MaximaPower

iTrader: (3)

for the money, i dont think any can beat the VQ30.

i say be satisfied with what u got or fork out more money next time u buy a car.

Wisky97SE

iTrader: (1)

i'd have to agree with everyone about how the 4speed auto is the worst! At some speeds, when I floor it it DOES NOT downshift (I belive this is from a steady roll at 20-30MPH), and there is a small lag when flooring it from a roll. I think that an auto as sharp as BMW's in our cars would improve the driving experience 100%.

JeffesonM

iTrader: (5)

My mom's auto is absolutely no fun to drive when compared to my 5spd. Night and day. And the MEVI made mine fun all the way to redline.

Now my only gripe is the lack of ECU for 99's, but I guess that's not the engine's fault

bk2kmax

Yeah but they can make all the music they want behind me because that's where they will be and I won't have to hear it.

I love the fact that the VQ is so quiet, it only adds to the sleeper effect of the car.

SR20DEN

iTrader: (7)

I think i have an answer to the MEVI issue. Remember when the 4th gen Maxima came out in '95 with it's new VQ engine it was already the quickest and fastest NA car you could get from them with the Nissan badge. They probably had no motive to make the US Spec car any faster than it was. The only Nissan car that was faster was the 300ZX Turbo but the NA 300ZX was being shamed by the new Maxima. This was pretty much hidden from the general public. They probably did not want people to know this and had they slapped the MEVI on this car it would have made matters worse. A 4th gen with a MEVI will get very deep into the 300ZX Turbo Auto territory and that would have been a big PR blunder especially since the 300ZX sales were slowing to a crawl.

Kevlo911

iTrader: (36)

i need more people to give me info on the 5speed auto in 6th gen, but not many are responding to my post
if hte 5speed auto has same gear ratio's as the 5speed manual i think we will have more fun driveing our auto

SteVTEC

But an MEVI 4th Gen is only quicker than the USIM version above 80 mph, even at the 1/4 mile, and then steadily walking away after that. Remeber, the extra top-end on the MEVI comes at the expense of about 10 lb-ft of torque from idle to 5000 rpm which makes a big difference.

I don't blame Nissan for not putting it on the US-spec Maxima. It would have made the car even more expensive (when they were already hurting very badly financially) with little to no benefit (in stock form) to 99% of people out there.

SteVTEC

Search in the 6th Gen forum for a post by myself with "Performance" in the title and you'll see a complete breakdown of gearing between the cars.

Kevlo911

iTrader: (36)

thnx man

TurDz

iTrader: (3)

After watching the Stillen 350Z video, they mentioned that the VQ engine HP drops off at high RPMs. To car enthusiasts like us, that's a big negative. I remember the saying that it is more important to make more HP at a higher RPM. If you think of it as area under the curve (integral), RPM x HP would yield a greater gain near redline.

It really makes me think about getting the MEVI too...I don't mind sacrificing a little low end torque for a playful boost up top.

But overall I'm very satisfied with the engine. It's the best thing I can get at my age...

mitch33x

iTrader: (5)

I want top end very much badly, can't wait to install my VI

Frank Fontaine

I think torque has been mathematically explained about a trillion times on this forum. We all know the number 5252 by now. The bottom line is that the later you produce torque, say after 5252 rpm, the less your torque, ie less torque than HP. For example, in the ideal world, the new Maxima would have 265 HP and maybe 350 ft. lbs of torque. You know what, Nissan's math doesn't even add up, it calculates to 240 ft-lbs. Then again, their marketing dept. doesn't expect too many people to know physics anyway (take 265, multiply it by 5252, and divide that by 5800 rpm = 240)

Anyway, a friend summed it up really nicely--the American consumer buys based on HP ratings, but what they actually seek is torque. Torque is what keeps everything honest imho. Suddenly the 3.5L vq really isn't any more powerful than the 3.2l 1996-1999 M3, huh?

nismology

iTrader: (8)

The formula for calculating HP is TQ*RPM/5252 BTW. Yes if you make alot of your torque at higher RPM's, your HP rating will be higher than the torque rating seeing that HP is a function of torque relative to RPM. More torque than HP usually means crappy top-end i.e. the stock VQ30 and most LS1's etc. If you look at the dyno #'s of the members with the MEVI, the HP and torque are very close to each other. This translates into a refined powerband that is pretty even everywhere. I always like to say that the torque curve of an engine is all you need to see because you don't "feel" HP. The HP ratings sell cars, torque moves them.

SteVTEC

The Nissan and Toyota engines both have less peak horsepower than the Honda engine here. So most ignorant American consumers would naturally think that the Honda engine is the most powerful and will be the quickest, right? WRONG!

Because of SUPERIOR torque output, the Nissan and Toyota engines both blow the Honda right out of the water, despite the fact that they have less peak horsepower.



Peak horsepower sells cars. Total area under the curve is what moves you, and both the Nissan and Toyota engines have significantly more of that then the Honda engine does are are the more powerful overall engines. Top-end is only useful if you spend your days taking each and every gear up to redline. But these are family sedans. You need good cruising and off the line performance, and around town pep where you are below 4000 rpm most of the time. Unless you are a horsepower junkie or a hardcore drag racer, the torquier engine with better low-end and mid-range is better than a peaky top-end engine with little to no low or mid-range torque. ESPECIALLY heavy cars like these with wide ratio automatics.

My 2001 Accord V6 had the Honda J30A1 engine pictured here and it was sloooooooooooooow as crap. No pep whatsoever below 4000 rpm, and you constantly had to keep the thing manually locked in lower gears just to maintain ANY sort of performance in that car. Meanwhile the Nissan and Toyota engines have a 20-40 lb-ft advantage below 4000 rpm vs the Honda and are flat out superior for the scope of a family sedan.


Both the VQ and the Toyota 1MZ-FE engines won Ward's 10 Best Engines awards. The Honda J30A1 never won anything. I am not a hardcore drag racer, nor am I a peak horsepower junkie. You can take that top-end. I'll keep the torque anyday.