Present day update
I've been avoiding this thread because its been nothing but bad news. But after last night I guess I'm ready for an update.
No spark was caused by a loose PTU connector it seems. That has been sorted out.
The vacuum leak and inability to build pressure with a boost leak test is another story. I put worm gear hose clamps on every hose instead of the nissan OEM clamps to try and stop the leaks. No go, found one of my injector rings leaking. Took care of that, and the leak jumped to the upper plenum gasket, and after that was taken care of.....................it moved to the lower intake manifold gaskets.
More on that in a second. I did manage to get it running decently (it seemed so at least) and I drove it 5 miles down the street to test out everything without power steering. Big mistake. And after I pulled out of the garage I noticed puddles of water under the exhaust, and a small puddle of oil at the rear of the engine where it mates with the trans. I was pretty upset at that point. And to top it off halfway through the drive I noticed the heater core was leaking and there was a loud ticking noise coming from the engine bay AND it was misfiring because of a lean condition. I was pretty upset. This would be the reason for no update in 2+ weeks.
Back to the solutions:
I pulled everything to retorque the head studs, and found a few that were LOOSE. Retightened everything and hoped that was the source of the water out the exhaust. The plenum came on and off about 5x trying to hunt down vacuum leaks.
After that I tried eliminating my injector vacuum leaks, but the lower manifold I'm using had two stripped holes in the center (which I didn't notice until the car was practically done). I had to drill them out and helicoil them, which worked fantastically........but didn't help with the leak.
Why the @!#$% did I use the intake manifold gaskets I installed? I had a set of the bronzeish colored metal gaskets with rubber inserts lying around, and I used the ones made out of exhaust gasket material. WHY?! I'll post pictures later.
Sooo I was hoping I could pull the lower plenum without resetting the timing, we had the timing belt clamped and ziptied in place, with people on each gear holding them so they didn't move. It didn't matter, the belt still jumped. Which also didn't matter because I forgot about the rear timing cover on the passenger side which goes around the idler stud on the lower intake manifold.
Lucky me. So as of Thursday night I was in for a weekend of tearing everything down so I could reset the timing. Luckily I had no work Friday so I spent the day in the garage, with the exception of lunch. My girlfriend was stuck working so I delivered some Panera. Mmmm.
I had pretty much everything together by Friday night, I just needed the right size power steering belt to match my crank pulley. It only took 3 trips to autozone to get it right.
After checking everything and checking again, I FINALLLLLY tried to start the car again at about 6pm Sunday. Before the initial crank however, I gave her one last boost leak test. Lower intake manfiold: Sealed. Injectors: Sealed. Upper intake manifold: Sealed. Balance tube: forgot to bolt down. Oops. What I don't get is despite not having any leaks...I still can't build any pressure in the system. The car ran great (minus the 02 sensor issue I've been having. More on that later also), pulled 22mm/hg vacuum at idle and despite a full bottle of soap and water I couldn't find a single leak. I can hear air flowing what sounds like inside the plenum, but no leaks. And nothing out the exhaust according to my ears.
As I said the car ran great, until it reached 167*F. At whichpoint the RH 02 sensor would peg at 1v, then slowly reach stoich, then peg at 1v, and repeat. And while its doing this it would rev higher, and sputter back down, and run real lean when gently cruising. I tested my 02 sensor theory by forcing the ECU to run in closed loop mode (fuel maps only) by unplugging my wideband 02 from the wiring harness (yes I'm using the 1v output from the LC-1). After that it ran MUCH better. Still slightly lean, but not to the point it was misfiring.
No leaks from the heater core, no leaks from the engine bay that I can see, and nothing from the exhaust. I'm starting to feel better. Tonight my Z gets its face back! First time in 13 months. Then its another drive to get me near 50 miles and another oil change. Gotta put 500 miles on this as quicky as possible so I can get it tuned in Cincinatti in May.
In the meantime I need to teach myself Nistune so I can set up my spare ECU and fiddle around to see if I can figure out what's going on with my 02 feedback. I was thinking of getting 2 new OEM sensors and relocating the wideband to see if that helps. I'm kind of stumped at the moment.
Pics are boring for this post. Shows my retapping setup for the lower intake manifold along with the finished result.