Nissan 370Z Forum - Need help

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Need help - Car issues

Hello,

So long story short it seems as if I bought a lemon. I got a used 2014 370z sports touring model with F.I. mods installed already. It has a Stillen SC, AEM water/meth kit, Stillen exhaust, and it appears to be Stillen sway bars. I'm in California and water/meth is for racing only so they emptied it before I drove it and gave no info on the car. The car drove fine for about two days and the problems starting piling up. I was driving home and I thought my SC just stopped working!! It felt as if the car had no power and the acceleration was real sluggish...so the SES light came on and we got a snap on scanner to see what codes came up. We got the MAF sensor P010B/P010A and a cylinder misfire. We cleaned them and cleaned the air filters, after that cleared the codes. The car ran soon for a day and ran into the same issues. Plus it was going into limp mode.. Loss of all power had to pull over stop the car and let it breath and then start her up. Main times I could tell it was an issues is when I would accelerate fast (speed limit of course) and went into limp. I thought it was over heating but my friend didn't think so.. Anyways, we hooked up the scanner again and got more codes. P1233, P1238, P0101, P010B... NOW I have to say I haven't been running the car with water/meth and I'm thinking that's the issue or it's the tune (I'm hoping to God it's nothing crazy)!! I also want to say this is my second car and I really glad to be apart of this community. I understand issues happen in the F.I. but for a 2014 I wasn't hoping to get something within the first 2 days.. Any information you can give me as a new 370z owner would be great and any information on the topic!!! Thank you so much!

If it only happens when you are going WOT (wide open throttle) then I am guessing they tuned that baby super aggressive with that meth kit. How much boost are you seeing? What are your AFR's? You might have a ridiculous pulley setup that is far too aggressive without the meth. So what is happening is you are pinging, pre-detonating, knocking until the knock sensor gets tripped and it puts your car into limp mode. Once in that mode the car will not rev past a set rpm. You can swipe the limp mode off and it will drive fine until that knock sensor triggers it to go back into limp.

You should NOT drive it hard until you figure it out. You could be doing damage every time you do. Stay out of boost. I would see if you can get the tune from Stillen for free and swap that on there maybe? Then if all is good, pull that meth kit out and get a dyno tune at a shop.

Agreed on everything posted above. Get that thing to a tuner ASAP. Honestly, I'd have it towed there, not drive it.

Thanks guys! I stopped driving the car and I have an appointment for the 23rd and I planned on towing it down to get the car looked at by a reputable tuner. Yeah, I just want the car up and running since it's my DD. At the same time I would like to see 430whp with some good wtq. I have been following your a2a Topgunz but the California CARB is bringing me down. After looking at everything on the forums here they told me they got 500-560whp with the car but with a Stillen kit I would be surprised. Like you said though it's likely tuned super aggressive. Well thanks again guys!:-)

The car doesn't have a boost gauge, sorry.
Also, would you say it's worth a shot getting a 50/50 water/meth mix to see if that's the issue? Stillen won't tune it because the water/meth. I just figure it's going to cost a hefty penny to get all this fixed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2016 (Post 3405384)

It's the tuning, I just had that problem. Hit up a guy with a license to install uprev, he retuned the car, had it relearn idle and now she's running stronger than ever :) he's still giving discounts the program costs $1400 but he's selling it at $300 right now if you're interested? I would still maybe clean or replace the MAFS just to be safe. I also noticed this would happen when the car is pretty hot so I'd also suggest a vented hood or upgraded oil cooling. And more likely than not I'm with the 2nd guy the car was tuned for water/meth and suddenly you've emptied it's meth supply... Gonna have serious withdrawals :/

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Quote:

Originally Posted by 2016 (Post 3405693)

You need a boost and AFR gauge, stat. After running it without meth, you may want a compression test to make sure you didn't do serious damage.

Thanks Chuck, I'll make sure to have the do the test and I'll look into getting both of those gauges.

Fairlady, thanks for the offer but I'm in NorCal and I work in SoCal. I'm lucky I have family that's able to tow the car for me to the tuner and it will take 2-3 days.

Should I just buy water/meth and see how she does?

First see what the tune looks like. Water/meth isn't a bad thing unless it's tuned with it to the ragged edge and then the tank goes dry. I had a good experience with it on another car, but it's another point of failure. if you just use it to make up for CA's crap gas, you'll likely be ok.

Well thanks guys! I think I have a better piece of mind knowing that it's a tuning issue. Hopefully if I don't go with the water/meth I can still get some good WHP but we will see. I appreciate all the help!:-)

You can still use the meth kit. Just use it to raise the octane of the fuel and cool the intake charge some. It can be a good thing from a reliability standpoint if you use it conservatively.

I can still use it even though it says illegal on CA highways? Well I guess that wouldn't be my only issue considering there are racing headers on the car.. Lol. Along with toyo racing tires..

I would. The Stillen kit has major issues, mostly related to the intake temps. The meth kit might end up saving your motor.

One mechanic told me to remove the plug on the MAFS when I ran it so there wouldn't be faults and it worked with my BMW for a couple of weeks while I got it replaced haha but that's just me man idk how'd that'd go with your set up X)

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Thanks again, I will have to look at CA state laws about the water/meth. Yeah I haven't drove the car for about a week now. Just going to get it towed to the tuner and hopefully it's not to bad. ��

Best of luck Z brotha! Please post pics of ride later! ;)

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