Stillen S.C. Plenum charge assembly coolant leak during WOT on dyno
 

I purchased a VQ35HR stillen supercharger kit for my 07 Nismo from a forum member over at my350z. Since the stillen s.c. is more popular for the VQ37, i figured this would be the spot to post.

Before i begin, I am well aware about the consequences with purchasing any used forced induction kit. Kits get passed around. I contacted the seller before and everything seemed legit. So please, heard it from everyone already. "Should have got a new kit".

I personally installed the kit and upgraded to the larger heat exchanger from frozenboost. Type 101. The blower was inspected and was in good order. I replaced the bearings in all the pulley's, new belts, ect... I brought it over to Kaizen tunning in Boxboro Ma. They have great experience with Nissans, lots of GTR work is done there, 370's, ect... They boost leak, vac leaked, everything checked out.

When it came to the dyno, the car put only 320wHP at 6.5 PSI and was showing some AFR issues. Then a cloud of white smoke at the end of WOT came out. Entire pit was a rock concert. Suspecting a charge cooler leak, we took the 4 bolts out of which the charge cooler was assembled in the plenum. Slid it out and there was coolant in the plenum. I am stuck now having them pull the top end out and inspect the sleeves and doing a compression and leak down test. We couldn't pull the entire core out because it was hitting the timing chain cover.

Has anyone experienced a coolant leak from the plenum assembly? Hopefully the motor isn't toast. After the dyno, we let the car idle and it was fine. Still for reassurance, i'm going through the inspection. I can understand any wear and tear from all the components... but this charge cooler in the plenum has me scratching my head. It was well packaged upon receiving. No scratches or any evidence of damage during shipping.

All help is greatly appreciated. Any chance Stillen could shine in?

-NT

Well, the good news is there are probably 40 plenum coolers sitting in people's garages on this forum.

Haha, TopgunZ. I believe you or another member released the air to air set up?

Edit... It's In your profile description. My next stage for next year was upgrading to your kit. It's a work of art I must say.

Anyone have a Charge cooler they want to sell? My Z is sitting at the tuning shop and I need a replacement ;-)

Anyone know if there are seals in the core cooler that could fail? I can imagine the 2 90* elbows leaking. What about the plate? Is there an o-ring?

If your looking for a cooler I would post in the for sale/ wanting to buy section of this forum you would probably have much better luck.

There is a zero-miles unit at my shop that belongs to a customer who wanted the a/a kit done with original install. I could pack and ship it on his behalf as soon as tomorrow. I'll point him here to see if he wants to sell it.

Sweet. Much appreciated

At idle, there was no white smoke at all. It makes me believe if there is a leak, it is small. The reason for the white smoke at the end of WOT is the blower is producing 6.5 lbs which was also pressuring the independent closed loop cooling system for the plenum through this leak. When the Z went into vacuum, the now pressurized plenum cooler then discharged coolant at about 6 or so psi. Hopefully I'm not screwed. Like I mentioned, car ran fine afterwards. Curious if anyone ran into a similar issue and could shine in whether or not I hydro phucked my engine.

Why don't you disconnect the water lines to the plenum cooler, drain it, seal one side, then blow air into the other? You will find out if there is a leak.

We know there is for sure a leak. I slid the cooler assembly from the plenum and there was coolant everywhere.

He said he is willing to let it go. I will PM you when I hear back from him on how much he is looking for.

Great news. Much appreciated. Still nothing from Kaizens. They are booked this week and will only be able to pull the entire assembly if there is a cancellation or the following week. I'm crossing my fingers with the compression and leak down test results

How much coolant you have left in the Stillen system? Depending on the water pump pressure, size of the leak. You might have gotten lucky and did water injection. Cleaning the combustion chambers and the tops of the pistons. If the motor kept running. You should be ok. It didn't hydro-lock. That's BAD!

Used to take a water hose and spray it down a carb until water started to run out of the tail pipe of a running motor. Never hurt it either. :rofl2:

I believe that is what happened. The car was running fine after some idle after the pull. The reservoir was not completely empty. They run a tight shop, so the upcoming tests are essentially manditory. The nismo is an 07 with 53k miles. I probably should have done a compression and leak down before the install... So no harm at this point. Thanks again for the help

-NT

Does the Stillen water pump shut off with the ignition? This is where you might have a problem. If it ran for a little bit after you stopped the engine. It may have put enough coolant into the intake, and chambers to hydro-lock on the next start up. Pull all the plugs and crank the engine over to blow out any coolant that may have collected or pooled. Then spray a little oil in each chamber to coat the cylinder walls.

Yes, the relay was wired in parallel with the fuel pump. Car shuts off, pump shuts off.

phunk hooked me up with a new charge core, so once that arrives... i'll install it back in the plenum.

I should be getting pictures today/tomorrow from Kaizen's showing damage to the core. Unfortunately, the price to play got steep with this one. They run a tight shop there, but absolutely professional. Was glad they took on my project.

That was my charger core hope it gets you back up and running ! :tiphat:

Ahh, the anonymous donor. Thanks for letting it go. Saved my butt at this point. :icon18:

Now your cars will be forever linked.

Transplant donor.

Still no word. Cooler will be in end of day tomorrow. So earliest I can get it over at Kaizen's is Monday. The waiting game..... ugh. My daily driver is an 03 Toyota Rav 4. I'm starting to get sick of it. Having Z withdrawals. Worse, I'm hoping for 400wHP. This will be a significant change that I have always waiting for ;-)

i get my car back Monday hopefully too! :happydance:


Good Luck!

Well, just an update. Compression test came back with 205->210 across the board. Motor is still in great condition. They put in the new charge cooler and it will get dyno tuned on Wednesday. I'll post numbers if all goes well

@acorona370, Did you get your Z back already?

Was supposed to get a call from them earlier in the day, but nothing. Hopefully tomorrow. I hate the waiting game. The Z has been at Kaizens for a month already.

Hurry up and wait. It's fact of life. :shakes head:

Haha... yup. In their defense, I was only there for a tune. Of course for unforeseen events, they were able to squeeze my car in a couple weeks later. Luckily they are 2 weeks out in scheduling. Granite state dyno (the only other alternative) has a 2->3 month waiting period

Saddly im still down too. im having it remote tuned by seb and he says we might have a software problem. Charles said he sent some info over to ECUTEk for them to review.:crying:

I just got the results of mine today. Only 350wHP. Granted, I have a 350z HR... but they couldn't get any more power out of it. I believe it is the exhaust system. I have high flow cats and a tanabe Y pipe going into the stock Nismo center section and muffler.

Normally it should have seen around 375wHP (assuming I had a true dual exhaust).

That's a lot of work for 350 whp... I thought the HR made boosted power comparable to the VHR? (I have heard it actually can make more)

If you get stillen's factory tune, it is only 330-340 to the wheels.

Kaizens claims to be super conservative for customer street cars. They had a couple 370z stillens that did 437wHP with the upgraded 9lb pulley.

For example... 370z here made only 392 on stock Stillen set up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYekhOe9LpI

still no new news. Kaizen's couldn't figure out what the idling issue is after the wet intake filter incident. They are having someone from nissan hook up Consult to it this wednesday.

--- really annoyed now. almost 1.5 months at their shop

Picked up the Z yesterday. Pulls like a mule. Has a little idle issue and it threw a cel for high idle. I plugged a logger in and saw the STFT at idle were high. I saw positive corrections(adding fuel under lean conditions), which makes me believe there is a vac leak.