Dave B

We have a lot of methane producing cattle west of here, unfortunately the wind only blows too way in Kansas. North or south

96sleeper

iTrader: (4)

The track I run at in AL is around 500ft of elevation, the trick is that they run year-round.

Nealoc187

iTrader: (23)

The tracks I run at are between 750 and 900ft elevation.

Jime

iTrader: (10)

Ya mine are about the same all 3 are between 600 and 800 ft.

grey99max

iTrader: (12)

Sunday:

I picked up the '98 Max motor Saturday, and strapped it in my '93 Nissan pickup and came home. Later I pulled all the plugs on the '99 Max and did a compression check. The plug from Cyl 4 was wet with gas, and that cylinder has NO compression. Others were 190-210. Looking in the hole with a bright light show the piston top intact, with a black coating. No visible damage. I pulled the injector plug, and the Max starts and runs on 5 cylinders OK.

I'm taking the Max and the motor to a local speciality shop on Monday and get a valve repair or swap the head, depending, since I've got parts now... Gotta get back out there.

Nissan did install 3.0 V6s in the pickup, but probably not FWD VQs. Otherwise, the '98 VQ on nitrous in the little pickup could be fun.. No, I've gotta have SOMETHING dependable for work.

Dave B

I think it would be cheaper and more reliable just to swap in the new motor. I wouldn't even trust Nissan to do a good job on a head swap. There's just too much involved. Swapping motors should cost about the same.

grey99max

iTrader: (12)

That's my first thought - the reason for buying the '98 engine was to have choices. I'm going to get a second (and maybe third) opinion first, though. It SEEMS like just one or both exhaust valves melted in the #4 cylinder, but there might be more damage.

Incidentally, this motor came from an insurance-total white '98 GLE with full grey leather interior. It was rear-ended, so most of the interior seems OK and it was all there. It's at Denton Auto Salvage in St. Mary's KS (http://www.dentonauto.com/ ), about 25 miles west of Topeka on Highway 24. For a small town, they seem like real pros, and deal mostly with insurace totals, from walking through the yard to see my donor Max.

grey99max

iTrader: (12)

I just ordered a VLSD automatic from a '99 Infiniti I30 with 37K miles on it, and the driver's side axle with it. It should be delivered by truck from Kentucky to the local shop on Friday.

I'm dropping off the '98 Max engine there tomorrow, so the shop should have the major parts they need to swap out the engine and transmission in one package.

Dave B, the owner said that 90% of cylinders that burned off valves have cylinder-wall damage and would have to be torn down and rebored at a minimum. (and they build a fair number of race cars - he drives a SC Mustang that I have seen run a 12.1ET 122MPH). You were right - an engine swap is definitely indicated.

Maybe I'll be back to the track in two weeks!

I'll take it a lot easier on the nitrous until I figure out the problem with detonation or whatever is melting spark slugs. Something still weird going on there.

Matt93SE

iTrader: (44)

yeah, that doesn't surprise me... those valves are pretty tough stuff, so if you burn one up or break off a piece of one, it's going to do some damage to at minimum the valve seat and probably the cylinder walls and/or the top of the piston.

usually there's more damage than just the toasted valve.

Nealoc187

iTrader: (23)

Maybe I missed it but what makes you think you melted a valve? Just because you melted spark plugs? I've melted plus before and not hurt the valves (blew the HG and cracked ring lands though).

An engine swap is imho more cost effective and easier than pulling the heads. It's alot of work to pull the heads on a VQ, engine swap on the other hand is pretty straightforward, as long as you have the proper tools at your disposal (air tools and a hoist, a couple floor jacks).

grey99max

iTrader: (12)

Nealoc187 - I had replaced both melted plugs with street plugs before leaving the strip. The one for #4 was burnt down to 1/8 inch of the plug's outer shell - but all insulators were still a warm brown color..?... I've melted at least 10 plugs this year, the platinum ground - iridium NGKs. Last set was NGK IFR7G-11KS plugs. This gets expensive.

My observations with a Sears threaded compression checker:

NO compression in #4 cylinder - visual inspection through the sparkplug hole shows the top of the piston is intact, (but the plug was wet w/gasoline) after driving 90+ miles back from the strip in Kansas City, no oil was lost, blown out, or dripped away.

No coolant was lost or showed in the three front cylinders. Adjacent cylinders had 190-200 readings. Am I missing something? Is there something else I can test or measure????? And, what the heck is going on inside when this happens? Is this detonation, very high cylinder pressures from using nitrous, or World War III inside there?

Unloaded the replacment engine at the shop tonight, and that is a small motor to be pushing a 3000-lb car so fast and hard in the 1/4!

Any insights would be appreciated.......