Hi there, bought this baddie in march to congratulate myself for overcoming ~something~


My beautiful girlfriend (redacted) alongside my kinda cute-ish car

I'm an avid motorcyclist, however, due to the fact I'm not elderly I had never driven a manuel with 4 wheels before, I couldn't bring myself to learn during a test drive at a dealership, so had to cop it. I was looking for an Immanuel coupe, *** or German, RWD and at least 6cyl. Badaboom badabing.

Here she is getting nice and wet and ready for her big girl plate

Bought for 6.6k from a good buddy of mine who was moving states and didn't want to haul it, otherwise would have kept. He's a hardcore "car guy" so I trusted him to not stick me with a POS.

I don't stall out that much anymore. Taking off in first kinda sucks, I go to 2nd asap and then shift around 3k-3.5k rpm's from there. I'm still pretty damn slow in 1st-2nd. I've had the car 2 months and just got the plate on it.

Photo after my first drive with her. No, grandma, I didn't have anyone to teach me how to drive stick

Afaik it has the sport + premium pkg. Sunroof, bose, cruise cont. plus the V-LSD and everything minus the nav system.
Black on black interior.
My buddy put 2020+ continental extremecontacts on all four 19" alum. alloy forged wheels
ISR catback exhaust
Z1 Mild Performance Clutch
Z1 Lightweight Flywheel
Replaced w OEM: slave cylinder, throw out bearing, rear main seal, output shaft seal
He also did a transmission mount & flush.

Good thing I realized she takes premium at the pump and not after

There was a decent leak coming from the output shaft seal. He had it leak both times he did it, so I took a crack at it. He removed the driveshaft in one piece without removing the Y pipe underneath. I took the driveshaft apart and slid both halves out, which made installation much easier I imagine. I haven't had it leak so far. I changed that seal with an OEM and topped off the ATF.

Good as new

It has a constant TPMS light on the dash, even though all tires are at the correct PSI. Need to reset that. Also the driver's side window will roll down a little bit after fully closing if you don't manually shut the window and use the automatic feature. Another slight annoyance (possibly the chattering of that lightweight flywheel) but when at low RPM's, and seemingly while turning (not sure) there is what sounds like a vibrating chatter from the passenger side of the interior. It sounds nearby when driving, not from the engine. But who knows.

It also has a pretty nasty smell. I'm assuming from the ATF leaking directly onto the exhaust pipes. The interior has a tinge of nasty automotive fluid smell, and it smells just hot and nasty after a good drive. Honestly, what do for that?

I intend to do all the routine maintenance and pick up the schedule at my current mileage (128k) as well as all the other stuff one should do when picking up a brand new old used car. I'm not in a super rush though because I do trust my friend, it was his own personal daily.

Aside from routine maintenance on the schedule, and figuring out the little annoyances, what other things should I be concerned about? Any important preventative maintenance that is often overlooked or commonly causes issue w these cars?

I intend to install a new sound system, my speakers suck decently bad. New amp, new speakers minus the 2 rear deck ones(?), double DIN HU.

Planning to install the Plenum Spacer, Mrev2, 75mm throttle body, oil catch can, new radiator fans (bro thinks one is slow), 20mm front, 25mm rear wheel spacers, high flow cats, brembo calipers (if I'm feeling like a baller after everything else, prolly not)

Definitely looking into getting the Z1 flash tune as well, should I get the tune first and then mod the car more, or are there certain mods I need to do before getting the tune?

._.

I'll probably get the headlights everyone else gets, I really need to fix up the interior, it's not horrible but dash has some good cracks and the leather is splitting off the driver's side door handle. Theres also some decent knicks and scuffs and black spots on the wheels. A half dollar sized gouge on the front bumper, and hundreds of little teeny little paint knicks. One or two slight penny sized dents. Time will tell how much I care about this stuff in the future.

 

Looks like a very nice ride! Glad to hear that you plan on getting it all sorted out and keeping it nice instead of trashing it. You definitely have a nice start though, that thing seems pretty clean.

learning to drive stick for the first time in a car with a lightweight flywheel has got to be rough! Just keep the rpms up!

keep us posted on how it comes along and what you do to it.

 

good starting point for sure, and as hoser said looks pretty clean for the year / mileage.

Dont feel bad about a few stall outs. Ive driven manual cars / SUVs for alot of my life, and I still felt like a newb when I got my '06 6MT. That said, unless starting on a hill, I rarely if ever start in 1st gear, and I assume thats pretty common for us manual G35 drivers, but who knows.

 

I hadn't actually thought about the flywheel specifically, but that makes sense. I thought I wasn't supposed to let on the gas until the clutch was all the way let off, not true. I'm getting the hang of it now. I have a very steep driveway (first pic ITT.) I had been wondering if any of the mods to the car made a difference to learning stick as opposed to learning on a stock car.
Here's a video that really lets you hear that flywheel chatter

I read somewhere that the way to test if you have a "good or bad" clutch in these cars was to start in 3rd, and if you're able to take off from a stop then you have a good clutch. I was like hmmm so I don't NEED to start in first like I had been told by old folks to "always do." I am a bartender so I get to hear every little mechanics wivestale and superstition as if it's a cold hard fact from all the old folks. I like to skip to 2nd and 3rd is even better if I can. Coming from a motorcycle with sequential 1<N>2>3>4>5>6 took a minute to wrap my head around the fact that I can "skip gears" say and go straight into 5th from 3rd for example.

 

Lots of motorcyclists don’t seem to grasp you can shift multiple gears before letting clutch out though lol.

nice first post and great looking car. Good mileage for the year.

power steering leaks (atf), correct? Not sure where that is near exhaust.

 

The seal where driveshaft meets transmission

 

Congrats on your new car and conquering stick shift! It looks nice!

 

Get an UpRev etune from @seymore4 . You can do it now if you want (it will definitely improve things on a stock engine...really smooths out the power bandwidth and starts to pull hard sooner) and then after engine mods retune it for a reduced price. Or you could just do the mods quick-like and then get the tune.

 

Definitely skip this and have me do it.