i have 97,000 miles on my max. I have a VE motor. it's a 92 SE. Does anyone know if i need to change my timing chain? I know a chain is better than a belt, but i'm gonna drop the motor out and replace the clutch, machine the flywheel, replace the motor mounts, and put a sway bar kit on it this Xmas, while i'm at it and have the air tools out, should i replace the chain? anyone know?

thanks

 

the chain should "never" need replacing..
the belt on the VG should be done every 60k, but the chain should last forever.. that's theoretical of course..

If you're REALLY froggy, why not jump into the VTC replacement? might as well get that done before it starts too.

 

The guy who owned the maxima before me did the maintanence on it BY THE BOOK. he said he had some valve work done on it. I'm not sure if that means the VTC replacement or not. I'm not sure. If it's not too much trouble, what does the VTC failure sound like? I don't have any noises other than the tiny exhause leak where the weld going to the flexpipe is starting to get bad. thanks man

Ry

 

early signs of it sinply sound like a ticking valve when the engine is cold..
as it gets worse, it gets more noticeable and you'll hear more ticks.. after a while it will sound like a deisel engine (i.e. the oooold Mercedes Deisels you still see on the roads sometimes)..
there will also be a loss of low-end grunt when the VTC goes bad. you'll still have the high end power though.

 

i wonder if that's what's responsible for everyone's sparatic loss of power in the low end?

 

could be.. dunno..
But I also notice power loss in my car too..
funny thing is when the gas tank hits about 1/4 tank, the car just hauls *** like someone is dumping NOS into it.. high end is extremely powerful and smooth..
usually it starts getting raspy and power drops off after 5300RPM.. when the gas tank is at just the right level, the car will pull HARD all the way to rev limiter (6200 in my car)..
weird, eh?

 

Ahh.. take it from me. If you don't have to remove the engine, don't. Freakin' engine almost killed me when I removed mine. But the only reason I removed mine was:

1) I had the rear vtc going bad, had rear exhaust studs broken.
2) I was due for a clutch change also.

I becuase of mostly 1) I just elected to remove the engine and tranny.

You do not have to remove the engine to do a clutch job and a lightened flywheel. In fact it's about 10x easier to drop the tranny only. TRUST ME on this. I've dropped my tranny twice and my bro's 90 se 5-sp twice.

For the chain, Matt's right, they should not really go bad. But what does go bad are the chain tensioners. If they get too worn down, it will allow too much slack and THAT might allow some bad things to happen(slipped links or a broken chain) Ask Bossmax about that If your engine is pretty quiet, then it's "probably" okay. You might be able to make out the tensioner in my sig pic but if you don't know what to look for it's impossible to see. You can probably check these just by removing the timing covers like I did in the pic. But it's a large hassle when the engine is still in the car. If you do have to replace the chain, I don't envy your job. I hope your good.