Nismo Cams Installed... finally...
Nismo Cams Installed... finally...
Wow it was a long last four days. just finished up correcting all my mistakes. honestly can't believe T3k_V35 didn't just tell me to fck off after all we went through to get these things in. Major props to Jeremiah for sticking through it with me, his wealth of knowlage and experience made this go smoothly. He was there to smooth over all my fck ups...
Let me give you a timelog:
-Friday: 7:30 pm - 11:30 pm
T3K_V35 (jeremiha) came over.
jack up car, remove wheels, wheel wells, bumper, intake box, z-tube, intake plenum, coil packs, valve covers, vtc solenoids, ac compressor, starter, power steering, grounding connections Idler pulley and belts/tensioners. drain oil and coolant. remove coolant tubes, thermostat and radiator shroud. removed lower oil pan and the two bolts that go to the timing cover. break seal on timing cover and called it a night. also had pizza somewhere in between.
-Saturday: 10:00 am - 6:00 pm
clean off all parts from powdercoater and sand mating surfaces smooth, wash and prepare everything. remove timing components from engine, remove cam sprockets, remove rear timing cover after draining the rest of the coolant.
prepared new cams, cleaned off all surfaces with acetone, cleaned out all oil passages. applied redline engine prep lube on all cam lobes/journals to protect them before oil starts flowing. removed all stock cams and replaced them with the nismo cams appropriately.
cleaned off mating surface of block and heads with a razor and acetone. applied 3m superblack rtv to mating surface of the rear timing cover and spread it out. put rear timing cover back on and torqued all bolts to spec.
jacked around with tightening the cams to spec then trying to figure out the timing sprockets (this was annoying when you don't have experience doing it)
I thought I had it right so I sealed up the valve covers all confident in myself.
then I read the service manual again and noticed there are marks to indicate each timing mark and I had mixed them up, so the cams were off. I had to undo that and rebolt everything down properly. after getting frustrated I called it a night.
-Sunday: 11:30 am - 6:30 pm
Jeremiah came over (thank god) and sorted out my timing mess. he explained that the right and left banks were not from facing the car but opposite. so that helped. got everything slapped back together, gooped up the surface of the timing cover and put it on, everything went smoothly. got all the accessories on and it all looked good. then we filled her up with oil and coolant and turned it on.
immediately I noticed the awesome sound... then I realized it was idling weird which scared me. there was a vacuum hose that I forgot so Jeremiah plugged that quick. after the smoke cleared from burning off the headers I saw it threw a code. before I could check it we realized the temp was getting high from bubbles in the system. I killed the car and we tried to bleed it, although the crappy bleed valve is made from plastic and I stripped that out good when I did my header install. Jeremiah did all he could to try to get the bubbles out other ways, but it wasn't working... this bubble was big. he kept working on that while I checked the code with Cipher. the code was pretty bad, it seems I had skipped a tooth on the timing chain for the bank 2 cam set (the only part I did when he did the timing.)
The car ran, and idled funny, it wanted to die a lot on decel but I was still happy my engine wasn't dead or dying. but I didn't look forward to having to remove the timing cover to correct it. I had to be at a dinner so we just left it as is and I babied the car (keeping under 4k rpms) while I drove there. do you know how hard it is to not floor your awesome sounding cammed VQ??
anyways I drove it as little as possible so to not damage anything and I waited another day to finish the install. one little link on a timing chain was holding me back from the joy I needed to experience. one little link was going to cause another day full of issues.
-Monday 6:30pm - 3:00 am
Jeremiah gets to my place early to try to knock this out. I left my bumper and undercover off so we didn't waste anytime. jacked it up and got after it. removing parts and draining the oil (I filtered it so I could reuse it.)
we got everything off in record time, got the timing cover off and the valve covers and everything we needed to correct the mistake. we didn't have to drain the coolant this time which was good, the bubble had worked it self to the top so even the top radiator hose didn't leak when we had to remove it to get the radiator fan shroud out.
after removing everything we reset the timing, I cleaned off the mating surfaces again and Jeremiah did the technical stuff. I didn't touch it this time but I did watch the magic take place. he was good, he has all these little tips and tricks that helped save a bunch of time. I won't go in to some of his secrets but just know you are in good hands with him.
I rushed to get everything back together and we had the timing cover on and half of the accessories plus the oil pan on before he realized we didn't torque the timing sprockets on to the cams. at this point, I was ready to say fck it and just leave it as it was. he wouldn't let me, thank god!! it took another 45 minutes, but in record time we got the cover off and torqued everything down, the rtv goop was still wet so we didn't have to redo that. everything was good, or so I thought.
I proceeded to rush the process of putting the valve covers on, because I wanted to drive my newly cammed car. In rushing this I jacked up the sealing gaskets on the valve covers and when we got the car all back together it started spewing oil on my headers which made a ton of smoke. so we once again tore down the intake and plenum and vtc solenoids to see what happened. I guess when I put the driver side in the gasket slipped out and I cut it in half when I torqued down on the bolts. the passenger side however, we couldn't figure out why there was oil coming out. either way I was damn lucky to have an extra set of gaskets from a set I acquired awhile back. we threw everything back together for the last time, and added some extra water to the coolant and FINALLY, FINALLY we we done.
it heated up, no codes, no spikes in temp, everything sounded awesome.
I took it for a drive and it was great. not a huge power gain yet but once the ECU adapts it will be sick. the sound is amazing too. I will post before and after sound clips, along with some pictures tomorrow. but for now I'm going to bed.
this is Rob signing off.
thank you.
Other mods
Stock Airbox with K&N Drop in
5/8 Spacer
Ported and Polished plenum, down to the heads
Nismo R-Tune Cams
Strup Coated Headers
AAM Highflow Cats
Bassani True Dual Exhaust
=== Sound files ===
the Mic was 5 feet away from the car, probably should have been a bit further, esp after cams.
beforecams.wma - 605kb
aftercams.wma - 649kb
EDIT **** NEW AND IMPROVED THREAD! NOW WITH 100% MORE PICTURES!!! ****
small mess
front cover off
T3K and the front cover
one cam in!
rear timing cover off
medium mess
rear timing cover clean
cams in, timing components on
powdercoated bolts and hard coolant lines
front cover clean
front cover sealed up *the first time*, kinda dirty
Let me give you a timelog:
-Friday: 7:30 pm - 11:30 pm
T3K_V35 (jeremiha) came over.
jack up car, remove wheels, wheel wells, bumper, intake box, z-tube, intake plenum, coil packs, valve covers, vtc solenoids, ac compressor, starter, power steering, grounding connections Idler pulley and belts/tensioners. drain oil and coolant. remove coolant tubes, thermostat and radiator shroud. removed lower oil pan and the two bolts that go to the timing cover. break seal on timing cover and called it a night. also had pizza somewhere in between.
-Saturday: 10:00 am - 6:00 pm
clean off all parts from powdercoater and sand mating surfaces smooth, wash and prepare everything. remove timing components from engine, remove cam sprockets, remove rear timing cover after draining the rest of the coolant.
prepared new cams, cleaned off all surfaces with acetone, cleaned out all oil passages. applied redline engine prep lube on all cam lobes/journals to protect them before oil starts flowing. removed all stock cams and replaced them with the nismo cams appropriately.
cleaned off mating surface of block and heads with a razor and acetone. applied 3m superblack rtv to mating surface of the rear timing cover and spread it out. put rear timing cover back on and torqued all bolts to spec.
jacked around with tightening the cams to spec then trying to figure out the timing sprockets (this was annoying when you don't have experience doing it)
I thought I had it right so I sealed up the valve covers all confident in myself.
then I read the service manual again and noticed there are marks to indicate each timing mark and I had mixed them up, so the cams were off. I had to undo that and rebolt everything down properly. after getting frustrated I called it a night.
-Sunday: 11:30 am - 6:30 pm
Jeremiah came over (thank god) and sorted out my timing mess. he explained that the right and left banks were not from facing the car but opposite. so that helped. got everything slapped back together, gooped up the surface of the timing cover and put it on, everything went smoothly. got all the accessories on and it all looked good. then we filled her up with oil and coolant and turned it on.
immediately I noticed the awesome sound... then I realized it was idling weird which scared me. there was a vacuum hose that I forgot so Jeremiah plugged that quick. after the smoke cleared from burning off the headers I saw it threw a code. before I could check it we realized the temp was getting high from bubbles in the system. I killed the car and we tried to bleed it, although the crappy bleed valve is made from plastic and I stripped that out good when I did my header install. Jeremiah did all he could to try to get the bubbles out other ways, but it wasn't working... this bubble was big. he kept working on that while I checked the code with Cipher. the code was pretty bad, it seems I had skipped a tooth on the timing chain for the bank 2 cam set (the only part I did when he did the timing.)
The car ran, and idled funny, it wanted to die a lot on decel but I was still happy my engine wasn't dead or dying. but I didn't look forward to having to remove the timing cover to correct it. I had to be at a dinner so we just left it as is and I babied the car (keeping under 4k rpms) while I drove there. do you know how hard it is to not floor your awesome sounding cammed VQ??
anyways I drove it as little as possible so to not damage anything and I waited another day to finish the install. one little link on a timing chain was holding me back from the joy I needed to experience. one little link was going to cause another day full of issues.
-Monday 6:30pm - 3:00 am
Jeremiah gets to my place early to try to knock this out. I left my bumper and undercover off so we didn't waste anytime. jacked it up and got after it. removing parts and draining the oil (I filtered it so I could reuse it.)
we got everything off in record time, got the timing cover off and the valve covers and everything we needed to correct the mistake. we didn't have to drain the coolant this time which was good, the bubble had worked it self to the top so even the top radiator hose didn't leak when we had to remove it to get the radiator fan shroud out.
after removing everything we reset the timing, I cleaned off the mating surfaces again and Jeremiah did the technical stuff. I didn't touch it this time but I did watch the magic take place. he was good, he has all these little tips and tricks that helped save a bunch of time. I won't go in to some of his secrets but just know you are in good hands with him.
I rushed to get everything back together and we had the timing cover on and half of the accessories plus the oil pan on before he realized we didn't torque the timing sprockets on to the cams. at this point, I was ready to say fck it and just leave it as it was. he wouldn't let me, thank god!! it took another 45 minutes, but in record time we got the cover off and torqued everything down, the rtv goop was still wet so we didn't have to redo that. everything was good, or so I thought.
I proceeded to rush the process of putting the valve covers on, because I wanted to drive my newly cammed car. In rushing this I jacked up the sealing gaskets on the valve covers and when we got the car all back together it started spewing oil on my headers which made a ton of smoke. so we once again tore down the intake and plenum and vtc solenoids to see what happened. I guess when I put the driver side in the gasket slipped out and I cut it in half when I torqued down on the bolts. the passenger side however, we couldn't figure out why there was oil coming out. either way I was damn lucky to have an extra set of gaskets from a set I acquired awhile back. we threw everything back together for the last time, and added some extra water to the coolant and FINALLY, FINALLY we we done.
it heated up, no codes, no spikes in temp, everything sounded awesome.
I took it for a drive and it was great. not a huge power gain yet but once the ECU adapts it will be sick. the sound is amazing too. I will post before and after sound clips, along with some pictures tomorrow. but for now I'm going to bed.
this is Rob signing off.
thank you.
Other mods
Stock Airbox with K&N Drop in
5/8 Spacer
Ported and Polished plenum, down to the heads
Nismo R-Tune Cams
Strup Coated Headers
AAM Highflow Cats
Bassani True Dual Exhaust
=== Sound files ===
the Mic was 5 feet away from the car, probably should have been a bit further, esp after cams.
beforecams.wma - 605kb
aftercams.wma - 649kb
EDIT **** NEW AND IMPROVED THREAD! NOW WITH 100% MORE PICTURES!!! ****
small mess
front cover off
T3K and the front cover
one cam in!
rear timing cover off
medium mess
rear timing cover clean
cams in, timing components on
powdercoated bolts and hard coolant lines
front cover clean
front cover sealed up *the first time*, kinda dirty
Last edited by sexyrob; Nov 13, 2010 at 12:04 PM.
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Glad you got it all back together and it's running the way it should. I thought about doing my motor rebuild myself when my motor blew before I knew Cobb was going to pay for it. I am sure glad i didn't it sounds like the timing stuff is even harder then I thought. So do you have a HR or DE motor?
standard VQ35DE... they never put HR engines in the G coupes, they got the VHR. The newer body style sedan got the HR engine though. Good luck finding decently priced cams for the HR or RevUp
yeah I'm damn tired today. And it's my 2yr anniversary today, I gotta do something nice for my girl, she's been putting up with me doing a lot of work in the garage lately.
yeah I'm damn tired today. And it's my 2yr anniversary today, I gotta do something nice for my girl, she's been putting up with me doing a lot of work in the garage lately.
Registered User
iTrader: (4)
yeah dude im deff tired today(it was about 3am when everything was said and done)...but it sounds absolutely sick!!! im jealous now..lol. deff a lot of lessons learned in this particular ugrade. glad to be a part of it. cant wait to see the gains on the dyno...after tuning of course.
btw....think i left my hat at your place rob.
btw....think i left my hat at your place rob.