 340lph Fuel Pump
Z1 Urethane Motor Mounts


CSF Triple Pass Radiator ordered on Black Friday and got it yesterday (the following Monday)!


Also got these SPL Adjustable Front Endlinks which aren't part of 'the build' but still part of the build..


I should have some more boxes to look at next week..


12/20/2014:
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Got my Zspeed HD CSC, OEM master, SS insulated line, white line diff bushings, and some fluids.


Some boxes.


Here is everything I loaded into the car before I went to the shop, almost didn't fit.


Some weight reduction going on.


And some snails on a table.



2/9/2015:
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Assembly to start next week.






2/21/2015:
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JTran Motorsports released a few teasers!





Soon..




3/1/2015:
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Soon Pt 2.



3/5/2015:
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Soon Pt. 3



3/12/2015:
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I got to scoot it around the parking lot yesterday.







4/5/2015:
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So for the last 3.5 weeks or so my car has been in lingo because it was creating huge plumes of smoke and spewing oil out of the turbos into the downpipes at idle. If you look back at the childstar pictures and video you should notice it.



This was quite puzzling and frustrating for Ron as he, in his opinion, did one of the best jobs he has ever done on the VQ platform. He triple and quadruple checked everything and came to the conclusion that I had a bad set of turbos. We spent a good 2 weeks or so trying to get AAM's assistance in solving the issue. Unfortunately those efforts didn't culminate.

Eventually Johnny said he thought it was the oil return lines. The way the system is designed the oil return lines are gravity fed into the oil pan spacer. His theory was that at idle the oil was sloshing around the top and just sitting at the bottom of the pan which meant that gravity was not enough to push the oil in the return lines through the stagnant oil at the bottom of the pan. He recommended we try a Turbowerks Exa-Pump to scavenge the oil out of the return lines and push it through. This is the pump that they use on their low mount turbo kits and even though they usually haven't needed to run any scavenge pumps on TT kits before he thought this would surely solve my issue.

As much as I respect the knowledge and wisdom of Ron's 20+ years of experience in building racecars, a part of me was praying that the turbos were not bad and that we could get the car up and running so I told them to go ahead and try the Exa-Pump. Also, at this point AAM was not being very helpful beyond telling us that they have installed over 20 kits with no smoking issues.

I felt like this was the 'last chance' to get the car running and not having to pull everything out. That was a headache none of us wanted to experience.

While the Exa-Pump was on order, Johnny started piecing together my new exhaust. As much as I loved the Ark exhaust I felt 2.5" piping would become a hindrance to the build in the future and wanted to do a 3" exhaust.

Magnaflow 3" in/3" out X muffler




One thing I did keep from the Ark exhaust were the tips, I love them too much. I may have the resonators cut off and put on as well in the future.


Earlier this week the Exa-Pump came in and was installed. Fingers were crossed and the car was started with absolutely no smoking at all!


Finally after weeks the car was up and running! All is good right? Let's give it a few revs to make sure.. But after a few revs the car had no throttle response... Murphy's law all over my build!

Out comes the parts to start the diagnosis.


Turns out the timing chain skipped a tooth.. The tensioner was 90k miles old so it may have just given up.


The next few days and yesterday morning were spent putting everything back together..

I want to back up for a moment now and say that my friends over at Mayday Garage had an exhibition/car show called Rice Bowl planned for 4/4/2015 (yesterday). When they were planning the event back in January they had asked me to have my car present to which I gladly agreed. I had let Jtran know that I really wanted to make this event to help support my friends in their first endeavor. However, Ron and his meticulous nature is not one to be rushed and will tell you to eff off if you try to rush him.

Thanks to the past 5 months I fully understand that builds of this caliber take time and gladly accepted that my car was not going to make it to the event. So what if I miss my friend's first show right? I know they will be successful and there will always be a next one.

Anyway, yesterday at about 9am we were pouring liquids in and about to start the car again. It felt like deja vu as we were doing these exact same things a month before.


The second 'first start' with no smoking!


At this point Johnny turns to me and says "Once we button this up, I'm putting it on the dyno for your base tune and you are going to the show."

Wait, what!?



On the dyno getting it's base tune.


This is a low boost base tune only, once I have broken the motor in and gotten a few more things for my fuel system I will be switching to E85 and seeing what she can really do.


By this time it was 12:25pm and everyone had already rolled into the show which was to open to the public at 2:00pm. I had to call my friends and beg them to hold the gate open for me to bring the car in. They said if I could be there in 40 minutes they would hold the gate.

The car went out front for a quick wash by chreeno with even Amber helping out!


We didn't even dry the car, I just hopped in it with my friend and we high tailed it to the show. We arrived at exactly 1:45pm, only 15 minutes before the doors opened.





I'm so ecstatic right now that I can't stop smiling.

I want to thank everyone at the Jtran Motorsports family from the bottom of my heart for putting in so much work and effort into this project.

-------------------- End Previous Posts --------------------

Current mods for this stage:
Arias 10:1 20 over
Carillo Rods
Cosworth Head Studs
ARP Main Studs
HKS Head Gasket

AAM EFR TT Kit
Injector Dynamics ID1000
AAM Fuel Return System
Aeromotive 340lph Fuel Pump
Turbowerks Exa-Pump Scavenge
Denso Iridium GT-R Spark Plugs
Turbosmart Kompact Dual Port Shorties
Southbend Stage 3.5 Clutch
Southbend Billet Aluminum Flywheel
CSF Triple Pass Radiator
ZSpeed HD Concentric Slave Cylinder
ZSpeed Insulated Short Stainless Clutch Hose
OEM Master Cylinder
Z1 34 Row Oil Cooler
Z1 Urethane Motor Mounts
Z1 Urethane Transmission Mount
Whiteline Rear Differential Bushings
Innovate SCG-1 Solenoid Controller
Innovate MTX-D Oil Pressure Temperature
Custom Jtran Built 3" True Dual Exhaust

Thanks for looking! That should catch up with the current state of things.

[jaytirbhaw]

crazy build ! looks great man, respect to Jtran for taking care of your baby

[Chuck33079]

Very nice. So AAM just left you hanging on the turbos? Glad JTran could get you sorted out.

[jwick]

Awesome!!!

Glad it's finally on the road brother

We need to go for a spin before you get the big boy tune and I'm not longer in your league:rof2:

[YzGyz]

I can't say I don't likes but I DO! That first picture of the black G messed me up. I Was that car at JTranz was white. WTF is this car? Very cool transformations buddy.

The Garage guys and girls are cool. They mess around more than they are serious but build serious cars! They are very "for the people" type of shop. That's why they are my go to guys. Hopefully my car will be there in a few weeks.

Congrats on the build. I'll see you on the road one day.

YzGyz

[DatsunFTW]

subbed for sure! Great work!

[tonyHTX]

Originally Posted by Chuck33079

Very nice. So AAM just left you hanging on the turbos? Glad JTran could get you sorted out.

I wouldn't say they left us hanging, it was more that they didn't have any solutions because they never encountered the issue (or at least they told us they haven't). The suggestions they had for us were already tried prior to even reaching out to them. Ultimately, we stopped asking for assistance and found the answer on our own.

I still have questions as to why it happened. Is this a design flaw? Is it the installation? Is it because I have a VQ35HR and we were basically doing R&D? Is what we did the 'proper' solution?
I'm not sure what the answer is, but the car appears to be running well so I am happy despite the head/heart ache!

Originally Posted by jwick

We need to go for a spin before you get the big boy tune and I'm not longer in your league:rof2:

I've been trying to drive it as much as I can to get the miles in so just let me know, especially since we live in the same vicinity!

Originally Posted by YzGyz

Hopefully my car will be there in a few weeks.

I have been at the shop pretty regularly these days, hopefully we will meet up sooner rather than later. Don't be a stranger!

[tonyHTX]

Weekly checkup and playing with pop pops.

[GaleForce]

Good stuff Tony! I liked the updates you were giving me on FB.

[CarbonSignal]

Glad to see it all up and running now

[tonyHTX]

Twitter birds.


Edit: Thanks JARBlue! Didn't know the tag existed!

[JARblue]

Use the [YOUTUBE] tag and the part of the URL after v= to embed it in your post. Like such:

[tonyHTX]

^ Thanks didn't know about the tag! Every forum is slightly different it seems.

[jwick]

Love turbo noises

[speedfreek]

Well executed build! Love that trunk, if one day I need a family hauler I hope it is as sweet as this one.