Nissan 370Z Forum

Nissan 370Z Forum (http://www.the370z.com/)
-   Member's 370Z Gallery (http://www.the370z.com/members-370z-gallery/)
-   -   schrute's journal (http://www.the370z.com/members-370z-gallery/10330-schrutes-journal.html)

370zdub 10-25-2009 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schrute (Post 246789)
^Thanks man.

Did you get your Z at KG Orem? Did yours have a paint problem at delivery also? They need to be more careful LOL.

How are the steps on your truck? Did you get them installed?

Yeah I got my Z at KG Orem! I don't know what the deal is with them and paint there were only two Z's there that didn't have a paint problem when I picked mine up.

The steps are freaking awesome!! I love them and they went on great, thanks for such a great deal on those!

Oh btw, my girlfriend says thanks for the steps too haha, she is short and likes that she doesnt have a four foot hop to get into my truck anymore. :bowrofl:

370zdub 10-25-2009 12:26 PM

Ah! I can't believe I missed the dyno day! :( stupid work, I wish I could have been there, those numbers your Z put down are great, I need to get mine to a dyno asap.

schrute 10-25-2009 11:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt (Post 251337)
I noticed your mpg average. I've only averaged 16.9 so far since I got the car last week (still on first half tank of gas) with mostly 45 mph zones with a few lights. Not exactly stop and go, but a good bit of 55 mph country highways too. Is that just my first tank? Perhaps the gas in the car? I would love to get above 18 or 19 mpg.

I wouldn't worry about it until you've run through a couple tanks to see what you get. Who knows what dealers really put in there for your first tank. I ran my first tank through pretty quick with easy miles on the highway mostly to get it out of there.

I'm getting better mileage than I expected to get as I do get on the throttle pretty frequently, but between the opportunities I have to "get on it" most of my miles are pretty easy highway miles going to work and back. The more city driving you do the closer you will get to the EPA's city rating of 18 MPG.

On other Nissan vehicles I've owned I also noticed a bump in gas mileage when I got to about 10k miles. We'll see if the Z shows the same improvement in a few months.

schrute 10-25-2009 11:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 370zdub (Post 251570)
Ah! I can't believe I missed the dyno day! :( stupid work, I wish I could have been there, those numbers your Z put down are great, I need to get mine to a dyno asap.

It was fun! I had to leave after the first few dyno runs to go to work myself. Work gets in the way of a lot of fun!

I'm glad the steps are working out on your truck. My wife is a shorty too, she pretty much insisted on them, lol.

travisjb 10-26-2009 12:40 AM

Good progress !

A couple of us are running AP Racing BBKs with 18" wheels fyi. Fronts on mine are 18x10 vs 14+" diameter rotors. Not saying all combos will work, suggest you get the cad drawings to check yourself - or buy a proven combo

6spd 10-26-2009 07:42 PM

awesome z schrute!

schrute 10-26-2009 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by travisjb (Post 252604)
Good progress !

A couple of us are running AP Racing BBKs with 18" wheels fyi. Fronts on mine are 18x10 vs 14+" diameter rotors. Not saying all combos will work, suggest you get the cad drawings to check yourself - or buy a proven combo

I bet those AP's are amazing. I would love a set of those, but to be honest a BBK is a few mods down my list and the AP's might be out of reach. I enjoy reading about them in your posts though!

schrute 10-26-2009 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 6spd (Post 253542)
awesome z schrute!

Thanks 6spd!

schrute 11-01-2009 02:19 AM

I've had a buzz/rattle that's been bothering me pretty much since the car was new. At first I thought it was coming from the crossbar in the rear, but to find out for sure I asked the wife to ride back there in the hatch (just for a mile or so, lol) and she found that is was coming from the headliner, just in front of the hatch and just a little to the right of the centerline of the car. She's a good sport, isn't she? No pics of her riding back there, I know my limits. :rofl2:

Today I finally got around to pulling out all the trim to get under the headliner. There's a couple threads already with pics on how to remove all the rear trim so I won't post those pics unless someone asks.

Pulling down the headliner.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...4-img-3540.jpg

This is what it looks like above the headliner at the back rear of the car (just in front of the hatch). A little piece of Dynamt was already here, but it's not doing its job - there's still a rattle up here somewhere.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...5-img-3542.jpg

A little tapping in the area and the rattle is found. This little wire just to the right of the centerline of the car at the rear of the headliner sounds like the culprit. The fastener that attaches it to the roof buzzed pretty good when I tapped on the roof. It was a surpise that the source of the noise that's been bugging me for a while pretty much every time I drove the car was coming from a little wire.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...6-img-3543.jpg

A little Dynamat should solve this problem.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...7-img-3545.jpg

Covered the wire/fastener with the Dynamat.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...8-img-3544.jpg

While I was at it I decided to cover the rest of this wire above the headliner with some Dynamat.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...1-img-3549.jpg

While I was tapping to find the rattle source these fasteners that hold the headliner to the roof were a little buzzy too.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...9-img-3547.jpg

A little electrical tape should make sure these don't rattle either.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...0-img-3548.jpg

While I had the hatch area all apart I did some more tapping and found a rattle in the area below the crossbar. On the left is the amp for the bose system, on the right is the bluetooth module on top with the XM module right below it. The little black thing on top of the BT module is the BT antenna.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...2-img-3550.jpg

The rattle in this area was coming from each side of the bluetooth module where it attaches to its bracket. A little Dynamat to dampen the rattle was applied to each side bracket.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...3-img-3551.jpg

A little more tapping and another rattle was found at the back of the car. There are two of these brackets on the back wall of the hatch area (just behind the spare tire).

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...4-img-3554.jpg

Some more Dynamat applied where these brackets attach to the car.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...5-img-3556.jpg

More tapping after the Dynamat was applied and no more rattle.

That was all the rattles I could find in the back of the car by just tapping on stuff. The real test would come on the road. I'm very happy to say that my first drive with everything back together was pretty much rattle free. I still had a faint rattle from somewhere in the back of the car but it's nowhere near as loud as the one that seems to be eliminated above the headliner. It's a relief to have the loud rattle, the one I could hear above the radio, gone. The faint rattle I still have could only be heard with the radio off and me listening intently. I amost always drive with music playing so I doubt the faint rattle I heard will bother me anywhere near as bad. We'll see!

UPDATE: I'm 99% sure that the wire I found in the headlined goes to the XM antenna on the roof. So, if you don't have the Touring package, my rattle is not your rattle and this post won't help you. Don't want to waste anyone's time. :)

schrute 11-01-2009 02:33 AM

I don't like the "egg yolk" look from the stock turn signal bulbs in the tail lights so I got these bulbs from Amazon. Finally got around to putting them in tonight.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...6-img-3564.jpg

Stock bulb

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...7-img-3566.jpg

No more egg yolk

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...8-img-3567.jpg

schrute 11-01-2009 03:19 AM

The tail lights look better without the egg yolks, now they need some tint! I ordered some spray tint and clear coat from Amazon.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...1-img-3612.jpg

Nissan didn't make it easy to get to the taillights!

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...9-img-3574.jpg

First step, clean the lenses with alcohol.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...0-img-3576.jpg

I chose to leave the clear part of the lens untinted. I used some pinstripe tape to outline the clear part of the lens.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...1-img-3577.jpg

Then some painters tape to finish masking the clear part.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...2-img-3579.jpg

Some more painters tape and newspaper to protect the back part of the tail light from overspray.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...3-img-3581.jpg

First coat.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...4-img-3582.jpg

Almost forgot the third brake light, lol. This thing was rediculous to remove. I don't want to do that again. First coat.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...6-img-3596.jpg

Second coat on the tail lights. This pic was taken with a flash so the red shows through the tint more in the pic than it does in person.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...5-img-3595.jpg

One coat of clear coat then.... Oh yeah!

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...-img-3598a.jpg

You can still see the brake lights just fine (I didn't want to reduce visibility from the rear so I only used two coats).

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...-img-3599a.jpg

LED reverse lights from v-leds.com.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...-img-3601a.jpg

The chrome coated turn signal bulbs seem plenty bright.

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...-img-3607a.jpg

I'll get some better pics in the daylight.

The headlights are screaming to get blacked out now. It never ends! :icon17:

UPDATE: a couple days later I was checking out the lights up close for the first time and realized that the edge of the tint where the clear part was masked has kind of an edge to it. Down the road that edge can catch on something maybe and start peeling the tint. So I added another two coats of clear just to give some peace of mind about that edge. If I had it to do over I would remove the masking after spraying the tint then add two coats of clear, sealing that edge right away.

UPDATE #2: the finish was a little rough so I used a small amount of rubbing compound to smooth things out. The look of the lights didn't change but they're now a bit smoother which should attract less dirt and clean off easier.

I also got a better pic

http://www.the370z.com/members/schru...91101-0039.jpg

travisjb 11-01-2009 09:56 AM

very clean... nice work

do you think you could have done it with the lens covers in place ? ie not removed

khtso 11-01-2009 01:16 PM

Can you give a quick description of how to remove the 3rd brake light? I already bought a replacement gasket but haven't done it yet. I'm looking to fix the rattle coming from that area and will need to remove the light to do this. Thanks!

j.arnaldo 11-01-2009 01:22 PM

Why did you change your oil at such a brief interval? What kinda oil are you putting in your engine? I use Mobil 1 5W30, and change it every 7,500k, per the Owner's Manual. Greetings, dude!

schrute 11-02-2009 02:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by travisjb (Post 261839)
very clean... nice work

do you think you could have done it with the lens covers in place ? ie not removed

Thanks! I would say it could be done with the lights in place but would mean a lot more masking and the tint may not wrap around the edges as well as it will if the parts are removed.

I considered masking and spraying in place at one point for the center high mount brake light when I was having trouble getting it removed, but when I eventually got it off I was happier with how it turned out than I think I would have been if I painted it in place on the car.

After doing the tint I would recommend removing the parts from the car.


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 10:49 PM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2