it's been a crazy 5 or so months for me and the z. just after christmas, tackled a break update job on my '90 n/a. "new used" uprights from bernie with good hubs in them, brand new rotors and pads, rebuilt calipers, and new tie rods (ball joints are soon to come).
30mm is so bad ****!
i now need to re-do the rear brakes because the fronts tend to lock up pretty easy now. new rear equipment will level it out i hope.
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as soon as all that was back together, i dug into the engine. since the last time i had it apart, i've had a fuel leak that wasn't coming from a hose. also, my valve covers were leaking. all results of rushing through to get it back together i'm sure.
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the fuel leak(s) were from seriously "busted" lower insulators. fixed those. put the rail back on and said "what the hell, let's test my 2 year and 20k mile old "old style" injectors that i paid $1000 for (ripped off by local dealer before i knew any better) just a couple years ago. 5 were good, 1 read around 400k ohms. oh well. never a better time to update to new styles now that i know that's the right way to go. Thanks again to bernie with his fantastic update kit.



spent a bit more time and money just because i felt like it at the time. the z has been being neglected for too long now. GM style connectors for all the idle control valves were one way to make this happen.


they've since been re-wrapped in black. i marked male and female parts with paint pens to make assembly quick and easy and leave out the "ok this one's longer so it goes to the one farther away" almost guess type work. i had a bit of trouble with them when i first stuck one on and it wouldn't click. a little extra filing here and there, a ton of test fits, and they're now.... ooookkkkk.... but not perfect. i'm not sure why mine didn't work out like most people's do.
all my old connectors. soooo much green! i'm quite happy to have all that out of there.

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i painted one valve cover just to see how it would turn out and hold up. nothing special. pretty quick crappy prep job. if it still looks good next time i pull the plenum (hopefully years from now), i'll do them all that way, and this one again.
i also decided to delete the EGR while i was in there. thanks again to bernie for a manifold plug. i made block off plates (actually, i didn't. thanks to member ROUNDABOUT something for making those while he was helping me out and i was cussing my new found bad injector)
here's my pile of stuff that i took out. it's got some other extra stuff that never went in mixed in, extra hose clamps and such.
also, i lost my pictures of the JWT intake i got and installed. my old air filters were past shot, and this intake made a VERY noticeable difference in power throughout the rev range. i've got to re-learn how to drive this thing now!
<o></o>as stuff went back together, problems kept adding up. i had forgotten that the plenum needed to be ground a bit for the new style injectors. i was quite worried when i saw this:
bernie quickly set me strait on how to take care of it, and it was no longer an issue by the end of that night.
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</o>i borrowed a toe alignment tool from an employer of mine and got that out of the way in a few hours. the car pulls ever so slightly to one side, so i need to go back with a tad more precision, and also get my steering wheel strait.
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</o>i got around to bleeding the brakes and it just wouldn't work. i bled them, rebuilt the master, bled them again, took the master out again, bought a bench bleed kit, bench bled it, re-installed, bled again, ordered a new one, and then... did a tt.net search and realized i had my calipers on backwards. had no idea that was possible. 20 minutes later i had pedal pressure. i canceled the order for the new master!
i still have a bit of an idle problem that i'm working out, and possibly a water leak. i get a bit of steam when i turn the car off but i just can't find a water leak. it's getting to be less and less and could just be some residual **** burning off the manifold.

still plenty left to do!

 

Sounds like everythign is coming togather, JW what rotors do you have ?

 

What no stainless steel headers? Stocks headers ae for NOOBS ! lol

 

i got plain old rotors from advance auto. while i was getting everything at once it was really expensive, so if the rotors are a problem i may get some good ones with good pads this summer. they seem quite fine now though. i'm really shocked at how good braking is.

and no, i didn't have my heads off so no headers! i'm not sure that's a mod that i'll ever get around to lol. though i do have 2 broken studs on one of my manifolds, so we'll see.

 

I just did my brakes rear yesterday. And big different. got my stuff at advancce too and brakes feel better than before. The sensor on them were touching the rotors and i was like wtf is the sound coming from the back and pad were almost completey gone lol

 

Headers aren't that hard to install in the car with the engine together and they sure look alot better than the crappy stock manifolds.

 

yeah... lots of other stuff to do first though. maybe some day.