Here's quite an interesting and lengthy read for those of you who're bored.
I got a call from a lady in TX asking me if I did work on 300ZX's - that is the understatement of a year, lol. She proceeded to tell me that a few years ago she was driving her 96TT on the highway and it started making a loud racket. She took it to Nissan and they diagnosed it with no compression on cylinder #2. She propositioned them to fix it and carte blance they told her it was too old and they weren't going to work on it. The car sat at the dealership for about a year while she figured out what she wanted to do with it. She had gotten word that her parents had a trusted mechanic who lives up here in Illinois so she decided to have the car towed from TX to IL for him to work on it. He diagnosed it s having broke a valve off in the chamber and that it destroyed the piston and rattled the valve around. She on that diagnosis, she had her father source a good conditioned longblock. This is where things start to get fuzzy. The guy starts taking the car apart and then develops health issues so he can't work on the car. It sits around his place for a year and she goes on the hunt again for someone to work on it - this is where I come into play. She contacts me a week or so into January and we begin talking, exchanging emails, and lining up a plan to get this car on to the road. The initial plan was pretty basic. Get the car, take the engine out, swap the turbos over, do a 120k, and re-install. So I got right to work after picking it up 1/17/15 
Before pulling the car in, I decided to go ahead and prep the new engine (120k, gaskets, seals, etc) while there was plenty of space 
Torn down 
Cleaning it up 
Found this little booger 
I had to tear the engine down in its entirety because they dented the oil pan up when they were moving it, so we needed to swap those over too 
This is one way to fix a hole in the oil pan, right? 
Cleaning it up more 
New WP on 
Check out these old isolators 
You can tell it was sitting a while 
This is where I stopped with the new engine. I was told in the original emails they sourced a 96 engine engine so it was identical - well this was not the case. As soon as I saw the fuel rail I knew it was an early style TT. This creates a whole mess of other parts I have to transfer over because the camshafts are different, there are no VVT solenoids, and the VVT cam gears are completely different as well - more on this later. So then I pulled the car in, to start taking the engine out. You can see it had some stuff pulled from it already. At this point I really don't believe the guy had health issues at all which prevented him from working on it. The reality is he got in over his head and I can tell exactly by which pieces were removed and where he stopped and said "fuck this, im out" 
A nice mess of crap up in the radiator/condeser 
Sweet battery terminal connections 
Well, there's why your heater sucked 
Coming apart even further 
Trans out, Engine coming out 
Found misc stuff just hanging out. Suspect these just loosened up with age 
So now the engine has to be torn completely down so I can transfer everything over to the new engine. Here's the pass side turbo stuff coming out 
Engine on the stand 
Prepping to do the water line bypass 
Plenum off 
Here's how the 96's are setup - solenoid blockoffs basically. No harness. Also notice the exhaust gas temp sensor on the EGR which is new to me 
Check out those isolators! 
EGR off, water pipes all off 
Now is where the differences between the engines really start popping out. These intake cams looked like aliens to me 
The cams no longer have the check valve in them 
Here's an old cam for comparison 
Turbos off 
Everything apart 
So lets take a step back a little and remember that diagnosis. Supposedly a valve let loose and chewed through a piston. Well once I had everything off of the engine I needed, I decided to spend the extra 5 minutes and pull the heads so I could inspect. I found the valve was hung open a little bit and I could move it with my finger - however it never hit anything 
Remember that piston that had a whole in it which was verified with an inspection camera? Looks pretty good to me 
So I dig further into the head..... 
So unfortunately for this lady, she was instructed to buy a replacement engine which this realistically could have been fixed for significantly cheaper - however I am quite glad the engine came out because it gave me a chance to really inspect everything. Old oil pan on the new engine 
New isolators 
I strongly advised her to do new injectors while everything was apart and luckily she agreed. I also had to swap the lower intake manifold over for the new style fuel rails 
Swapping cams over 
Valve covers cleaned up and re-installed 
96 gear train installed 
Front of the engine buttoned up 
EGR system and coolant pipes back on 
Top end going back together 
So since I got a chance to thoroughly inspect everything, I made one huge discover - the passenger side turbo was seized up. This car is bone stock so there's no opportunity to go aftermarket. I ordered some new turbos for it which gave the budget a real swift kick in the junk 
Turbo system going on 
I had to drill and tap this broken downpipe stud, that sucked 
Engine ready to go back in 
Going up...... 
Settled in 
I do have one hot tip for you guys - Do you ever dread having to wedge the PS pump back in place because its such a tight clearance? Easy tip - take a 19mm socket and long m8x1.25 bolt and press it back a little bit 
Voila - Now the pump slides right into place and is much easier getting the long bolt in I found lots of broken connectors - managed to fix 95% of them with new stuff 
Found the trans harness missing a good section of covering 
Cleaned out the radiator too 
So this thing has been sitting for a few years - I figured it should probably get some fresh gas 
Repaired the battery terminals as close to factory as possible 
Found some parts in my storage that she was missing originally 
Got the car running and now that everything has been checked, damn that heater works well now! 
After about 30-45 minutes of idling 
I also spent some time cleaning up the engine bay and making things presentable - its a LONG shot to where this thing was at when it came in 
Its also a good thing I perform my due diligence when someone else has worked on the car. For some reason this guy decided to start removing suspension bolts 
Wheels were also on backwards 
This car is much happier now 
Total time spent was around 50 hours in labor and from the day I pulled it in to the day I fired it up was around 7 days. Pretty quick turnaround! Cheers!
 TR%202/GTR_Signature_zpsbfc89d27.jpg>
|
The ol' 96'er..... - 
