KrazyKong

Rob where did you purchase a new heater core from? I'm after a R33 S2 one myself.

Still mopping up the coolant. Took the seats out of the car, and was able to pull up the carpets. But I think to get all the moisture out I'm going to have to take the dash out, and the airbag console thing plus undo the handbrake. I've already bought a Torx T50 socket so can get the bolts undone. Still this sucks, and isn't easy to do. I bought a couple of copper rounded 90˚ angle pieces, so will join them together and that should close off the hoses in the engine bay. Once that's all done and dusted, I'll have to get to the heater core somehow. SECURITY I'm pretty sure I have to take out he condenser box which has A/C lines attached to it, to get to the heater core. I'm still hopeful the core or the plastic connectors can be repaired. Otherwise, I'll have to source a new one. Anyone know a place that sells them apart from Nissan?

That sounds like a good thing to do. Will join those two hoses together. Do you think it's just the regular heater core failing, or something else involved as well? I've taken my dash out actually before to fix the frog motor, but when it put it back I had a little warp that wasn't there before . Worst case I know how to take it out. Then do the replacement heater core thing. But then I have to get the AC gas taken out right? or can I just open a valve and let it out. Obviously I'd have to goto a place to get it refilled.

I may have found something here. It looks like the heater is leaking into the car. I pulled back the mat and the carpet was wet. In the pics you can see the green coolant. So, what's the next move here? Could this have leaked here due to a stuck thermo? and thus being a weak point it leaked... or could the heater itself be stuffed? Thinking back, on that day I was using the heater alot to try and clear all the moisture in the car. But now I'm thinking actually the moisture was because of the leak. Ok, so I got a starting point at least. Heater stuffed, drained radiator, car nearly blew up. No wonder it never sucked in fluid from the reservoir due to the loss of pressure and leakage.

I'm still confused as to where the water went from my radiator. If I have a leak or crack somewhere, hopefully it would be visible right? Otherwise, how could the water just vanish and yet the reservoir bottle still be at the correct level?

Will do . That was my understanding too that the overflow would be pulled back in if the coolant was low, but it didn't happen at all. All the overflow did was bubble hot water and air, but it never sucked the coolant back in. So that looks like a faulty cap then perhaps?

Well well, the plot thickens. With dread I popped the hood and took off the radiator cap and found to my horror it was empty. Seeing as how it was hot yesterday, I gauged that it still had coolant because the reservoir bottle was full. So I fill it up with tank water, and let it idle with the cap on. Soon enough, the green coolant showed up that must have been in the block or behind the thermostat. Feeling more bold I took it for a drive and found the car run fine. I had the heater on full blast to see if it would do it's cycle thing, and once I was up to temperature it seemed to constantly blow hot air. But I did note, though am not entirely sure, that when I came to a stop and just idled for a bit, the air then starter getting colder. It wasn't until I was driving again that it got back to hot. I've shut the car off and letting it sit for a bit. Then will park it uphill, and will fillup/bleed the system with the cutoff bottle. I have no idea what's going on, but the radiator part this morning seemed completely empty. Either I got a leak, or something more sinister, or mysteriously the coolant just vanished one day. My oil is clean, and I didn't notice any bubbles coming out of the radiator. But since it was empty, I won't know for sure until I bleed properly. Still very much worried, but at least it started today and drove ok.

It was bled properly 3-4 months back. I spent quite a few hours on it, got it to where I was happy, then repeated the process just to be sure. It's been over 2500km since I bled it. I'm pretty sure air isn't the culprit at this point. Yes I've used the heater since I flushed the system many months back. I flushed the engine as well. Put in some flush treatment and drove 150kms with it in. I took the radiator completely out of the car and flushed it many times as well. I appreciate the many replies here, but don't feel at this point air is the culprit. I bled the system perfectly 3-4 months back and have done over 2500kms since then. I've taken it on cruises, and driven all over the place. When I bled the system 3-4 months back I put in a brand new genuine Nissan thermostat. Maybe this is what's failed. Just in case anyone else wants to insist this is simply an air problem, I'll repeat the critical points again. New thermostat 3-4 months ago. Full engine flush, multiple radiator flushes with the radiator out of the car. Car faced uphill with the cutoff plastic bottle method and bled all the air out. New coolant and top ups to get the levels right. 250kms since then, and not one problem until today. The car has been running so good on fluids I haven't even had to touch the coolant or the oil. Checking the coolant today when it was overheating, the resovoir was bubbling like crazy, but still had the correct amount of fluid there. If it's not stormy tomorrow, then I'll be able to take off the radiator cap and see how the fluid is. As well as checking the oil dipstick. Then I'll start the car, with cap off and see if any bubbles are there. If no bubbles, the next phase would be to take out the thermostat and check it in boiling water. Other things I could do are take radiator out and flush it again myself, or take to a radiator place that does a flush. Other than that, I can check the water pump, but wouldn't know if it was working or not. Is there a method to check this?

You're not the only one. If hot air was on my face, the temp gauge was horizontal and the car appeared by all accounts to be normal. When the hot air faded to cold, the temp gauge started rising upwards. I soon discovered it seemed to be going in a cycle, so I could keep driving the car knowing the hot air would soon come and the gauge would go back to normal. I hope I didn't damage the car further or make anything worse. When I replaced the thermostat I gave my radiator quite a few flushes and also cleaned it with a water pressure blaster. If there is a blockage, I wonder why it took 3-4months+ for something to happen vs happening right away. I'm shitting myself not knowing what is wrong, but can't do anything until tomorrow. Will do the cap/bubble test. Other than that, should I replace the thermostat and put my old one back in? and take out the radiator and try and give it another flush/blast? I hated doing it the first time, so want to avoid doing it again at all costs.

I did exactly this when doing all the flushes 3-4 months ago. Bled it nicely and so far it's been perfect. Just got off the phone with a neighbour and he recommended to start it in the morning so it'll be cold, have the radiator cap off, and look for bubbles. He said bubbles would indicate 100% of a blown head gasket?? Is this correct? I still have my old thermostat, and could swap it out tomorrow if needed.

I did a major flush 3-4 months back. Posted pics here and all. Flushed it several times, and the end result was a very happy and clean system. I've done nothing since then. I haven't even had to top up the coolant or anything as it's still a nice green colour with no residue or anything in the coolant. If the heater hose is blocked, wouldn't that only affect the ability of the heater to work? I just went outside now and popped the hood. The rocker covers are very hot to touch, as well as the throttle body. The top radiator hose is hot, but feels no hotter than it should. The lower one is warm and not as hot. There is still plenty of coolant in the reservoir, but haven't taken off the radiator cap yet. The car has been turned off 20mins now. It's pissing down rain, coming in sideways and going dark, so I don't know if I should do something or just let the car sit.

Was driving along in the rain, car running nicely, then I look at the temp gauge and it's sitting at 90%. Holy s**t. So pulled over and stopped the engine. I could hear the radiator reservoir bubbling like crazy. I let it sit and could see there was still the correct amount of coolant in the car. So checked the oil dip stick and it looked a little low, but seeing as how the engine was hot, I think it was at the correct level too. So let the car cool, fired it up and drove a bit more. Gauge started to rise, so pulled over and stopped again. I kept doing this for the next 20mins or so. At this time, I turned on the heater full blast and discovered something. With the heater set to max hot temp and max (4) speed, it would cycle between blowing cold, warm then very hot air. But in conjunction with this, when it was blowing cold air, the temp gauge was rising way way up. Then all of a sudden it would start blowing very hot air and the temp gauge would lower back to it's horizontal position. Interesting. The car isn't leaking anything, no coolant missing. I'm waiting for it to cool down to check if the oil is all there. When I started the car today and began driving, I noted how the temp gauge didn't seem to be moving at all. I gave the dash cluster a tap and it seemed to move just a little. Then very very quickly it rose all the way up to half way. It hasn't ever done that before. Normally it rises slowly and then holds steady at half way. I put in a brand new genuine thermostat from Nissan 3-4 months back. Then a month ago I installed a FMIC. After that I noticed the temp gauge was a fleas di*k higher than before, but it was constant and never acted like today. So is the thermostat faulty you think? or is there another problem I can look at. The car has been getting some rain on it for the past two weeks, but it's been totally fine driving it until today. So if it's an electrical problem, I wouldn't even know where to start. Could it be the water pump perhaps? or would there be other signs like leaking, squealing etc. I hope nothing is blown or wrecked in my car. Coming up the hill to home, it was spluttering quite badly when I put my foot down, but hoping that's just the other issue I've been having with my car (started after installing FMIC and grounding the boost wire).

I havn't used any octane boosters but have used some Lucas injector cleaner.

I've seen that YouTube video and the biggest complaint I've read is about the fan positioning. It seems they did try to do a proper comparison, but there are too many things they did wrong for it to be useful. Add to that Nulon advertising their oil as 100% synthetic when it's only a semi. If they are not even honest with regards to this, then the performance gains to me are meaningless as I have little confidence in a company that attempts to mislead.

Really? I've never heard injector cleaners damaging the o2 sensor before. Do you have a link for more info on this?

New O2 sensor and plugs gave my car a massive difference in fuel economy. It never hurts to do the tyre pressures and injector cleaners too, but if you havn't ever replaced your O2 sensor and plugs, do it and you'll see the improvements. Another vote for Kudos. Great price for their O2 sensor and no re-wiring required. Just plug it in and you're rolling.

I know Galois will chip in, but Castrol hasn't got many supporters here. There are far better oils for your RB than Castrol. 10w40 is the most popular weight of choice. Semi or full synth depends on what you want to pay. But know companies like Nulon advertise they have a 100% synthetic when it's only a semi. I just noticed you have a non turbo RB, so I'm not sure if that means the turbo oils will work just as good in your car or not. Anyone?

My rev counter has been broken and continually seeks for a year now. By low revs I mean barely even touching the throttle. I've pulled out of my driveway and was not even doing 20km and it did it's little hiccuping. If I'm looking at Nistune and coilpacks and who knows what else, then I'll most likely just put the stock SMIC back in. I don't have thousands of dollars to spend and from all accounts others have done what I have without any issues. The best I can do an afford right now is to gap the plugs at 0.8, but then again I wouldn't be getting blowouts at 20kms either. And of course take the ground boosting off. If anyone lives on the Gold Coast and knows a thing or too about Skylines and all the things discussed, I'd love to meet up with you, and you can take my car for a spin and see what it's actually doing.

See that's the kind of thing I'm wondering myself, but due to other issues I'm having with the car right now, I won't be adding another gremlin by chaning fules just yet. Once I get that all sorted out, I think I might try Shell since they are way closer to home than BP and often cheaper too. There's just that feeling that regardless of where you go, how do you know what fuel you're getting. The shell near me could be using Caltex fuel or BP fuel. All I can do is contact the managers of the servos and ask who supplies their fuel perhaps Good point. I'm not sure if I can edit it now though. Might ask an admin to see if they can make it multi choice.

Could I be running over 10psi? I guess I'll have to get a gauge to know for sure. I remember reading on here that the ecu, solenoid? or something in a stock R33 doesn't like going past 10psi. So with boost grounding and a nice FMIC, it's possible I'm peaking over 10psi right? Could that then be causing my issues?

I've been paying $1.42 to $1.45 for my BP Ultimate for months now. The BP closest to me seems to be very stable on prices. However the Shell station has their 98 at $1.25 to $1.30 and thereabouts. I know it's only 15c, but it does add up. Now I've heard alot of service stations get their fuels often from the same refineries. Thus Shell and Caltex could be in fact selling BP refined fuel. I've asked at the servo about this and the chick there wasn't able to help at all. But I'm sure someone knows something.

chuckie, anychance you have some higher res versions of those photos? For some reason I can't actually see the mesh, just dark "stuff" in the pics. I went to a security door place the other day and found these meshes. But they are incredibly strong and thick and I think total overkill for covering my FMIC. These things are so tough you couldn't kick them in, but they also restrict the airflow majorly too. So I don't think they are the right ones, but I did get an offcut for $10.

Yeah I've been busy working on the car, and the having periods of I really do not want to think about anything car wise, as I have things to do I've been putting off lol I've been using BP Ultimate for the past 5 months or so. But noticing the petrol prices lately got me thinking more. Oddly the BP prices don't change at all, but the Shell closest to home has petrol dirt cheap now. So was wondering how much better really is BP Ultimate 98 vs Shell's 98 or Caltex's 98?

It's hit or miss. Sometimes it runs ok, other times I notice the "problem" more. Now if I have the Power switch on, and Overdrive OFF, the problem seems to almost all go away. It's still there, but not as noticeable. Since I installed a FMIC that was pulled from another car and am using the original hoses, I guess I should source some new ones just to be sure. As far as the coilpacks go, I'm just not sure that's the issue right now. Let's put it this way, before I installed the FMIC and did the boost solenoid grounding, the car ran like gold. It ran very very smoothly, no problems anywhere with idling, misfiring or anything. So by doing these 2 things, FMIC, boost grounding, I now have a problem. That doesn't mean to say they are the problem. It's possible the extra boost and denser air from the FMIC is causing something else to freakout. I wish one of you guys, could just jump in, take it for a spin and then go ahh!!!! that's your problem right there. So for arguments sake, I'm going to undo the boost grounding and put it back to stock. Then the only thing changed will be the FMIC. I'll get some new hoses to be sure there are no leaks. I have my old set of spark plugs I can gap to 0.8 if things get that far, but again I just don't feel my gap or coilpacks are the things giving me grief.

It's possible it was leaking for the first week or so. I replaced a clamp that appeared to be not holding properly so we'll see how that goes. If anything maybe this will help with the fuel mileage but the "misfiring" problem is still there. I don't have a boost gauge installed, so am not sure of my exact boost figure. The misfiring happens often when I'm just putting around, foot barely on the pedal, and then start to accelerate. Other times when I floor it, I can feel it slipping or misfiring. But once it gets over a certain speed or rev range it's happy. Uhh, while I wouldn't mind some new coilpacks, I don't know enough about them to know if I in fact need them, or if the money would be well spent. For all I know, mine are working just fine, any maybe they aren't I'm going to disconnect the ground actuator wire and put it back to how it was stock for awhile. I have no other boost mods going, no T-pieces, gauges or anything. Yeah I was wondering if I need a safc, but really my car is stock apart from the fmic and boost grounding. As for future mods, I'm pretty much done for the long foreseable future. Not unless a high flow or some other better turbo drops in my lap for peanuts.