Its not necessary unless you plan to go past 7200rpm on a regular basis. As much as we b1tch about our "weak" oil pumps i have never heard of an oil pump failing under stress. Water pumps on the other hand......we could use a stronger version of those.

 

i mean if you are in there might as well already. what's another 100 bucks? plus even a regular 3.5 pump flows more than the 3.0 one.

 

My water pump is the factory original and has 189k miles on it and is 15 years old. I've gone through more transmissions than I have water pumps.

 

I would suggest keeping the 3.0 stock, and basically just doing the tune up with all filter, pumps, seals, and gaskets, fluids, brakes etc. If you are doing a 'overhaul' with new pistons, rods, springs, cams, etc. I would still suggest going with all stock parts, or only those from the manufacter or Nismo (Nissans race division). If any parts in the overhaul are damaged in some way like the cams and you have the DE-K cams readily available I would say use those, but you would want to swap over your intake/exhaust manifolds, exhaust, distribitor and throttle body too atleast. This would net you maybe gains of about 15-20hp at the wheels if done correctly. If nothing is broken or needs replacing I say just Tune, and balance your current engine, and if you are sick for more power, Get a high flow cat, some lighter rims, maybe a intake/y pipe too and this could easily make up for the 10-20 hp you would see by using the DE-K parts considering if you don't do it right then you basically not gain any power.

 

Same here, 239k miles and still original water pump. I only use Nissan's green anti-freeze with distilled water.
And for the AT, its still the original one to.

 

The AT was pretty reliable, it just had ****ty ratios except 4th gear.

The 5MT is a complete POS. I've gone through 3 of them in 180k miles. I finally learned my lesson and got a 6MT.

 

The DE-K exhaust manifold does not give you more power. No VQ engine has a distributor, at all. Balancing an engine that is already internally balanced will net you zero hp.

Stock 15 and 16" rims are already fairly light. If you really want to go light, you have to go with the 15" mazda rims. This doesn't net more hp though and it primarily just gives you more wheelspin and maybe 1mpg more.

Stock cat is already a high flow cat. It's not like the cats from the 70s. Why put on a y-pipe when you can do cheap ebay headers for the same price?

 

you 2 are driving around on ticking time bombs, prepare your anus for the reaming of the water pump repair.

 

I 'd. People watch too much TV with this Balanced engine crap. Next is blueprinting a perfectly fine block and expecting moAr HPs.

 

The only time a mechanic ever touches my vehicles is to do something like a software flash.

I have replaced one in a friend's maxima before. It was a pain, but not as bad as people make it out to be. It's not a 12 hour job, more like 2. I like the design of the water pump because it's lubricated with engine oil and if you break a drive belt, you don't overheat.

I did replace the water pump seals when I put in the HR pistons about a year ago. The impeller was pristine. Having an all-aluminum engine really helps the coolant and limits corrosion. My ford truck with HOAT coolant with an engine that has a cast iron block and aluminum heads sludges up pretty bad. The GM motors with dex-cool are even worse. The sludge is basically rust in the system, which is hard on water pump seals/bearings.

 

i dont mind working on my car and realistically the water pump is not a difficult thing to replace except......of course it has to be wedged inbetween the front of the motor and the frame rail. I dont want to bother changing my PS belt let alone the water pump, id rather pay somebody to struggle in there.