This is what i did today......

[clearview]

how much oil are you leaking. how much oil do you add between oil changes.if the loss is not much dont change the gasket.

[skydragoness]

see, that's the thing, clearview, it's not leaking oil on the pavement, and like i said, the dipstick reads to the middle point (actually a little more than that)

like i said already, i'm going to get it steamcleaned, and THEN see if anything happens to my diff or my transmission too. Cause the mech claims they are leaking as well.

they're just 'sweatin to the oldies' i hope:pface

[ser chicken]

almost everything i ever worked on had the oil sweat situation (by the way im home again.. i hate my job... did i say that before? lol) the only exception was my beetle... but thats to be expected since the whole dam* engine was brand spankin new.what kind of oil do you run sky? just curious because i started running mobil 1 in nicks car, and it started losing oil when you took it to high rpms... my car too since i started running mobil 1 in that. im not exaclty sure where its going... its not visably burning it, and its not visably leaking it (aside from the sweats). its kind of off topic.. but what ya gonna do. loli havent driven my car since wensday or something! i miss my se-r!... i'll certainly keep an eye out for a good painthouse, since i used to be in the body trade i have a few connections now... although most of them are tied to my old boss who is a complete alchy and things i d*cked him over or some thing... i never did understand that. now im just rambling... loltime to go!-pete

[skydragoness]

don't tell me mobil oil sucks

i just bought some for my upcoming oil change, i bought Mobil synthetic blend and a Pure One (purolator) filter

i was using castrol high mileage formula oil before, and the oil is a dark brown now, but i suppose that's expected seeing that i am about 300 mi away from being due for an oil change.

you should see the 240 after being steamcleaned! it's so nice!what used to be dingy brown is now silver or white, i'm thinking of getting some red hoses to compliment the interior and the Injen, that's when i have time tho'. you should also check out the rust and such, i may not have $$ to paint the car till maybe my tax return...which should be hefty i hope...i always forget to claim myself on the W-4...:rolleyes

thinking of finally plunking down some cash for a cd player, i've had enough of the crappy tape player and radio, not to mention i need new speakers.....oiy

my mech put my car on the analyzer before steamcleaning it Friday, and he said the ignition looks fine, no vacum leaks, so he disconnected the EGR, let me take it for a spin and it seemed to make the hesistation disappear, but the erratic idling was still there... since Friday i hooked it back up

do you think maybe my timing chain may need adjusting?if so, i may go to the dealer for that ..since it's a Nissan-only thing

[ser chicken]

mobil 1 is goodi enjoy it thuroghly (spelling is evil at 2am) ho-ha!i have no quarrels with it, i have now tried the 15-50 blend to hopefully retain oil better at higher revs.as far as the timing chain goes... i cant think of how that would be giving you an idle flux.

i have a good installer who works for cheap... he may also be able to supply speakers (esspecialy if your looking for subs at all)he provided nick with the 6x9's in his 240, i installed them thoughand since im in the market for a cd player as of now... i shall be sure to keep an eye out for you... esspecialy if you give me a price range and all... like i said before... give me all the info i need, and some time, i will probably find you something good for cheap... what can i say? i like to help lol... BWAH!

how much the steam clean cost?! and where did you get it done... im very interested

i need to get the se-r on a scanner... or find a code list for it... it keeps blinkin at me... gah! im thinking it may have to do with why she feels slightly underpowered and my mileage sucksall in time i suppose-pete

[skydragoness]

hmmm ah

my dog woke me up with his yapping this morning, need coffee... bwah!

well i got mobil syn blend, is that good enuff? i don't want the same thing that happened to you to happen to me...or i'll go back to castrol...never had a prob with that brand

um, the steamcleaning was $45, that includes the undercarriage, it's $35 for just the engine bay

cd player budget, i would say under $175 (including the install fee), i need speakers too, something good like alpine, pioneer, something good quality (under $60/pr would be nice), as for the cdplayer brand, i am looking for an alpine, eclipse, or kenwood, which ever u can find cheaper

guy i know at an audio shop told me that aiwas and jvc's are crap. i'm surprised, i wanted an aiwa now i have second thoughts...

[Spectre]

Hey Sky. I'm not trying to hi-jack your thread here, but you said you were going to clean your throttle body, so I have a question. Did you have trouble getting to the second butterfly? I just cleaned the TB on my Saturn and the result of that make me want to clean the one on my 240, but I want to know if the second butterfly can be cleaned easily. Again, sorry for interrupting the at hand topic.

[skydragoness]

it's ok spectre, there's room for you

i cleaned the first tb, and it was a ***** with my intake, because i didn't want to take the intake completely off, so i had 3' of room to work with

that doesn't help, oh poo

[Spectre]

Well, did it help you out at all? If I can't clean the secondary butterfly, I may just knuckle down and pay the hefty bill for a shop to do it. That or go buy a new gasket and take the TB off. I just rolled over to 90K, so I need to give the car a check up anyway.

[s14=pimpin']

its kinda hard to see if the TB cleaner is getting to the 2nd butterfly. Clean it out yourself, put on a pair of workers goggles, and check to see if you can even see the 2nd butterfly (I didn't look, sorry). Its a pretty easy maintenance item to do, although it feels like you are killing your engine, the motor will thank you for it later. And take off the intake and all associated piping that goes with it, it makes things alot easier (I tried to take off as little as I could, like sky mentioned, and it truly was a *****!).

Sky, did you adjust your idle? Grease down the egr yet? After I greased down that valve, I felt like such an idiot casue of all the other items I replaced when it only took 2 minutes of some lubing!

good luck, when you figure out your rough idle, let me know please

thanks

PauL

[skydragoness]

how would i go about lubing the EGR valve s14?

[ser chicken]

okay sky.. i hate to be the bearer of bad news on so many occasions... but what i have been told is alpine has gone horribly downhill. and since i too am in the highend cd player market... the lowest price for eclipse headunit was i believe around 200... but the cheapest one you can get with anti-skip (shock protection) is 300 (the one i want to get) As far as speakers go, i may be able to find you good 2nd handers for your range, but i paid 90 bucks for the beast buy pioneer speakers i put in nicks front doors. as far as higher end units, your looking at around 100 a pair at least.thats atleast the prices i have so far. thats from "soundwaves" (dont know if you ever heard of them... but they are very well known, they acctualy build the competition systems for alot of other stores, like "sounds of tri-state")blah blah blah...i got two hours of sleep last night... and had to deal with way to much crap today... so im going to go distract myself with a few solid hours of hardcore GT2 suspension tuning! BWAH!-pete

[skydragoness]

so alpine sucks eh? Does aiwa suck? i mean i read customer reviews on yahoo and they have no reason to lie, and they were good.

i am starting to hear a brassy rattle sound when i'm slowing down/downshifting, it's when i apply the brakes so i think maybe a pad is loose or i don't know

i need new struts, i was thinking kyb agx (adjustables) but they are too much money for the front end ...like around 119.99 each and 89.99 ech for the rear

good golly that's a lot of dough

[skydragoness]

actually that brassy sound happens when i am downshifting and not applying the brakes, sounds like something rattling in the trunk area, i dunno, it's just coming from behind from what i can tell...

i talked to your bro Nick today, he said he has KYB agx's on his 240, and payed a lot for 'em. I'm wondering should i save the dough and buy them over time? Or just get the non-adjustable kyb's and some adjustable coilovers instead?

i want to be able to control my ride height that's all

[ser chicken]

okay.. your talkin suspension mods now and thats my passion.true i put the agx's on nicks car (and mine... but mine where 130 per for all 4.. ouch). also true is that they so far have been very good to me. i have heard from people on this forum that tokicos are trash and blow after 2 years, and that agx's are the next step down from the always outragously priced koni's. i was told, and found that the adjustables offer a nice feature, so if you want to get a bit more tension out of the strut while autoxing you can, then when its time to leave you can really quickly set them back down and cruise with a bit more comfort.now i normally suggest against coilovers, for the simple reason that to properly tune the suspension you need to put the car on 4 scales and balance the coils by weight. since you can adjust your ride height you can also adjust the amount of load on each tire. i used eibach sportlines on nicks and mine, and there are a few other spring sets for the s13. although if coil-overs is the route you are looking to go (seriously how often are you going to get out there and crank on your struts?) i would suggest doing a major save up and going Tein. im not sure on prices for them yet, although im pretty sure they are going to be a bit pricey, they seem to be very well worth it, with the 2 way adjustable struts (bound and rebound), fully rebuildable assemblies, and seemingly extensive s13 familiarities. also they have an electronic control box that will adjust the dampers from a controller inside the car... very hot (optional for a later time)as far as kyb GR2's... i dont like em one bit. the previous owner of my beetle had a set on there... i blew them out after the first month... very very dissapointing (i thought they where the hot shi* lol)on to things i know far less about. i was told alpine went downhill... went for more form then function. aiwa's i have never acctualy liked, but for super cheapies i like JVC's... my ex had one in her cavi... i thought it had some good sound. as far as custom reviews go, they tend to be written imeadiatly after install, so they dont tend to be very accurate in my opinion.the noise im willing to bet is your strut. but theres also a possibilty of your exhaust shaking. aside from that something could possibly be loose, but i doubt its anything serious... heres to hopin at least-pete

[skydragoness]

Well, then, what should i do? the car needs struts and i dont have the money nor expertise for adjustable struts, that's why i am thinking about the non-adj KYBs (and why would they be worse in quality than the AGX's?)

i was thinking about ground control coils cause they look easy to adjust. sportlines are pretty good i hear too. hear anything about intrax before?

i don't want the car to ride like crap and be scraping asphalt, i want to get rid of that ugly fender gap and have it ride firm, yet smooth lol:D

and the car still idles weird/hesitates it's really annoying the car isn't very smooth in the lower powerband until you get to 3k rpm then it's normal. i'm wondering if i need a new valve for the EGR or induction system cleaning

grrrrrr:mad:

[ser chicken]

if your looking for a smooth ride and still want to lower it, the only way to do so with out going with cheap and crappy or soft springs that i know of is to use adjustable struts. they are the same to install, and true, it takes a little getting iused to to start tuning them... but at the same time, its a good way to learn, and it provides greater comfort on the road (as well as not rattling your car apart on shi**y roads) plus providing you with the potential of dialing in your dampers for better autox times (which we all know is far more important). as far as how can one kyb strut be worse then the other, almost all companies that work in large scale and differing budget classes (for thier products). you will see it all the time with radios and stuff, pioneer makes some really awsome radios that last a long time, the one in my car now is from 1988 at the latest. but at the same time the make some really cheap crap that doesnt last the week... i dont know for sure how crappy GR2's are... but i do know my experience with them has left a very sour taste. either way... i would suggest saving for the agx's... even if you can only get the rears at first and then change the fronts later, they are in my opinion a far better investmentas for springs. sportlines will lower your car down just enough to take care of the nasty gap, and though so far my experience with them as far as ride quality has been limited to agx struts at different settings, i have to admit the ride isnt that rough and the cornering ability is greatly improved. i have not heard much about intrax, i looked into them briefly, but at the time i was more interested in h&r stuff, but i will check your options, and see what i can dig up. the other nice thing about sportlines is they dont throw your camber off so much that your going to need a camber kit, and i am soon getting a camber/caster gauge so when we do your struts i should be able to align your car to get the camber back to the way it is now (or slightly positive for slightly better cornering with minimal uneven wear). as far as coils go though, at least you were looking at the hot shi*, ground controls are very nice, but look into (and i will, like i said, help with the leg work) strut/spring sets, like tein, h&r cup kits, jic magic, etc. alot of times they handle better, and ride better because they are specialy valved for the springs included. and the price is about the same as buying all pieces seperatly.im wondering if your plugs/wires/distributor have been checked out? all of a sudden this sounds like a possibilityby the way... in order to reduce downtime (and increase performance and modifcation efficency) when i go to clean my intake manifold im going to try to purchase a used one, and send it to extrude hone to have it cleaned and opened. then, when i get it back im going to simply exchange my old intake mani for the refinished one (grins) i would suggest this to you as well.. i asked extrudehone to give me an estimate on the service... if its not to much i will keep an open eye out for a ka24de mani for ya.

wow i talk alot! well bwah!im leaving!-pete

[ser chicken]

okay sky... here ya go.. i know its alot! but i knowledge is power right?! either way.. hope this helps, and any further questions let me know... ya know im always glad to help.i checked up on tein, intrax, eibach, h&r and ground control, as well as a few other units that either didnt have any products for you or were so bad i didnt even bother mentioning (my views at bottom)... ENJOY!

http://www.tein.comtein type ha- coilover/damper kit w/ helper spring to reduce spring rattle (16 positionadjustable, rebuildable) msrp $1150 http://www.tein.com/hadamp.html_______tein type flex- coilover/damper kit (Contents of damper kit: Adjustable shock absorber x4, Mainspring x4, Lower spring Seat x4,Spring Seat lock x12, Bump rubber x4, Dust cover x4, Hook spanner x2,Instruction manual) adjustable damper msrp w/ pillowball mount $1560_________INTRAX SPRINGS; from intrax's website (http://www.intraxsuspension.com) - "What makes INTRAXsprings better? INTRAX designs most of its lowering kits with progressive rates, to satisfy thetwo features you've asked for most. First, the lowered look. Most other brands' springs arelinear rate, as this is cost-effective but doesn't necessarily provide the visual effect you desire.By designing a progressive spring, we achieve the lowered look while maintaining safetystandards of spring preload at suspension droop. The second requirement is ride quality. Sincemost of you identified that you drove 90% of your mileage to and from work, you wanted toretain some ride quality enjoyed with OE springs. If you're driving to work on a racetrack,"Sport" or "Race" springs from other brands may be for you. INTRAX progressive springsprovide high performance looks and comfortable ride quality." (also note. intrax loweringsprings for 240sx drop 2-2.2 inches) (price aprox. $188)________H&R- only makes sport spring kit for 240's. only lowers 1.3 and is 25-30% stiffer spring rate(avg.) than o.e. but seems expensive (msrp: $289)___________eibach sportline springs (from site http://www.eibach.com)- Created for the extreme enthusiast,who wants that "race-car" attitude, our Sportline springs are designed for maximum streetperformance - with the lowest possible drop. Engineered with the same care as our Pro-Kitsprings, Eibach's Sportline springs achieve legendary handling by aggressively lowering thevehicle's center of gravity with precision-engineered spring rates. The results is a car thathandles as well as it looks. Eibach also offers top-quality Alignment Kits to keep propersuspension geometry.As with our popular Pro-Kit, Sportline springs are designed by experienced suspensionengineers and manufactured using the finest alloy spring wire available and under the sameEibach quality standards. Extreme Performance Race-Car Like Handling Progressive Spring Design Lowers vehicle 1.75" to 2.25" Sportline puts it all together, Race-Car looks, sportive handling and Eibach proven quality. from applications page - specs- pro kit (drop:1.8f 1.6r) sportline (drop: 2.2f 2.1r)($210 through my speed shop)------------------eibach pro-kit springs (from site http://www. eibach.com)- The Pro-Kit is Eibach's premiumsuspension product and is considered to be one of the world's top performance suspensionproducts. The performance and reliability has been proven in millions of Pro-Kit spring sets soldin all five continents and in over more than 40 countries around the world.The Eibach Pro-Kit spring system is the first choice for enthusiasts when upgrading theirvehicle's suspension, improving both the vehicle's performance and appearance. The Pro-Kitprovides, quite simply... "The Look That Performs".High ground clearance and huge fender-well gap inherent from the factory give your vehicle anunfinished look. Whether you plan to stay with your factory tires and wheels or addingperformance wheels and tires, chances are, your car has "the lifted look". In reality a "Plus 1" or"Plus 2" wheel and tire package with a lower profile tire will exaggerate the large gap evenmore. An Eibach Pro-Kit is designed to reduce the fender-well gap by safely lowering your vehicle,giving it a more attractive, sportier stance. The Pro-Kit is the perfect compliment to any vehicle,whether in stock form or fitted with a larger tire and wheel package. The Pro-Kit will set yourvehicle off from others, giving it "The Look" you want.All Eibach Pro-Kits are designed by experienced engineers specialized in chassis dynamics andare tested by seasoned qualified drivers. They are designed to properly and safely lower yourvehicle's center of gravity through the use of proprietary progressive spring rates; reducing squatduring acceleration, body roll in the turns, and nose dive under braking. Upon installation, yourvehicle becomes exceptionally stable and secure under a much wider range of conditions andwill provide years of enhanced driving pleasure, whether you are twisting your way through amountain pass or cruising down the interstate or tempting the Autobahn.Vehicles equipped with performance wheels and tires also need the additional performanceprovided by the Eibach Pro-Kit. Performance wheels and tires create a larger contact patchwhich increases the adhesion resulting in additional body roll. The Eibach Pro-Kit is designed tocontrol this additional body roll becoming the heart of your performance suspension package.Pro-Kits are available for nearly every model produced by over 40 European, American,Japanese, Australian and other main vehicle manufacturers out of Korea and Malaysia.Getting your vehicle to look and perform "just right" is not an elusive recipe, in fact it's downright simple; wheels... tires... Eibach Springs.Installing an Eibach Pro-Kit will take your passion for driving to a whole new level, one that canbe further enhanced with the addition of other Eibach products such as our Anti-Roll-Kit orPro-Control-Bar. For the demanding enthusiast or the daily commuter, an Eibach equippedvehicle provides the best balance between appearance, performance, safety, and ride quality.Advantages of the Eibach Pro-Kit:Excellent ride quality - comfortable in cruising Sportive handling in cornering, resulting in improved performance Lowered center of gravity, increased stability Enhanced appearance of vehicle Manufactured according to ISO 9001 quality system as well as TÜV approved 10 year product warranty

(through summit pro-kit 232.95)________________

GROUND CONTROL- drop range 0-2 inches, uses eibach springs, requires removal of stock spring seat (in other words: need tomodify and cut strut assemblies) msrp: $299 (Also ground-control recomends use of advance design struts&shocks... which are $399 each!!!! but thankfully this is not a mandatory investment) (http://www.ground-control.com / http://www.advance-design.com)

okay... my opinions: if your hell bent on coils, the ground controls are excellent and i have heard nothing but the best about them... problem is the price shows it... but they are far from rice boy "arospeed" coilovers and the such, which are useless cheap trash that just provide terrible ride and cheap products. i plan on breaking the budget barrier soon and purchasing the ground control camber plates for my own car, simply because the quality and features are so outstanding.now, my personal choice has so far been solid progressive rate springs with adjustable struts (As you know). the pro-kit and sportlines by eibach both offer suspension refinment while the intrax units seem to only lower the car and not add much in the way of handling gains... in my opinion the sportlines provide the best drop and handling from the set, and they are not much more then the intrax, and are less then the prokit (i have seen sportlines for $200 and maybe even lower, i just choose to get them from a place i know and knows me... i get special service and discounted prices lol). as for the h&r's... i wish they would make a coilover or cup kit for our cars, but since they only make springs they are way over priced, and the spring they are providing seems to be a joke anyway.now... true the teins on top of this list are expensive, and are truly about double the price of going with struts and springs/coils seperatly, but they are highly tuned and highly effective. the adjustments are far more precise and usefull, the springs and struts are matched for each other, and the units them selves are very high quality and rebuildable, plus have a incredible racing history which includes dirt, rally and endurance racing, all of which are grueling suspension tests.personaly... i like the teins the best... but of course the price is way up there... so if your not interested in saving a bit and spending big (should i even bother... who the hell is!) then i sugest still agx's with sportlines or ground controlsand thats my 2 cents!-pete