Recent Posts

Lower Oil Pan Replacement on the Infiniti G35 Coupe

I did another oil change on the Infiniti G35 Coupe but the oil leak that was happening from the oil pan drain bolt did not stop, despite replacing it with a new washer. So it was time to replace the lower oil pan so that the oil leak would stop.

This job is actually very easy, and can be done within an hour if you have the parts available.

Fix CEL codes P1128 and P1130 Boxster by cleaning MAF Sensor

The Porsche Boxster S started showing a check engine light (CEL) in May. I used an OBD2 code reader and saw that the codes were P1128 and P1130.

Luckily for me, there was an article in the May-June Porsche Club of America magazine (Figure 1) that mentioned this exact issue in their tech Q&A section.

Turns out it is related to the intake, and the easiest test is to clean and/or replace the mass air flow (MAF) sensor. Since a new MAF sensor is about $150-$270, I decided to clean it first to see if that fixed the issue.

However, based on other research it could also be an evap leak but this post is about the MAF sensor cleaning.

19 inch Wheels Install, Bucket Seats and Window Tinting

Over the last two weekends, I did a few important changes to the Infiniti G35 coupe. The original coupe came with a set of 20 inch aftermarket wheels and tires (Figure 1). So I procured the original 19 inch Forged Rays (Figure 6) from a seller about a hundred miles away a few months ago for $450, through Craigslist, which was a bargain. As you can see in Figure 7 that the 19 inch wheels look pretty good too.

Moreover, I also procured a pair of reclining racing bucket seats (Figure 9) made by Procar by Scat for about $280 on Facebook Marketplace. However, someone pointed out that these were knockoffs so I did feel a bit cheated! :( Oh well! These seats were in a Chevrolet Chevelle, so at least the brackets and sliders that came with it can be sold for something, and they look original since the part numbers are engraved on them.

To make myself happy, I decided to get the windows tinted on the car. I had been waiting for a while and feeling lazy to get it done and this Memorial day weekend I paid about $275 to get it done. 20% tint on the driver and passenger windows (Figure 8a), and 5% tint on the rear windshield (Figure 8b) and the strip on the front windshield (Figure 8c).

First Autocross in the Miata in 2022

I went for an autocross in the Miata today in the Norther New Jersey SCCA (NNJR-SCCA) club at Metlife Stadium.

I found the course to be more difficult than the earlier courses and it had several sharp turns. My performance (Figure 3) was not as well as I had hoped as I came last in my class.

Getting a Rebuilt Title for the Porsche Boxster 986

I procured the Porsche Boxster with a salvage title on Copart as described in an earlier post. The car had a big dent and a broken tail light and in the pre-COVID-19 pricing era, the insurance company decided to total it and sell it for salvage.

However, nothing much was wrong with it as you may have read in the several earlier posts and I fixed most of the dent and paid a mobile body shop to fix the rest. Once that was done, the car was ready to go through the process that is for converting a salvage title to a rebuilt title in the state of New Jersey. A rebuilt title is a clean or standard title with one of the fields mentioning that the car had a salvage title earlier. The process to get this is pretty simple but slightly expensive.