Just plan on breaking the demon bolts. They thread into the cat flange (as opposed to the header flange) and you'll replace with bolts on any HFC so you don't need them to come apart nicely. With about 3' of extensions and a cheater pipe on the breaker bar I only had to remove the MAF-TB tubes for access.

 

Slacker! Good luck with the cat install.

 

I spent the last few days watching YouTube videos on tips and tricks on cat installs. Soaking all the bolts in PB blaster and even purchased a new O2 sensor remover only to find out that my cats were perfectly fine this whole time! Here's what I found out.

Woke up early today to prepare myself for the project I was about to begin. Took the wife and kid to breakfast and set out to my dad's shop to use his lift. Side note, this is my first time working on my car with a lift and it's the best thing ever! I suggest everyone to find someone that's cool enough to let you use theirs if you don't have one. Anywho I get the car on the lift, inspect the area and soak the bolts again in PB Blaster. I didn't mention this before but I purchased a rear sway bar. While I let the bolts soak, I began to work on the rear sway.

Not gonna bore you on the reason why you should upgrade the AWD rear sway. A quick search here on the forums will tell you why. I found a used 370Z rear sway bar on eBay for $100. Add in a eBay coupon code and a random pop up sale from the seller, I ended up scoring this bar for $60 shipped. Win win!!



This was a fairly easy install. Honestly much easier than an oil change. It does however, require you to lower the mid pipes in order to remove the bar. Inserted the new bar, bolted it back up and that was that. Before that, I did a comparison between the new and old sways. Wow that AWD rear sway is thin. Might as well just weld some rebar between the two axles



Here's the new beefier bar installed.



My drive home from the shop is a slow local road drive. No real curves and barely get above 45mph. My drive to work however is a nice curvy highway drive at 55mph+ so I really got to test the new sway. Man what an amazing difference. I feel like I have to put in a bit more steering input when riding a curve which I honestly don't know if it's a good thing or not, but the car feels great. Body roll has definitely improved. A recommended upgrade for sure! Can't wait to lower it for even better handling.

Now on to my new problem. While working on the rear sway, I removed the mufflers from the midpipe. When you remove such, the mid pipe goes up and down. Not by a lot, but it does move enough. While doing so, I noticed that my Y-pipe was moving way to much and near the cats. I walked towards that part of the car and played with the Y-pipe and found this beautiful sight,





That's a cracked pipe! It's on left side pipe right before it connects to the left cat. It turns out my cats were perfectly fine, the Y-pipe just ended up breaking. Typical for us car guys to always find something else wrong with our cars. I do have an idea as to why it failed, a while back I removed my mufflers as a cheap man's muffler delete. I only removed them for one day as I realized it was dumb. I forgot to replace a bolt for the left muffler hanger causing the left side of my exhaust to hang low. I'm assuming it put stress on the Y-pipe to cat connection since it was carrying extra weight and thus made it crack at that specific area. It is what it is I guess.

Instead of just replacing the Y-pipe, I figured I get a whole new exhaust like I've been wanting. And I did just that!



Real unexpected turn of events but in the end this will all be worth it. Excited to hear AAM RHFCs with FI 18in resonated cat back exhaust. I'm hoping for no rasp or heavy drones. It's gonna be a long 14 weeks.

 

+1 on the FI CBE. You'll be happy with that - I think when I was researching the only better one was the Meisterschaft (sp?) one that was $4k...

 

Something came in the mail today,




I made a thread in the brakes section about an issue I was having with my brakes and I was told to pretty much get all new pads and rotors. Fine with me because I love shiny new things. Still waiting on the Akebono pads and new rear right caliper.

 

Nice looking rotors- though I'm biased. I have the DBA 4000 D/S's myself. Paired w/ Hawk HPS 5.0 pads, no complaints and zero regrets.

 

I was going to go with stop tech but they've gone up a lot in price. Had them on my G35 for a good 4+ yrs with no issues. Sounds like I can expect the same with DBA. Thank you.

 

DBA makes some good brakes. I used to run DBA's on my Subaru track cars.

 

It's brake day! This is my first time doing my own brakes. I can't believe I payed shops to do this kind of work after realizing how easy it was. Mind you I had a little trial and error throughout but still an easy job. Very happy with myself.

I've been anxious to see how bad my rear right caliper was ever since I found out that it was seized and causing massive amounts of rust on my wheels and other components in the rear. Got the car on the lift, removed the wheel and saw the horror. Rust city!!



Took a look at the caliper and found what went wrong with it. The boot that goes over the guide pins was m.i.a. Thus causing it to be exposed to the elements. Seized right up. I had to use some serious leverage in order to break the bolt loose.



Replaced the old with the new, lubed up the guide pins like it's going out of style and reassembled. I had some issues here and there but it was mostly novice issues. Nothing major. Here's the after,



I noticed I put the inner pad on the outer side after I took these pics so don't worry, it's taken care of.

​​​​​​
While working on the opposite side of the rear, I found out that that too had a bad caliper. I ended up snapping the guide pin because it too was rusted. The inner pad had horrible wear. Uneven, angled wear to be exact. Luckily a local parts store near me had a new caliper in stock so I ended up replacing both rear calipers. Go figure. I started to ponder if the shop that did my old brakes actually rushed it or were just careless. One caliper is bad enough, but two? Both rear and both with similar issues? I've never had this happen and it's very frustrating. Definitely not going to them again.


The fronts were a walk in the park by the way. Almost like wax on, wax off. Lol.


Here's what I installed:
Rotors: DBA 4000 Series T3 Rotors
Pads: Akebono Performance Ultra Ceramic Pads

No break in procedure required with Akebono's btw. They recommend you do 500miles of light to medium braking and refrain from any harding braking if possible. Once the miles are up, pads are "broken in" for all types of use.

 

Even with old, rusty parts that don't cooperate, brake jobs on these cars is "stupid simple." I'd bet the shop that did the previous work just cut some corners and only popped in new pads.

Either way, congratulations on a job well done! 🍻

After you get some miles on them, share your thoughts /opinions on the setup.

 

Nice looking brake upgrades! I bet it drives a lot better too.

 

Saw an interesting brake job failure mode - sliding caliper was stuck and wore one pad away first, down to and digging into the metal backing plate. By itself not a horrible fix - new caliper, purple caliper lube, new pads and a new rotor - but the metal shavings had collected inside the e-brake hub on the Hall effect sensor for the ABS toothed wheel... which is a magnet. It had a ball of magnetized metal fuzzies on it so couldn't sense the teeth - so no ABS and a persistent code that didn't go away when the sensor itself was replaced. This was all hidden as the e-brake assembly was a drum style like ours (but this was a Dodge truck).

 

On today's episode of things I don't need. I made a custom Japan plate courtesy of customjapaneseplates.com. Figured it would be unique and add a little extra JDM flair to the car since this whole thread did start from wanting to do the JDM conversion. The plate was inspired by Han's Sylvia in Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift. This movie came out when I was in the 10th grade. I was a young little adolescent teen falling in love with the Honda car scene when I realized what a power house of an engine Nissan had with the RB26DETT. Been a Nissan fanboy ever since.



Plate netted me a total cost of $57.99. Not really cheap and I don't feel like it was worth it but whatever. Now it's made in true JDM spec so they offered me a JDM to USDM plate bracket. If you don't know, the difference is size and screw hole spacing. USDM is smaller in size and closer in spacing so the bracket helps with that. It's a clear hard plastic that attaches to the car and the front side is made for the JDM plate to screw into.

While getting it all together, I realized the OEM plate bracket can actually be used with JDM plates. You can take the clip that holds the nut and move it to the slanted hole. This lines up with the JDM spec plate perfectly. (See pic below) Guess it's a savings thing for Nissan so they won't have to spend manufacturing two different styles. Tested it and it works but the original screws I used for my plate were too big and scratched the new plate a bit. Oh well. Guess the bracket makes sense.






Was considering removing the whole front plate bracket and doing a tow hook setup but that requires to fix the drilled holes and paint. Don't really have time for that right now. Maybe in the future.

BTW, still impatiently waiting for my exhaust. My broken Y-pipe is starting to make me go deaf 😣

 

Hey @Peepz got a bone to pick w/ you:

Inspired by your rear fog project, I have embarked on a similar- yet OEM- project of my own. After much searching, I finally found a OEM multi-function switch that incorporates the (European) OEM rear fog lamp. This finally arrived today from the UK:

Now I just have to determine what route to take as far as the rear lamp assembly itself. Once that is decided, I just have to add/ run one (1) wire directly from the BCM and call it a day. Plug-and-play. So, while not technically "JDM," your work sparked my interest in doing this.

Thanks for the inspiration, and yet another project added to the drawing board...you bum... lol.

Hope you don't mind me bumping your thread! and that all is well with you.

 

Not fair!! I want that! But I also want a super bright red/white LED switchback for the reverse light turned fog light. Tired of being told my "reverse light is out" during the day. As far as I know, none exists and the only one I found is from a company in Russia. No shipping available to the states. FYI I have a single VLED Red V6 Triton 921 bulb in there. Plenty bright. Anywho I wish you luck with the project and happy to have been an inspiration. lol I know you're great when it comes to wiring so I'm sure no worries there. P.S. things are well. Will update with some good news in a few days. Stay tuned