chop_sooie

Is it worth it, if I don't know squat about swapping out motors? I have to assume its current one is toast being an interference engine and all... so I'd have to pay someone. But man it seems like it would be a blast once everything was back together.
Rest of the car is in excellent condition.

Slamrod

iTrader: (11)

yeah consider the motor toast. If you are able/willing to swap a motor yourself its an extremely good deal. If you have to pay someone else, i wouldnt say it would be a good deal, but it wouldnt be a bad one either - it would really depend on what you are paying for the new motor and what your shop is charging. if you are at all mechanically inclined/have your own tools/etc you can do a motor swap. I did a motor swap in my back yard like 6 months ago and I knew nothing about doing a swap when i started. Car runs great now with zero issues (with the motor at least.. ) It actually very straight forward, you just need to keep track of what you are removing from where which is very easy but tedious. That, and having the tools + equipment. The only things you would need that are not "standard" tools are the engine hoist and a stand - everything else is just your run of the mill wrenches and crap.

Theres really nothing "hard" about it, its just a whole bunch of steps and takes a long time. Disconnect all the harnesses, disconnect all the hoses, disconnect the shifter cables, remove the exhaust, unbolt the motor mounts and lift the sucker out. Keep track of what goes where, label things if you must or take pictures to help. None of those steps are at all hard in themselves, and together they are not "hard", just a lot to handle as part of one job. Installing the motor is the same thing in reverse more or less. Again I did this alone with zero prior experience on pulling a motor + trans. I do have quite a bit of mechanical experience working on my car(s) though - if this is your first time working on a car then you might be overwhelmed. If you know how to use hand tools and have a mechanical aptitude then you absolutely can do it. Theres plenty of threads on the topic as well.

edit: the 6 speed trans alone is worth a couple hundred. So $400 for that car will bring you a profit if you part it out and never bother to fix it.

chop_sooie

If I got the car it would only be to fix it and drive it- much prefer a 6 speed over the 4 automatic in mine. I am fairly mechanically inclined- most complicated job I've ever done (along with a friend's help--it was his car) is swap transmissions in a 01 Civic. But adding up all the costs before I even got started (car, tow charge, engine hoist/ stand, replacement engine from yard) and it's already up to over $1500-- what I paid for mine-- before I even get started. Doesn't look like it's worth it unless (as you suggested) buying the car to part it out. And I don't have time for that.

krismax

iTrader: (15)

where are you located?

chop_sooie

NW Arkansas (Bentonville home of WalMart!)

Child_uv_KoRn

iTrader: (7)

Yikes lol

I don't know where people get these extravagant costs from. I've posted it in other threads, but I calculated a complete hr swap for 850 with fluids (granted you will want to urethane fill the mounts, headers and replace HP PS hose, but can't really fault maintenance/upgrades). Even if you need the hoist and stand, that's only another 250 brand new.

Swaps are cheap, you just need to know how to do it and not spend money on stupid things like Darren's kit. You only need the inverters.

You could even just gut the cats and get a new PS hose, belts, etc, from the junkyard if it needs those maintenance items, b/c there's plenty of cars rolling in with new parts. Although, your location seems suspect for good stuff.

Unfortunately, that one is just a lowly model. No HLSD, no heated anything, so eh. That's what makes it not really worth it unless you don't care about that stuff.

krismax

iTrader: (15)

Is it drivable?

User1

Your $400 car is basically what I paid $1k for. Similar shape. Here it is post swap and a few things at 1800 mi. Still haven't cleaned anything inside and only washed it once (sans engine bay). I've put 3k mi on it.

chop_sooie

The costs you mentioned plus the price of the car and tow charge comes out to OVER what I stated, so thanks for making my point for me. But, I don't need the HR engine (it only translates to about 30 actual additional HP so the DE will do just fine) or the LSD (they don't have track day in Bentonville ) so that would help keep cost down, plus I just talked to a coworker today who could do the swap for $500 so I'll still think about it.

chop_sooie

Since it jumped time and these are interference engines the likely guess would be no.

User1

"Worth it" is subjective. My car was in similar shape as yours when I picked it up. The car you posted is in the same situation mine was. It's hit a fork in the road and one of two things are going to happen: it will be crushed/parted/left to rot/etc. (sad), or hopefully it will find a new owner that will value it, put some care and effort into it and maybe it'll be around in another 20 years as I expect mine to be. This one doesn't drive OR run properly. It needs a LOT of work. I know this from my own experience with mine. If $2k or so has you contemplating whether or not it is worth it, don't do it. I don't necessarily believe in doing up a swap on the cheap. If it has potential (straight body, decent, workable interior) it deserves someone who will do it properly. Chintzing out on the repairs/upgrades/swap will only bring headaches over time and ultimately it will be disposed of out of frustration anyway. Obviously at this point it's a project car and you're debating $400? You're in the wrong hobby! $400 transferred the title and got a couple months of insurance for mine. $400 doesn't even START to touch what you're in for if you want to make a decent ride out of this one. Buy a cheap old Honda that runs and drive it 100k reliable miles then crush it if that's what you need. This is the last good generation of the Maxima. I guess I just hate to see them go

Child_uv_KoRn

iTrader: (7)

You're not gonna find a DE that isn't trashed. Extra 850+250+100=running and driving. 1,600 with cost of car and you worded it as if it was gonna be 1,500 plus a lot more (I would spend 125 on a new clutch, though). You can get out of the tow if you know someone with AAA. Slap your plates on it and have em call lol. And borrow the hoist/stand or grab used one for cheap on craigslist.
HR isn't +30 if you're a man. It's 300 whp with bolt ons with a flat power band.

I don't know where you think you're gonna buy a car worth a **** for shy of 3,500, though. Midwest market is tarded. People are selling literally junk yard cars for 2k+.

MadMax07SL

Here's the thing, if this were a classic muscle car, and you wanted to pay someone to rebuild it that's one thing. This is a POS ragged out maxima, that if you were doing the work yourself, might be satisfying to achieve a daily driver or better a fun track car you can beat up. But again, if you're not doing the work yourself, what is the point?

krismax

iTrader: (15)

too bad it wasn't closer i would buy it.

chop_sooie

LOTS of wrong info in this post. The HR adds nowhere close to 300 ACTUAL HP, even though your Fast and Furious mind wants to think so. NOT TRUE without major retuning, which becomes cost-prohibitive.
But not only that, I'm sure you're a young lad (not a MNA like me) but one day you'll realize that being a man means being smart with your money which also means the reliability and upkeep of a car means more than beating Uncle Joe in the next lane off the line. Or maybe you won't which is a lot of what's wrong with millenials.
The other thing wrong with your post is that you think you know anything about the midwest/south area in which (as I stated earlier) I bought this great running 02 Maixma with automatic for $1400. That's right $1400. And it drives fine. I don't pretend to know prices/ deals in your area so don't pretend to know anything about mine. And yes I'd rather have the 6 speed manual because I love driving them. That doesn't mean I have to have a bunch of go-fast bolt-on BS like you're insisting because you just don't get that one can derive enjoyment out of- you know--owning what they'd like to own.
Now to your other point about cost/ expense-- YES it WOULD most certainly cost approx $2k total, adding everything up. I've already listed it all out for you. You still want to argue about that and insist it costs way less? Fine- give me an itemized list of expenses involved with this project if I were to try the swap myself. And I mean EVERYTHING. Be specific- don't leave anything out. You insist it costs $1200 or something ridiculous so prove it. Then I'll posit your list to others in the know on here and see how accurate it is.

User1

chop_sooie

How do you know this car is "ragged out" as you say??? The pictures of it I posted sure don't show anything like that. Are you just saying that because it jumped timing? Got news for you the VQ35 is KNOWN for bad plastic timing guides that can break easily. That's why the VQ30 even with its timing belt instead of a chain is a more reliable engine. The only reason I got rid of my 99 was other issues that come with a car with over 400k miles on it. Bottom line is you don't know jack about this car other than what I posted.

98 i30t 5spd

The VQ30 also uses a timing chain, not a belt.

chop_sooie

Sorry I was thinking of my 2001 Honda Accord that I had to take in to get the timing belt replaced--not the 99 Maxima I had before. Yep the VQ30 also uses a chain- but my point still holds, the VQ30 is a proven much more reliable engine.

Child_uv_KoRn

iTrader: (7)

Obviously, I didn't mean it adds 300 lol. It's not a slight bump in perf over DE, it's night and day with bolt ons.

And I did this swap in 2014, I know exactly how much it costs. Get out of here, kid.

That 02 won't last long, so if you haven't figured out why, good luck. They're not the same as 3.0s.

Donkeypunch

if it was me for 400 and if i had a free spot ya i'd get it and put in a hr motor. then sell it.

but for the info u give probably a hard pass.
you can figure it out by calling some mechanics and seeing how much they would charge.
see how much a used short block is from lqk and get the heads rebuilt. or probably in this case get a complete engine.
btw getting heads rebuilt is not expensive or even getting the block bored/honed. it was like 60 for my bmw head.

for the most part just to get it driving it's probably going to be piston and valve replacement. those are pretty cheap
don't even fk with bearings even though those are cheap as well. fk it again, if the pistons are fine just slightly indented just reuse them and
get new valves/seals put in, again, it should be cheap to get it running again.

btw. my 250,000mi 3.0 has perfect leak down so ya the 3.0 is a different animal :P

Slamrod

iTrader: (11)

You could probably get a swap done for under $850. You could also spend $1500+ like i did. It depends on who is selling the motor and the mileage. HR motors are dirt cheap these days, theyre practically everywhere now.

chop_sooie

Up to this point I've only been searching local yards for an exact replacement (02/03) DE engine for ease of swap and because I really didn't care all that much. I've found 2 or 3 in my area for around $400 that are supposedly good solid running (according to them.) But if the HR really isn't that much more expensive, I suppose I might be interested. Since I am admittedly foreign to exactly which cars used the HR engine/ heads, can someone provide a list so I'll know what to look for. I would also need to know exactly which other parts would need to be changed out to make it work. Thx

User1

"HR" is a colloquial term here on the forum and in the swap community for 2nd Gen VQ35DE engines. Although the HR motor exists, the majority of swaps I believe use 2nd generation VQ35DE donor engines from 2009 through 2014.

chop_sooie

So why is everyone going to great lengths to differentiate the HR from the DE??

For example:

I mean, not that the quote above is really accurate, since the rest of his post sure wasn't, but I'm just wondering why there's so much casual use of the terms HR and DE if the HR is nothing more than a second gen DE...

User1

I don't believe they are, the term "HR" is just the widely accepted and used name. HR is to 2nd Gen VQ as Kleenex is to tissue paper.

User1

I believe he, as many of us do when differentiating between the generations, is referring to 1st gen when using the term "DE". Since "HR" was adopted as the term for 2nd gen, the differentiation for the 1st gen had to be made. Again, colloquial terms. I may be completely and utterly wrong, but I live in Wonderland most of the time where everything is nonsense, so it works for me

chop_sooie

Again, much wrong with your post, yet you keep digging that hole.
The HR (which apparently is nothing more than a 2nd gen DE) is NOT a "night and day" difference without the tuning mods Nissan did on those vehicles to eek out that HP you keep claiming. But you keep leaving out those other necessary mods to achieve the kind of power you are talking about (manifolds, exhaust, ECU, whatever else.) And leaving out those other necessities makes the swap to achieve what you're talking about look cheap when it's not. That's why I didn't just simply ask you IF you knew how much it cost but instead asked you to give me an itemized parts cost list and the sources of those parts and costs so I could verify it. I would think you'd have no problem doing that so you could vindicate your claim, yet I don't see any sign of that.
And that 02 has been posted for a month now, started at $600, lowered to $500, which is what it's still listed for but the seller send me a PM saying he'd let it go for $400, and it's still up for grabs. In my mind that's most certainly not "going fast." Again, you're making a statement about something you really don't know anything about.

chop_sooie

Gotcha-- I'll buy that explanation. Thanks for the clarification.

So are there any particular year models that for whatever reason are better to source an HR engine out of than others?

User1

2009 through 2014 7th gen Maxima motors I believe are the most commonly used. Beyond that my knowledge is quite limited. I'm not aware of specific year/make/model of Altima or other actual HR motor donor vehicles. I don't think it much makes a difference. Anything with a 2nd gen VQ is swap compatible.

chop_sooie

Thank you! I guess I will start a car-part.com search for those engines in my local yards and see what pops up (and for how much.)

Slamrod

iTrader: (11)

2013-14 are the best years to look for, previous years have issues with the oil gallery gaskets leaking and causing low oil pressure. You also want to find one out of a maxima, as that specific motor will have the upgraded intake manifold. Any 09-14 vq35 from a fwd car will work just fine though.

Check out this thread:
https://maxima.org/forums/5th-genera...adventure.html

Really not a huge amount of info in my thread itself but I linked every other swap thread I could find at the time, so basically everything you need to know is in there somewhere. User1’s thread is probably the most informative since its bigger than all the others combined. The youtube videos also linked were extremely useful for visualizing the things being discussed.

chop_sooie

Just revisiting this thread to see if Child uv Korn bothered to post the list of parts and associated costs that I asked for so he could prove his claims-- still nothing, Just as I figured. Amazing how little help some folks on here are.

MadMax07SL

Pictures don't lie. Price don't lie. It's ragged out. Paint is ****, seats are ****, broken center console, engine don't run, (Per: you), and that's just what we know; it's ragged out. Like I said, if you were doing the work yourself it might make sense, but if you're just going to pay someone to swap a motor into a beater, what's the point?

Slamrod

iTrader: (11)

Youll find very few people here that are willing to spoonfeed others, especially when that person is being hostile to them. You could easily verify the cost of doing a swap yourself, the thread i linked has stupid amounts of info in it. I have no idea about his itemized expense list but doing an HR swap for under $1k isnt a far fetched claim at all. But again, spending far above that is also not unheard of. Its going to boil down to the prices in your area, so relying on other peoples info on prices isnt going to yield much for you i dont think. Imho if you have a grand and are willing to do the work its not a bad deal. If you are not willing to do the work, or dont want to spend at least a grand, dont waste your time lol.

chop_sooie

As I said in my post that you quoted, the pictures don't show anything like what you are saying. WTF are you talking about?? Show me where the paint is bad- take my picture of that car, put it in Paint, and circle the area you're referring to. I guess it's possible you're thinking this is a sunlit sand when it's a sterling mist... or something... What nonsense. Other nonsense includes saying the seats are bad-- a couple very small tears which is a lot less than you usually see on these. And counting the center console as a sign it's ragged out is completely moronic. As for price, that can boil down to simply the engine being bad--there doesn't have to be a ton else wrong with the car to drop the value to $400.

chop_sooie

Well here's the problem-- I don't have much patience for people spouting nonsense, and there's plenty of it coming from other posters in this thread.

chop_sooie

OK I read up on your thread for your engine swap along with User1's-- I see where you said that the HR swap is not worth it if you have a running DE as it only provides approx 20 more HP, but if the engine is toast then go for it. Interesting as even I thought the HR might provide more additional HP than that. I also re-read where you said look for a later model HR (2012 or newer) as they don't have the oil galley gasket issues of the earlier engines. I had spotted a few HRs in my area on car-part.com but they were 09-10 models and the yards wanted about $800 for them, ugh. Anyways... after searching around on car-part a bit more I found a 2013 engine about 1.5 hours away for only $470. It has approx 123,000 miles on it though, but that's still not too bad and as you have probably guessed by now cost is what's most important to me (other than making sure the damn thing runs after I've swapped...)

Slamrod

iTrader: (11)

You definitely can use the 09-12 motors, its just HIGHLY recommended that you replace the oil gallery gaskets. You are already going to have the motor out and on a stand, so it really isnt that much more. You just need to pop the timing chain cover off to get to them. Personally I did not want to deal with that BS so thats why I opted for a 2014 motor, the fact that it had only 7,000 miles was also a factor though lol. Again the biggest thing here is whether or not you are willing to do the work yourself. Theres a bunch of stupid little things like grinding down some stuff on the motor, adjusting the cam signal plates, and swapping over the upper+lower oil pans from your old motor, that are all very straight forward and easy but I can definitely see a shop bleeding you dry to do it since its "custom" work. If you are incapable/unwilling to pull + install the motor yourself, doing those steps yourself would at least cut down on expenses greatly.

In a nutshell, unless you want to get your hands dirty, stop now and save your money. It would be much easier and likely more in your interests to find a better 5.5gen maxima.

krismax

iTrader: (15)

If you don't think it's fun to do this, and find it as a bother. I recommend you move on from the car.

I can't see this costing less than $1500-1800 without the cost of the car.

Some people are maxima specialists, you are not one.

People who can take a tranny out in 30 min,find engines for cheap.I can get DE's for less than $200 all day long.

Lovers of maxima's if your not . (i have loved these cars for over 25 years.)Don't bother.

If it's just a car for you ,move on.

If you don't get the *****'s looking at a 6 speed maxima .Like a WW2 tank rebuilder.

Don't bother.