Doing an engine swap for my friend Chris. Take a look at the engine pics towards the bottom! Rusty water pump housing and rust in all the water jackets. Chris's old engine was perfectly clean
http://community.webshots.com/album/178157937ZKYsrM

For those of you had done JDM VE swaps, how did the engine look? This engine's valvetrain didn't look that great either

 

how much did you pay also u sure its jdm seems to mee like it has more then 100,000 miles on it

 

Looks really gross. Is this the engine you pulled out from junkyard?

 

I'm guessing since he said it's JDM, he probably didnt' get it from a junkyard (at least in the US).

that does look pretty craptastic, at least you're finding this stuff out before the engine is completely installed

 

wow...the ones i've dealt with only had some minor scaling...wire brush cleaned it out...but it doesn't look as bad as what you posted.

also i had some slight sludge built up around the valve train. it's prob the small pockets of oil just sitting around for a few yrs.

i'm pretty sure these motors are just sitting around doing nothing for some time. over time it'll get a little crusty.

edit: Jeff even the OIL FILTER IS RUSTY!! did you look at this motor before buying it?

 

It was bought sight unseen from another fellow that had it delivered.

 

u think the motor will mechanically run?

since it's out of the car i'm sure u can pump some water through the engine to get some/most of the rusty water out. get it on a stand and just spin it around a few time while you got clean water in there.

what was wrong w/ the old motor?

 

Flush some water through it and see what happens. it's ugly, but honestly it's not that bad compared to many I've seen. get all the scale out that you can at first- maybe even block one end off and pour a couple cans of coke in it (the acid will help dissolve the rust), then put the thing back together.

the sludge buildup in the heads is nothing compared to what I've seen on some engines. use some gasoline, kerosene, or carb cleaner type stuff and a plastic brush to clean the worst of it out, then flush it down into the oil pan.. pour a couple quarts of cheap oil through it and scrub everything down with it as well to make sure you get the cams and wear surfaces coated in oil again. then drain the oil pan out and flush the oil pan with another quart or two of cheap oil.
then fill the engine with some castrol GTX when you fire it up.. let it run a few minutes, until the car gets up to operating temp, then flush it all out.

If possible, don't run the coolant hoses through the radiator.. join the two (use a piece of pipe you have laying around, I'm sure you can 'engineer' something)... just hook them together so the water will circulate through the engine and hoses only. bypass the heater core as well. that way you don't get any built-up rust and scale from the block into the tiny fins on the radiator or heater core.

run about 1/3 the bottle of radiator flush through it for a few minutes (since you're not going through the radiator, your water capacity is about 1/3 of total) and watch engine temps (since you don't have a radiator to help cool, it will overheat, but it will take a while since there still is some coolant in the engine)... when it's done all it can do, let the thing cool down and flush the system out with a strong water hose.
repeat.
repeat.
repeat.
repeat until you're out of radiator flush..
rinse with tons of clean water and see how it looks.

I would also recommend changing the freeze plugs on the block while you've got the engine out of the car.. (hopefully you still do). they can't be too much for those guys, and will help you clean out the engine block while you're replacing them.

 

my jdm vg30et looked like that. there was actually mud-like stuff still sitting in the water pump. i wasn't sure if it was truly mud, very old coolant, or what but mine looked the same. i just flushed it out and its working perfectly fine now.

 

That might work but the question is why should I even have to do that when the person paid close to $1000 for it.

I'm sure the engine will run. And probably run okay for the duration of the warranty. Question is what are the long term effects of having an engine that looked like it was run on straight h2o?

 

even with the proper mix of anti freeze and water in there, it will rust like that when exposed to air for long enough (i.e. sitting in a warehouse for a year).

with plain water in it, the engine won't rust unless you open the system up to air. get all the air bubbles out and it'll urn on plain water just fine without rust since there's no oxygen in there to cause rust to form.

 

Yeah but there is scalely residue all over the water passages. And when you pull off the hoses, there is alot of scale where the hose slips over the fittings. That's a sign of long term neglect IMHO.

 

true... but that stuff can *usually* be flushed out and not too many ill-effects in the long term.
as long as the thing meets compression and doesnt' have any scoring on the cylinder walls or cam lobes, then that's the majority of the issues it may have...

 

Well I ain't gonna take the head off to check it. And regardless if the engine "might" work okay or not, I don't think this guy deserves a muddly crudded engine for a grand. I stuck my finger up in the WP housing in the block. I could feel alot of built up scale inside the block. Even if you could flush this engine, it would be flaking off scale for many months/years. Eventually it would probably all end up in the heator core. And we ALL know how fun those are to replace.

 

true true... but I doubt you're going to get anywhere with the importer.. that kind of stuff seems to be the norm with these places..

give the place a call and see what they'll do, but you probably won't get far. at best they'll send another engine.. if you're lucky, it'll be in better shape. if not, it'll be another POS.

 

wow mine didnt look nearly that bad. there was no rust at all but there was some of that white/green crap where the hoses went. it looks like they didnt drain the block at all. i didnt pull the valve cover on mine but i looked in the oil fill and it looked just like my old engine kinda glazed look but not as bad as yours.

i bet your engine has just been sitting for a long time and like stated before just flush it flush it and keep flushing it and maybe try to rig up a fuel filter to filter the water that goes into the heater core and see if that helps keep it from clogging

 

You gotta remember that some of those JDM engines have been sitting for a few years.......... and you can tell by the way the bring them in...wires cut hoses cut.....they probably don't completely drain all the fluids in it....hint the rust because that motor prolly still had water in it and sat for a few years.....

 

I'm familar with JDM engines. I've been around them for 20 years. I've had L16sss / L18sss / 12A turbos / FJ20s.

If you note in the pictures there is scalely rust ALL over the inside of the engine's coolant passages. So the rust isn't from it sitting. This crap has been circulating around in the heads/block for many years.

 

ya i just looked at a few pics...just looked at em all.. thats some grungy looking sludge....call up the place....you have a warranty on it...tell them this motor is filled with sludge more than normal and see if they wont come bring ya another and hall that away......or you can prolly take off the heads and spray it good with some carb cleaner or somethin heay duty...will take some time to clean it up....Im sure the motor will run just fine. BTW where did you get it from? I only paid $750 for mine and it looked alot better than that....
Good luck and hopefully something will work out for you

 

Um take off the heads? Sure add another 8-10 to the job. Did you not read my reply to Matt. Exactly why should I have to ANY extra work.

Where did you get your engine from? Name?

 

probably not good since antifreeze keeps the water pump lubed up.

 

for the price payed (and since it has a warranty) i would definitely call them.

i didn't get all of the scaly crap out until the 3rd or 4th flush. i cleaned it up the best i could before putting the engine in and it worked good for a while. clogged the heater core so i had to heat so i just flushed that out (hooking the hose up on the outlet tube) and it worked fine. Just repeated that a few times and I've not had trouble since.

I do think you are right though in thinking that the engine shouldn't be in that kind of condition for the price payed.

 

Well called the importer. My description of huge rusty sludgely mess didn't phase them in the least. They have a few more VE30DEs so that probably kills my plans to buy from another source. But since they have more than one, I'll have to hike it up there on Sat to take a look and pick the better one.

 

prolly the best you can do. if they dont' have anything acceptable, you may be able to get a refund, but I doubt it.

 

yikes! that thing looks terrible! I was concerned about some sludge in mine, and some minor discoloration on the valvetrain.....


My JDM Water pump:



Valvetrain:

-


My cooling system was abominably dirty on the JDM engine. The water pump was replaced with a new one and we flushed it as much as possible prior to installation.

The IACV coolant jacket was wretchedly filthy and had to be swapped with the old one as well.

 

Thanks Keelan. That valvetrain looks 10x better than this one. I can't see into the wp jacket on the block but mine was just oozing out crap.

 

Riight BTW. The chain on the old motor is SERIOUSLY slacked. You mean it was that way when it was installed? whoa.

 

Wow, I come home from work and all of this crap about my car/engine in just one day!

Sorry about all of the mess, Jeff. There is no strict timeline on getting the work done and I know you are busy, just try to keep me updated. I think it would be a good idea to try and get another engine from them ASAP (hopefully they have one that is MUCH cleaner) so that they will be more likely to be compliant.

I bought the engine from this place on a referral from a guy on NorthwestNissans.com. It is a pretty large warehouse that imports JDM engines and I think this particular VE must have been sitting for a VERY long time somewhere. They have a 1-year, unlimited mile warranty on the engines they sell and they state that all engines are supposed to have 40k or less on them. I wasn't expecting anything near the piece of crap Jeff was given!

As for MrGone, he did the work he was supposed to do and somehow my lower timing chain slacked up and skipped a link while the car was in his possession. I don't know how this happened and at this point, it doesn't matter. I doubt if it was his fault and I am not blaming him.

I know the history of my car since it had 60k miles (it has almost 150k now) and it has been run HARD. Not poorly maintained, but driven extremely hard. I was sort of expecting the engine to go and I really have no problem paying for the JDM. I am just mad because Jeff is going through all of this crap basically to help me out. I am working 50 hours a week, 6 days a week and have no vacation until December, so I am really in debt to Jeff, Sarin (86MaximaSE) and Shawn for helping me out. These guys have been working the phones, AIM and PMs, as well as driving all over the Seattle area helping me out.

Thanks all of you .org guys for your input in this thread, it is greatly appreciated. I hope I will be able to drive my Maxima once again. I haven't driven it since mid-June and I have a whole garage full of mods waiting to be installed hahahaha

chris (sorry about the novel)

 

I got my engine from:
J.K. Japanese Used & New Auto Parts Ltd.
12432 Hwy. 99, Unit 86, Everett, WA 98204
Toll free: 1-888-294-6409
Tel: 425-438-8834
Website: www.jkjapaneseengine.com

anything else you need?
oh ya...I paid $750 for the motor....66.75 in tax...so it was $816.75
and the best thing about it....was they had some guy drop it off at my house(Tacoma, near Narrows Bridge) for FREE and he had it at my house 3 hours...yes 3 hours after I called and ordered it......The motor was in pretty good condition, besides the wire harness being all hacked to hell and hoses all cut.........from my experience with them, I highly recommend them since you live in my area, correct?...who did you get yours from....LOL would suck if its the same place
hope this helps ya out.. if you need any other info on the place give me a shout back

 

hahaha check out the website I linked above....VE power makes front page of their site!

 

f*ck...I got hosed


Oh, well, it's just money

 

snap...the toronto location is 10mins from my house.
red92maxse,
i'm sure jeff and shawn will be able to get this sorted out for ya.

i have one quick question for you guys. i'll be installing a jdm ve on another guys car sometime next month. what are the differences between the jdm ve and the usdm ve? i've heard that the only part which needs to be replaced is the jdm coolant temp sensor with a usdm coolant temp sensor. is there anything else?

 

you give them a call?

 

It's probably too late now. I already paid for the first engine (the rust piece of sh*t that Jeff showed in the pics) and he is going up to the same business to try and find a better one. Maybe if they all suck a$$, I can get a refund, but I highly doubt it.

Shock, I think the only real difference is the cam position sensor and Jeff said that the coil packs looked a little different. Otherwise, I think everything else is the same.

 

Have not heard of that. But the cam angle sensor needs to be swapped with the USDM one.

 

ok...that's not much at all to swap.
i believe n34jz told me about the coolant temp sensor thing. maybe i misinterpreted what he meant though...
either thanks for the helpl.

 

well if you get a refund call that place, they will deliver it to your doorstep, probably same day for free.... or hopefully they will let you look at the others and you can decide what one you wanna exchange for

 

Well, my doorstep is about 4 hours away... and I am going to have to let Jeff try to just get another engine out of them. He's already bending over backwards for me as it is. Hopefully Shawn or Sarin can go look at the other engines and see if one of them is in better shape.

I have to work until at least 4 pm every single day until Sept. 9th (except Sundays) so I really can't do much unless it's over the phone/on the computer. Jeff is my proxy right now as it pertains to the engine and I doubt that he wants to try and twist their arm for a refund unless the other engines they have are as bad as the one received and there is no choice. If that's the case, then I will try other places.

chris

 

I'm gonna try to take a look at the motors that Foreign engine has available tommorrow. Jeff, I'll give you a jingle before I go. Sorry I haven't kept up with this thread.....I'm mighty busy at my Seattle job (worked until 7:45pm today). Since I'll be working at EdCC in Lynnwood all day Friday, I should be able to go look at them.

S

 

Wow....I looked at the pics....holy shat stick! I can understand the cooling passages being bad....but that valvetrain! Wow!

Anyway, Jeff, I just got off the phone with Chris...I will definately try to get out there tommorrow during my lunch. I'll also talk with them about the delivery and see how soon we can get it out there if the motors look good. I'll bring my camera and take pics as well.

Sarin