This engine seems to have ample low end torque, but I'm interested in getting a steady surge all the way to redline instead of hp falling off after 5.5 or 6K. I have the frankencar intake and that seems to help, but I wonder if there is anything else I can do.

Hey a quick question, how do you like the FrankenCar intake? Any problems installing it and after install? My filter came with K&N filter.

I am installing it soon, just want to know how people on 2K2 with FrankenCar intake doing..

Thanks.

The install was fairly straightforward. The longest part was removing the stock intake. Some of the bolts were very hard to get to. I LOVE the sound, especially at WOT. The only thing I dont like is that I got the blue color and monster flow filter. Looks very rice boy to me. I plan to paint the piping black and replace the monster filter with a K&N, mainly for looks

I have nothing but praise for the intake. i too wish i could have had a black vs the blue. but other than that no probs. My question is what kind of probs do you think i might encounter leaving intake on if i took car if for serv. it is due for oil change(7500). also plan on changing to syn at 10000.

Paint it like i did. (Tube, filter, etc)

Hey soundmike, I've tried to open up your picture quite a few times and it wont open display for me. Any suggestions?

I think a little wet shot will do the trick for the extra ponies your looking for...

Which picture are you trying to open?
Anyway, just go to www.maximanet.org/gallery , 2nd page, soundmike's stuff. Look at the Frankencar Re-paint album.

Y-pipe would definitly help. But no one makes it for the 2k2 yet

You should get your car dynoed and see if it's a top end breather like mine and a few others If your engine loses power at 5500 RPM your best bet would be: intake, maybe a new intake manifold(more on that later), headers(when they come out), RT cat, cat-back exhaust and a reprogramed ECU(future). With all that good stuff we should be able to put down about 250ish FWHP and the engine would breath strongly all the way up to redline. In a few months we should have some new parts that will make these power gains possible. Also I have heard a strong rumor that stillen will be releasing a SC for the 2002 max

put a different set of cams in & make it switch over @ 5k & take the rev limiter out, theres your custom v-tec hehe

I just installed my Fankencar 10 minutes ago. I took it for a full blast run, and I feel more top end than I did before, besides the earth moving rumble that it makes. I think it even made my exhaust sound louder at WOT.. Is this possible . I LIKE IT !

Yeah, I noticed the same thing with the 2k2. After about 5500rpm, the car really slows, instead of pulling to readline. It makes me want to shift earlier than I think the car should be able to. I was messing around today and I feel like the car isn't all THAT fast. I mean, people are talking about mid to low 14 1/4 mile times and I'm thinking that I'm not sure if my car could pull it off. Maybe it's just me...I do suppose that the car does pull pretty hard at the higher speed levels, so maybe it makes up some gound then.

I think it's time to get the ol frankencar!

it's also time to hit the track and see

Yeah, good point. I have to see what day is open track at the Portland speedway. My GSR ran a 15.4 with an AEM, headers and RSR exhaust. Man I was ****ed. (The 17" rims must have slowed it down). I thought that car was fast...now I'm a little more humble!
My '85 stang GT ran a 14.66 with only headers and an underdrive pulley.

The stang was REALLY fast off the line...but slowed down a ton after 70. I think this is where the max gains it's time...because it sure doesn't feel as fast down low....

While not noticing any sort of high end loss, I've come up with a few ideas of my own on how to gain more topend power. Specifically, I was poking around on fresh alloy and this guy had pictures up of himself ripping apart his 3.5 to install a direct port nitrous system. Now, I'm not talking about nitrous here, but in the pictures I did get a pretty good look at the upper and lower intake manifolds. It seems to me that there is a LOT of excess material in the walls and inbetween the individual runners on our intake manifolds. Also, they are made of cast aluminum and not very smooth on the inside. I don't think it would be impossible to see gains of ~10-15 peak horsepower from an extrude hone port and polish. Tell me what you guys think.

Interesting. Please continue...

Thanks for the input. I had similar ideas of a port and polish. Also, as soon as WSP or whoever else releases the Y-pipe/headers for the 2K2 I'm ordering it. As far as cat back exhaust, I dont know. I would have to get a really quiet one....any suggestions?

I dont want to make a mountain out of a mole hill, but the VQ doesn't pull as strong to redline as my 94 SE 5spd did. Now, the VQ is probably a more well rounded engine, but I miss the pull to redline. The VQ3.5L has UNBELIEVEABLE pull from around 2800 to 5500 rpms, but after that it falls off a bit.

Emax95, actually, I do believe mine is a high end breather like yours. How else could I get such high trap speeds in the 1320? I plan on going over to Atlanta in a couple of weeks to a well respected Nissan tuner shop and getting a full dyno done.

turbo?

I heard that some NISMO stickers will really improve your top end.
Make sure they're big enough to read from 35 thousand feet. Best to just paint NISMO on the side of your ride in BIG LETTERS. Trust me, it works!

how much does this mod cost?!

Should be free with a complimentary punch in the face for ruining a perfectly good car

Buy 4 new camshafts from nissan and have them reground. ISKY http://www.iskycams.com/ and crower www.crower.com. Tell them where you want the power and anyother info you have, then they can make a cam profile to meet your requests.

I hope Isky knows what they are doing w/ cams that have to deal with varible cam timing and varible volume manifold tech.

I dont know how keen I would be to the idea of buying four new cams and having a company reprofile them for me, if that company is kinda a jack of all trades and doesn't specialize specifically in Nissan design.

They are specialist in nissan engines. Who do you think designed the NISMO cams or made the cams for the Z's that raced in the 80s? All you have to do is give them as much info about your car/engine as you can. BTW you will need a FSM to fill in the blanks. All it takes is alittle research.

That is easy the VTC can be disabled or ran off an adjustable rpm switch to optimize the aftermarket cam. The manifold's affect on the power curve would be *more optimized* with a proper aftermarket camshaft grind. I've seen good results from VG30DE and DETT's with aftermarket cams.

'

I was looking at the same thing the other day. That aluminum plenum that runs between the throttle body and the intake manifold could easily be accessed and ported or extrude honed. I wonder how much that part cost from the dealer? You could order one, ship it out to be ported and honed, then drop it in with no down time! Someone that has access to a dyno should try this.

Jesse

I would be interested in trying this sometime maybe, what kind of gains would I expect to get? It would be a expensive test.

Not much at all, an older VQ30DE IM doesn't see good gains with an extrude honed applied to it. It is reasonable to conclude that a VQ35 wouldn't see good gains either. Getting more power out of the VQ35 is going to be difficult. However with full intake/exhaust/UDP it should gain around 20whp over stock. After that point is where the $$ has to be spent on more power. Reground cams, headwork + valve jobs, higher compression pistons, and most importantly engine tuning. 2 things have to happen either one rewires the car back to a 95-96 spec ECU or get a standalone management. TEC, haltech, AEM EMS, speed pro are popular. There would be less downtime with just getting the cams reground (assuming you bought cores).

I guess camwork is the next logical progression, after a Y-pipe, high flow cat, and cat back exhaust to help the engine breathe as efficiently as possible. How would new cam profiles affect the ECU? Would you need a stand alone ECU with new cams? Would driveability be affected as well? If its all pros, I'll be up for that in about a month and half.

Your comparing two complety different intake manifolds and a some what different engine, I don't see how you can rule out the posibility of gains on my engine.

In a normal DOHC OBDII mass-air equipped vehicle, camshaft upgrades are plug and play. However, since our cars have variable valve timing I don't know how the computer would try to compensate for the altered valve lift and duration. This is a question for an expert for sure. Maybe someone should shoot an email to Crower.

As far as driveability, idle quality WILL suffer depending upon how radical the regrind. You can however, smooth it out with an Apexi Super AFC.

Jesse

Okay, I'll shoot crower an e-mail sometime in the next week. Its good that I wouldn't have to get a specialized ECU though. I know that gets very expensive, at least on Hondas.

I think the "bead-finish" on the inside of the intake runners are necessary to properly (evenly) mix fuel and air. All port and polish shops I've see leave the intake runners of the head (after injectors) with swirly groves in the metal so the fuel can mix nicely. I would think that the same thing would be needed for the Manifold runners. My friend ported and polished the intake runners after the injectors, and his car only wasted more gas and gave him 2-5whp max.

Another thing to take a look at is R/S (rod to stroke) ratio.
Perfect Ratio of 1.75 would yield beuatifull top end, less of that would favour midrange, and more of that would require astronomical piston speed to provide enough velocity to create sufficient/required torque. 1.75R/S also means (more important one) that there is least stress on the sidewalls of the motor at high RPMS.

Lets say x = Rod length, y = stroke, z = stroke difference between 3.0L and 3.5L. If Nissan stroked the 3.0L by "Z" units and still used the same block, they have to decrease the length of the rod by "Z" units. Stay with me:

R/S of 3.0L = (persay) 1.53 ... which would mean:
x = 1.76, y = 1.15

Lets say Z = 0.2 for example
R/S of 3.5L would be: 1.15
x = x-z and y = y+z

So R/S ratio also effects top end. I personally don't think that by unrestricting flow, you can get a ton of whp from the VQ. Thats just me.

Turbo is a good idea, but it will only increase power in the midrange safely. When designing a turbo kit, A/R ratios should be considered, ... if a kit will be mated with a high A/R ratio turbo (top end power) ... you will put the internals under stress at high RPMS, soon they will snap/break. IMO the best way to get the power out of the VQ is to not exceed 1,000RPM above torque peak (4,400RPM is the torque peak) ... Because Nissan has stroked the crank, piston speed will increase exponentially (not linearly proportional to the crank offset increase).

I myself am fighting a war whether to turbocharge the VQ or to supercharge it. Either way, the result is the same ... only 10psi or so can be handled safely ...

About Cams ... you can't just drop cams with different lift ... First of all, because VQ is so new, I doubt if anyone has the specs on whether or not valve springs will bind under any higher RPM. Furthermore it is not known (without some research) whether we have room ... again, springs will bind. I don't think that the computer will have any issues with bigger cams, it will act on RPM, SPEED, LOAD, and TPS maps it has regardless of the cam profile. The question should be focused on the clearances issues. Even if you get cams that have more lift ... no one knows for sure if increasing duration might cause the valves to hit. Dudes, ... cams are a complicated issue. Usually to make the engine breath better up top, more lift and duration are required. Thats being said, Crower makes excellent products (I've heard some stories about their prototype cams breaking in Hondas, never wittnessed it, but if this did happen, they've fixed it) ... Rods and valvesprigns are also their specialty. They make bullet-proof rods and I love them for it. Generally I recomend their products.

Hope that helped and that I haven't confused anyone. In any case I can be wrong, those are just my thoughts.

Laters,
~Andy

Thats the same predicament I'm in. I want to do the obvious bolt ons....Y-pipe, high flow cat, exhaust, etc very soon. Once that is out of the way I'll decide on either supercharging or headwork. Ofcourse, if Nismo comes out with a turbo or S/C kit, my decision is made for me.

Thanks for the rod to stroke lesson. Learned alot. By theorectically equalizing rod and stroke to 1.75, what kind of gains coule be expected? Just how far is the stock VQ3.5 off from this?

Another issue that has sprung my mind is flame speed. ... Because N/A (Naturally Aspirated) engines pack less air inside the chamber ... it will be less volatile and have lower flame speed than boosted motors.
As some of you may have seen, torque dives like a **** after 4-5k RPM ... I wonder if its the piston speed overspeeding flame front??? On honda engines (2.0L CRV ... flame speed is 11,000RPM +/- couple hundred. At this moment torque is 0. If you look at the dyno of a b20 ... its very similiar to a Maxima dyno except the torque dives after 6k. Those motors have a low (1.52) A/R ratio, ... and compared to b16 (A/R - 1.76) the b16 will keep 95% of its peak torque untill redline.

Something to consider.
laters,
~Andy

In the brochure it says the 3.5LVQ was bored out. It doesn't say how much or whether or not it was also stroked. Someone post the boreXstroke of the 3.0 if anyone knows. I think the 3.5L boreXstroke is available in the owners manual...I'll check tommorrow.

Jesse

Someone get me some specs on the motor "ALL THE SPECS" ... and I'll tell you .... this would also help with figuring out the piston speed so we can see how far the VQ is willing to REV safely.

I'm a Honda guy (grew up with Hondas) this is my first Nissan, but the basic principles are transfered, VQ is a very nice engine for midrange ... just like honda engines are good for top end. ... once you can find strengths and weaknesses you can exploit them. For exmaple, reving to 9,300 was a daily thing for me and my GSR motor. Si (1.6L would have no problems with 10,000RPM (still making power) providing the valvetrain would hold up.

I could realistically see the VQ making 300-400whp between 4 and 5k ... with a torque peak at around 3,500. Of course this means boost, but if approached right, the setup can be made safe for a daily driver. This would still mean more wear and tear on the engine. There are limits to everything guys ... 350whp is enough for a family sedan ... IMO anyways. .... FWD isn't going to help you much with more whp.

Now I can't sleep ... I went on Carpoint.com to find some info,
Here:
http://carpoint.msn.com/compare/choo...Maxima&pt=used
are the specs for both Nissans ... '96 and '02 they VQ was bored and stroked ... which could support the R/S theory ... This also means VQ has higher piston speeds at same RPMs than the 3.0L did ... more wear??? I think so ... Even at lower engine speeds, because the crank is so large it would exert (sp) more horizontal force on the sidewalls then the 3.0L crank would. ... almost makes me want to put a 3.0L crank with custom rods and 3.5L pistons (0.12" overbored), and supercharge the ***** ... this way I would get Valvetiming, and dual stage intake manifold with the added comfort of more top end power ... ... someone take my idea and run before i take it back

I'm tired now ... time to get some sleep ... hopefully this thread will continue

Laters,
~Andy