pixel8r

Hmmm ok. I remember when i lived in QLD I rang a Nissan dealer and was told they dont even service these cars (if only I'd known then that it was the same gearbox as a 350z). I also tried a couple of Nissan dealers here in SA and they said the same thing. So I might be out of luck there. Will probably have more luck with the Nulon oil next transmission oil change....which will be much sooner than necessary if I cant put up with it that long... Its actually the final approval. Everything's pretty much done now so we'll very soon be past all of the initial stage and hopefully the actual "building" process will start within the next couple of months. Its all new to me but not too bad so far. We've stuck very close to the original plan so as long as I get a reasonably built house at the end of it I'll be happy. Will be nice to see all the colours etc we selected come to reality in the finished product.

Check the stagea section for more results, but for rating 1 and no previous claims etc i'm paying $800 a year full comp through JCI. The M35 has 206kw/407N-m (@just 3200rpm!) - stock is ~135-140awkw which is approx 20awkw more than the s2 (same driveline, so is it really only 206kw at the engine?). 5sp auto, climate control, AWD (very similar to the system in a GTR - basically the traction of AWD with the fuel economy of RWD). I reckon the stagea ticks all the boxes that you want a wagon for. The M35 has the most boot space - probably very close to the amount of space in a falcon and I'd guess its slightly more than a commodore. Its even got space UNDER the boot (about 15cm high) in another compartment and also some room around the spare wheel if you really need to cram stuff in. The fuel tank is also 78L which I believe is bigger than either ford or holden. As mentioned before, rear seat legroom is not much different to any aussie wagon. On top of all this you get privacy glass to all windows except the front ones and windscreen, option of dual sunroofs, option of leather interior, guages in the dash (if you like that sort of thing. i do), and not to mention the build quality, although Aussie car build quality is much better now than it used to be thankfully. Fuel economy is roughly comparable to aussie wagons in the city (between 12 and 14L/100km) and a little worse than them in the country (9.5L/100km). A couple of the guys on the forum have managed to improve this considerably by opening up the intake a little more - so it depends if you're up for that kind of thing. The stagea is a little lighter than the latest ford and holden wagons - at 1680kg compared to somewhere in the 1800kg range for both ford and holden these days (i could be wrong so please disregard that if I am). At the end of the day a ford or holden will always be cheaper to own, but you have to drive it and thats where the stagea is a notch above (in my opinion). The driving experience is quite different to an aussie wagon. Comfort is a matter of personal taste, and from personal experience the seats in a ford or holden will be more comfortable for the first 30 minutes, whereas the stagea seats are still comfortable after 2 full days of driving (no exaggeration).

I was just going to ask where the solar panels come from but you beat me to it. In terms of the cleanest and most renewable fuel, hydrogen stands out above everything else. Still, with all of these, there still exists the problem of how to manufacture the "fuel", be it hydrogen, electricity, or pixie dust.

yup - its getting to the stage people will start buying stageas BECAUSE of the forum (if that isn't already happening)

Your increased idle should be fixable by doing the idle air learning procedure -only caveat is the engine MUST be up to correct temp for this to work. Do it after a drive somewhere rather than just going round the block. I found when I cleaned my throttle body it was revving high every time until I tried the idle learning procedure after getting home from work, then its been fine ever since point 1 - The clunk its doing is if I reverse, then stop, then put in drive, and then start to drive forwards, it will clunk as I move forwards. The gearchanges are usually fine (unless i'm still moving when i put it in reverse/drive). point 2 - kind of, but it feels a bit too aggressive. maybe just due to it being in 5th - could be normal then. point 3 - Not sure if it is 1st gear, maybe its 2nd. Either way its when I'm doing say 30-40km/h and stomp my foot to the floor to overtake (not something i do often mind you). In the last stagea this would shove it back to 1st and you'd get a rush of acceleration (had to be careful to have a clear lane ahead of me). In this model, its a waste of time and seems to just hurt the gearbox and go nowhere... It probably would benefit from a change of diff oil. Hasn't been done and I've owned the car for 30,000km (goodness that went fast). I just wasn't sure if that would relate to the issues I'm having. The front tyres have worn fairly evenly I imagine, no reason for them not to. All 4 tyres are noisy and have formed sharp ridges in the tread - sounds like 4wd tyres or worse. I will be getting new tyres as soon as I can afford it, and will probably try to change the diff oil after that... I've just gotten approval for my first home loan (building) and so all of my saved money is going into the deposit...and as per usual, the "extra" that i was hoping to use for tyres etc is now required for the loan. just the beginning i guess... Thanks for the help guys and sorry for the continual moaning and whinging about the transmission...

The problem is much worse when its hot. Mine feels like there's always some drag on the engine constantly. It never felt like that when we first bought it. Fuel economy is now at least 1L/100km worse - maybe thats the heat but I used to get better fuel economy doing much the same weekly route in my old s2 stagea. Its now done 108,000km. It still does the no power thing when changing back to 1st even when cold. Its not a normal gearchange - feels like you jab the brakes hard just before it changes gear...and then it seems to slip a fair bit before taking off... Just a wild theory I had - is it possible for my tyres to be causing issues with the diff - they are very very noisy and due to the way they have worn, creating sharp ridges on the tread all the way around the tyre, they would cause a lot more friction with the road surface than a normal tyre....is this likely to cause any issue? It wouldn't affect the above gearchange thing but could be contributing to extra fuel usage/drag etc?

Thought I'd start a new thread for this one - apologies if I've posted any of this before. My goldfish memory isn't that great... This post is nothing to do with the normal behaviour of the gearbox...that much I've managed to live with until now. Mine has been slowly deteriorating over the last 3 or so months. Not knowing a whole lot about this side of things, I'm not sure exactly where the problem lies. Its definitely mechanical and gearing related, but I'm not sure if its the gearbox or the diff or something in between or... * If I reverse, then drive forward slowly, it will clunk forwards as if I've driven over something on the road. I've also felt it do a very similar series of clunks like that in quick succession when driving at about 30km/h - after coasting then just resuming the throttle. * Another symptom is that if I drive at 60km/h then lift my right foot, a second later its like the brakes are being applied...and it slows down much quicker than it should rather than just rolling. * When I'm in 2nd gear and go to change back to 1st by putting my foot down, it really pulls back and its like the power cuts out for about half a second before clunking/jolting into 1st and then kind of easing into motion again (it doesn't really take off straight away when it hits 1st gear). It used to just have a delay before changing gears, but this feels like its going from 4th to 1st or something like that. Incidently if I was to slam my foot to the floor it usually takes about 3 goes before it finally hits 1st, making it a very ineffective way of overtaking (and quite often dangerous). Maybe something is wrong with the gearbox...I dont know. The clunking issue definitely feels like something is slipping and then grabbing and then its fine. I had the gearbox serviced just 3 months ago and it was fine then. The mechanic was an auto transmission specialist and used geniune Nissan oil (the correct one for this trans). So I doubt the oil is burnt or anything like that.

oh crap. dont mind me. was a long slow day at work....didn't even click that that was a C34 - even with that pic in the avatar... It was a thread about the M35 gearbox and someone mentioned shift kit and MV Automatics. Now I already knew MV will fit a shift kit to the M35 and I knew roughly what price it was but hadn't heard of anyone actually taking their car there to get it fitted. I had one of their kits on my old s2 so I was curious to see how the M35 would perform....ah well. Guess I'll have to keep waiting until some cash magically lands on my doorstep... could happen.

How much $$? You can pm me if you dont want to post it up Let us know how it drives afterwards...

I agree that the prius is much more an "icon" for being "green" than it is actually "green". In manufacturing a prius more damage is done to the environment than most other similar sized cars or so I've been told. Also top gear did a test around their track where a prius drove pretty much flat out and a bmw m3 (v8) drove behind keeping up with it. The M3 used less fuel than the prius. Their conclusion? its not WHAT you drive, but how you drive it. Obviously some cars will always be cleaner though so this doesn't work as an excuse for why you drive an abraham tank. LPG is probably the cleanest fuel we have. Diesel is only cleaner than petrol if you think CO2 is the only pollution cars produce. Truth is no one knows what particulate matter and NOx is doing to the environment so its hard to draw a proper comparison. I feel that all the manufacturers have jumped on diesel, promoting it as the new "green" fuel a little too early... Not only that, Diesel actually causes more pollution to refine than petrol too... Not saying which is the better fuel but its not as easy as just looking at just 1 of the gases that comes out the exhaust pipe.

Dont get the s1/2 and M35 stageas mixed up. When people are complaining about rear seat legroom, they're talking about earlier stageas. (I've owned both) The M35 has another ~11cm of rear legroom (which is a lot). I'm 6'1 and when I sit comfortably in the back with my legs out in front there's still another 5-6cm in front of my knees. How much more do you need? IMO its very close to a ford falcon as far as space goes. I've got a rear-facing baby seat in mine and it fits no problem. Still plenty of legroom in the front seat. You wouldn't comfortably seat 3 adults across the back seat but then I've yet to see a car that will (4wd's included - most of those are actually thinner than a falcon/stagea). Boot space in the M35 is up there with the falcon. Dont be fooled by the VE commodore wagon - its bootspace isn't much more than a sedan due to the very sloped roofline. So its really between the falcon and M35 as far as interior space goes, and I can tell you which one I'd prefer to drive. The M35 is quicker than the latest falcon (which doesn't come in a wagon), although not by a huge amount. Thing is the VQ25 engine doesn't have the most aftermarket parts available and there's no manual option either...and the auto sucks a little bit for fast shifting (ie. it cant). However the ride that the stagea delivers is pretty nice. Given the price at around 15-20k, you really cant beat the value for money of a stagea M35. However, for performance, you can obviously get exhaust, bigger turbo, the VQ25DET does work with the e-Manage ultimate I believe, you can get a shift kit for the auto box, and at least 200awkw is possible without sacrificing driveability. Its a bit trickier than with the RB engines since #1 the VQ25 is rare, and #2 the ecu tends to take over a lot more, making it more difficult to modify, although not impossible. Its already got a front mount intercooler (which you could replace with a larger one if needed). I'd say either a M35 wagon or 4WD would be where its at, otherwise one of the other wagons mentioned may offer better performance at the cost of a little bit of space. some of the downsides of the M35 are: - its drive-by-wire, which sucks. the throttle response is not the same as with a cable, although you may not notice so much until you increase power. - the auto gearbox is about the laggiest i've come across (only on kickdown, its reasonably fast changing gears when accelerating). - needs a bit of work to make it really fast, but its not too slow in factory form (unless you happen to own a 700hp GTR in which case lets face it - anything else is slow) oh, and if you buy a stagea you get to stay on this forum. The guys and girls in the stagea section are the nicest bunch of people you're likely to meet on any forum.

Found this PDF somewhere on the internet. Its "part 2 of 3" so there's likely a part 1 and 3 somewhere too (but I cant remember where I found it. Its been sitting in my "home" folder at work for months). Enjoy. RE5R05A_Jatco_Tranny_Part_2_2007_03_22.pdf

If I remember correctly, $17K to get that "kit" made for your M35 stagea. plus fitting i assume. On the one hand, why would you pay what the car is worth, just for a bodykit, but on the other hand, if they brought out a GTR wagon like that for ~$35K there'd be a lot of takers...even if it doesn't go like a GTR. Make it $40K and it'd be one tough wagon

I spotted 2 silver stageas (both s2 I think) near mitcham area (adelaide) within about 1 minute of each other. I was in the silver m35 if either of you are on here. Exchanged waves both times

Your boost controller connects to the nipple on the side of the intake (drivers side). Also your vacuum hoses should now completely bypass the boost control solenoid (this is the "factory" controller if anyone is wondering). Not sure how the turbosmart boost T works but the best manual controller I've found is the Turbotech controller off ebay (NOT JRD!!). These work very well and rather than bleed pressure like a bleed valve, they go in series, meaning they restrict pressure to the wastegate actuator. They have a ball bearing which is tensioned by a spring and will dislodge after x psi (you set this by tightening or loosening a screw). The wastegate actuator sees 0 pressure until you reach the amount of pressure required to dislodge the ball bearing inside the controller. After that the wastegate actuator immediately sees the full amount of pressure and slams open. This has 2 benefits. (1) you (apparently) wont get boost spikes like you do with a bleed valve and (2) boost builds quicker because the wastegate does not creep open as boost builds up. I used one of these on my s2 stagea and it worked a treat. I had a JRD one before and that one didn't work properly. If you only want to run a few extra psi and just want to "set and forget" then the turbotech is worth a try. <$40 from ebay if they're still available. (btw I dont have anything to do with the guy who makes them. I was just really happy with the one I had)

This was my conclusion exactly. After living with a GT30 for 1.5 years then hopping in the M35, I really loved having the stock turbo again. And with the VQ so much more torquey than the RB, its even better. Needs a little more grunt than it has, but then I dont have an exhaust etc.

I had a GT30 on my last stagea (s2), along with full mandrel bent 3" stainless steel exhaust (was pretty much straight through the whole way so no restrictions at all) + highflow cat, boost controller, and SAFC (tuned by boostworx). The above is similar to the results I had. However it all comes down to what your preference is for how the car should drive. The stock turbo will actually begin to build boost around 1800rpm. The 500rpm difference actually makes quite a difference to the overall driveability/responsiveness of the car. It may only be subtle to some but its the difference between having a car thats on boost as soon as you touch the pedal (stock), compared to having a dead spot when you touch the pedal and getting boost a few split seconds later (possibly up to half a second). Mine used to hit max boost (12psi at the time) around 3800rpm which feels a lot laggier than the M35's stock 12psi at 3200rpm. I am nitpicking but I really missed the instant response from the stock turbo, not to mention the smoother transition onto boost. Yes the bigger turbo did give me much more power, but I rarely used it because 90% of the time the revs sit around 2000-2500rpm (ie. when in traffic). Overtaking was ok because you build boost while the auto is changing down so it was kind of instant once it changed gears (i had a shift kit too). Fuel economy was a lot better though, as a result of being off-boost for 90% of everyday driving. The above isn't a criticism of anyone's decision to upgrade the turbo. Overall performance is hugely improved with a bigger turbo, but if you like the "nimbleness" and how quickly the M35 gets up and going, this is what you lose with a bigger turbo. Its still not too bad (used to hit 4000rpm before you crossed the intersection) but its not what I'd call responsive (at least not compared to stock). It was worst in summer because the extra heat means it takes even longer to get onto boost...and lets face it, any stagea without boost is going to be very slow. I'm just letting people know my experiences from a GT30 in a series 2 stag. The M35 with its improved torque should handle it better though...

its not you. For those wondering whats going on here...try typing in "p i g" (without spaces) into a post and hit "preview". It will change all occurrences of the word "p i g" into the word "cop" - nothing you can do about it. I notified the forum people a long time ago and its still not fixed. Maybe if enough people comment on it the problem will disappear. I discovered it when it kept changing p_i_g_gyback to copgyback. Really sucks!! Moderators - please forward this to whoever may be able/responsible to fix it.

digital boost readout anyone?

nah its not quite getting full revs, but does rev quite high sometimes without really accelerating, until I back off and let it settle, then have another go - usually much better the second time. Often only in the lower gears though (ie 2nd and 3rd). Its had the fluid changed only a few months ago - with genuine Nissan oil - whatever one is the right code- pretty sure it is J from memory. It was done at SA RACE here who seem to know their stuff. They said they could fit a shift kit for me (but not cheap). I had one in my previous stagea (s2) and that one was fantastic. Apologies for being offtopic...

I'm pretty sure mine is slipping as well. Only under heavy throttle or when I floor it and it has to change back to 1st. It often takes a few goes to get into 1st gear when doing that. Did your shift kit help with that side of things? I realise it doesn't fix the throttle lag, but I'm thinking it might be an option to make my gearbox last a little longer.

Does the M35 not already have one? the s1 & S2 stagea had one as standard (s2 one was bigger). Never looked to see if the M35 does.

Thanks mate

nothing wrong with GCG turbos. If you're only new to the forum you may not have seen/read the hundreds of posts on here about the quality of GCG high-flow turbos. They were the #1 most popular turbo replacement for the RB's because they bolted up directly and even fitted the factory water and oil lines. They have had very good reviews from a lot of people. I would've gone with that option with my last stagea (turbo died) but the mechanic who would be doing the work reckoned a GT30 would give me better response. As it turned out, I should've listened to the guys on the forum and not him. Based on what I've read on here I'd say GCG would be a very good option, although they are around the $1750 mark from memory. That was a few years ago too and with a R34/s2 stagea turbo. My stock turbo is still going fine at 108,000km but if/when it dies I'll be looking at a rebuild. If I could get it done cheaper than $1000 I would. Not interested in more power really. I went there with the last stagea and dont have the money to do it again. As far as I'm aware, the only weakness of the factory turbo is the ceramic turbine. Replace this with steel internals and it should outlast the car (provided you're not running crazy boost or anything). Keeping the stock housing etc means the characteristics and tuning of the engine should remain very close to factory, which if you're not chasing more power, is a plus.

So is that the issue then - just a bad contact on some of the solder points? Excuse my newbie-ness, but where is this sender unit located? I have done a bit of soldering in high school but my brother-in-law is an electronics tech so I'll get him to do the actual fix up... Is it easy to get to? or is it a case of 30 mins getting to the part, and 2 minutes to fix it...?