I was browsing epinions.com when I discovered that there are reviews of 3rd gen maximas. This particular review caught my eye (*clicky*). The excerpt in question:

"The reason why I bought it was because it had a problem with the VTC (Variable Timing Control). This part of the engine commonly fails on the VE30DE 3.0L V6 in the SE model. I repaired it by welding it into place (it had simply cracked internally, and would make a loud noise as it jiggled around on the end of the camshaft). This had very little effect on the performance of the car."

I had never heard of such a solution and found it very interesting. Also, this reviewer seemed to appreciate the attention to engineering detail Nissan put into the engine. I guess the 92 Maxima SE 5-speed really is God's chariot.

 

it may not be God's chariot, but it sure was "overengineered" as I read the other day. In grad business school, a few weeks back we analyzed the Harvard Business School case on the Nissan Corporation. It is extremely detailed (25 pages of 8 point font!) but very enlightening indeed. The author (an HBS professor) mentioned that the reason Nissan went nearly bankrupt in 1997-98 was because their engineers were hellbent on overengineering the cars. Yes, that was great for the consumer, but it drove their costs up so high that they lost track of the primary goal any publicly held company has--"creating shareholder value". Had Ghousn (the current CEO) not come to their aid from Michelin, Nissan may not have been around today.

The author also specifically mentioned the Maxima and the Z as being primary culprits. I was quite fascinated by that case!

Bottom line: Nissan's loss was our gain!

 

Interesting. I suppose you could use(provided that the key lined up for proper cam timing) the exhaust sprocket and eliminate the VTC assembly all together.

 

Or install a new spring in the VTC, and not to mention keep all the power that the engine was originally 'overengineered' to poses.