mtcookson

the z33 or z32 tranny?

The VG is one of the strongest engines Nissan has produced. It currently holds most of the power, 1/4 mile, and top speed records of Nissan engines. I think the VH45DE/VK45DE might be a better engine but not many have been modified a whole lot yet... I can tell you that with a basic turbo, s/c, or nitrous setup there has been a few pushing around 600 hp with no trouble at all on the stock internals. With a good buildup the VH45's could probably handle a **** load of power. Forged crank and rods stock with a crank girdle and 6 bolt mains makes for a damn strong engine. The VQ30DE(T) in stock form is quite a bit stronger than the VQ35DE from what most have seen so far. A guy with a VQ30DE Maxima turbocharged it and pushed more than 500 whp on the stock internals (10:1 compression ratio). The VQ30DET has lower compression pistons so whether or not it'll handle the same amount of power, I have no idea. I do know its all in the tuning though. The guy with the Maxima went through a few engines before perfecting it to its final state. The VQ35DE is said to not handle as much power because Nissan wanted to have very lightweight internals and such basically to make it more efficient. Basically the rods don't handle a whole lot of power. Upgrade the internals a bit and they should be pretty powerful.

as far as anyone is aware, there aren't any manual trannies that bolt right up to the VH/VK engines. one can be bolted onto the engine using a conversion plate or custom bell housing pretty easily. i wouldn't use a Z 6-speed though. they've been known for having some issues (the earlier Z33 6-speeds at least). the newer ones might be a bit more expensive. i'd use a Z32 5-speed personally. very strong tranny and can be had for very cheap.

the stock rockers work just fine (and i don't believe there are any aftermarket upgrades anyways). with some upgraded valvesprings (http://www.jimwolftechnology.com) you should be able to rev the engine up to 7,000 rpm safely. 6,000 rpm is the stock redline and with stock valve springs the valves start floating shortly after 7k but to be safe you want to upgrade the valve springs. they're pretty low cost so its not a bad purchase. the rods come from an engine that spins to 7k rpm so they'd be fine. ferrea makes valves for these engines as well. they have stock sizes and 1 mm oversized valves. some say the oversized ones aren't necessary and there isn't too much material to machine from the heads for them but i know some people have upgraded to them. there aren't any dyno numbers to show whether or not they're worth it though. a flow bench test would be the best but not sure if anyone would be willing to do one. in the end, the valves probably aren't worth upgrading until you start trying to push some major amounts of power. for pistons some Z31 guys recommend BRC Performance (http://www.brcperformance.com/) as they have high quality products at good prices. i'd tell them that you need pistons for a 88-89 VG30E(T) as they had the floating wrist pins. (or you can just tell them that you need the pistons setup for floating wrist pins). the forged VG30DE(TT) rods and pistons use floating wrist pins.

and people wonder why i hate borg warner so much as for the ignition i think the system is actually fired using the ground wire. i'm pretty sure that's how its setup on my maxima at least, so there is a constant 12v source to the coil. are there any codes from the ecu? it could be that its not getting the right signal from the cam angle sensor (located in the distributor). you might put piston 1 at top dead center of the compression stroke, mark the position of the rotor in the distributor, pull the distributor out, put the key in the on position, then spin the distributor gear and listen for the injectors to fire. if they don't it would most likely be something with the dist/cas. if they do fire then it would most likely be something with the wires somewhere. have you tried using the wiring harness from the n/a z? that might be something to try as well just to make sure there aren't some sort of wiring differences between the turbo and n/a. if you still can find the problem you may search or ask the guys at http://www.z31.com.

not to kill the idea or anything but these days with current turbo technology a twin turbo setup isn't very beneficial over a single setup. actually, its more expensive since you have to buy nearly two of everything and have a lot more plumbing.

yeah, you don't need to change the crank over however using the TTZ rods can be beneficial. they're forged unlike the stock rods in the VG30E. if you do that though you'll need to get pistons made that uses the floating pin used in the TTZ rods and pistons. you can't, however, use the exact TTZ pistons. the combustion chambers of the VG30E heads are a bit bigger than the VG30DE(TT) heads so the compression ratio would be quite a bit lower. 400 whp shouldn't be too hard to do. as said above the basic mods would be cams, valve springs, turbo, intercooler, fuel, pathfinder intake would definitely be a good mod as it is supposed to be the best flowing intake of any VG30E(T) engine. a custom intake might work a bit better but the pathy intake would be the next best thing. a quality port and polish would be good as well. might port the exhaust manifolds but the stock VG30ET manifolds have been proven to flow enough for at least 400 whp. you'll also need a good ecu setup (jwt, romulator, zemulator if the 3rd gen maxima ecu is used, etc. etc.) the zemulator would probably be the easiest for a standalone type setup. jwt would be the easiest in that its pretty much plug and play but is a bit expensive and would take a while to receive. romulator is a little bit harder to use compared to the zem but is very affordable and works very well. also, i'd personally run a 9:1 compression ratio setup instead of 8.5:1 as it keeps good low end and spools the turbo quite fast but that's really just personal preference. 8.5:1 would work just fine. hope this helps a bit.

The only differences between them are the place where the starter bolts up to. There's a bit more material on the TT tranny since the clutch/flywheel setup is 250 mm while the N/A clutch/flywheel setup is 240 mm. I believe they also say the internals of these trannies are the same as the earlier GT-R's. Basically, the Z32 trannies can handle a lot of power (the manual trannies that is).

usually with nissan there is no difference between the block and head setup for rwd and one setup for fwd. the main differences are the routing for the coolant, accessories (as said), and the exhaust manifolds (which are all external items that can easily be changed and/or fabricated). sometimes the intake is different but for instance, the intake on the 2nd generation maxima and the Z31 300ZX are the same. they both use the vg30e and the maxima is fwd while the Z is of course rwd. the other difference, which won't really affect anything, is the placement of the motor mounts. they usually have the block tapped for using a motor mount in both the fwd and rwd application. the vg30e(t) for instance has the holes for both the rwd mounts and fwd mounts. it seems the import engines are designed much better in the case of swappability compared to domestic engines.

yeah, mine was pretty fun but it definitely wasn't as fast as it should been. i think tuning, clutch, and a few parts that i hadn't put on yet is keeping it from its full potential.

woohoo! my car got posted. yeah, i own that 1990 turbo Maxima. they're definitely fun when turbocharged. the only downside is that the transmissions suck really, really bad. the engineers at borg warner must have been on dope when making these because they put a input shaft bearing in that would only support about 5800 rpm while the engines can spin up to 6200 rpm in the 89-91 se's. borg warner is my enemy number 1 now and i will always avoid their shitty trannies for as long as i live. i pretty much stopped the Maxima project mostly due to the stupid tranny but also a recall that was either never done or done incorrectly. the fuel filler tube gets crap caught between it and the wheel well and it basically rust out the rear end pretty badly. the driver's side rear seat belt retractor is no longer on the car and there's a nice baseball sized hole between the trunk and the wheel well now. i might try battling nissan to get it fixed but most likely all they're going to want to do is offer me money for the car and i will never get rid of it for what they'd give me considering all that i've done to it.

ok, i'm not sure if this is going to work out or not. i went back through the list and i believe there are a few who are actually taking different routes. since this is taking a while to get 10 people i may take a different route myself but i'm not sure yet. there's supposed to be another guy making these as well so i'm waiting to hear something on that too. i'll try keeping you guys updated on all of this. hopefully we can get something going for sure.

that's 10 people. i'll contact lost and see if we can get this deal going.

a Nissan DOHC V8

sorry for the late reply. i can put your name in on the list. you'll make the 8th person. it seems someone else is starting to make these as well and will be availabe in late june. i've not heard much more on this yet though.

really though... overhead cams are outdated as well. i can't wait to see rotary valve heads on some engines. this company made some of these heads for what most people believe to be a 5.0 liter mustang engine. these heads flow more than 2 times the air than the stock 5.0 heads, allowed the engine to rev to incredible levels, and made it insanely efficient compared to any poppet valve head anywhere. you guys have to check these out, they're simply badass: http://www.coatesengine.com/technology.html

technically its a borg warner tranny (the T5)... i don't like putting nissan's name along side something so crappy... lol

yeah, a screws would be the best of the three but like you said, definitely expensive. here's what i can find so far on the s/c setup http://forums.nicoclub.com/zerothread?id=101551

lag will increase with the more space that it has to fill (i.e. if there's more area for there to be air in the piping, it'll take slightly longer for the turbo to fill the pipe up compared to that of a smaller pipe). at a certain point you'd have to go up to a 3 inch setup once you're pushing enough power, but i'm not really sure what the limit is. what kind of power are you looking at getting?

personally, supercharger wise i'd get a roots blower over a centrifugal blower. the centrifugal would be a bit more efficient but the no full boost till redline thing is definitely not appealing. with roots you'll have nearly instant boost right away. actually speaking of which... there's some Q45 guys setting up a roots supercharger kit for the VH45DE... that might help out quite a bit. i'll try searching around and see if i can find how that thing is going.

turboes are way more efficient than superchargers so therefore have a lot more potential for power output. s/c's require quite a bit of power to make the power whereas a turbo takes much less power to make some... they're definitely the way to go. if only they were allowed in the top drag racing events to show how good they really are... gotta love companies handing money to people under the table

there's some differences between the two that would make it pretty difficult to do. it'd probably just be better to go with a vg30de(tt) rather than trying to fit dohc heads onto a vg30e(t) or a vg33e

i'd becareful with those new 6-speeds... i've heard of many 350Z guys having shifting issues with them... there have been so many of them replaced that you can find them for next to nothing but i'm not sure if i'd want to mess with it. also, i'd check the gear ratios of it and see how well it matches the VG... it might be a bit off due to the different power bands of a turbo vs. n/a but i'm not sure as i've not looked into them all that much.

is that all the further back the engine will go? other than that... looks like its definitely going to be badass. can't wait to see that thing running!