Just bought 90 z anything to look out for?

[USMC_300ZX]

I just bought a 1990 2+2 5 speed and this is my first 300zx and I am just wondering if there is anything that i should be looking for as far as common problems or maintenance.

[z32Odoom]

The seats will never give you any problems. Look out for everything else. What's the mileage?

[Khronik]

The seats will never give you any problems. Look out for everything else. What's the mileage?

i dunno bout that... one of the previous owners on my car had to be a "lard" and always leaning to the right cuz the back of my drivers seat is tilted to the right causing my belt to strangle my left shoulder in, dont use the seat belt, problem somewhat fixed

to the OP:
i believe there was an issue with the 90's heads being machined wrong and the early Z's have a PTU issue but if the previous owners took care of those then ur should be alright besides preventive maintenance and such

PTU Recall Statement:
The power transistor is the unit that amplifies the ignition signal to each of the 6 individual ignition coils. The early Hitachi ones on 90' and 91' Z's were prone to failure so Nissan made a voluntary recall on them to replace with a new improved Mitsubishi unit.
The symptoms of a bad power transistor are stalling and running rough. Many times, the car will not restart once it stalls. Nissan is to pay for towing as well as the part since this is a recall.
A few of the replacements have failed as well, so Nissan should pay to replace the faulty transistor again.
Call 1-800-Nissan-1 with your VIN # handy so you can find out if the recall has been performed on your Z.

Head Issue:
The problem was that the left cylinder head of a certain production # range of early Z cars ('90) was mis-machined. This caused the CAS to be thrown off in its readings of cam timing, so the symptoms are usually very sluggish performance or detonation. Eventually the readings of the CAS stray so far (for reasons unknown to me) that the symptoms show up when the cars have some mileage on them. I've heard of some having this problem and they replaced the CAS, but the CAS was expected to fail again, because the root of the problem is the badly machined left cylinder head.

good idea anyway to check for any codes and test compression as most people on here would suggest
check out twinturbo.net on maintenance and idle, etc alot of write-ups there

[USMC_300ZX]

sounds good thanks for the info guys

[robomatic12]

Not sure if you know this yet but the vg30 is an inferance engine. If the timing belt breaks or comes loose and slips the valves can contact the pistons. This can and most likely will be a very expensive fix.

See if you have any documentation on when the last timing belt job was done. Nissan reccomends replacing timing belt every 60k with a 120k maintenance including some more seals etc. The water pump is also generally replaced as there is no extra labour cost. There are a lot of guides available online if you are going to attempt this job yourself (you should be fairly compitent mechanic though)

[gnozahs]

Make sure either the 60k or 120k maintenance has been done depending on your mileage and fix any other mechanical issues that your car might have.

[marty1mc]

Agree with above posters. The Nissan spec is both mileage and time, though. The spec is 60k miles OR 4 yrs. If you do not know when it was done, then do it. Also, the first time I would do the 120k kit. Many of the things in the 120k kit are necessary due to time as well.

[bbecker17]

I'd suggest and transmission flush aswell and then get some redline MT 90 in there to save whatever syncro's you have left