Leaking to much oil

[RARZ]

So I have been leaking small amounts of oil for about 2 months now, and it is getting worse and worse, so today I crawled under the car and snooped around.

Its looking like the head gasket is leaking, but its hard to tell.
Also my car has been running amazing, I am getting the great gas milage, it idles perfectly, and doesn't smoke at all

So I am wondering how many hours would go into changing the head gaskets,valve cover, and intake.

and opinions on what other gaskets/seals should be done

(or a link to someone who already made a thread on this)

[BigTDogg (MA)]

I'm thinking it's your valve cover gaskets which are leaking. If your HG's were leaking, you'd know it.

[RARZ]

So what your saying if it was HG, I would notice either in the exhaust or running conditions?

[Sittinsidewayz420]

its pretty simple, if you notice the car running bad or something DEFINATELY out of place, then you've got some head issues. But it sounds like u just need the new valve cover. Don't forget to make sure afterwards if its fixed the problem, otherwise you'd be wasting $$$$$$

[BigTDogg (MA)]

Check your oil, if it looks milky, then you have coolant in it. You can also have a shop do a hydrocarbon test on your coolant to see if the HG is toast.

[TTkickedin]

yeha also when head gasket's leak, the exhaust will smell noticeably 'sweet' and be smoking white.

If you're wondering how much time it will take to change the gaskets, this all depends on how much you're willing to pay the RIGHT tech to do it, or your automotive mechanical experience. The right mechanic could get it done in one day. You could do it if you've already dropped a few z motors and can take the vg apart in record time. Realistically, you'll find mediocre mechanics that will sit on their two cheeks and wait as long as possible and get it done in 2-7 days.

I'm guessing that if you don't know what type of symptoms there are in a leaking/blown ehadgasket, you haven't had much experience in troubleshooting. My advice is to keep your research going. Look into problems you haven't experienced yet if you actually want to do it yourself. Other advice woudl be to replace every seal while you have the heads off. Disconnect the crankshaft, remove the old piston rings and replace with new chrome rings and reinstall, you'll be glad you did when you don't have to replace them for another 50k-100k miles. That, and change your pcv valves, rear main, intake mani gaskets, etc.

[InitialForce]

It's prob your valve cover gaskets. I have to replace mine soon as well and this is what I am pretty much planning on doing:

If you are doing it urself, while you are in there (because you have to pull the intake plenum anyways to get to the valve covers) clean your injectors, replace injector seals (because they are right there and well the kit costs 30 bucks), replace all the fuel and water hosing under the plenum (also cheap), its a good idea to replace the heater core hoses while ur in there cause it will be super easy to get to em with the plenums off, replace ur thermostat (again because cheap and easy to get to with plenums off), don't be cheap and reuse the old vacuum hosing, replace em, and since you will be like 10 bolts from pulling the lower intake manifold at this point I would replace the lower intake manifold gaskets while I was in there (again because they are cheap). Also get your self a pair of these if you are pulling the valve covers: http://www.z1motorsports.com/product_in ... ts_id=4019

The stock pieces are rubber/plastic and tend to wear out. They go in between ur heads and the valve cover gaskets on the exhaust cam side and could possibly leak in the future so it's worth the 20 bucks to get these aluminum pieces.

Inspect all your Idle Air Hosing and PVC Hosing and replace em if you see any cracking, warping, bulging of the hoses (again WAY easier to do with the plenums off). Remove and clean your EGR, both IACs (if you have the model that has 2 like my 90 N/A). Make sure you clean as much of the leaked oil off the motor (helps diagnosing future oil leak locations). Errrr and that's all I can think off at the moment.

If you are having it done... make sure you find yourself an honest mechanic (good luck with that one) because getting the plenum off and back on is the biggest part. Everything else on the above list is easy to do once the plenums are off so make sure you don't get ripped off on labor charges and don't get ripped off on OEM Nissan parts. A lot of the OEM parts can be bought online a lot cheaper then direct from Nissan and with the IAC and PCV Hosing, aftermarket Z1 silicon hoses are better and cost almost the same as OEM hoses not to mention you can get em in Red Blue or Black