HowlerMonkey

I used to repo cars........in Liberty City.

Damn dude........you should sign your stuff.

Speaking of dimensions, what about external dimensions. I can provide maybe pictures with markings overlaid to show the dimensions of both front and rear sump versions as well with and without stock turbo connected......if anybody wants that.

First generation maximas have leakage problems with the sunroof........bad leakage. Many times, the sluice where the water is supposed to collect rusts and drains into the car. If it doesn't leak into the car, the stock routing puts the water into the rocker panels and it's supposed to drain from little holes very near where the jack points are. One misplaced jacking will bugger them and they will clog which causes them to fill. If you want the car to last, it is best to get the sunroof in a good position and use a black polyurethane caulk like sikaflex. If I were selling one, I would wait a few months until gas goes back up to 4 bucks a gallon.

Exactly what I am thinking. I see this symptom about 4 times a day during my 20 call average day. The ecu isn't liking a signal that it requires when going into closed loop operation. I'm not sure what they have in japan but one would think they don't dumb down the ecus since they already make them damn smart for the US market. They should have some sort of freeze frame data that records the datalist at the time the ecu detects a problem.

One thing that just popped into my head..... When swapping into an older car, what does one do concerning placating the immobilizer system? I'm pretty sure most any VQ equipped car uses this for anti-theft. Or do most use an aftermarket stand-alone system. Testing ECUs for standard motor products, I am able to beat most immobilizers but not the newer nissan and toyota setups.....not yet anyway.

I seem to have lost one but will buy both if necessary.....just the brackets. I will drive over and pick them up and pay $25 bucks anywhere within 100 miles of west palm beach.....no work on your part required. I need this pronto and can possibly find one at a local u-pull for 6 bucks but again.....I need this right away. I will check back tonight and tomorrow morning before going to the u-pull yards. princemakaha@yahoo.com I can check this from my blackberry.

Adding info. for future searchers. The best way is to use a 4n71b that was originally in a z31 turbo because it is indeed stronger than the maxima iteration having more friction plates/discs. Use the maxima L24e bellhousing, flywheel, and convertor on it and it will fit. The caveat is that you will have to find a very early z31 turbo automatic tranny (L4n71b instead of (E4n71b). The E version uses a tranny control module but I haven't tried it with the L engine management system/sensors.......etc. If the control module doesn't see what it wants to see, you won't get overdrive and possibly lock-up. The L4n71b doesn't need a control unit. Another possible problem is that the 4n71b from a maxima has a very low stall speed which won't allow you to launch with any boost.....it will come in about 60 feet from the start. If the convertor from the z31 version has the same dimensions.......you can use it to gain enough stall speed to make a huge difference in acceleration. If you're going turbo, use the turbo modulator from either a 280zx turbo or z31 turbo as well as the small rod that it acts on since there are different lengths. One other possible problem is the downshift switch on the gas pedal. With a turbo, it is easily possible to get the car going fast enough in 4th with lockup at part throttle such that stepping further and engaging the kick-down switch will cause the car to go to 3rd. If you're going fast enough, you could possibly overrev the engine by a large margin when it kicks down from 4th to 3rd.........pretty harsh when you're going over 120 and it downshifts causing your engine to rev over 7200rpms coupled with the possibility you could break traction to the rear tires at that speed. I rig a switch on the dash inline with the downshift switch on all my 4n71b trannies behind a strong motor.

Well that's certainly good to hear and should ally any fears as to longeivity. I'm not a big fan of iron or steel liners in an aluminum engine and mentioned the potential problems in my "ridiculous" post above. I like to work on them only once and drive them every day for years without anything other than fluids and such. Every suggestion I made was purposely written with an out to avoid the term ridiculous being applied to it.......it's the politician's way.

WD40 will not keep rust at bay for more than a couple of days. Garbage bags, scissors, and tape is what I use. I use a heavier oil that is used in the aviation industry specifically for that. It's probably a bit like fogger oil for storing outboards.

I used to work on subarus and someday there will be the last XT with non-cracked cylinder heads at a barrett jackson commanding high prices. The air suspension shocks are super expensive and dirt road driving guarantees a sharp rock will end up between the "bag" and shock which will hole it soon enough. They also have the worst shifter in the world and I still have scars just from shifting one with worn shifter hardware causing me to punch the radio........which is far less fun than punching the clown. They're damn fast and a bit more aerodynamic than the original subaru RX from the same time period but without the super rarity of the original RX pictured below. If any of you see one of these for sale......please let me know. If you are a subaru tech, go for it. If not, expect to pay and pay and pay to keep it on the road. If you already have a L series engine, go on over to the "small port heads" thread.

I would agree with renatodato. The black box bolted to the side of the distributor is usually the culprit with the symptoms described. We used to tap near them on a solid piece of the distributor housing with a brass drift at Z shop of miami but I got to the point that I would run the car, experience the failure and use freeze spray on the distributor housing since it is basically heat sinked to it. If cooling it brough the car back to running, then I replaced it with a new one.

The Stefan-Boltzman law covers this but at a higher level then I care to research. It also applies to black bodies (bodies being the natural color and not a covering) That said, all of the radiators I see at lexus and toyota since they went over to aluminum are not painted. The 1986.5 to 1992 supras use an intercooler painted black.........but they were painted at the factory. Painting an intercooler that has even experienced the least bit of exposure to the elements would probably net you flaking paint and I'll bet toyota went to extreme lengths such as the proper primer, and possibly dipping it to ensure it didn't flake off. Now if you just want to make it less visible, you can probably get away with "dusting" it such that only the cans and just the very front face of the fins get's paint while leaving the other 99.9 percent of the surface area of the fins unaffected.

Stock or near stock HP levels, the VQ is king. If you want big HP, GT motorsports or Forgedperformance are a good place to start. At GTmotorsports, you can get a block with darton sleeves in it for $1795 (700 core charge........if you supply them a workable block). This does not include boring or honing so figure in those prices in. Forgedperformance offers a short block for $3490 fitted with arias pistons and eagle rods but the core charge on this is $1500. http://forgedperformance.com/store/product.php?productid=16354&cat=264&page=1 If you want insane power, you will also need a girdle which is $1000 but I'm not sure what power level would require a girdle on this engine. I'll assume line the crank bores would need to be line bored after install but I don't know. But hey.......some of the VQ crowd spend 10k to butcher their suspension and another 5k on appearance alone so it's really a drop in the bucket for an engine that can handle pretty high power levels. Of course, you need to figure in cylinder head work (if required) for your desired power level manifolding, turbos, and plenum parts. For my cheap ass? I would fit darton sleeves, leave everything else stock except engine management and injectors, and boost it up a bit. This would give you a bit of safety should you run into detonation at anything over about 500hp as it seems even one big detonation event has been known to break stuff on a non-sleeved engine. Then there's the longeivity..........there isn't much long term study on whether you can sleeve the block and drive it 50,000 miles as a daily driver without having sealing issues and such.

You might be able to stick one of those LED lights into the hole and see a bit........or use a borescope.

Don't sweat the sealing........not oil fed. I'm sure someone can send you a spring from this site. Tension is one thing but reisistence to breaking is another. Best to stay with stock.

I've got experience with nissan heavy equipment engines and many tip the scales at near 900 pounds. That's a bit heavier than an L series engine but maybe nissan made the the tb48 lightweight.

No edit button.......hmmm. My last line above referenced the volvo S80 t-6 that had a turbocharged straight six transverse mounted but they bragged the tranny is the smallest ever produced so I doubt it handles much more than the stock 268hp that the car came with.

I tested, repaired, and engineered ecus for standard motor products as well as supported them and my findings are that the GM and chrysler ecus are much more advanced......in operation than any other brand but they suffer from cheap components. They have learning abilities such that a customer who's replaced a sensor complains the car runs worse with the new sensor or iac.....etc. The reason for this is the moron mechanic didn't reset it and the computer was using the learned values of the skewed sensor readings of the failed sensor. A simple memory reset sends them down the road happy because they weren't saavy enough to realize that a few drive cycles or a reset are what they needed. A computer expecting said skewed signal will just not run right until a few drive cycles or a reset but these guys who call up saying standard sold them 4 bad sensors just lack the skill requiored for his chosen line of work. These same guys will put 4 ecus in a car hoping the ecu replacement will be the magic bullet and are befuddled when all 4 exhibit the same symptoms.........then they call up saying we sold them 4 bad ecus.......morons. That said.....the gm and chrysler ecus are smarter than the techs working on them....in many cases. These ecus will run on signals that would choke a ford, nissan. or toyota ecu. Believe me, I spent the last 3 years fixing up to 20 cars a day over the phone as well as managing the rebuild facility, pioneering new test regimens in the shop and defending our products to technicians who don't belong in the industry. One guy called me weekly for 11 months straight on the same car through multiple ecus and never did fix the car. I faxed him every thing possible until I finally had enough and told him I would fax him something that would fix all of his problems. So......I went to burger king, picked up an application for employment, and faxed it to him. I now suspect that fax may be related to my firing last month.

How heavy is that engine..........I've been considering a RD28TI since it is light but hp potential is pretty low.

It would be nice to see it transverse but I don't know of any other car with a transverse setup that would handle big hp and not have the center of the engine skewed to one side. If you're not set on transverse, you could concievably get away with fitting going cheaper than the "six reverse gear/1 forward gear" setup you would net with the skyline stuff by sourcing the pathfinder 4wd hardware and flipping the diffs over. The FS5R30 tranny in the pathfinder can be fit with different bellhousings since it came with a variety of nissan engines. Porsche hardware would be the next place to research since they can be gotten AWD as well and many of the transaxles are not too hard to change from rear to mid engine as I found out on the 914/6 back in the day. When considering the G50, you would also have to change it to side shifter like much like I had to do when fitting earlier porsche transaxles to a mid-engine configuration. twin turbocharged with 268hp but they also claim to have made the smallest tranny ever (or something like that) which means it probably won't handle much more hp than the stock setup.

Sound should tell you if it is top end or bottom end. I'm on a blackberry so no youtube.......at least not easily. I use a timing light to determine which cylinder and knowing the top end spins half speed of the bottom end, you can usually divine what you know.

If it came with a diesel, then certain people will fall all over themselves to get that engine.

The rear end is a 2 pinion R200 of 3.54 ratio.

One possible hurdle with a later ecu regardless of manufacturer would be security in that many late ecus have immobilzer circuitry that expects a certain key. Some are wholly contained within an ecu and some communicate with security modules on either ccd or pci data lines. It would suck to put together a system and have no way to run the car. I do know a bit about it and will rerport back soon on which ones are easiest to work around or spoof but be advised that many are unbeatable requiring a new ecu and master key to be purchased together as I have many lexus ecus that are supposed bricks because the customer lost his keys.