Well it was supposed to be a secret but my girl decided to let it out early. I bought her a max with a blown head gasket for $1000 and we kept going back and forth about which engine should go in. The day before we were about to buy a vq30de I decided to check with a friend that owns a junkyard to see if he had a 3.5 and it was just my luck he had only one left. We bought it for $500 without a throttlebody and picked it up the next day. I started ordering all the parts we needed for the swap that night and the last thing was delivered yesterday. We started slowly taking things apart during the week and on friday we only had to remove the axles, exhaust, tranny and pull the motor and we finished it all up with time to spare. Today we worked on the most dreaded part of the swap the timing equiptment. We got all of the timing stuff off the vq30 and began taking off the timing equiptment from the vq35 but got stuck when I didnt have a big enough wrench to hold the cam still while turning it. So we quit for the night and will pick back up tomorrow. I still have to work on converting the throttle body which has already been a pain. I was hoping to have everything done today but it never works that way. I'm just glad we havent run into anything major yet. Here are pics and if you all have any suggestions or things I need to look out for pleeeaasseee let me know. Also if you have pics of your converted TB please share. Enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

TB conversion Progress

 

So your converting the DBW to Cable ?

 

Yup not fun

 

man you sure do take a lot of pics as you did for your 00vi swap lol.
looks good man wanna do a swap for me as well?

by the way, what kinda struts are those? they don't look stock...

 

Looks good mang! You'll love it once it's all in.

 

looks good so far

 

Looks like KYB agx...

good job on the swap so far.

 

24mm wrench on the cams I believe, at least for the VQ35; no idea if the VQ30s are the same.

 

NICE job so far aj & great pictures as usual man. Can't wait for finished pics&videos

 

good deal, jobs looking nice!

 

I am in the process of converting another tb

I'll pic a pic of the tb on my car and the one I am doing to give you some idea's

 

Cool thanks man. We just got the 3.5 timing cover off and are scraping the factory sealant off as i type. I took a few more pics that i'll post later since the sun is going down. I used a 15/16th wrench to get to hold the cam. I'm about to drill out the holes on the timing cover in a second.

 

Cleaning those timing covers is a complete and utter PITA. I've done probably 20 or so of those things...the inner cover is 10 times worse than the outer. Doublesided POS.

Get that TB done yet? Remember, $40 or some drink...

 

we'll be talking in the near future AJ, i knew you knew a lot... but a VQ35 swap, you a genius foo lol... hook a fellow DCmax head up, i'll pay, plus you can have my DE-K

 

Nice work man. Thanks for sharing the pictures with us.

The 3.0 looked like it suffered......the oil must have not have been changed very often.

 

process looks to be going well young grasshoppa

 

Yeah whenever I see people do swaps like these I always hope to see pictures of how its done but rarely are there any. So I decided to document any big project I take on to help out people that might be looking to do the same project in the future.

So far I'm thinking this will be a one time thing. A 00VI swap is cake compared to this. I think if the axles werent such a ***** to get out it wouldnt be so bad. My car wont be getting a 3.5 anytime soon, this is a bit much.

The struts are adjustable kyb's and H&R springs. We bought the car like that haha. I think the previous owner put kyb strut mounts on it also.

 

I let my girl clean all that and take pics since she wanted to help.

If I cant get the TB to work then its all yours.

 

hooooold on 1 sec... so the 3.5 is going in your girls car????

hmm..she > you lol

 

Beleive me I'm no mechanic and if it werent for the instructions on nycmaximas and help from other orgers I would not be doing this . I'll be glad to help if you decide to do it though.

 

Yeah the oil looked like milk chocolate where the coolent mixed into it

 

LOL naw i'll make sure I'm always at least one tenth faster than her even if i have to sabatage her car.

 

Well today didnt go as smooth as the others and we began making small mistakes. First mistake was that my bro drill the hole on the left side of the inner timing cover the wrong way so when we went to put it back on of course it didnt line up which took up more day light. Then we put the cam guides on the wrong sides and didnt realize it until i was putting the valve cover back on so those have to come back off. Next we missed two small spots that were supposed to have liquid gasket on the bottom part of the engine and didnt know until we started bolting the inner cover on so we might have to take that back off too. And finally the biggest mistake of all time we didnt separate the screws so theyre all over the place . I started looking at the tightning sequence in the fsm and saw that the inner timing cover has two different size screws ftl. I'm hoping my girl can separate them while i'm at work tomorrow. I'll update this post with pics in a second.

 

Yes that was cleaned.

 

AJ damn good so far man.

possible recommendations...

beer :-D. nice cold beer LOL

 

I don't want that TB back

 

hey new pic's are not working, and are you using the 3.5 or 3.0 oil pans

I took the pic's my camera's not the best but hope they help these are from the tb thats on my car and another that I am doing for a future build, btw just thought of something I think is not on the taverish writeup. you are going cut some of the insulation on the rear part of the harness so all the connecters reach and the upper intake fits nice. another thing is you'll need to extend the tps wires alittle, mine fit but they were alittle too tight for my liking

 

Naw I meant I'll let you convert it for me.

 

I'm using the 3.0 pan. If I use the 3.5 I have to shave part of it off correct? Also I have to use the 3.0 cps with the the 3.0 pan right?

Ok cool I'll make sure to remember that when we get that far. I think the one thing about the tb conversion that I dont know is how to make the little peice that turns the inside of the tps.

 

good progress. Make sure you are careful with your brake lines. You may want to take your calipers off or prop your rotors up....just a suggestion, it really looks like they are being pulled on.

 

I noticed that when I was going over some of the pics yesterday. I'll put a bolt in the strut to hold up the hub after work. Thanks.

 

damn....been real busy. did even know. Call me when you go back at it.

 

Will do.

 

hope this helps, that little peice comes off the 3.0 tb, if any of the pic's don't help tell me and I'll delete them so I do not junk up you thread

 

here are some pic's of another tb I am working on