First off hello. I've been a spectator for a while and I now own an 03 dg coupe w/ a vortech and emanage and I could be up a creek. Now that I've had the car a while I think I may be in for a bad ride and I don't have the funds to handle everything right now. I tried to do my research before I bought it and it looks like I wasn't thorough enough and I was too trusting. This could be a long read, but I want to let everyone know that I'm not just trying to complain and get something for nothing and I want to give the clearest picture of what's going on. I'm severely bummed with myself and I need to find out if the pro's here can help me out. I've already been calling around like crazy trying to get some opinions but everyone has a different direction for me to go. I'm also paying out of pocket for the troubleshooting.

The car test drove fine and didn't seem to have any major problems. The only thing that caught my attention was the cold start because the idle would jump up and down until it warmed up. The dealer was well as the shop that installed all the mods said that was the nature of the beast with the emanage on this car. Just for reassurance I had a compression test done to see if it was ok on the inside. Mind you I'm not a mechanic and didn't specify dry/wet or leakdown, but the dealer said if their shop thought it needed it based on the compression test, they'd do a leakdown. Of course I might have been too trusting having their shop do it and it was on my dime. I'm sure I sound like a real tough negotiator right now Their testing showed 150-155 in all cylinders w/ no big spread. I didn't know the factory specs ahead of time but ASSumed they'd indicate if it was low, and of course they said they'd do a leakdown if they saw problems. They didn't do the leakdown so I ASSumed it was fine.

I had the car about a week and hadn't really pushed it because I wanted to do an oil change first, and it's still on the stock clutch, which still doesn't seem to be slipping. I've heard that they don't last long over 400hp. Also, after driving it for a little while, I got more into boost and it just didn't seem like a car that had 400hp. The previous owner showed on his craiglist listing that he'd used 15w-40 Royal Purple. Not knowing the concensus on that brand, the shop I went to suggested backing it down to 10w-30 so I did. After the oil change I started noticing that after idling at stoplights, when I took off there was a plume of smoke. I started getting that sinking feeling and then had my wife and a friend follow me. They said it smelled like oil and was gray-white, not the bluish I was thinking it'd be (valve seals/guides). They said it was almost every stoplight, but didn't really do it under mild acceleration, and then if I stomped it the color would be darker so I thought it was just richening up under boost. I immediately called the car lot where I bought it and they started saying that because of the emanage making it rich, it could be cylinder washout, which I guess could be the case. They said their shop wasn't familiar with tuning those things and I said that since I talked to the tuning shop I would call them and see what they thought.

I have also talked to two local shops, the one that installed the parts, and the one that most recently tuned the emanage. Both weren't sure based on my information what the problem was but suggested that it could be rings.

In the mean time, I figured that since I was still barely under 70k I'd call the Infiniti dealer to see what they could do. I'd read about the oil consumption ordeal that many people claim to have gone through. The service mgr said that they wouldn't warranty anything since it had all the mods on it, but he'd try to help me figure out what was going one. Before I took it to them, I decided I'd try to eliminate some variables. I started by checked the pcv valve. It worked but I replaced it anyway. I then started wondering about the vortech having a leaky seal so I took off all the IC piping and didn't find any oil pooled where the output curved down to the blowoff valve and then curved into the IC. It did look like a light oil mist had been blowing through the SC, down through the IC and back into the intake. While I had the piping off, I disconnected the pcv hoses, plugged the vaccum leaks, and fired it up. I held my hand at the SC output and didn't get any oily mist. I DID notice that the pcv hoses were blowing out a gray-white mist. I thought "blow-by", crap. I then installed the "home depot oil catchers" on both the drivers and passenger side, just the small ones. They weren't trapping as much as I thought they would.

I decided that since I was having a hard time trusting anyone's advice, I'd let the people who are supposed to know infiniti's best get their hands on it. They did a warm dry test and got 180-185 in all cylinders, and then wet they got 270-290. They said we're probably looking at ring seal problems. I guess I don't know why if the engine were worn out it would pull full spec dry, but I do understand that a huge jump usually means ring problems. They didn't think we were dealing with a valve seal/guide related problem and said they never see seal problems on these engines. They said they'd be happy to help me get it fixed, which would probably involve $2000 labor to install another motor. Ouch.

I decided that since the previous owner used the heavier oil, I'd switch back to some heavier oil to see if the smoke got any lighter. I went with some castrol gtx 10w-40 as I coudln't see buying the good stuff just to shoot it out the exhaust. The smoke is less but is still there.

I'm going to call the car lot and explaing that I've tried getting it diagnosed on my own dime and things are pointing to internal problems. Just to avoid what I believe they'll say, is there ANYTHING else I could check or that anyone could advise me to do before I continue negotiations with them?

Based on my findings, I'm looking at $2500 for a compression tested long block, assuming I could find one from someone I could trust. Or I'm looking at buying a performance built engine for around $5500.

I did speak with John from Z1 this morning about this which was before I changed to the thicker oil. He thought it sounded weird and wanted me to let him know if the oil helped.

If anyone knows someone in the Wichita, KS area that you trust and could help me out, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise I'll have to park this thing for a while until I can save some money to fix it.

Thanks for reading.

 

I don't really know how to diagnose your problem, but I will give you one piece of advice.. Get rid of that emanage. That is the worst EMS for our cars. I'm sure everyone here will agree with me. Get something else, anything else.

 

I would also strongly agree with what canadian posted.

 

Thx guys. I've already seen how unpopular the emanage is. I was hoping to go with the utec or the osiris but now it looks like I'll have other things to buy.

If I had the money I would love to go Haltech but between buying it and getting it tuned I'd be into it pretty deep. Money that I'll probably be spending on an engine.

 

Did you finally find out what the factory specs are for compression test ?
If you did, let us know please !