1996 Q45t Under Plenum Job - Need Advice

[j.hardstyle]

Just bringing a valid point to the table, Heath.

What, that you are ignorant and unwilling to learn from 10 years of valuable knowledge at your fingertips contained on this forum??? You already proved that to all of us! Nobody gives a crap what you do to your car, you are on a well known path of a very short and troublesome ownership experience with your $500 purchase, plenty just like you come and go very quickly around here....too smart{stupid} to learn from decades of experience of others. The ONLY reason myself and others even attempt to chime into your threads is to hopefully help other newbies from reading your crap and picking up bad habits, not knowing they are reading worthless information and bad advice you spew.

Lol....$500 huh? Get your s*** straight dude. And decades of experience? What the hell do you know other than dropping your car off at the dealership? This will be the last time I deal with you, so go ahead and reply to this and take one last stab at me. (EDITED - Heath)

[rabsusa]

I find that rather offensive, I bought the car for $600 from my grandmother to help her out, she was trading it in on a newer Honda Accord and they were going to give her $200 for it, my Grandfather is the one who kept this thing running and he passed away last year, so please don't act like you know me. When I got the car it ran, she was using it as her daily driver, I am just trying to get it safe enough to sell to someone else, I don't even care if I make a profit. So please take your hate somewhere else. Thanks.[/quote]


- if the car WAS that good, maybe you should have paid granny more dont you think??

[qship96]

(EDITED - Please keep this civil - Heath)

[d.bright]

I find that rather offensive, I bought the car for $600 from my grandmother to help her out, she was trading it in on a newer Honda Accord and they were going to give her $200 for it, my Grandfather is the one who kept this thing running and he passed away last year, so please don't act like you know me. When I got the car it ran, she was using it as her daily driver, I am just trying to get it safe enough to sell to someone else, I don't even care if I make a profit. So please take your hate somewhere else. Thanks.

- if the car WAS that good, maybe you should have paid granny more dont you think??

I gave her $400 over what the dealership was going to give her, I don't understand your point. The car was/is on it's last leg as far as I'm concerned and my thought at the time was to get it fixed and resell it... And if by good you mean oil leaking directly on the manifold and causing a fire hazard, and the transmission needing to be shifted into 1 just to drive, and a fuel smell in the car, and dents all over, and shocks that are shot, then yeah I guess it was good....

[Infinitiguy19]

So whats the point of going back and forth on this?

I find it pretty offensive as well that the dealer would only give here $200 for a $50K car back in the day. I have worked on new Porsche Cayenne's and Jags and they just don't have the same feel as the Q. I do like one of the newer Jags (Forget the model) where the dash vents flip up when its turned on. But I hate that they use a stove knob for the shifter.

D.Bright you got the most reliable and easy to maintain of all the G50's out there for a steal. If you fix those small issues you will be set for some time.

[d.bright]

I understand what you are saying and I hope it's true, I'll have to get it running and dive into those other issues before I make up my mind. Please excuse me if I'm not as enthusiastic about the car as everyone else, my experience so far has been fixing it and nothing else, and I thank you all for the help! My wife has a mustang gt and I am a member of the forums so I can appreciate a good forum community and this is certainly one of those kinds of forums

I should have the car running this weekend, I'll let everyone know how it turns out thanks

[rabsusa]

(EDITED - Please keep this civil - Heath)

- there are none so dumb as those who cannot see

[d.bright]

Hey guys, need a little help, I took the lower and upper intake to an engine shop and had them run through the aluminum cleaning chemical bath and they look really good now, almost like brand new. That's the good news. The bad news is that I also gave them a wire basket of parts to clean as well, and in that basket was the intake O-Ring metal pieces (8 of them). When I got everything back, I noticed there are now only 7. I asked them to check and see if they missed it, or it fell out or something but they say no luck, so now I'm forced to find a replacement metal o-ring thing (not even sure what they are called) so I can finish putting it all back together. Does anyone know where to get these or does anyone have one they would be willing to sell me?

Thanks in advance!

[goody90q45]

I've got one for you. Email me with your address and I'll get it out in tomorrow's mail.

msg7941atcomcastdotnet.

[d.bright]

OK so the good news is that I was able to crank it up today. The bad news is that it only runs for about 20 seconds then dies out. I have a feeling that it's not maintaining high fuel pressure since I can press the gas pedal and it barely keeps it running, plus I can hear the pump when I turn the key and it sounds like a dying cordless drill. It had an issue with dying out when stopped before I took it apart, so perhaps I've just exacerbated the issue... I dunno, I need to go get a fuel pressure gauge now to test the pressure for sure, any ideas?

[d.bright]

More good news, the dying-out looks like it was caused by the MAF, I cleaned it out and crimped the metal ends a little and plugged it back in and voila, no problems.

Now its running like it's missing on a cylinder, I see white smoke coming out the rear so I'm pretty sure it's getting gas, I just don't think I'm getting spark on one of the cylinders, I'm going to hook up my handy scanner and see if I can pull any codes, will these things show when a particular cylinder is misfiring?

Thanks

[d.bright]

I'm pretty sure now that there must be a fuel leak on one of the injector o-rings, I'm going to pull the plugs and see which one is coated with fuel and then pull the injector, o happy times

[htbyrico]

damm bro.. intake coming back off i see.. happy time like you side once you do it once it take half that next rip.. i know it by heart now.. takes me like 1 hour or a lil more depends on if the car been never ever maintain.. or the famous rust buckets.. keep up the good work bro we here for you !!

[d.bright]

Well more good news. The rough idle and white smoke seems to have been caused by a combination of the MAF sensor and bad fuel. I took the connector off for the MAF sensor and I noticed it seemed a little loose, I pinched the metal connectors and it made a big difference. The white smoke eventually stopped coming out of the tailpipe, I think it had to do with either bad fuel that was sitting for a month, water condensation in the tail pipe, or both. Anyways, I called my Grandmother and found out that she was using 87 octane instead of premium, so the first change I get it's getting filled up with premium.

The other good news is that the transmission seems to be fine, it was about 2 1/2 quarts low on fluid. I topped it off, and it shifts into D without any problems now, so that's a huge relief. I'm going to drop the pan and change the filter this coming weekend just to be safe.

I was able to take it for a spin around the neighborhood, and it's like night and day how it drives now compared to before doing the under plenum job, it's very responsive and has some good get up and go to it.

There are only two problems left, and they may in fact be related:

1. The CEL is on but I can't pull any codes from the car, it might be my scanner (I'm using Android Torque App w/ Bluetooth OBD/II scanner), I'm wondering if this has happened to anyone, and if there is a way to get a blinking code output from the car?

2. The fuel pump seems to be on its last leg, when I turn the key and the fuel system pressurizes, it sounds like a cordless drill that is running out of power. And when I turn on the car it makes a constant humming sound. With my experience working on other cars this usually indicates the pump is about to go, and sometimes this means that there isn't enough fuel pressure either. Is this the case with this car too? I'm wondering if the engine isn't getting enough fuel sometimes and that's what causes the CEL to come on.

Regardless, I couldn't be happier, I'm pretty sure I'll drive her for a while now since the transmission seems to be fine. I just wish the driver seat went down lower, I feel like I'm propped up somehow and I'm 6'3 so my legs hit against the steering wheel when I try to use the parking brake, I have to open the door to use it.

As soon as I finish detailing the interior and get it washed, I'll post some pics.

Cheers!

[Q451990]

I think your assessment of the fuel pump is correct.

I use the Torque App with Droid on my truck and G. Very glitchy, but for $17 it's not bad. The FSM for a '96 does show a diagnostic screw on the ECU for checking codes by counting a flashing light...

Heath

[d.bright]

I think your assessment of the fuel pump is correct.

I use the Torque App with Droid on my truck and G. Very glitchy, but for $17 it's not bad. The FSM for a '96 does show a diagnostic screw on the ECU for checking codes by counting a flashing light...

Heath

Awesome! I will check as soon as I get home, thanks.

[d.bright]

OK, I was able to run the MIL check as outlined in the shop manual, it gave me these codes:

0707
0503

I couldn't find these codes in the shop manual for a 1996, but I found them at another link:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... 5A0Bfs5UKw

Which was just done via a Google search, from the link it looks like it's for a 2000 Q45. Can anyone confirm for me that the MIL's are what I think they are?

If it's just O2 sensors then I'll be a happy camper.

Thanks

[htbyrico]

OK, I was able to run the MIL check as outlined in the shop manual, it gave me these codes:

0707
0503

I couldn't find these codes in the shop manual for a 1996, but I found them at another link:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... 5A0Bfs5UKw

Which was just done via a Google search, from the link it looks like it's for a 2000 Q45. Can anyone confirm for me that the MIL's are what I think they are?

If it's just O2 sensors then I'll be a happy camper.

Thanks

here you go bro... it on you page now.. click on the pic and click the + upper left hand corner to make them bigger..

cant find that 0503 recheck

[d.bright]

awesome man! Thanks, p0150 shows the code for 0503, it's one of 3 combinations apparently. So looks like I need to get a couple of 02 sensors, I'm glad to see no knock sensors showing up, that's good news.

Thanks Rico!

[htbyrico]

awesome man! Thanks, p0150 shows the code for 0503, it's one of 3 combinations apparently. So looks like I need to get a couple of 02 sensors, I'm glad to see no knock sensors showing up, that's good news.

Thanks Rico!

no thank you for all the hard work bro !!!

[maxnix]

The only valve cover washer-seals I can find online are priced at $5.00 a piece or higher, and there's 36 of them! Any ideas?

Example:
http://www.autopartsfair.com/infiniti-e ... utochannel

They are not cheap, and they do lose there resilience over the years. Since the resilience is part of the torque setting, it is worth replacing them if you keep the car 100K more miles.

I was thinking t and a models were not made in 1996? It's been too long, I guess.

[d.bright]

The only valve cover washer-seals I can find online are priced at $5.00 a piece or higher, and there's 36 of them! Any ideas?

Example:
http://www.autopartsfair.com/infiniti-e ... utochannel

They are not cheap, and they do lose there resilience over the years. Since the resilience is part of the torque setting, it is worth replacing them if you keep the car 100K more miles.

I was thinking t and a models were not made in 1996? It's been too long, I guess.

I got them at the Infiniti dealership in Duluth, GA the guy gave me all of them for 10$, he said they've been in inventory for years and nobody ever asked for them. And yeah, mine is a "t" model, I'm not sure what makes it different other than possibly a tighter suspension? Thanks for the advice!

[htbyrico]

good job dBright... im here looking out for you bro.. dealership deals you cant beat...
anyways off to the president.. you need me ill be in the black president forums...

[d.bright]

So some advice for anyone using the same method to diagnose as I did, if you are using the MIL check as outlined in the shop manual, and it gives you these codes:

0707 - is the Right Rear O2 sensor (Passenger side)
0503 - is the Left Front O2 sensor (Drivers side)

I can confirm that replacing these two O2 sensors got rid of the codes and I have now passed emissions.

I also replaced the fuel pump with one from a junkyard 1992 model, the odo said 120K on it. I have about 3psi more pressure at idle and 2psi more at WOT, and it is almost silent, so I'm glad I was able to fix that for 25$.

The next 2 steps are to trace down the miss (possible coil pack) and then get an alignment and balance and replace the front rotors and pads, then she should be good to go.

Thanks for all the help everyone! I'll post pictures this weekend.

[htbyrico]

you welcome D.bright... anytime.. we all here for you..

[dhabicht1]

d.bright do you happen to have a list of the size hoses and parts you used for this job. I will be undertaking it soon to replace a bad knock sensor and believe newer hoses to be a better substitute than oem hoses

[GSUjinih]

I'm in Lilburn, GA, I work in Atlanta... u?

I am just west of Atlanta. Good to know some other NICO members are nearby!

[htbyrico]

hows everything going d.bright? im over here still trying to get my president going...