Since I bought my G35X I've wanted to do a compression test to see how my engine is holding up 14 years later. I had the spark plugs changed last year but I never did the job myself; thus last night when removing the plugs I found a decent amount of oil on spark plugs 4 and 6 so I'm going to be replacing the drivers side valve cover in a couple months.

Rock Auto sells three different brands of valve covers (Apex, ITM, and Beck/Arnley). Has anyone installed one of these valve covers and shown promise in their reliability? Some people like to say always go OEM, but frankly, the OEM covers are already a weak point. That said, I'm not sure how I feel about the Apex covers as they seem suspiciously cheap.

Please note that I am not interested in drilling out the spark plug seals and just replacing those; I am going to replace the entire VC.

Thanks in advance people!

 

No experience with any of those brands, but I've been running aftermarket covers from amazon for maybe a couple years. IIRC they were by JDMSPEED. When I bought them they had 5 star reviews but I'm pretty sure they have a bad rating now. I replaced them because I thought for sure there would be oil in one of the tubes while replacing the valve cover gasket that was leaking oil. To my surprise, the oem ones were dry. Now I have the oem ones as a backup.

 

Correction. Definitely bought them from ebay but from the same seller I'm sure

 

Just found them for $93.17 CAD for the pair. Seems too good to be true... how have they held up? Have you checked the spark plugs since replacing them?

 

I did some research prior to ordering a set of valve covers from Rock Auto and I chose Beck/Arnley since what I read online is that they normally just re-brand OEM parts. When I received them they were in Beck/Arnley box but inside they were OEM parts in a brown box with the nissan logo.

 

It's not a critical component so you should be fine with any brand.

 

That's interesting. I don't suppose you took pics of them before installing? I'm intrigued.

 

Nope, I should have but I didn't. But they looked like exactly like the OEM ones I removed.

 

CNS EngineParts sells the pair of valve covers on Amazon for $218.48; I'm thinking about getting these and getting the OEM gaskets from Nissan, as well as put some RTV sealant around the spark plug well seals.