Careless

It will wear out.

i hope that's a rub-on tattoo. lol

man the exhaust gas that turbo is pushing is gonna send you flying to the left with a huge dump like that if it comes out of the fender right where the battery tray is. LOLOL. plus, if you hit a rev-limiter at the stop lights, you may be able to burn the hair off the face of the driver to your right. hahahahaha. But i can see that it makes a turn downward, through the fender well. My only question would be why you did not lower the turbo some 1 or 1.5 inches once you finished the exhaust piping. it looks like the collector is quite large and could be dropped a little to reduce hood deformation that would cause some aerodynamic issues for the speed you want to hit.

good baffles and an enlarged sump will negate the need for a swinging pickup, which would cause more problems if it so happened that it was fabricated wrong but looked like it would work. do you want to take that chance?

Kinda how I felt when I busted out the 87 Turbo and everyone was like "hey man, i want a ride!" even though it's not as rare as an S30 by any means. From "you're never gonna finish this thing man, get a real car" to "This isn't an 87 man, are you sure?" and then "GIMME A RIDE MAN". all of which I scolded them for.

food for thought is how the best inventors fulfill their appetite. in this case, I agree that external feed would be good. make sure to question every possible thing that is near the line though. catastrophe can strike with something as innocent as a small rock flinging itself at the fitting or something stupid like that.

I've posted and verbally conversed with some friends about the same idea numerous times. it's nice to know someone can verify that my ideas aren't bone-brained. I looked at the pulley and noticed how much extra metal there was around the boss in which the snout slips through. I'm curious to know why I haven't seen any swaps with that mentioned or shown. Instead, everyone tries to locate VG33 factory brackets and accessories... IMHO, a lot more work. LOL thanks Jared.

Yes it will fit. It's a lbs or two heavier. Not sure about belts but i don't remember any part numbers or belt sizes that anyone mentioned in the RB30 thread on SAU Forums.

I think the better route would be to try and make a factory sump-style pickup, unless you move it to the outside and re-route it around the pan. I'm not sure if I would feel comfy with a host inside the block. the pumping and pushing and pulling of oil and air in there would wave it back and forth and cause weird sounds and if you ever decide to do an audible knock test, you will get some weird feed-back from the pickup. kinda makes you wonder why there are tabs on the main girdles for z31's to hold the longgggggg pickup they use in two places. you could probably make something more sturdy using copper pipe, but i wouldn't even do that (i've seen it done, it holds up... but naaaaaaaaaaah) something to think about!

i would say save some weight and toss the rods and pistons, but it's really negligible.. i just don't think anyone would be using them. 1000 would be a steal of a deal.

Unanimous yessssssssssssssss from da crowd!!!! NEEDS MOAR YES!!!! :mparty:

IF I DO replace the bearings, they will be Calico Coatings CT-1 VG30DETT Bearings as they fit apparently. They can be had for 200 bucks from Eric's Performance Parts on ebay, whereas they were 320 when I bought them for my RB30 (same bearings!)

Hi guys. I saw my VG33e's bores and found that they are a little tattered and bruised. Not too heavily... Just had a friend whom I trust a little worried when he felt/looked at it... I tried eyeing it with a straight edge and it looked way out of round, then tried with another straight edge and it looked ok. Only on pistons 1 and 6 though opposite banks, opposite ends of the blocks. It kinda makes sense... I don't want surprises so I'm looking for some aftermarket, largest over-bore pistons I can find. So far 0.020 seems to be common shelf size... but 0.040 is available. This is a good reason for me to get all this done and have a truly reliable daily VG33ET when I remove the manifolds and such from my Z31. The question I have (and this may apply more to v8 guys, since those engines are simply more common and rebuilt more often) is how do these brands stack up? ITM looks like a good brand, but they offer chrome plated and cast iron rings. They say the option is there for either, but their parts numbers don't show it... maybe it's a verbal thing? I dunno. At 200.00 dollars for a set with rings (hopefully chrome plated) and new wrist pins, I think I'm going to do it. I wanted to have the engine hot tanked, and have the bearings checked and replaced with standard size (hopefully, to avoid more money burned away) and then I wanted to paint the block. Federal Mogul is 50 bucks more, and comes from Summit Racing rather than on eBay. And their shipping charge is not applied at time of purchase... I don't want to be stuck with their super-fast shipping and have UPS take their huge cut. Clevites/Mahle only showed up on website at .020 over only, and I believe it was for a single piston and not a complete set, but it would be somewhere at or around the average of both ITM and Federal Mogul. Neither of these pistons are considered performance brands by any means, but they meet or exceed OEM standards (from what they say, I guess... but I've done catalogs and brochures for companies and that's all BS most of the time). I read the most relevant ITM thread and saw a couple of regular posters whom I've been reading posts from since I got here on HybridZ, and some made some nice numbers on the L motors in Naturally Aspirated form with the ITM's... I think I may just get the ITM pistons and call it a day, but if someone can shed light on why I should go elsewhere... or what type of rings they got and how they looked/felt? that would be noiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. Arrigato.

The bearings for all the VG engines seem to be the same. If you order bearings, they work for VG30/33E and VG30DETT. I think the snout needs to be turned down to 28mm and the oil pump drive re-ground to a different shape and possibly welded. and you would need an interesting clutch and flywheel combo to work too... being that TT is 8 and all E's are 6 bolt crank registers. I've just found out that I have a nasty piston ridge on my block, so I'm going to order some Federal Mogul or ITM pistons to make sure there are no issues. I'm going to find the largest overbore, which I think is 1mm, for the aftermarket cast pistons. And I might as well replace the bearings while i'm there! (might as well, might as well never have gotten into this mess).... The SOHC engines develop more torque and are severely under-estimated, and are just as capable as the DE motors. And parts are cheaper and you have to buy less of everything if you decide to do some head work. I love the torque on the 3.0... I'm curious to see what this fresh new VG33.5 is going to feel like. Probably won't notice it too much, but that's 10% more displacement, and with the Z31 cams it should wake up a bit and relieve the city-driving torque drop from the light-weight flywheel, perhaps? As long as this friggen thing doesn't drink oil, I'll be happy.

charlie, where the heck can i get some titan pistons. I wanna try this

LOL as soon as I make space on this computer for 40 meg raw images into my Adobe Lightroom for cataloging, I WILL! *hmmmmph!*

How hard would it be for you to replace the water pump? sometimes the bearings in aftermarket water pumps are terrible out of the box. but the sound you get from hand turning and what seems to be the high pitched running sound seem like 2 different things to me. alternator belt too tight?

I have a similar sound, my 300zx does something like that (and i noticed onefast87 mentioned in your video comments that his does too). I'm not sure what it is at this point, but I narrowed it down to something near the front of my engine making a whistly sound, and if i hit the front cover a couple of times it will go away or it will go away on its own too sometimes... so really I'm not sure, but I hope it's nothing too major. Do you think it could be a cam journal or something not getting enough oil? How hard is it to pull the cam and inspect for wear?

the cast crank can take quite a bit of abuse... if you're looking for more than 500hp, switching to a z32 crank and having the snout ground out may be the best option, as you can get a vg33 to a healthy 3.7 from what i've been reading too.

Ok I'll take a look. but just for conversation sake, I was not inquiring about the area near the piston ridge, I was inquiring about the small dark speck near the center of the bore... is that what this article refers to, in some way? (i still gotta register).

OH believe me, I know how to use photoshop quite well I'm just more interested in the method to take the photos. The dentists office I took photos at was very well lit, so I didn't use my flash, but I still would have liked to. The batteries I bought were expired for my SB800, so I decided to go sans-fill and just use the ambient lighting. A lot of the photos I've seen taken from photographers before being handled in photoshop were never centered properly or certain parts of the item were too close to the edge. I like to frame in camera as best as possible and think about how the photo is to be used. I've been using the D300 quite a lot lately and I'm starting to get used to it more and more because my old Minolta was too hard to learn with (film) so now I'm starting to get the new digital format down pretty well. I'll post some photos this weekend from the dentists office... before I photoshop them. awesome work

grumpy, i did not take that picture. my question was whether that is something to worry about if it's barely there to touch... this engine has never been honed, and it only has 100,000 k on it and i just cracked it open. even stock nissan headgaskets and all.

grumpy! i figured I'd ask here rather than just make a blind post somewhere else. So I'm rebuilding a VG33 engine, same as the VG30E that came in the Z31 Z's pretty much... damn near identical to the 1987 VG30ET in my car. However, I'm torn between whether I should tear it apart and have it honed lightly and put new rings. Some of the cylinders have areas in the bore that you cannot feel with your hand at all... with the fleshy part of my finger i can BARELY feel any difference, and it sure has hell isn't enough to even catch anything sharp like a finger nail or even a sewing pin. it looks something like the mark in the MIDDLE of the bore in this picture that I found on someone elses page. (not the one at the piston ridge): see here (small dark mark in middle of bore): http://www.pbase.com/stealthfti/image/53355220 The engine only has 60,000m on it, or 98,000km as they say... But the valve train looked like it was soccer-mom'd all it's life and probably never got passed 2000rpm, horribly oil sludged too, but i soaked the head in varsol and it's decomposing the oily substrate and allowing it to melt away. see here (super high-res): http://rb30de.com/vg33e/_DSC4495.JPG Is this somethign to be worried about? An SBC friend of mine was telling me that it's usually just indifferent metal perhaps more nickel content in that area or less perhaps... and that if you can't catch your finger nail in it, it should be ok. But I can rub my finger on it an it feels slightly lower, but definately not a gouge or scratch by any means. I don't want to re-hone so I'm just looking for someone to tell me some solid advice. if it's a must or not. I'll take pics of my own later today.

sounds like a ball is rolling downhill here. i hope the ecu is the last of it. been in this situation too many times!

chiming into this old thread here... i'm going to be using some of 88sinZ's advice from Z31Performance and putting a VG33E into my Z31, as the oil control rings on my Z31 are far too gone. Not really a huge shame though, as I'll be able to put everything I put on the Z31 onto this puppy. I got some pics here: http://www.rb30de.com/vg33e/ and I'll be taking apart the oil pump and rear plate and putting the engine on my table later today so that I can access the rear easier and then paint it with RustBullet so it will never rust as bad as it did (before I took these pics) again.