Ryan's '10 Infiniti G37S 6MT Sedan

[ildd]

Been a while since I gave an update!

Spoiler

The car is just under 90,000 miles already. I had a CEL and after reading the code, my stomach felt a bit better knowing it was just the rear O2 sensor. So I replaced that. I've known for a couple months now that my brake pads were incredibly low, so I went ahead and got new pads. Then like three days later, I decided to go ahead and get rotors as well.
20150916_085936
I mean, that's basically it. I've had some things holding me back from going through with the coilovers, but I expect that to happen another month or two. Maybe over winter break. I just need to clear up a couple things in life first. I ordered convex mirrors as well but they were only taking orders- they're currently in production now but I don't know exactly when they will come in. maybe three weeks.
20150916_085951-1

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

Wooo I love those wheels!! What a huge improvement!!

 

[Cale]

Yeah man the new look is dope.

 

[ildd]

Heyyy long needed update

Spoiler

Miata got hit in a parking lot last month

And after that and taking a trip to Corpus Christi I decided to buy a truck to daily

1995 Ford Ranger extended cab, XLT, V6, 5 speed with 109k miles. And the camper. Paid $3000 for it including taxes.

It's surprisingly very nice. It's in great shape, it gets fairly good mpg (20ish city and 26 highway). It's smooth, comfy, very quiet inside and the V6 sounds great. Only thing I had to do to it after buying it was get new wiper blades, fill up the washer fluid, and change the oil. And I need to get a radio. But everything else is good!
I really want to get bigger tires, a small lift kit and a tow hook. And that's basically it.

So yea as of right now the Miata will only be driven once a week or so. The plan is to turn it into a track/show car.

 

[ildd]

Got the new bumper on. And I washed it, waxed it, claybarred it (including the windows) and rotated the tires on Thursday.

so yea it's a lil bit shiny as of right now

also the Ranger does better offroad than I really expected it to! Only limited to wet grass but it didn't have any problems.

 

[Kitten]

I adore those rims.

 

[ildd]

Spoiler

 

[ildd]

I think the water pump in the Ranger went out on Christmas eve (if not that, i'll check the front connections/hoses tomorrow when I get time). Had a friend tow me back to my house (luckily only like 1.5 miles away). Still kinda scary though, strapped to a truck two feet in front of you with no power steering or brakes. Communication is key.
So yep back to dailying the Miata... not necessarily a bad thing, but a bit inconvenient.
The Miata is still well and strong, but of course... almost nobody had a white Christmas this year so I improvised.

 

[ildd]

New years update-

going to change the water pump on the Ranger hopefully within a week
going to ask for assistance from my neighbor to replace the timing belt, water pump and head gasket on the Miata 👎👍

So long story short, I'm driving my friend up to a baseball field to meet up with others and we stop at a chickfila for lunch really quick. Get back in, start it, and just the worst rattle is coming from the engine bay when started, but stops at idle. I'm looking at my obdii bluetooth reader and it shows nothing, and the CEL hasn't came on. I go ahead and continue on and it rattles again once i hit about 3k rpm. So I keep the revs low, accelerating slowly, and we make it to the field and the CEL is still off. Still nothing on the diagnostics and there's no leaks or bad temp readings. On our way back, it stalls and i'm just able to get it into a parking lot. Finally the CEL comes on and I get P0012, which is (usually) the Camshaft Position Sensor. Our insurance covers tows up to 15 miles, and I was about a mile from my house when I had to pull over. I waited two and a half hours for a tow truck that never came. Called it in at 1:15, said they'd be there at 1:55. 2:10 came and I called them, "yea i'll be there in about 30 minutes." 3:00 comes and I call again, "sorry, I had to respond to a call on 1960 (about 20 minutes from my house)"..."so when do you think youll be h-"..."I have to go to another car it'll be like-" *cuts him off* "just ****ing forget it dicktard" and I pushed the car to my street. I take my mom's car up to the Mazda dealer so I can order the part and it was in the next morning. So I replace it, and nothing changes. I'm able to start it and move but has a typical gross sound- you know that sound of cards in a bicycle wheel? It's kinda like that. I put it in the driveway, and Miata people recommend an oil change. Seeing as my oil is only about 3k miles old, i dismissed the idea, but did it anyway.

1.25 quarts came out. The oil was greenish and swirly.

So i'm looking all over the place for a leak and it hits me hard... the head gasket. Sure enough, the drivers side has oil going down out of the gasket on the back half... so it's going to be sitting in my garage until I get all the parts together. Since it's at 93k miles, i'm going to go ahead and do the 100k maintenance, which includes the timing belt, water pump, and the seals, along with the head gasket. With the valve cover off, I'll probably go ahead and paint it black, too. My neighbor is very proficient with engines so i'm going to ask him for help (after all, he does have a beautiful '03 e55 with 493hp/580lb-ft at the wheels and had a '68 Dodge Dart drag car with a 440ci with 707whp). I'd be afraid to tackle all that by myself.
To my Miata friends, @Heldenzeit and @R1600Turbo, am I missing anything I should add to the list?

 

[Davis]

Been there done that, have fun! 👍

 

[Katiegan]

Looks like someone didn't repost the good luck Subaru.

 

[ildd]

Looks like someone didn't repost the good luck Subaru.

Nobody warned me

 

[Heldenzeit]

Check the spark plugs too. Front main seal, is important to change as well.

 

[ProjectWHaT]

Congrats! Is it a boy or a girl?

 

[ildd]

Congrats! Is it a boy or a girl?

It was a red potato and it was beautiful


Until i ate it

 

[CodeRedR51]

Check the spark plugs too. Front main seal, is important to change as well.

This.

And that about covers it. Make sure the timing belt kit includes the tensioners. Like so.

 

[ildd]

This.

And that about covers it. Make sure the timing belt kit includes the tensioners. Like so.

Yep, the kit I got has brand new seals and tensioners. And it got here three days before it was scheduled to... so now i just have to wait for the water pump (Friday) and the head gasket kit still needs to be shipped from FM.
I went ahead and got hydraulic hood lifts for it too. Hell, may as well give it a quick little upgrade...

 

[ildd]

Miata hasn't seen any progress but I did decide to upgrade the truck just a bit.

Spoiler

First, on Thursday I tinted the windows (20%) myself. Took about two hours including the intense washing of the windows before hand. Wasn't all that difficult! On the same day I wanted to tidy up the front end- initially I wanted to clean the chrome and get the condensation out of the headlights, as well as paint the grille, but in the end all I really did was the grille. The chrome isn't all that fixable as I thought it might be... the gloss black looks better than the faded silver it was before IMO, but still looks...bleh.

And lastly, I bought a "new" set of wheels and tires. The Hankooks that were on there were absolutely trash in the rain and below average when dry. So I bought a set of 5 wheels and 4 almost new tires, with the 5th being about 50% done. Went from 225/70/14 to 235/75/15. About three inches taller overall, and for $300 I think I got a pretty nice deal!

The 5th wheel is an emergency spare I guess since it's a different tire than the rest. I may replace the actual spare with it on Tuesday.

^the ones off to the side are the old POS'

 

[ildd]

On Tuesday, I went to a junkyard and bought 2001 Mustang convertible leather seats.

Spoiler

$27 each, and in overall great shape. The passenger side is nearly flawless while the drivers side is a bit cracked and has one cut in the middle of the bottom.

All I had to do was swap out the seat rails! Took roughly an hour to unbolt the original seats, unbolt the frame/rails for them, unbolt the Mustang rails, put the Ranger rails on the Mustang seats and bolt them back into the Ranger.

The seats are very comfy, the drivers side of course is a bit more broken in; passenger side is a tad on the hard side. They sit about an inch lower, maybe a little more, but very comfy and once I get something figured out for a center console, they'll look like a factory option!

I also like to offroad.

 

[ildd]

I'd like to welcome you all, to the one, the only, The Mr. Incredible Himself, S37 GAINS



So what happened?

Well, amidst browsing AutoTrader at midnight barely a week ago, I came across a 2010 Infiniti G37 Sport. It caught my attention with its $18,993 price tag and 49k miles. And so I clicked on it, and lord have mercy, it was a manual. I knew these were rare. I've been looking at G37's online since the Mercedes days, and I've only seen a small handful of manual G37 sedans that were not only clean, but moderately priced. This was a fair bit under value, and I asked my dad if he'd be willing to cosign on it if I needed him to the next day. He did his own bit of research on the car, and the next day, I went ahead and called the dealer and asked if they still had it- sure enough, they did, and I scheduled an appointment for 2:45. I was the first one of three to test drive it that day. The second was waiting for me to get back from the drive, and I told my sales person, "you need to go ahead and tell him it's sold." Absolutely, positively love this car. After going through every little thing you should check on a used car, I went ahead and gave her a list of things I wanted fixed if I was to buy it- a paint chip on the driver door, a small black scratch/mark on the rear left door, and the main unlock switch on the door panel to be replaced since the unlock half doesn't illuminate. They agreed to the first two, and I decided it was fair enough.

So one thing leads to another, we hit a snag, we fix the snag, and I leave the dealer in a newly purchased G37S at about 6:30pm that same day. I traded the truck in for $1000, put another $500 down, and finance it for $380 a month. All of this happened yesterday, on Cinco de Mayo. Today, I had to bring the title for the truck.

So I get home after school at about 11:30, get the title really quick, and head to the south side of Houston. I don't know what the hell was wrong today but good lord, traffic was backed up on both ends TO no end. It was ridiculous. I was in downtown for 5 hours today and I swear, 3 of them were sitting in traffic on the highway. Anyways, so I give my title to the saleswoman, and the manager I had talked to walked into her room. "Young man, I need you to wait for just a few minutes. I think your payment is going down." ****, alright, i'm down. Walks back in, "come with me, sir" awwww yeeaa. Sign the paperwork, again, but now for $340 a month for the same duration. Hey, not bad for a first time car financier. And going into there, I figured I was going to need a cosigner. But no sir, all the paperwork is in my name and Wells Fargo. Gap insurance and all included.



I'll make another post some time next week! Still need to wash it! I'll give it a review and of course a list of things I like, a couple things I don't, but considering it's a fully loaded G37S manual sedan, and the price for it, i'm not going to be complaining too much.

 

[ildd]

Well, I was finally able to get around to washing the Big G- had my first final yesterday, plus it was raining, then had to work. So here it is. Of course, when it's all nice and clean you do tend to find a couple more marks you may have missed before. Luckily, I was able to get the more noticeable marks out pretty easy, but there are a few still hidden- luckily they're in pretty hard to see areas.

Spoiler

I'll make a write up probably on Friday! I'll give it my full one week thoughts, although I did already make a video explaining everything already... I guess it needs a couple days to process. It's not even in my videos list on youtube.

 

[ildd]

Oh. I never gave my review.

Well, i think this picture sums it up pretty well.

I mean, I don't really have a whole lot to say apart from I've been actively looking into mods and coming up with visions of this car. Since I bought it, I haven't spent more than an hour trying to find an engine for the Miata. This has replaced my void of not driving it with something greater.

But uh, yea, I saw this pic today and I just, you know

Spoiler: have fun

Apart from that, I'm getting a custom license plate. The first thing i do to the car will, most likely, be a vinyl wrapping of the roof and chrome window trim; gloss black, of course. Depending on what I can get and for the price, I'd like to get a wood-like wrap on the interior aluminum trim pieces. I've already put 3,000 miles on the car since I bought it, some 45 days ago so I need to step it down. Way too much pleasure driving. It's just that kind of car though.
I've been getting about 18.5mpg in the city and 27 or so on the highway. Using premium gas, it costs about $45 to fill 'er up. Just like in the Miata and Mercedes, it's developed a rattle in the passenger door in relation to the speaker, lol. Wedging a water bottle inbetween the seat and door is cancelling it out. Apart from that, that's the only problem I've ran in to and/or noticed.As for the Miata, the battery died.

The single greatest feature of this car lays in the rear seat armrest. On the right side, there's a storage compartment that I swear was meant to hold a handgun.

 

[ildd]

Ok, so after work today I got to thinking, and I started digging through the G37 forums. There's a DIY write up (and template) for wrapping the chrome trim on the outside, and after realizing how simple it is, I figured I'd go ahead and say "screw it, i'll do it myself." While reading through that thread and seeing the results, I'm confident I can do it myself. But first, I think I'm going to do the interior trim pieces. There's only two pieces on the inside that might be considered hard, and that would be the touchscreen menu and the radio/AC panel. The rest would be easy. So now, I'm sitting here with all the trim pieces measured out and I'm about to figure out the most efficient way to organize the pieces and order the necessary size of vinyl.

From this list, I know #2 (Burl) has a high-gloss to it, while #3 and #4 (both Mahogany) have a moderate gloss. #1 (Ebony) has a very low gloss to it. Personally, i'm pretty partial to the ebony or burlwood.

Food for thought... wood trim was actually an option when buying the car on the base model.

Spoiler

I went ahead and measured the grille, too, as I absolutely love this style-except i've been on the hunt to try and find one without the emblem.

Spoiler

like this

Additionally, the wheels I really like the the above post are actually still mounted to those Conti tires and are currently sitting in a storage unit. I've been talking to the owner and i might just buy them. The fronts required 15mm spacers, but getting the whole set, used, would save a hell of a lot of money...

 

[eiriksmil]

Love the G..! Although an LS swap for the LS would also be fun with some of those monies

 

[ildd]

Love the G..! Although an LS swap for the LS would also be fun with some of those monies

Haha, maybe the next owner can do that.
Yesterday I switched out the wheels, radio and center console. It was about 95 outside and took me an hour and 10 minutes. After I got home from work, I finally cut out 1:2.54 scale trim pieces, and to my surprise, the whole set would fit on a 12x48 inch sheet. I ordered 12x60 and it should be here July 7th or so.
https://flic.kr/p/JvnXNo
https://flic.kr/p/JBmL3j

 

[ildd]

Geez. Been a while huh.

Well, it's only good news from here. Continuing from where I left off previously, I went ahead and ordered the ebony black vinyl and installed it on all four doors. The back two doors I did pretty dang good on, the front passenger side I did good enough- in the sense that you won't notice any problems unless under the right angle. The drivers door, well, I had some problems around the buttons. I don't want to elaborate on that part. But i love the way it looks. I decided doing the center console is too tedious for me to do correctly. I just don't have the skills right now. So as it sits now, it's just the doors and the little... like, thing next to the steering wheel. Didn't even do the glove box portion but that's ok.

So uh, I had a cooling system problem last month and more or less bled into this month. The hose that draws coolant from the reservoir had a hole in it and I damn near had a heart attack when it happened. So going back to the exact moment coolant hit the fan (literally, HA), I noticed that when I sat and idled, the temperature rose to the "High" line but didn't really think a whole lot of it. i didnt smell anything. This went on for like a week. So Imagine you're sitting at Chickfila in the drive thru right, and you pay and all of a sudden, KABOOYA KABOOYA. Smelly smoke just everywhere. "i'm uh.... im gonna pull off over here ok." I didn't notice anything when I was looking at the time, all the fluids were still ok and the cap was still on. I could tell it started spewing somewhere from the passenger side of the engine, and later on I realized it came from the back. I let it cool off a bit and was able to drive it home (albeit very carefully) and took it up to the shop the next day and had that hose replaced. I replaced the oil on Thursday. A whole 5.5qt of the good stuff. Was a ****ing bitch getting the drain plug off, but props to Nissan on the locations of everything. Like forreal. Oil filter was in just the most perfect place. I realized my car was also missing the aerodynamic panel/skid plate that goes under there, but honestly, whatever, you know? Extra cooling. Yeet.

I had to buy brand new rotors and pads as well. Jesus have mercy. I knew they'd be expensive being the Sport model, having them Akebonos, but... jesus. Wow. Um, ok. But that's cool. Apart from the clutch fluid, nothing will need to be done for quite some time now. I'll change that out pretty soon.

I also sold the Miata yesterday and all that money is going straight to paying off college debt and what's left will just be sitting in my bank. Like forreal tho, November 17th. mark the calendar. That game will be epic. GO COOGS.

 

[ildd]

Damn. Talk about an update.

So, actually a lot has happened since I last posted in here. I guess we'll start from square one.
A couple weeks ago I did the second oil change after about 7500 miles. This ended up being part of the 60k mile service plan, as I also replaced the serpentine belt and cabin air filter. None of that was all that hard, but breaking the tensioner for the belt was kind of a PITA. I didn't have a breaker bar that fit in to the little crevice it had to go in to, so I uh... stuck my ratchet in there, put my torque wrench over the handle of the ratchet and pulled as hard as I could with one hand while jammed the allen key in to the tensioner. Yea, that's how you do it. Jam an allen key in to two little holes so the tensioner stays in one place.
Alright, cool. Rip finger skin.
Back in January, I met a dude who owned a manual '13 sedan. He had to drive to Michigan to pick his up. MICHIGAN. He also has it race-prepped for the most part, with Bride racing seats up front, the back seats taken out, all of the trunk lining taken out, and an absolutely killer stance on it. Not to mention the midnight grille which I would kill for. I'm still thinking about trying the vinyl wrap idea because of the hilarious price of them, but we shall see.

Because of the 60k service interval, I didn't feel like replacing the air intakes so I bought an Injen short ram intake system. Which sounds absolutely glorious and is noticeably more responsive. I didn't care about power gains, and it claims to add 11hp (which I figure to be a total lie), but the more important thing is it doesn't rob any power because of the heat shields it came with, so that's cool. Plus it looks pretty neat.

I also went ahead and took off the engine cover and gave everything a nice little clean a bit after that picture was taken. I had an idea for the cover but it turned out to look terrible so it's staying off!

One thing i didn't look in to before I bought the car was the clutch. I knew the engine is very reliable, the transmission even more so, but i overlooked the clutch. One of the pitfalls of researching a car three days before buying it. But anyway, it turns out the clutch system is kind of unreliably terrible for some people, some giving out after only 20k miles from brand new. It's mostly due to the slave cylinder from what I understand. It's just not good. The average life tends to be about 65-75k miles for the CSC, which basically forces you to replace the clutch and flywheel as well. I could feel mine start slipping about a month ago, and ordered an entirely new system. Every component is brand new now.
The OEM flywheel is a fairly heavy 26lb dual mass, so I bought a Jim Wolf Technologies clutch and single-mass 15.6lb flywheel, an aftermarket heavy duty CSC that i'll probably never have to replace again, a new OEM master cylinder, a NISMO needle pilot bearing and went ahead and bought a stainless clutch line as well, because why the **** not. It was installed two days ago, and i'm in the break-in period as of right now. I love it so much. It's almost perfect. I hated the stock clutch because the OEM CSC acts as an assist and it changes the feel of the pedal, which makes it super inconsistent. Now, obviously I haven't put the clutch to the test yet, but just driving around going slow, it's wonderful. I noticed it decreased the usability of the lower end powerband in the sense that if i'm under 1800rpms now, I have to downshift because of vibrations and stuff. I haven't gone above 4200rpm yet or done any kind of spirited driving, but i'm eagerly awaiting for when that time comes.

Also I decided on Enkei Raijin wheels but that won't be happening any time soon.

 

[GDII]

I'm liking the intakes and good choice of wheels for the future.

 

[ildd]

Huh. Well, if it isn't a good time for a dank ass update.

Starting off with where I left off, here's a 12k clutch review in one sentence:
I love it, but it chatters more than a drunk mom whose kid finished in the top 10%.

With the clutch not engaged, it is a loud mess. I've had strangers come up to me and say, "hey uh... your car sounded kinda weird. Might wanna get that checked out." When I got it inspected last month, my long-time mechanic said, "your throwout bearing sounds, uh... challenged."
But that's just the way it is. If I knew how loud it would have been, I would have chosen something different. The clutch chatter is beyond asinine. Oh well. And yes, i'm sure it's chatter and not the bearing.

Moving on: Not a thing has changed since then. I detailed it for the first time since, like... March? after the above picture was taken. I upgraded all the interior lights to LEDs, and the rear license plate lights. I also replaced the fog lights with White LEDs and tinted the lens. That last part didn't go exactly how I planned out. I'm partially colorblind and it seems as though the actual light output is a slight green instead of yellow, but I intend on changing that in the future.
In case you didn't notice it, I got the "midnight grille." Haha, gotcha again, I wrapped it in vinyl.
I did it back in March, and it struck me as an intimidating task initially, but i have to say I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The bottom fin is kinda.. meh because of the curve, but it's not something you notice until you're really close to it. I saved about $300 so if one person realizes it's wrapped, that's OK by me.

I made plans on trading headlights with a pair that had the housing painted black, but unfortunately that fell though because my passenger side film is very slightly peeling. I had the whole bumper off and headlights out when he arrived, but hey, you gotta know what you're getting yourself in to. It's still something I plan on doing because it looked so good but I guess I'll have to hold off for now.

I ran out of tire tread. I got a trio of slightly used Conti run flats for $180, so I'm good on tires until, hopefully anyway, I'm able to pick up some wheels this year. If I have to keep changing them out, that's ok with me. It sure beats the price of new tires.

I guess I'll also mention my photography page (@harrytography on IG) is just about to pass 500 followers, which I'm pretty proud of. Lucky dice.