Hi everyone!

For starters, a little about me:
My family has an extensive background in love for Japanese cars. My younger brother is a master Infiniti mechanic, and he assisted a lot with this “build,” which is far from complete. I’m an automotive detailer with almost a decade of experience in that field, and professionally, I’m an industrial coatings installer (epoxy, and polished concrete). Between my mom, brother and I, we have six Nissan/Infiniti vehicles (370Z, G37, G35). I have always loved domestics a little more, but I just love cars in general. I’ve had a Charger, E60 530i, Mustang, CL-S… maybe I just like six cylinder vehicles? Lol.

When I bought the car, we knew there was a single cylinder misfire, issues with the rear suspension, all rotors were rusted and falling apart, the calipers were locked up.

Upon tear down, we noticed a rats nest under the intake manifold, in the valley of the engine. The knock sensor harness as well as the fuel injector harness were chewed up. The “single cylinder misfire” turned into replacing the valve covers with an aluminum set that had serviceable spark tube seals. Cylinder one had blown seals that caused oil to leak into the spark plug tube.

in the past two months, the following items were replaced/overhauled:
- rear shocks and bushings
- plenum and manifold gaskets
- knock sensor, harness
- injector harness, o-rings
- pads, rotors, and calipers all the way around
- battery
- spark plugs
- Z1 PCV hoses

and the first aftermarket part… Spec-D projector headlights

Plans?
Soon I’m going to buy an aluminum undertray, due to this being my “winter beater”/comfortable daily driver that is also a family car.
The serpentine belt is showing wear, so when I go to replace that, lightweight crank/alternator pulleys and idler pulley delete.
Suspension is pretty high priority for me, looking at coilovers and new LCA’s to delete the spring bucket, new sway bars and end links.
Luckily I have a semi-local plug for G35 parts, because due to rust, I want to replace all of my fenders… yeah, I know. I really love the paint that this car has (Ivory Pearl) but I may end up doing a repaint through a family friend, and I’m up between a midnight purple or a pearl black.

But for now, I put another VQ back on the road, and it feels amazing.

Looking forward to learning from you guys, and hopefully helping out where I can.

Right before the initial tear down, where we removed the mismatched hood for easy access LOL

New valve covers

Realizing we had more work to do than the valve covers…

Making sure they work…

Registered, power washed to remove gunk and back on the road! Planning on a deep detail this coming weekend.

 

Welcome to the forum, and good first post.

 

Looks good, should be a fun ride. But I gotta ask, what is going on with the headlights??? Are those coupe headlights that you stuck on there?

 

My car initially looked like that but it's a black sedan. My driver's side headlight assembly must've been from a coupe because it looks odd plus there's a noticeable gap between the assembly and the hood. My liking of a junkyard 1.5 hours away had me replace that assembly with a better one. Now I'm stuck with a coupe assembly.

 

Nope, they're just 05/06 headlights I bought. The mis matched body lines don't really bother me much. I wanted projector headlights since I live out in the country kinda, and do a lot of night time driving. It's given me some headaches as far as the wiring goes. But I want to retrofit the stock headlights eventually.

 

My resonator fell out during a stop at Panda Express one day. I had a straight pipe welded to the stock Y-pipe all the back (&#128169 in April.

Piece by puece I ordered a full exhaust.
Megan Racing resonated test pipes, AWD Y-pipe from Z1 as well as their muffler.

FINALLY got it installed this past week, and could only be a little happier. There's a little rasp left is whatever... it's a straight piped V6 at this point 🤣 Luckily Z1 sent a silencer with the muffler that works surprisingly well so I'm happy.

Now we move on to suspension...

The stock exhaust was in pretty bad shape already. Both sides looked like this and I felt compelled to give this car the exhaust it deserves for now...

I'm sure the bit of rasp left over is due to the flex pipes in both the Y and test pipes

Updated pic after a single stage polish 😮‍💨

 

It’s definitely the test pipes, it’s where a majority of the volume and rasp comes from.

Recommend HFC or resonated test pipes only. If you are feeling fancy, Motordyne ART pipes do a great job of quieting the rasp and increasing power. I know a guy looking to sell a set too 😉 (I need to make a post!)

 

I've been wanting to try out a pair of Torqen Helmz resonated pipes, they look like a straight COPY of the ART pipes but at a much cheaper price.

https://conceptzperformance.com/torq...de_p_73602.php

 

I've already got resonated test pipes on.

 

OP, resonated test pipes won’t stop it. HFC or art (type) pipes.

Tony does sound like he’s winding down. Has the patent run its course?

 

Now that I look at the link, I saw these and decided on the current setup because I was concerned about figment as far as it being an AWD vehicle. Was tired of the rusted exhaust and wanted something quickly, but an upgrade would always be considered in the future for sure.

 

I'm pretty sure patents are good for 20 years, which would make sense if he originally filed in 2003, it's now 20 years later and afaik those Torquen Helmz pipes just came out like 3-4 months ago.