Hey guys, it's been a while since my last post about the rebuild of my 5th gen. Here is some pics of my max engine pretty much naked. As you will see I finally decided to remove the rad support and the upper part ( sorry I dont know how to call it ) while sandblasting the engine bay I found out that there was extensive damage on the rad support, so I decided to remove everything in front and replace with brand new parts. One of the problem I had with the max was a clunking that was happening here and there and I though it was my coilover, then I though it was a bearing and so on until I remove the rad support and find out that the engine support that connect to it was moving up and down because of very rusty part. See the pics, below.

I should be able to weld everything back over the next week-end and hopefully spray the primer and paint the engine bay shortly after.

I still have a lot of works to do, but the max should see the pavment by spring 2008 if I dont have major FU.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y89...a/IMG_0027.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y89...a/IMG_0024.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y89...a/IMG_0028.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y89...a/IMG_0025.jpg


Cheers

AA

 

where is the engine bay?

he he he he

 

It's gone gee... but wait things will change in the next few weeks and months.

Cheers

AA

 

good luck!

 

Obscene!!!

What I find interesting is the small size of the 2 channel rails that support the subframe. No wonder there is flexing.

Vic

 

This is exactly what I though, those part are spot welded so this got me thinking that I can probably strenghten/stiffen the front of the car by welding all the part and perhaps adding some few small metal brace, I think that can probably make the front end more tight.

 

thats what happens when you live up north. im glad I live in fla. but props on doing a job that huge

 

Ya tell me about it, I wish I'd live in the south, but still we have a great living here and winter is only like from dec to march so it's not that bad once you get use to it. But the max will never see winter again.

 

I just finished getting my new support welded in last weekend, putting the car back together now. Good luck.

 

Did you completely welded the rad support or you just did some tack welding ? It should be all put together over the next week-end.

Did you weld it with a Mig or the old way with acetylen/oxygen ?

 

thats a lot of rust on the blue plastic....
i get a headache every time i imagine how ppl take everything out from the engine bay and it got worse when i imagine they put it back

 

Jeff92se actually did the welding for me with his Mig welder, I turn wrenches, I don't weld. There is not a lot of room to weld the whole thing in. It ended up a combination of weld where he could, and tacked in other areas where welding was not possible or too difficult. It came out good, and should be at least as strong as the original.

 

Any plans to slap in a 3.5, or you stickin with the 3.0?

 

This is a mind bending question... Well I already purchase Matty V1 Kit, and Arias custom piston and so many brand new parts. My initial plan are to stay with the VQ30DEK, unless I can find a VQ35 with a 6 speed tranny and ecu at a decent price ( is there such thing ? ), but to be honest I dont know if I can deal with the 3.5 swap, there is a lot more involve with the electronic and such so being alone to do everything it might be more than I can chew, but it is still very tempting.

The project is already going according to my plan, Aaron might port and polish my lower IM and composite IM ( I need to send him some pics over the week-end ), I also want to have both heads port & polish, and probably put some better spring,valve and retainer.

I have an auto tranny so a rebuild of the tranny will have to happend even though my tranny is running strong with no slipping but with the boost thing will change for sure. The 5 speed tranny swap is very possible if I can find one for a decent price but it is not abolutely necessary a better gearing with a bullet proof rebuild of the auto might just do it.

Cheers

 

nismo heads, cams and 3.5IM while you're at it? there was one guy in the all-motor area that's putting down some serious numbers in a VQ30 with that combo....

 

I didn't know that the 3.5 IM could be transplant to a VQ30DEK. The Nismo head & cam must be very expensive though but I'm going to investigate seriously about that.

Thanks for the heads up.

AA