Well this queer is talkin' crap about our engines. He says that engine in the M3 will eat ours alive.

"it has individual throttle plumming and infinite valve timing"

Is this really a better made engine then ours ?

Um, sorry dude, but IMO, yes. Just like the rest of the M3 is better than our cars.....

So why hasn't that engine got praise like ours ? Or has it ?

The BMW M motors are actually detuned race motors made for the public street use. Do not get me wrong the Nissan VQ engine is great, very smooth, durable, etc. but when you can get 333hp from 3.2 liters like the M3 engine, plus that thing will rev to 8-8500 rpm easy !!!!

The M3 motors are highly praised and highly respected. The Nissan VQ recieves a bunch of praise because it's a motor that's very available to nearly everyone how makes decent money. And remember, when the mags and the surveys say the Nissan VQ is the best V6 on the market, they're talking about V6s not inline 6s like in the BMWs. There's a big difference.

Dave

Oh. The VQ couldn't produce that much natural horse-power as the M3 could it ?

Hmmmm, for the money ours is definately the best, also our reliability definately owns BMW....... I don't know, our VQ's are just in a different class, but if you compare the 2, the M3 would own us unless we are heavily modded, (which would still be cheaper than a new M3), but once they mod, goodbye.....

We need a Turbo kit bad, the S/C just doesn't cut it and NOS runs out

Yes it can. It will only take $9k to do it too.

$9k! You must be joking, I bet that a max can pump out more power then given to it, but they just detune it and add on the power yearly just to increase income to them.

Christ O mighty man! The M3 inline six makes over 300hp na!! It made 240hp in the E36 platform back in 1995'. Sheesh!

Zactly.

Yeah, race motors. BMW is lucky they have the market to sell those engines. The reason the VQ is so good because it's a great motor, and it is not that expensive to build. Imagine what the VQ could do if Nissan gave it a butterfly throttle valve for each cylinder, an ECU that can process faster than a cray computer, or these days, a Sun enterprise 10K? What elese is there, titanium valves?? I mean, sheesh, the BMW motors are great, but they put sooo much into them to get that way. And whoever came across a reliable BMW anyways? Those motors must cost so much to develop and build.

This also makes me think of Audi/VW. All their motors have 5 valves/cylinder. Most car manufacturers can produce more or less the same powewr as those motors with 4 valves/cylinder. If you look at Mercedes Benzes, they have quietly replaced their 4 valve heads with 3 valve heads, but still producing the same power in their engines.

In my book Mercedes is the only smart German manufacturer in this game. And all the German car maker must secretly be envious of the mighty VQ.


Sorry to digress.

DW

Oh, and by the way, the M3 will whup us sooo bad

DW

So do you guys think if Nissan put as much money into the VQ as BMW did into their M3, we would have as good or better an engine as them ?


And yes I think a 60k Sports coupe with 333HP could take our 20k family sedan with 190.

Ok comparing a new M3 to a 4th gen .. a e36m3 would kick our cars *****.

the S50 and S52 ( m3 engines 3.0 and 3.2 ) arent Race built for race cars, its actually the other way around, They take the motors that are the "strongest"... Vanos can be equated to vtech ..kinda ... Vanos system produces more torque not HP.... Furthermore its not fair to compare an Inline 6engine to a standard V6 engine.... inlines will always have more torque.

Think the US m3 is fast.... the european M3 in e36 trim was making 321hp stock, and thats out of a lighter aluminuim engine.... The e46m3 is a big step up for us but not for europe... called the M50 and M52.

and an m3 engine shares alot in common with a 325 engine , just bored out, im speaking of the e36 design.

An e30 m3 is amazing sooo much hp out of a 4cyl engine... thats another thread..... adios

Its just not a fair comparison. The M3 costs some crazy amount of money, and our car costs $20000. Plus, its a inline 6, but since this has already been commented on, I'll be quiet.

Well if Nissan were to put multiple throttlebodies on the VQ, more aggressive cams, more aggressive ECU tuning, etc. then the VQ engine may have the same HP as the E46 M3 engine, but also cost about the same, about $15,000 !!!!

compression has a lot to do with it too, comparing a new M3's 11.0:1 compression with a 4th gen more conservative 10.0:1 a lot of hp can be made up from that difference. and also just by revving higher and being able to breathe at those rpms would probably be adequate to cover the gap between the maxima and the m3

Didn't the M3 engine also win the Wards 10 best engine awards too. The VQ was also originally designed for racing. When Nissan decided not to race, they decided to use the design for their north american sedan market (aka Maxima)