Hi guys/girls, just bought a 89 Z32 TT manual 2+2 here is my intro to it http://www.aus300zx.com/forum/showthread.php?t=303550 but now to the fun stuff. while i was driving the car back home 30min drive. these were the issues i picked up: * Idles at 1500rpm did find a vacum line near the battery. A solenoid with 3 vacum lines going to it. One line was disconnected going to the engine. not sure if ive accidentaly taken it off while removing the battery or was it disconnected previously. i plugged this back in but since another major issue outlined bellow i wasnt able to test it if it actualy was the problem. also hose on the PCV valve has a crack with oil occasionaly dropping on the turbo dump pipe. someone told me that if any leaks in any of the vacum lines it idles high. is this true or not? Sticky shifter an unusual one this one. its fine when cold but after 20min of driving it was difficult to shift into gear Ie actualy moving the gearstick. not crunching or anything just if the lever was "rusty" leaver it moves but takes lot of effort. vibrations at around 80kmh or when car is little bit labouring ie 5th gear uphill i can feel vibrations through gearbox/tailshaft and diff. i had mismatched rear wheels one side 205/55/16 and on other 255/40/17 all wheels are bad out of balance and rubbish rubber. though if i increase the power the vibrations go away. Radiator flush hose replacemnt Luckily this happend right infront of the house. i failed to notice the radiator was poped out of its mounts nd the lower radiator hose was rubbing on the subframe. it got sliced and gave ghost right infront of my house. bit of bad luck. though luckily it was a smallish leak so most of the water was retained. now got a new hose and since i dont know what coolant was in it i want to flush it and replace with new coolant. so what the easiest way of doing this and are tehre any tricks in bleeding the cooling system? this will be it for now any help greatly appriciated. thanks Johnny
This is unlikely to be a single solution. High idle can be caused by many things starting with..... TPS setting (check to see that voltage is at 0.45 or close to, boost leaks will upset your fuel mixtures by tricking the ECU into thinking it has more air. I suggest you try to get a local Z member with conzult to come around and hook up their laptop. This is reay the fist step to sorting out where to start. You will need to identify where all the hoses are going and replace hoses or tighten clamps where necessary. replace Sort out your tires and wheels first, but the vibration is likely to be the drive shaft centre bearing. Replace Good luck and have fun!! [
Sticky shifter an unusual one this one. its fine when cold but after 20min of driving it was difficult to shift into gear Ie actualy moving the gearstick. not crunching or anything just if the lever was "rusty" leaver it moves but takes lot of effort. Check your clutch master fluid levels, I had the same issue years ago. Turned out to be a leak in the rubber clutch line.
Re the cooling system... Have a read in the tech section of the forum under A-Z at 'the A-Z of overheating by Zed4Life'. It covers just about all you need to know. It is important to raise the front of the car when you refill the system to help eliminate air pockets and come back to top it up over a few days. I'd also highly recommend you look into getting a Temp Warning Device (again described in the tech section, and available from Kzed, one of the forum members). This is because the temp guages in these cars are notoriously unreliable... they only move at certain temps and show an overheating condition too late. Have fun! Andy.
Thanks for replies and info guys. Re: center bearing haven't checked yet but PO said its one piece tailshaft ??? So may not even have one??? Need to check that Re: idle will do that. Check tps and i allready have conzult used it on my rb Zed and my s14 just need to find it where i stashed the plug Re: cooling cheers Andy i em reading through tech and service manual so that should be sorted tommorow morning. Will check the temp warning device. I can probably make my own through work but will check that one out. Time to rest, early start lot of work to be done on the 300 tommorow so its ready for its daily duties.
ok got the car on the road. though no real testing of the above issues. though it does have 1 piece tailshaft installed. havent driven it above 80kmh this morning so not sure if vibrations are there with new wheels. now idles still at 1500rpm. Haven't had any time to hook up a conzult or to check tps. tonights job. I've noticed while first drive but thought it was from sitting around so didnt think of it as an issue till now. This possibly could cause the high rpm. but i guess see what you guys think maybe its a stupid theory. The brakes are very hard like there is no assist on them. car stops and all but have to press the pedal quite hard. I"m pretty sure they didn't come like this from factory. Could it be a leaking booster and that's what causing the idle to rise as well? haven't had a chance in checking anything just got in the car and went to work. just planning ahead for tonight so don't loose too much time. just read somewhere about IAC valve may cause similar issue. need to find that and check it out. any help or theories greatly appriciated. i'm trying to brainstorm my plan of attack for tonight in advance. cheers Johnny
As far as the idle is concerned, I'd suggest unplugging the TPS and setting your base idle with a screwdriver first, then plugging the TPS back in and making sure it's set correctly as well. All of that can be found in the tech section btw. I remember having a similar issue once and this fixed it...
thanks raven for the tip. did some checking etc... this is what i found. found few vacum hoses disconnected and perished replaced and reconnected. idle still high. TPS was 0.41V so reset it to 0.455 . if i pushed it lower to 0.28V the idle will drop but obviously not the correct setting so ive set it to 0.455V bad coroded connection on the AAC solenoid found. cleaned and checked resistance on the solenoid all within the specs. tried setting up the base idle. with the screw all the way in best i can get down to is 1200rpm. not ideal but better than 1500 rpm sitting at the lights. than i started to listen and look around the engine. it runs very smooth and quiet so shouldnt be too hard finding a leak. Than at the back of the engine around the air regulator I noticed a bit of loud wooshing. it was comming from the hose connecting the Air Reg and the metal pipe joining the two intake manifolds. if i squize the pipe and restrict the flow the idle drops accordingly. if i shut it all the way the engine runs around 450-500rpm just about to stall. if I release the pressure restriction on the hose Idle climbs up. if i squeze it bit more than half way i can get the 700rpm range. checked the electrical properties of the air reg it seems to be ok. it seems that its stuck open at all times. hence the idle hardly changes from cold to warm. This make me believe that the Air Regulator aint regulating but always open and hence making it idle higher than it should. as a temporary improvement ive restricted the pipe so it idles at 1000rpm. i was worried if restricting it further as may have issue with cold start. now i hope by cleaning it may fix it otherwise Ill be paying with my left kidney and possibly right leg for new one from nissan as i ran out of time ill check how it behaves in the morning with the restricted hose. if no good than i will pull the Air Reg out and try clean it as per Tech guide. By the way love the A to Z technical. made my troubleshooting lot quicker than reading the service manual. since now ive spent about 1hr in my z32 i foudn few other interesting wierd issues. ive notice if in 2nd or 4th gear there is a gear noise comming from the shifter area. if in 3 or 5 noise goes away this is the similar noise ive heard when doing 80kmh. sticky shifter. it seems to be related to amount of gear changes not the temperature of the car or driving distance. i can replicate the same problem by shifting between 3rd and 4th after about 10 quick shifts (car off and stationary clutch depressed) its start to get sticky and very hard to slide between the two gears I recall seeing an z32 box and has the remote linkage setup. i wonder if any of those bushes are worn or the grease has gone and friction causes to seze operation.. i hope this things can be checked and serviced without taking the box out. i did take the shifter boots off to have a look but its pretty tight afair there. need to take the car over a pit or hoist to get a better look at it. while having a sticky beak around engine noticed that the hoses going to the heater box inside the car have been bypassed. i was wondering why heater didnt work, well that explains it.. may have to contact PO to see if he knows why has it been disconnected. other than that the car is awsome. thanks to all that helped me figure this out. cheers
maybe if you turn the base idle back up and then fiddle with the regulator... it mite bring it down to a nice normal state without stalling. as far as the heater thing it would hav been bypassed ether coz the heater core has shat itself or was leaking... its a common problem that the heater core starts to leak..and can be a pita to remove/replace so often people just get rid of it..
I think you are correct in the air regulator or something that is letting more air in. When I first fired up the engine in my Z the base idle screw had no effect at all on the idle and the result was the air regulator was ceased as well. but it is still worth looking for other vacuum leaks, use of a boost leak test is often helpful in thos area. basicly an 80mm plug with a tyre valve stem fitted into the AFM coupling with a very low amount of air pressure from a compressor, a squirt bottle of soapy liquid will give bubbles at any leak points to atmosphere.
thanks for the reassurance.did u manage to free it up by cleaning or had to get another one? it will take me few hours to do that (don't have that time) and be pissed if it didn't work and have to replace it with another one. at the moment i just made a alloy restrictor to go in the hose. still haven't tested it but made the hole small enough to get close to stalling. than adjust the idle screw to get right revs.than just have to hold the idle at around 1500 manually till i get it sorted out properly. The AAC seems to work but it cannot control the idle. the A/C part of it work as i turn the A/C on the revs rise a bit. :rofl: could use that for my cold idle, flick the a/c on. cant wait for 5pm so i can drive it again :zlove:
Don't forget there is a process to follow to get the IACV (and the resultant idle speed) adjusted correctly. If you just adjust it then the ECU will compensate for the changes. Not saying you don't have problems with that valve, just saying there is other things that have to be adjusted at the same time/process to follow. i always do mine with Consult, can't remember how to do it without. I think the TPS has to be disconnected.
thanks Vader for the heads up but ive done exactly that. I've done as per A to Z. did outline the air reg is open at all times doesn't close off or regulate the flow. TPS is set correctly. everything else I'm fairly confident its Ok. Ive stuck a restrictor in the Air Reg hose this dropped the rpm to around 800rpm. Ive re adjusted the AAC .So idle screw is not fully closed and roughly sitting 850-900 rpm now strange thing at initial start up ,when cold I get 1500rpm but after about 30sec it starts to run around 1100rpm.1min after that down to 900 or so. fairly quick drops. So the Cold idle is kinda there and functioning but not that well. for time being its lot better than sitting at lights at 1500 with big exhaust and people looking at me thinking I'm getting ready for drag race hopefully get few hours on the weekend to remove the air reg and clean it out and reset everything back how it should be. noticed it was running 15psi after giving it a bootfull. flicked the 2stage turbosmart (turbojunk) to so called higher setting and was down to about 12. still too high . Cant be stuffed fiddling with it when I get time Ill rip it out and fit my old school Greddy profecB thats sitting on the shelf collecting dust. Need to get rid of Autometer boost gauge for a Greddy unit. Also get it of the dash before it gets me into trouble. other than that need to put resonators or center mufflers to shut it up a bit. again many thanks for the help
Sorry mate, I can't think of anything else. I only have a NA, so can't assist with any TT related symptoms/fixes.
The rpm drop from 1500 to 1100 to 900 from cold start is pretty normal. Mine drops by the time I have reversed out of the garage. Re the hard brake pedal. May just be cheap/hard pads, but pedal pressure on the Zeds I've driven is noticeably more than common family cars. If looking at new pads try QFM A1RM from GSL RallySport. Still, make sure you check booster and vacuum are OK.
"strange thing at initial start up ,when cold I get 1500rpm but after about 30sec it starts to run around 1100rpm.1min after that down to 900 or so. fairly quick drops." They're meant to do that - it's normal. Another thing which can stuff up the idle is a dicky connection to the temperature sensor. If the ECU doesn't know what the coolant temperature is, it will up the idle revs. To see what I mean, unplug the temp sensor connector when the car is idling. When you've fixed your idle issue, come around and fix mine Idle raises with electrical load
Sorry about the delay, (PC probs) As for adjusting the idle it can be done manually by disconnecting the top plug on the icv to the solenoid. Although I also do mine with consult, its heaps easier. As for the AAV I did swap mine out for a good one but I also cleaned theold one out after. Was not an overly big job. I would be looking elsewhere though as it does sound like the AAV is working, it sounds more like a vacuum leak causing your idle to play up.
