How can you tell(by looking in the engine), if the VTC's have been grounded? Is there anyway to tell if they are bad/going bad, from visual stuff(looking at it rather then driving)? Why does it need to be grounded, and is there anything else you can do besides grounding it? How bad is the performance loss(without advancing timing)? WOuld a stock GXE be faster then a stock SE with grounded VTC's?

 

please use the search function... or go to craig brace's maximna webpage (searcj it on google or something)

no, a stock gxe will not be faster than an stock se w/ grounded vtc...

 

I used the search before hand... didn't go through everything, but all the info was "yeh, well doing this and this with grounded VTC's, help", over and over again. I've seen this topic come up ALOT but still had never found what VTC's are... Thanks for the info on craigs website, found out what it is. But I still don't know, is there a way to tell if the VTC's are going to need to be grounded? Like, if I buy an SE, it seems to be running fine, but a few days later the engine starts knocking and stuff, and the VTC's need to be grounded, is there any way to prevent that, to find a max where the VTC's are in good condition?
(So a SE with grounded VTC's would be faster then a GXE, but I thought the SE was supposed to loose ALOT of power?)

 

Go to your local Nissan dealer to change the oil and filter.
The filter they use should be the genuine nissan filter. The oil can
be 5w-30 or 10w-30. Maybe this is another method to solve the VTC
problem. I am not sure if this works well because so far I haven't
had the oil and filter changed by nissan dealer. Is there anyone who
has such experience? Please tell us the difference.

 

You can test to see if the VTC's are bad using a procedure from the Maxima factory service manual (I dont have mine at school, so I can't give it to you). Or, you could probably take the car to be inspected at the Nissan dealer, and they could connect the diagnostic tool and see if they are going bad. The only thing you can do to is listen to see if you can hear them clicking. As far as predicting if they are GOING to fail, the only thing I recommend is to try and see how the previous owners took car of the car, especially when it came to oil & oil filter changing. Otherwise, its a crapshoot (as with ANY used car, I might add).

 

Go to 10-30WT Mobil 1 Synthetic and a genuine Nissan filter. After 4K miles the tapping went away on my 92SE w/159K miles. Change the oil yourself! It will save you $