mtcookson

Where are you drilling? I put an N/A engine in a turbo Z31 I have and didn't have to drill anything. I'm confused now.

Yes! Thank you!! That's the exact one I've been looking for.

Drill oil feed line? Which line are you talking about?

Speed actually had an in-car view one time of thing going around the track... it sounded beautiful from the inside. Kind of like a very scary rumble.

Yeah, that's definitely a good way to go. We got my brother an 85 turbo Z and the engine ended up being bad so I put an 85 Maxima engine in it. The 9:1 VG with boost is a blast. I definitely enjoy driving that thing now.

Q45 was never twin turbo. If he's saying its a twin turbo I'd probably stay away from that deal. You can find VH's in good condition from salvage yards I'd say anywhere between $500 to $1,000 or so. I just went and bought an entire running Q45 for $2,000 so I could get a bunch of parts of it and part out the rest. I'm lazy though so the parting out part of the deal hasn't worked out too much yet. T56 wise, a guy here swapped a VH into an S30 and mated a T56 to it using an adapter plate. You can take a look at it here: http://www.cardomain.com/ride/563982

Ahh, ok. For some reason I thought you had a turbo Z. That makes a bit more sense to me now.

I put one on my Maxima with a Z31 Turbo engine in it. I know for sure there were two things different. It was noticebly more difficult to take off from a stop but the throttle response was incredible. The engine revved so much better. I know I'll be going with a light weight setup on my Z project for sure.

Peak torque on my Maxima is in the range of 2,800 rpm. Newer turbo setups have very fast spooling, like say the new Porsche 911. Its peak torque is from 1,950 rpm tp 5,000 rpm. There are numerous other turbo setups with hardly any lag. Turbo lag is extremely over exaggerated. The big problem is when people put a turbo that is overly too large on their car. That causes major turbo lag. When sized correctly you'll have fast spool with power all around. I actually have an idea for my turbo setup, when I get around to it, that'll increase the spool at least 500 rpm or so. I think it'll spool 1,000 rpm sooner easily. It should be fully spooled well before 3,000 rpm and have tons of top end as well. If I switch to a ball bearing turbo it should spool in the low 2,000 rpm range. Eventually when true variable turbos come out it'll be even better. That's what cars like that 911 has. But yeah, current turbo technology can be made to spool quite fast for power everywhere.

That's why turbo engines are awesome... torque is insane with boost.

Sport Compact Car I believe... must've been with all of the accessories on because I believe they said something like 403 lbs.

The Maxima crank is cast, though even if it was forged I wouldn't even bother swapping cranks. The cast crank is very strong... you'll have a very hard time breaking that thing. For forged pistons you could go to Atomic Speedware or BRC Performance for very affordable pistons that are custom made to whatever specs you want. If you use the Z32 rods, be sure to let them know that so they will make the hole for the pin correctly. The stock pistons are quite strong though. As long as your fuel system is top notch and you don't allow any detonation, the stock pistons will handle some high power. Aftermarket pistons will be slightly lighter though, which will help make more power so they definitely wouldn't be bad. Transmission wise I would use the 87-89 Turbo 5-speed. Its the FS5R30A and is strongest of the Z31 transmissions. The early turbo 5-speeds were Borg Warner T5's and could likely be built up to be a very strong tranny.... but I've banned Borg Warner from anything I own because they pretty much make ♥♥♥♥. If you ever get a Maxima you'll understand what I'm talking about.

The Z33 6-speed has a higher ratio 6th gear than the Z31/Z32 5-speed (i.e. 6th gear .794, 5th gear .752 respectively). How small of a tire did you go to? To be at 3,500 rpm in 5th they would have to be very small. I'd go back to stock or slightly larger to lengthen the gears a bit. The 84-86 Turbo already has a 3.54 rear end so it'll be a little hard to find anything lower than that and I definitely wouldn't go higher on a turbo car. Heck, the Z33 uses a 3.538 rear end as well to make up for the terrible 6th gear so you'd definitely want to keep that. If you want a better rear end you could swap in the Z32 N/A or early Q45 rear end. Either way you'll want the early Q45 differential as its a 3.538. (I just noticed you were wanting to use the S13 frame. I believe the Q45 differential would be able to fit in that as well, but I'd look into that first. I've seen a website floating around of a guy swapping the Z32 N/A differential into a 240SX rear and the Q45 diff is the same as the Z32 so it should work.) I know the VQ30 is pretty compact and should fit pretty good. I wouldn't think the VQ35 would be much bigger if at all so it should also fit in pretty well. In the end, the money spent on that kind of swap could be put into the VG to make even more power than what you'd get out of the VQ just swapping it in. The VG is definitely a very capable engine and can make quite a bit of power for very little money. The VQ is definitely lighter but the weight difference wouldn't make up for the power difference the VG could do.

I think the KA is closer to 400 lbs. Surprisingly the VG30E(T) weighs a little less than the KA. The VQ30DE should be below 300 lbs.

Boost would be limited without those things.

Not that I know of. Unless Nissan changed to a forged crank for the Maxima, its definitely cast. Nissan had in their 300ZX brochure that the VG30E(T) had a "light weight ductile cast iron crank". The rods on the DETT are a little stronger. There've been guys making 300-400 whp on the stock VG30E(T). VG30E(T) non W-block, VG30E(T) W-block, VG30DE(TT)/VE30DE: I need to get some pictures of the rod thickness. I have one but its not very accurate. The DETT rod is slightly thicker than the other two.

That'd be the easiest way of setting it up. The only downside is you can't run an aftercooler easily, if at all. Boost will be limited due to heat but I'm sure it'd still be pretty fun. There are carbs out there that are designed to handle boost though. You could run a traditional turbo setup with an aftercooler. That would allow the most performance.

How is it that much better/stronger? Yes, it does have a forged crank but the block is overall the same as the VG30E. Both have forged rods stock, both have the same crank girdle tieing all of the mains together. The VG30ET actually has a bit better head clamping with its 13 head bolts per side compared to the DETT's 8, I would consider the VG30ET stronger there. Really the only thing the DETT has on the ET is the crank... even then the ET's crank is quite strong. Check my post above to see what the VG30ET is capable of and tell me the DETT is that much better. The DETT does hold a lot of Nissan's records but the VG30ET is still very capable of being an incredibly powerful engine. The VG30ET can easily run up to 7,000 rpm and still have usable power. If you're wanting high end power like that though, design the engine for it and it'll do it. Take the Electramotive engine for instance... it runs up to nearly 9,000 rpm. Hekimian Racing makes a N/A VG30E that makes 300 hp at 7,000 rpm. It all depends on what you're wanting to the car to do and your design goals. I personally wouldn't want a super high redline since I drive my cars on the road mostly. Having more power down low makes the car much easier to drive on the street... that's why I dislike most inline engines.

The blocks are pretty much the same but as said above, the difference in the head sizes are huge. Double the cams and valves makes for a very wide head, which is also where the big weight difference comes. There's nothing bad about having a SOHC 12 valve engine. Electramotive made a race VG30E using the stock block and head castings. Their engine made over 1,000 hp in the qualifying setup (I've seen claims upwards of 1200 hp in qualifying setup). The SOHC design isn't that bad. Do some good port work and it will flow more than enough as you can tell by the GTP car. Yes, the VG30DETT is an awesome engine. If you were wanting to make a very, very powerful drag car it would probably be the way to go. Though... there's even a VG30ET powered Z31 running 7's so it'll still make a good drag engine as well. http://www.nhrasportcompact.com/2006/drivers/c_febus.html Anyways... I still believe that the VG30ET may be a more reliable engine than the VG30DETT. I'm always seeing TT guys having issues with the engine itself, which I think has something to do with the head design (head gasket issues among other things). The VG30DETT has 8 head bolts per side... the VG30E(T) has 13 per side. As an idea of how much clamping force that is, Buick Grand National guys modify their high power 3.8 liter turbo charged V6's for 12 head bolts per side. The VG has 13 stock. Its a very strong engine and can definitely be made to have some insane power. I don't mean to sound mean or whatever but wanting the DETT just because it has 4 cams and 24 valves is like wanting a Honda just because it has an engine with VTEC... just because it has it doesn't mean its better. The VG30ET has tons of potential and that, to me, outweighs the costs of the VG30DETT swap. Its kind of funny actually... I was thinking of pulling the VG30DE out of my Z32 and putting a VG30ET in it. Less weight, more room to work, tons of power potential, single turbo setup for even more reduced costs compared to a twin turbo setup, etc. etc. It would probably piss off a lot of Z32 guys but I think it would be hilarious because I'd be able to make more power than a lot of those guys without spending a ton of money, my soul, and my first born.

Yeah, the DETT engine swap would definitely cost much more than $1500. For that kind of money you could definitely make much more than the stock DETT. Here's a very good page on modding info: http://www.redz31.com/turbofaq/turbo.faq.htm On the Z31 the turbo is the same auto and manual but the TT has smaller turbos on the auto I believe.

I'll start with this... are you wanting to make 500+++ hp? If not, neither of those swaps would be worth it at all. If you were set on the swap, I personally prefer the VG over RB. The RB is indeed an incredible engine but so is the VG. The VG though is not only able to make incredible power, but it also seems to be a better street engine. It has much more low end torque, which makes for a much more fun ride on the street. I believe the VG30E(T) is much more reliable than the VG30DE(TT) though and has tons of potential in itself. It can make tons of power... more than enough for the street. Heck, it can even be a race engine. They're also much cheaper than the later VG, cheaper to modify, etc. etc. Check out http://www.redz31.com for tons of good info on the Z31's. I personally think you'd be much better off just using the stock engine and modifying it. You'll save tons of money and still have a fun car. For the $1500 you could do the tranny swap and get some parts to make the car much faster.

The static compression is 10:1 but the dynamic compression is a bit lower. The VH actually responds to boost very well. An iron block can definitely be stronger but don't believe for a minute that an aluminum block will be a lot weaker. The VH's block is very strong and can handle some major power. There's actually some guys in NZ that did a twin turbo VH in a boat. From what I understand, only on a factory rebuild they're making somewhere in the range of 1,000 hp. Granted they have much better cooling capability being in a boat but that still shows the major potential of the VH. With aftermarket rods and pistons it could be a monster. I think if you could do a good "turbo" cam regrind it would be even better. Being setup for N/A it likely has a higher amount of overlap. Reduce the overlap and optimize the duration and such for a turbo setup and it would be simply awesome. If you wanted to keep it N/A the VH still has a lot of potential there as well. If you're planning on driving this on the street a lot I'd stick with the VH. It has some incredible low end torque, which would make for a much more fun ride on the road than something that's a bit more peaky.

Yeah, for a gas engine its roughly double the power that a diesel would make for the particular turbo.

The HY/HX35, compressor flow wise, are able to go up to nearly 600 hp or so... I think most of the guys here won't be trying to get nearly that high making both the HY and HX a decent choice. HY will spool a bit quicker and should flow plenty for the power most people will be aiming at. If you're looking for the 700 to 800 hp range, the HX40 would be what you want... but that would take a ton of engine work and such.

I would use either the stock Q45 auto tranny (but with at least an upgraded cooler or better yet a performace build) or a TT tranny with the Q bell housing and same upgrades (TT auto tranny and Q auto tranny are the same). The n/a auto tranny likely won't take the power of the VH45. Nissan felt it wasn't strong enough for the VG30DETT and the VH45 makes even more power than that stock for stock.