Still runnin’ but man she’s been a temperamental ho!
I started getting some hesitation back in June and it was sporadic at 1st but eventually the car became undriveable and I had to limp it home. I figured after sitting since ‘09 it probably needed a tune up so my initial thoughts were that I needed a new walbro, fuel filter, plugs, wires, distributor cap and rotor, and to clean the MAF. Well when I pulled the MAF from the housing I accidentally dropped it and broke the wire 😢. I made due w a spare B13 MAF until I could find a 54C00 from a GTIR. Car ran pig rich but drove.
Wasted $150 and 3 weeks wait on a used one from Japan that was junk.
Was driving June 21st and had just rolled past 200,000 KM without issue. On the way home though the car began hesitating again and was losing power under throttle. I managed to coast it into a parking lot where I had to get a tow. The tow was free except they punctured my oil pan so $90 later I got a new pan and resealed it in my garage. 😕
I Figured the car running rich must’ve caused some issue, maybe fouled the plugs so I bought a new set, double checked my vac lines, grounds and bought an aftermarket maf for det motors just to be safe while I searched for a GTIR maf - and checked for anything else that may cause hesitation. Then a friend with a R30 skyline suggested I double check the lines inside the tank as his ruptured after installing a Walbro higher pressure pump and turns out that was the culprit!
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Now that I fixed the split hose, the car would turn over and idle fine but would die as soon as I touched the gas. So now I’m racking my brain trying to figure out what the issue is. After hitting a mental brick wall trying to diagnose the problem I just about gave up and let the car sit for several weeks while I focused on other endeavors. Another friend in town with an R32 (I’ve got a few Nissan buddies now😄) suggested I hook a fuel pressure gauge up to see if I’m getting enough fuel as there may be a voltage issue at the pump. Turns out I was getting too much fuel as it was putting out 65 psi at idle! Which is odd because my NISMO FPR was set by the mechanics in Greece who did the swap and it was around 40psi. Not sure how it jumped 25 psi by fixing the hose and installing the same exact walbro unless it had a split hose when they set the fuel pressure back in 08. Dialed it back to the correct pressure and the car finally became drivable again.
I was elated and went for a shakedown drive on a Monday, putting about 10 miles on the car and decided I would drive it down to the shop Tuesday to bleed the brakes and install these steering rack bushings I’ve got. I barely made it to work when exiting the freeway I accelerated to merge into the exit lane when the car hit the rev limiter as if it was in neutral. I initially thought it popped out of 5th gear but I was still in gear and when I tried to downshift on the exit ramp it would not go into any gear so I pulled over, shut the car off. I put it in 1st, released the clutch and the car would not move! I thought maybe the cable snapped but it was still attached and actuating. A friend came with a tow strap to pull me a few blocks to the shop where I work and again I was back at trying to assess another completely different issue after just one day of having a car running - you can imagine my frustration. Such that I didn’t even want to bother doing the work I took it to a friend’s shop who focuses on Nissans, Hondas, Toyotas and rotaries. I simply did not have the time as our shop was getting ready to move as well so I did not want to have it stuck on a lift while we were scrambling to finish last minute jobs.
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Turns out my ACT clutch had completely sheared off all splines on the clutch disc where it attaches to the input shaft thankfully the input shaft was spared! Still don’t know what I was thinking back in 2008 when I bought an unsprung 6 puck for the car! If I had known better then I would’ve got a less aggressive set up.
I bought a new Exedy stage 1 full face organic and could not be happier w that clutch and to just have the car back on the road.
Lastly, I met a guy here in Vegas w a GTIR who just so happened to have converted to Haltech which is tuned on speed density and he was kind enough to give me his old maf which works perfect! Now I can focus on actually doing some mods to the car!
