Spark plug change and throttle body clean. Odometer at ~117,300 miles.

Top tip: Don't over torque your engine cover.

 

Did you clean your MAF as well when doing the throttle body and if you did, how was doing the MAF as well as the throttle body? I'm planning on cleaning mine later today.

 

Lots of youtube videos on this topic by guys more knowledgeable than me. Here's my own 2 cents for whatever it may be worth:

To clean the throttle body, I used mainly the 91% rubbing alcohol I had on hand since my harsher carb cleaner didn't seem to be more effective. The cheapo toothbrush route didn't seem to work that great for me on the butteryfly as the butterfly face's gunk was rather stubborn, but a bit of scotch-brite&foam pad action in addition to shop blue paper towel did the trick. I used a folded up paper bag piece to hold open the butterfly while I cleaned the other side. I also reached into the plenum to wipe that out as well.

I do like removing the throttle bodies from the upper intake manifold / plenum since that greatly aids access during cleaning. And wiping the accessible inside area of the plenum felt nice (even though not particularly needful to my knowledge since our engines are port injected). Just be sure to torque to spec when reinstalling (75 in-lbs., see pic below. Full Factory Service Manual (FSM) located here). And don't disconnect the coolant lines (#15, #16 in the below pic). If you don't have the metric hex bit, a set of 6 or so 3/8 socket metric hex bits is less than $8 at Harbor Freight. And their in-lbs torque wrench is ~$12 with coupon right now.* Be sure to have a 3/8 socket to 1/4 socket adapter too if you go this route. You may need a short socket extension as well e.g. a u-joint should be long enough for this job.



See the youtube videos:
After cleaning the throttle body: G37 & 370Z After Throttle Body Cleaning: Motorvate’s DIY Garage Ep.27.
Motorvate's DIY Garage Quick Tip #1: Engine Cover Warning
And torque the cover bolts to spec -- iirc it's 49 in-lbs which is hardly anything.

Tip: After cleaning the throttle body, there will be a gap between the edge of the butterfly and the throttle body. I recommend pressing on the butteryfly to close that gap. It will pop back to being slightly cracked open, but doing so will help break any crud you couldn't get to near the hinge, so when the computer does the "Throttle valve close position learning", there won't be any chance of the residual crud significantly hindering the servo. (I'm not sure if this is really needful. I don't know how powerful or anemic the servo is for the buttery valve.)

I don't have MAF cleaner on hand, and they quite readily removable, so I decided to clean those at some nebulous future date.


* After buying the in-lbs torque wrench, set it to some random value e.g. 100 in-lbs and then test it e.g. on a lug nut to ensure it clicks as it should. The last thing you want is to find out the hard way when tightening a low torque value bolt is that your new torque wrench isn't clicking over.

Hope this helps. This is perhaps quite excessively elaborative, but I wasn't sure just how much elaboration you needed.

 

rchhatwal, thanks for the encouragement. I bothered to drive down to get some MAF cleaner and cleaned the MAF sensors.

 

DanG37, thank you a lot for the breakdown of how to your experience with the throttle bodies. I decided today was the day for a bunch of maintenance items and throttle bodies/MAF was part of that (at least after it took me awhile to disconnect the clamps on the hose). And glad to hear you got to the MAFs

 

Yesterdays project was a trans pan drop, clean, refill. First project on the new lift! It makes working under the car sooo easy!
The hardest part is loading / unloading the car. I really didn't anticipate how low my car really is. Had to build ramps under the ramps, even still it bottomed out on that bracket for the cats.

 

Still yelling at my car. Axle won't sit flush and I'm losing my mind lol

 

First baby steps for the bumper. Still need to massage the mesh a bit to get rid of the shipping waviness. Once it's installed permanently after paint, it will press up better against the brackets where it mounts. Already made up little clips to make it happen.

 

I bought some KW V3 coilovers from a member here today. I am pretty excited about them since I've heard good things about KW, and they'll be replacing my height only adjustable Tein Street Basis. Those Tein's would have been good a mild daily car but my car needs stiffer. I was originally going to go with true style and go all out but I think these will be good for now.

 

Shoot, where in MD? Might have to bring my car over

 

Got some front sport calipers from RockAuto and painted them today.

 

That's different, I like it personally. The black outline makes it work well with your bay.

Without having to search through all of your threads and posts, what dipstick are you using? I've always hated the oem ones, but never cared enough to look into an alternative.

 

Thanks, FreightTrain. That's the OEM oil dipstick with a ZeeToyz cover on the loop, without the "Z" engraving. I bought it over a decade ago for my old Maxima.

The guy operates out of Hamilton, Ontario (Canada), and doesn't have a website anymore. I did some quick search and found a Facebook page. Here, can't seem to paste it directly, so here it is all broken up. Get rid of the spaces, and there's your link.

https: //www. facebook.com/pg/Zeetyz/posts/

 

Finally warshed it

Also tried to tackle cleaning my stone seats (accumulated quite a bit of post-gym grime). Had success with warm water and dish soap, but trying to figure out a method that requires less muscle. Any tips?

 

Try this: and get a stiff bristled brush OR what I did was get a brush attachment for my drill.

works perfectly and my seats are so clean