mtcookson

i wonder if that ignition box isn't what is causing the trouble. i have a msd 6al for my maxima but haven't installed it yet mostly because i also have to install a tach adapter. the tach adapter isn't only for the tach, but also fixes the non-run problem a lot of imports have when hooking up those ignition boxes. i think they basically explain the problem as multiple units are getting the same trigger from the same wire (i'm getting a tired and can't explain it all that well). basically, when i hooked up the 6al my maxima wouldn't run. i pulled the distributor spun it and all of the plugs sparked as they should, but the moment i try starting the car it wouldn't work. i took the msd box off, cranked the engine over, and it started right up.

yeah, i thought that's how it was. the VG30E in the Nissan and Ford/Mercury vans using the Nissan engine are non-interference though.

I thought the VG33ER used a M62. Pretty sure its something smaller than the M90. Does it happen to be this car? I'd personally take a roots over a centrifugal simply due to the centrifugal s/c not reaching peak boost to redline, that really hurts mid-range performance and on top of that centrifugal s/c's have lag. the best positive displacement s/c is a screws though. one of those would probably be a lot harder to find than a eaton s/c though. either way, i personally will never go the s/c route. turbos are so superior in nearly every way that there's just no point. even the largest trucks that require tons of low end power use turbos. when you think of a good truck to pull a vehicle around you'll probably think of a chevy duramax diesel truck, a dodge ram with a cummins, or a ford with a powerstroke. most of the problems you hear about them is due to people not setting them up correctly. it seems too many people just slap on a turbo without any research and hope that they will get tons of power as well as good spooling and this simply isn't the case. you must match the turbo with the engine as well as what you're wanting to do with it. if you want to autocross get yourself a smaller turbo that will spool instantly and give you decent power to get around the track. if you want a road course type car get yourself a mid sized turbo that spools about midway in the rpm's and can give pretty high power around the track. if you want a drag car get yourself a turbo that has a compressor big enough to supply the air you want with a turbine small enough to still flow enough yet spool pretty quick. even if it spools half way through the rpm's you generally don't have to worry about that if you have a two-stage rev limiter. you can sit on the line and hit the first limiter which will spool the turbo pretty well to where you have boost right off the line.

Really, you'll have a lot more potential with a turbo VG especially since the supercharger on the VG33ER is a bit small. Even if it was the bigger model I think the turbo would still do better. It really just depends on what you want though. If you're just wanting a s/c Z just to say you have one or if you're wanting to go for tons of power or something else.

i wouldn't wish borg warner products to anyone... but its all personal preference. i've never had luck with any borg warner product and would never put anything of theirs on my car ever again. i've dealt with 5 of their shitty fwd trannies in the Maxima and the T5 in my brother's turbo Z isn't in the greatest working condition. You should be able to put whatever gearbox you want on the engine though. It'll just require either a custom bell housing or a conversion plate.

Ahh yeah, the 240SX tranny. I forgot that those used the same setup as the n/a Z31's. Yeah, I dislike that tranny. I'd personally only stick with the late Z31, Z32, Pathfinder, etc. tranny. After having as much trouble with borg warner as I've had I'll never buy anything from them again, or at least try not to buy any of their stuff knowingly.

I believe this engine is used often in high power upgrades from the VG30ET. In my opinion, that compression ratio isn't bad for boost. You'll keep your low end power and have even more power throughout the entire range when adding boost compared to dropping the compression. If you're wanting to run extremely high amounts of boost you might need to drop the compression and get forged pistons and whatnot. Depending on the turbo you get 15 psi should be fine on the engine. In the end its all in how well you tune it. Get enough fuel to it and it should handle it pretty well. If you're definitely wanting the peak power output to be higher in the rpm's your best bet would be the VQ engine. The VG's don't make much power up high most likely due to the SOHC design. The VQ should have a bit more peaky power band compared to the VG. You should be able to bolt the Z33 6-speed to the VQ30 but I'm not positive. Pretty sure some guys have done that though.

I agree with everything you're saying, however having a higher redline actually does help out. I'm not sure if its just because it drops the revs into the powerband at a better spot or what but for instance there were some Maxima guys that had nearly equal mods. One had a JWT ecu with the 7k rpm redline and the other guy had a different mod that the JWT max didn't have. Both basically produced the same power however one could rev to 7k rpm while the other 6k. The JWT Maxima was always faster when revving to 7k but when they both ran them to 6k they were nearly equal. with a turbo setup I believe the gains would be even better since boost would help out the top end quite a bit. Get a set of cams and upgraded springs and that thing should pull hard up to the 7,000 rpm.

how much power were you running through the n/a tranny? it seems most people have better luck with those than the b/w t5 tranny.

i'm pretty sure it would be an interference design. unless the dish in the piston for the lower compression helps, i'm not positive though.

the only VG's that i know of that aren't an interference design are the VG30E's in the nissan, ford, and mercury vans. pretty sure that's right.

I'm getting ready to do it but haven't done the motor mounts yet (i've been waiting for weeks to get some parts for the engine from infiniti and they still aren't here so I can't put the engine in yet). Once I figure out a design I could probably make a few sets.

yeah, the ka would be the way to go for one of the older maximas in the 4 cylinder world. good low end torque to pull the bigger car around yet still has decent top end. to top it all off its a very strong engine. the only problem i can see is being fuel injected and all that fun stuff wiring might be a tiny bit of a headache. if you decide on something bigger like a v6, go with the vg30e. plenty available, insanely reliable, they're used in both rwd and fwd setups with lots of tranny options available (shitty borg warner tranies from non-turbo Z31's, shitty borg warner trannies from 84-86 turbo Z31's, awesome nissan trannies from 87-89 Z31 turbos and 90-96 Z32's), plus they can be turbocharged for a lot of fun. i have a 1990 maxima with the vg30e. i swapped in a vg30et and its a blast to drive. my only wish was that it was rwd because of the fwd borg warner tranny is built so poorly that they don't even last with stock power output.

turbocharged v8, even better. to step it up even one more, a turbocharged nissan v8 (i.e. an infiniti q45 v8 ).

stock they make pretty low power n/a and are hard to get any power out of n/a, however, they're very torquey down low for what they are. when you turbocharge them they turn into a whole new beast. the VG's are very strong engines and will take a major beating before giving out. with a decent turbo setup and a 87-96 300ZX tranny (i wouldn't use the 84-86 borg warner p.o.s. tranny) the thing should be a pretty quick car. as for swapping it in i was going to do that swap myself but decided to go with the vh45de out of the q45. the vg30e(t) is definitely a good candidate for a swap imo. as long as you put a good power adder (i.e. turbo) on there it would be a blast. also, i'd personally use the vg30e to start with over the vg30et as it has a tiny bit higher compression (vg30e - 9:1, 87-89 vg30et - 8.3:1). some will say you don't want higher compression for a turbo setup but 9:1 isn't all that high. a lot of Z32 guys upgrade to 9:1 pistons. this will allow the turbo to spool a lot faster, give you a lot more power in all rpm ranges, etc.

i'm dropping a VH45DE into my Z and my plan for the manifolds was to run them forward of the engine, then have them meet to a turbo flange. you could probably do something similar since you'll have even more room in front of the engine than me.

personally, i would. if you go twin turbo you'll need two wastegates and depending on how you do the intake setup two bov's and two aftercoolers. due to the intake design you'd probably be able to get an aftercooler with dual inlets and a single outlet and run one blow off valve. i still believe it would be more cost effective to just run a single. does the VG30ET manifolds bolt to the VG33E? if so, i'd just slap those on and put on a good T3 style turbo. if you have the money i'd get a GT30R or GT35R. the manifolds themselves will easily flow enough for 400 whp. they can probably flow even more when ported a bit.

yeah, i'd like to run a 9:1 compression ratio personally. retain a little bit of low end but be able to really boost the thing as well. should definitely be very fun. my current plans are to control it all using the romulator. you can have an incredibly powerful setup tuning the stock ecu.

yeah, i believe the VQ30DE is nearly 100 lbs lighter than the VG30E. i believe someone on here said the VQ30DE is actually lighter than a 13b rotary. i'd have to search for it to find out for sure but i'm almost positive that's what they said. the VQ is definitely a very light weight engine.

they're estimating about 500-600 hp out of this one http://www.freewebs.com/axepower/ there's a guy with a Q45 that was running 7 psi on a supercharger with 100 shot of nitrous on an engine with over 100K miles. there was another Q45 guy with 275 shot of nitrous setup on his car (i believe 175 dry, 100 wet) that would make for right under 600 hp on pretty much stock everything. here's another one but i believe this guy modified the engine a bit http://www.automotivehelper.com/topic52633.htm

i'm sure the VQ35 would be a pretty sweet engine with some upgrades. some stronger rods and lower compression pistons would make for a very torquey engine. what's nice is its a very light weight and has a bit more displacement. it still would never be able to handle the power the VG could but it would handle enough for some good fun.

how much power are you wanting out of it? there are guys already making 600+ hp on stock everything (minus the boost or nitrous they added and whatever tuning they did which i know wouldn't have been using a standalone).

i can host the file for download on my website if you'd like.

should be all aluminum. the VH45DE is all aluminum. the VK45DE came from that engine and the 56 from that. most newer engines are all aluminum anyways so that'd be the safest bet.

the VG30E(T) is an awesome engine. there're quite a few Z31 guys making well over 400 whp to my knowledge. compared to the VG30DE(TT) and VQ it doesn't have quite the potential simply due to the dohc engines' being able to breath more but the VG30E(T) can make plenty of power for most people. what's really cool is they're actually a very light engine for a iron/aluminum V6. i believe the early vg30et's weighed right under 400 lbs dry (i believe around 396 lbs.) when the Z31 first came out i believe nissan boasted that the VG30E(T) was the lightest V6 to ever be produced at that time. i actually know a guy who messes with buick grand national engines all of the time and picked up a maxima with the vg30e. he eventually turbo charged it and in the process took things like oil pan off and heads off during the buildup to do a few things and basically flipped out when he saw how the engine was built. the vg's came stock with a massive girdle to tie the main bolts together (which is a modification a lot of domestic guys do to the v8's and he mentioned the gn guys do that as well). when he took the heads off he was amazed yet again at how well the heads were clamped down. nissan used 13 head bolts per head. the grand national used 8 per head and he mentioned a common modification was to mod the heads so that they could use 12 head bolts. kind of shows how nissan over engineers their engines to make them incredibly strong. i believe one of the Z31 guys was pushing a little over 500 whp on a stock block pathfinder vg30e (i'll have to search to find out for sure but i'm pretty sure that's how it was). basically, these engines are great and as you said, very simple.