jaeravenal

Hello everyone I'm new to the forums, and this is my very first turbocharged car. I bought it 3 months ago for a cheap price, I needed a car badly (was out of for 6 months), so I bought this 1984 300zx turbo 170,000 in rough condition.
I've been fixing and maintaining what I can, oil, fluids,
ended up removing the power steering because it had a bad leak; not bad at all to drive! Biggest problem was the right lower control arm, replaced it, car was ready to drive up the grapevine to visit los angeles.
OR SO I THOUGHT
I noticed my car started to drive funny.
I will try to explain what it does (i'm new to turbo cars)

When I accelerate normally (normal driving, not stomping on it etc.)
I noticed that the RPMS shoot up to 4k - 5k and i can hear the turbo whistling or spinning up fast, but the car isn't really moving fast at all (it feels like the turbo is just spinning the engine isn't really catching the power, and then it "catches" or stabilizes and I can feel the car "catch" the power and the rpms drop down to normal RPMs and the car accelerates normally, however
everytime i press the accelerator the rpms jump up and it does the whole cycle again. Eversince this has been happening i've been hesitant to floor the car, I did it once, and the rpms shoot up so high and there's no power
It does this through all gears, I also noticed a new ticking noise when accelerating, it's a little louder than valve ticking but i'm not too sure,
it goes away when i park in my driveway and i'm in neutral and the ebrake is up

This wasn't happening this bad until a week ago
Before , it would never happen between 1-3rd gear,
it would only happen on the freeway when I needed to pass a car, lets say 4th to 5th,
the rpms would jump about 1k-2k and turbo would spool up, but it always "caught"
Would happen in 5th gear do, lets say im driving 60 mph
and i want to go 70 mph, i'd press on the accelerator and the rpms would jump and turbo would spin fast before catching and the turbo would stop spinning


I'm so lost and confused into why this would be doing this now when i spent the last 2 weeks repairing the suspension to be able to visit someone LA been backing off the trip due to fixing up my car every weekend.



Is the turbo on it's way out?
Been googling alot, could it be

bad wastegate actuator/ waste gate?
Turbo leak / vaccuum leak?

boost leak from the pop off valve? (i found a NA 300zx in the junk yard was going to remove the plug from that and install it in mine but i couldn't get it off, it's like a 1 1/2 drive idk where to find that D

Also, when I first went to smog my car, the tech was nice enough not to charge me and said I had an evap leak.
I passed, but don't ask me how




Can anyone give me any direction on what to look out for?
Thank you all ! I really want to get this over the grapevine without fear of the turbo overspinning and exploding or whatever and rendering this car useless!

jaeravenal

I also noticed (i could be wrong)
that at Idle, when i rev the engine, i cannot hear the turbo spinning, or any type of whistling noise D:

NismoPick

Welcome to ZDriver!

I would start with checking the ecu diagnostic codes. It sounds like a dead MAF to me.

rogerz

since you seem to have little if any knowledge of the car here is some general advice that may not solve the immediate problem but will cure a lot of common problems:

Get your battery load tested. Be sure you have clean, tight corrosion free terminals on both ends of your battery cables. Be sure the ground (negative) cable goes to a bolt into the frame before going to the starter. grounding through the starter is not a reliable connection. Z's don't like low voltage. causes the electronics to act funny. it is possible to have enough amps to crank but not enough voltage to run the electronics. If you have one size fit all cheapo clamp on terminals they are a problem waiting to happen.

Clean the connectors for the maf or afm, ecu and tps. Deoxit by CAIG is probably the best connector cleaner on the market. spray with CorrosionX after cleaning and before putting together this will help prevent any further corrosion.

Replace outer tie rod ends, and ball joints. replace the bushings with poly (don't forget to lube them as directed unless you like squeaky things). New shocks. Get new boots for power steering. all those things will make you think you are driving a different car. doing them piece meal is a waste you won't see a great improvement until you do the complete job. You need to get the car realigned after messing with the front. Have your tires in good shape and rebalance. Rear bushings nice too but more work and you won't notice as great an improvement. Rear shocks also because if the fronts are gone so are the rears. if car squats when you jump on the gas the rears are gone. If you have the electro adjustable shocks they are DEFINITELY GONE.

Check the fuel pressure. install a boost gage so you know what the manifold pressure is. vacuum hoses generally shot by now so maybe you got vac leaks the bane of the FI engine. use an inch and a half pipe plug to replace the pop off valve.

even if the turbo blows the car will still run albeit not as well.

What are you calling an evap leak??? usually applies only to the A/C system (evaporator) which won't affect how the car runs

you can get a rebuilt power steering ram for around $200. what did you remove? the rest is pump less than a hundred. some hose for return. the high pressure line available from NAPA

You need to download the fsm from xenon and READ IT. It would appear you have an auto tranny altho you didn't state that. If you have a stick your clutch is shot. at least you gave us year and turbo. many forget to add those little details which make it possible to give you an intelligent answer.
unlikely the maf is bad unless someone stuck a screwdriver in there but in case take the one out of the junkyard you mentioned and see if it makes a difference.

PredatorZ

Is your clutch slipping, I don't understand how your rpm's shoot up, but no power, if the engine revs, and you do not move, then your clutch has to be slipping. harder to notice if you drive on basically flat terrain all the time, have you gone up any hills lately, did it rev up then >?

Skully

Turned out its a manual-ignore.

jaeravenal

Hey all I forgot to mention the most imporant thing, the car is manual transmission, 170xxx miles and 1984 year as stated in the first paragraph


1. battery was tested and is in good order, i even put extra ground wires from the engine block to the frame, and from the negative terminal of the battery to the frame

2. I will try cleaning out the connectors today

3.I recently changed the outer tie rods, the ball joints are fine now that i had to replace the right lower control arm because the ball joint was sagging; the suspension is permanently ruined though because the previous owner hit the curb "drifting" car drives much better though it pulls to the right
have yet to do shocks, i know for sure these are blown

4. payday in a couple weeks might plan on buying some gauges, i know that there is one vaccuum leak because the previous owner looped the heater hoses and removed the water **** majigger, the blue striped vaccuum cable is now leading to no where, so i plugged it.

5. hopefully that doesnt happen D:

6. evap leak - evaporative emissions test, not the a/c evaporator, but evap leak I guess they test it on obd1 cars and below to check if fuel is leaking through any open vaccuum

smog tech said i have a very small evap leak when he pinched off the vaccuum tank to check for leaks

7. I just cut the belt and removed some fluid and left the lines unattatched but plugged, don't need powersteering don't want to put tha tmuch money into the car its fine without power steering i can handle it

8. i'm thinking the clutch may be shot too, but could someone explain why? I know of slipping clutches like when shifting through gears the clutch struggles to catch or wahtever



update:

car drives like sh*t
LOUD tapping noise when driving around (engine blown?)
no power
turbo spins like crazy 5k rpms just to be able to drive normally
shifts through gears fine, no grinding


LOUd tapping noise goes to quiet noisy lifter sound when i park and let it run for a while in neutral and wiht the ebrake up

also notived when i rev the engine, i do not hear the turbo whistle or hear it engage


im lost

jaeravenal

it's manual transmission, the clutch doesnt slip it catches the gears, however lets say i'm in 1st gear at a stop; i go to press the accelerator; transmission catches the 1st gear,

when i accelerate (try to keep up with traffic not be a slow car holding up everyone behind me at a stop light)
I barely press the accelerator
it shoots up to 5krpms
and i hear the turbo spin really fast
and you'd think i'd take off like a dog,
but the car is actually realy slow and struggling to move forward make power,
the turbo spins at 5k rpm for a good while until i'm at the correct speed to shift into 2nd
and this happens in all gears.

when i'm on the free way at 65 mphs the car drives fine, but lets say if i press on the accelerator to pass someone in 5th gear
the rpms jump to 5krpm and struggles to increase speed



all of his happens wiht a loud tapping noise now, it wasn't prevalent the other day but now it is noticable and it goes away when i park the car and idle it for a few minutes it goes from loud tapping to not so loud noisy lifters

PredatorZ

Your clutch is bad, you have no idea how one works its obvious by what you are saying, when you press the pedal down you put it in gear, the clutch has nothing to do with the gears, other than releasing pressure from the engine. When you release the clutch it makes contact with the/flywheel, your clutch is made of a material much like brake pads, it wears out, when it gets thin and you press on the gas, you don't go very fast and the engine revs, just like you describe.

jaeravenal

dude hopefully it is just the clutch
i'm going to post a video once its done uploading to show what it does
hopefully it is just the clutch
i don't want to deal with a broken turbo or blown motor
PLEASE LET IT BE THE CLUTCH LIKE ALL OF WHAT YOU ARE SAYING PLZZZZ omg

jaeravenal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6sP...ature=youtu.be



HERE'S THE VIDEO THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR INFORMATION AND SUPPORT HOPEFULLY IT IS JUST THE CLUTCH

PredatorZ

your car seems to run fine, you are just spinning the clutch, no way you could even go up a steep hill. Parts wise its not to expensive if you do it yourself, can be a bit expensive if you take it to a shop. Replace throw out bearing too, cheap and needs to be done.

PredatorZ

I am imagining how much fun you will have when your new clutch hooks up and you smoke your tires off into the sunset. You are so mising out on the power your motor is making, I am 100% sure its the clutch.

196 bones for this kit from motorsport

Motorsport! Clutch Kit, 84-86 300ZX Turbo - The Z Store! Nissan-Datsun 240Z-260Z-280Z-280ZX-300ZX(Z31/Z32)-350Z-370Z Parts

jaeravenal

Thank you for all the help i was going crazy, i thought the pop off valve was leaking, or hte turbo housing got cracked etc



ONE BIG IMPORTANT THING. I DID A FLUID CHECK THE OTHER DAY
and noticed the brake fluid was below minimum...
i filled it up last night,
and also to the right, is the clutch master cylinder?
that was pretty low as well and i filled that up...


i drove this for how long without fluid for probably 3 weeks...
no wonder why barely this last week it started progressively driving bad..

car was driving fine no engine surges, was able to go 0-60, was fun , then it progressivly got worse


is it possible that the clutch could be remedied if i bleed the clutch?

or did i fry it out of negligence and ignorance by driving it with little fluid?

DUDE THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH THE MORE I LEARN ABOUT CARS

THANKS FOR THE LINK i definitely want to try replacing a clutch myself, this would be my 2nd manual transmission car my previous 2003 CL type s got wrecked and i never had problems with the clutch/ transmission

This is so relieving knowing what the problem is at least thanks all!

PredatorZ

even if the clutch master was low or nearly dry, when it is released, you would be fully engaged, Clutches just like brakes wear out and need replacing, unless it is so out of adjustment that when you let the pedal out it is still partially engaged. I would go through and check your play and adjustment just to be sure, might as well double check before you pull the transmission out.

jaeravenal

I see, thanks for the info!
Clutch play is fine, there is a dead gap about 1 or 2 inches before the clutch shows any resistance,
the clutch did not get stuck engaged

it must just be the 170,000 miles and most likely the stock clutch finally giving in.
Looking forward to replace this sucker

Thank you so much for your help and everyone else, was going crazy for a little bit!

PredatorZ

glad I could help, if I lived near you I would come over and help. if the clutch you buy does not come with an alignment tool, buy one, only like 5.95$, it lets you get all the teeth lined up so the splines of the tranny will slide in smoothly, at least that's the idea.

http://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PR...22b01a/60-9930

rogerz

at 170K you probably need to replace the timing belt unless you know for sure when it was done. When it breaks you will need to find a new engine. you might also note in my first post that if you had a manual transmission your clutch is gone.

jaeravenal

Thanks everyone for all the help! Noticed this forum doesn't have a like/rep button (or maybe I haven't looked enough xD)
Haven't been able to log in for a while, been moving things to my new partment and working on days that i'm not moving things.

Defintely need to change timing belt soon.

Thanks for the offer predatorz you're a good person.

I would totally dive into it myself but I figured I don't have enough jacks or a level place to work on it.

My grandma's mechanic referred me to a transmission shop,

I bought an OEM type clutch from Ebay for 75 dollars shipped
Transmission shop quoted 250 (for some reason it was 350 over the phone lol guess I talked to someone else on the phone than meetin in person) with my parts
ended up being around 300 dollars
included flywheel resurfacing
and some "30" dollar accessory charge (i'm thinking they bought gear oil)
the replaced the main seal for me (had a small leak), i forgot to buy that and mention that. Thankfully they were honest enough to tell me instead of putting it all together and find out it will be leaking sooner or later.

Beats my friend who's a manager at sears.. They were charging 500 with their clutch
and 600 with my clutch 0_0

I would defintely want to try doing it myself to save a few hundred dollars

but for 300 I couldn't be happier
only took them around 3-4 hours as well
towed it there today at 12 got a call around 4 that it was done.

Do you think 300 is a fair price or did I get jipped?
Oh well i'm happy that my car is fixed and thank you all for pointing out my clutch was toast! (KNOWLEDGE IS POWER THE MORE YOU KNOW probably seemed like a big noob)
It was almost down to bare metal!

Also one big question
I noticed our Z's use API gL4 or someting like that gear oil.
They had Nissan OEM branded manual transmission fluid
which was rated at 75w-90 i believe

Is this the correct fluid or should I train and fill with what other z31 websites say to fill it with?

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH
CAN'T WAIT TO FIX UP THE JACKED UP INTERIOR AND SAGGING HEADLINER , IN THE PROCESS of painting up the interior making it nice
Thinking about replacing the powered leather seats because they are so tore up;
might weld up the rails from the powered seads to some cheap honda/acura/miata seats

If anyone knows which seats would fit with the least headache let me know!

ALSO thinking about making a sheet metal lip. about 1/4th of the lip is busted off from the passenger side. Idk

I have alot of plans to make it look more presentable

thank you and hope all your Z's are doing great!
I'm just excited to have a running car again

PredatorZ

300 is a reasonable price, and I am guessing that fixed your issue ? dropping the trans and dealing with all the mess is worth $300 IMHO, at least you didn't take it to a chain store and get ripped off... sorry sears ! And they did do some extra work not in the bid, sounds like a trust worthy shop. Granted with a lift and trans jack it is a pretty easy job, but you need the space and tools, so spending 300 isnt as bad as it could have been.

rogerz

$300 is very fair price on the clutch job. Did they also replace the throwout bearing? that would have been a good thing to do. Another cluge is if the clutch fork fulcrum pin breaks. REPLACE THE TIMING BELT. you got a broken engine if it goes. Ask those guys how much they want for that. and get new water pump and cam seals and front engine seal. replace the chts while they are in there.