Following the terminal destruction of my first gen vq35, I have set out to replace the poor junker. Looking around I had a few options;

1. Get one from a 5.5 gen. -- oil consumption and pinging and timing chain issues by now. Mine died of oil pressure issues, hopefully find out for sure when I dissect the bastard. I'm thinking the thrust bearings might have decided to drop, causing the main bearings to starve for oil. Or just an oil pump failure.

2. Get a replacement from a quest, Altima, or another maxima years prior to ~2007. Still would have I replace the timing guide from what I read. Oil consumption reported by some is still apparent.

3. 09 maxima engine. Sweet motor! I don't have time/money to deal with tuning exhaust valve timing/ hooking it up, etc.

4. 07+ Altima motor. Decided to go this route. Still have to deal with cam signal inverter but won't have to deal with (theoretically) the issues I hated with the 5.5 engine.

I found one from a wreck that had 15k miles on it locally, so I went and bought it. Now, I am going to document this just to see how things go, and give a direct comparison between the Altima motor and the 5.5 motor.

3/2/13

Pulled the engine out of the 5.5 today, took brief measurement comparisons. If someone has specific requests to compare let me know.

Here's How it all started. Old, Tired, and Knocking. Lasted 207k miles with nearly NO issues till now.



AND Here's how it ended today.





Here's the diameter of the intake manifold opening on the 08 altima engine.


5.5 gen maxima TB size


And of course, the 08 Altima engine. Needs cleaned... really bad.


I will add more as time goes on. Hoping this doesn't take too long to swap it in.

 

Subscribed!


Currently in the middle of a clutch job that exploded (We'll just call it Clutch+). Hope to keep my Maxima for a long time so this may very well come in handy in a few years.

 

Hope this pans out for you. Subbed !

 

should be a fun project, check the upper oil pans - if they match (probably they will not) - you are in great luck
good timing to do headers for some powaaaa

good luck with it!

 

I know you went with the Altima engine but take a look at this thread
http://forums.maxima.org/all-motor/6...vq35-info.html

 

You could also exchange notes with 95naSTA from this thread;

http://forums.maxima.org/all-motor/6...-0-timing.html

 

Nice on the swap.

I'm sure you've probably figured it out but this will be basically the same as Surra's '09 swap minus the TB and cam signal inverter.

FWIW if you wanted to upgrade, the '09 Max upper intake will bolt right up to the Alti LIM.

It'll be deeper like Surra's '09.

 

Subbed! Good luck man and thank-you for doing this! I will definitely be doing this in a few years when my motor craps out

 

Yes, I've been going through that thread for a few weeks. I ordered the cam signal inverter he sells on his website for the missing link to get this to work. I'm hoping to see if I can get a signal plate for the cams fabricated. I might be able to use a CNC, and definitely inventor.

It's my understanding that I will need the signal inverter to make things work, is that not true?

 

It's my understanding that I will need the signal inverter to make things work, is that not true?
I believe you are correct and the signal inverter is required on the 07+ Altima swap.
from SurraTT's thread "You could do the 07 altima motor...Youd need the cam sensor signal inverter and other then that its cake! "

 

StevieB, thanks for clarifying. That's what i've been led to believe, and with the cam sensor at 12 o'clock, that's what i'm going with. I haven't pulled the valve covers yet to move the signal plate ~9 degrees advance.

Small update, just got some things torn off both motors. The 08 motor more progress was made than the 03 motor. Here's some pics, because we all love pics. I didn't have any bumps, but I can see how things are going to come together with the wiring which is great!

 

So I have to buy a tb because the engine did not come with one. Anyone have an 09+ maxima intake manifold/tb combo or an Altima tb? Ill check car-part.com too

 

Nice to see this! These altima 07+ swaps are going to get more and more common as engine replacement options!

 

Sweet garage that you got, amigo.

Also, pretty nice project installing that "new heart" into your baby. I'll keep an eye in this thread. Greetings.

 

Yes, Thank you for pioneering these motors for us! I'm excited to get this going.


Thanks! It's actually my parents' garage :/ (My house is being built as we speak. 3 car tandem garage FTW!)

 

SwEEEeeet!

 

Nice man- best of luck!

 

yep, that's why I said that - I really enjoyed Surratt's swap thread
subscribed as well

 

nice work!

 

I wish there would have been a better update. Between broken tools and traveling 250 miles around NOCO getting parts from various nissan dealers, I managed to get very little done.

I do have one question, anyone know if I can use the Altima baffle? It's mounted to the girdle as opposed to the oil pan like the maxima is. Here's some pictures.

Side note, this motor seems CHERRY! I've never seen one so damn clean inside. Oil pan looked like it had a fresh coat of oil and that's it! So excited to have a good motor in this car.




Also, really broken rear motor mount:


So I got a new one! Wish these didn't cost so much at the dealer :/



LIM gaskets, water inlet/outlet gaskets,oil pan "half-moon" gaskets, and signal inverter.


Here's some of the carnage from the maxima motor. Looks like it spun a few bearings (If not all- I haven't dug that far yet)

Metal shavings, and there was a chunk of bearing in the bottom too I didn't get a picture of. The oil was like a metallic paste and it had been in there for 2 miles!




Here you can see the rod journal has a pretty big gash down the center. It's pretty damn deep too.


Old and dead VQ. 207k miles of beatings and she held up pretty well.

 

I used the Alti windage tray and removed the one from the old upper oil pan. This was a 3.0 upper but it should be the same deal.

 

new engine is definitely clean!

 

Sounds good. Taking half the day off work today to bust some things out on this. Ill have another update tonight.

 

I got a few things done today... I also found out that you cannot use the altima oil pan baffle. It sits too high and the maxima oil pan hits it. I did however, bolt back in the maxima baffle and it fit with no issues.
You can see here where I bent the edges hoping it would fit, but to no avail. Must be changed out



I got the power steering mount modified with a sawzal and a chisel, and installed the power steering pump. It was pretty easy really.

water pump access cover swapped over from 03 with no issues.

Alternator bracket needed 3 washers on the timing cover side of the bracket to tighten up the gap and line it up with the crank pulley.


I also re-installed the oil cooler from the Maxima. The altima one is much wider; however the notch it lines up with on the oil pan is not the same between the oil pans. I decided to keep the maxima cooler because it fit a whole lot better. Just have to run a hose up to the inlet pipe and we're good to go. Didn't get a picture of it specifically, but here's where I stopped for the night.

 

Respect man, you're doing well. Patience is a virtue with engine swaps

 

DO NOT use the oil cooler from the maxima. You had metal particles in your oil, oil coolers are excellent place for them to get stuck and off they go into your new, clean motor.

 

Great thread. Subscribed.

 

I can't believe I didn't think of that. I know I cleaned the oil pickup and oil pan extremely well. Thanks for catching that. I will modify the altima cooler.

 

Im pretty sure the altima cooler will fit fine with no clearance issues. You might have to slightly modify the splash shield, but its nothing serious.

 

The Alti cooler fits ok once you clock it counter clock wise.

 

I got a little bit done today, but not much.

I got the main belt adjuster figured out. The only issue I see is there is only two mounting bolts compared to three when installed on the 5.5 gen. I think it will be ok, but time will only tell. I had to grind down the top of the square bolt to make it clear the timing cover of the altima engine.

I grinded down the timing cover to get the AC mount to bolt up properly. Not a lot, just enough to get it to fit.

Started installing all of the accessories like manifolds, mounts, and wiring. I should be able to drop the engine in the car tomorrow or tuesday pending schedule conflicts.

The old oil pressure sensor plastic was broken, so I swapped the one from the altima over. Should be the same signal wise right? I wired it up splicing in the Altima connector to make everything fit nicely.

Here's some updated pics!

 

Why are you using the old exhaust manifolds? With all that we know about the catalyst failures - if money is the constraint - at least gut and sim.

 

I've been thinking about that myself, ill have to research the o2 sim tonight. Anyone had issues with emissions just running the main cat?

 

Decided to gut the pre-cats after looking around the forums. Here's what I found.

Front pre-cat. Thing just fell out of it.


Rear Pre-cat is the lighter colored one. This one took some work to get out.
Definitely burning oil from those front three cylinders. I didn't know it had gotten this bad.



Tomorrow I'll look at the main cat and see what needs to be done there. Hopefully it's OK.

That is all for today.

 

****ing Nissan and these cheap pre-cats.

 

Main cat should not be much of an issue. That could easily be swapped after the motor is installed. Best bet is to get the cattman high flow. Too many people have complained about rotten egg smell and/or raspy sound when main cat it gutted or test pipe is used.

 

getting there...

 

Niceee!!!


would of been a lil easier to install the flywheel and clutch while you had the motor out


good progress!

 

fixed?

 

subscribed....