It had been a few months since the oil catch can was installed in the Rogue so I decided to see what that catch can had caught. Was it worth installing? Well, you be the judge. Everything in this can would have been circulated through the intake manifold.
If you know me you know I like to do my own work. I also feel that nowadays our culture favors quantity/profit over quality. I had been eyeing a tire changer and balancer for some time ever since I found that reasonably good quality can be had for an affordable price. Given the looming threat of tariffs I decided to pull the trigger on a setup. If you research these units you might come to the conclusion (like I did) that most of these units are very similar, possibly coming from the same source. Whether true or not I watched a ton of videos and read many reviews before making my decision. A big factor in my case was making sure that I could get the unit delivered into my garage as I don't have the equipment necessary to haul the unit from the street to my driveway. The seller I used offered an add-on delivery package to address this need.
I bought a combo consisting of a tire changer and a dynamic balancer. The seller had a store in both Amazon and eBay; I got a slightly better deal from the eBay store.
The unit was shipped quickly and I was contacted to coordinate delivery within 10 days. The person who delivered my unit used an electric pallet jack to effortlessly move the two crates up my driveway and right into my garage. As a bonus he knew a bit about Nissan cars and we had a short enjoyable chat.
I was having trouble rev matching when downshifting on the new Z. After looking at the pedal setup I felt that the shape of the accelerator pedal made it hard for me to heel-toe so I decided to design my own pedal. As you can see the distance between the brake and accelerator pedals is large.
Since the Vr30DDTT engine on the Nissan Z is a direct injection engine, I knew I wanted to install an oil catch can as early as possible to hopefully avoid or at least drastically slow any buildup on the intake valves. After researching my options, I decided that the kit from Z1 motorsports was my choice.
As usual the installation instructions provided by Z1 were spot-on. The most challenging part of the installation for me was removing the intercooler. Maybe I was just being too gentle with my new car but it took me a while to coax the intercooler off the hose to the turbo.
I've repaired the carbon canister on the 280Z several times. The have been discontinued for quite some time meaning a new replacement is impossible to find. I came across a very clean unit from a 280ZX on eBay and snatched it up.
Old unit where you can see the repairs on the diaphragm housing
I changed the oil on the 280Z today. Instead of the normal 10w-30 Mobil 1 oil I changed to Valvoline 5w-30 Restore and Protect. The car has 56,280 miles on the odometer. I captured a sample for used oil analysis as part of the change.
The Z has a plastic oil pan protected only by a plastic rock guard. Just after Z Nationals I ordered a Z1 aluminum undershroud for the Z. Installation was pretty straightforward and the instructions provided by Z1 were spot-on. The hardest part of the installation was installing the rivnuts. I also used some foam weatherstrip to simulate the seal around the vent on the OE rock guard.
I performed the mid-break-in oil change on the new Z today at 806 miles. I also captured a sample of the oil for used oil analysis. I installed a magnetic drain plug from Z1 Motorsports as part of this oil change.
We drove down to Carrolton Georgia in the new Z for our first Z Nationals event Saturday. There were so many Z's and Infiniti G/Q models, mostly customized. We decided to make this a one-day event instead of staying overnight, mainly because there was a lot of flooding in the southeast due to Hurricane Helene passing through. We woke up at 3AM to begin the drive down and it rained for most of the trip. Thankfully the rain had stopped by the time we reached Carrolton and as a bonus the trip covered a good bit of my break-in miles. The day was great and we had a blast checking out all the modified Zs, getting a tour of their facility and watching the dyno runs all day. Some of their staff even spent extra time with me talking about 3D scanning and printing, shout out to Simon in particular! This is an event we will definitely be coming back for.
The first comment my wife made about my new Z after taking it home: "this thing really needs a spoiler." I love it when she talks like that. And she wasn't wrong. While the tapered look works on the 280Z the rear of the new Z Sport just seems to be missing something.
The rear spoiler was pretty easy to install with the double-sided 3M adhesive although I'd recommend two people to ensure it is on straight; it was difficult to get it right by myself.
I had been watching the new Nissan Z since it was announced. The retro styling had me hooked and it was actually a plus to me that it was mostly based on existing platforms:
There's a theme forming lately of installing parts I've had lying around for a while. Continuing this theme I installed a new oil pressure sensor on the 280z. When possible I replace the electrical connectors during this type of work and this was no exception.
When I acquired my 280z I found it adorned with a customized cloth interior that was a little worse for wear. I had previously replaced the seat covers with factory-look vinyl but the door cards still had the cloth inserts.
I came across some factory reproduction door cards at Z Car Depot so I decided to pull the trigger. While I had the door cards off I decided to install some new door handles I had lying around since the return spring on the passenger door handle had broken long ago. I also took the opportunity to fix a problem with the driver side locking mechanism where the key would barely turn far enough to lock the door. I designed and printed new door lock gaskets out of TPU.
I had a few dress-up items for the engine compartment that I had accumulated over time and decided to install them. This included labels for the air box, paint code, coolant type, radiator and a Nissan "OK" quality sticker for the passenger-side rear window.
Air Filter Change Interval
After reading so much about oil catch cans I thought the was no reason not to put one on our 2019 Rogue, even though the QR25DE is port injected. It was super easy to install. Even if it does nothing it was fun to install.
