After reading about pulleys and trigger wheels, I realized that the OEM pulley has inner and outer parts, with a rubber ring in between to reduce vibration, I guess. I located the allen screws to dig into the inner steel ring, so that the trigger wheel and the inner ring (connecting to the crankshaft) stay together during any vibrations.

This method makes it easy to move the trigger wheel gap and lock it into place easily, and also to install a heavy-duty trigger wheel on your pulley by just removing the OEM bolt and using this wheel and bolt parts shown here.

 

The final thing needed to connect to the MS3-Pro (or most other ECUs) is a single cam pulse occuring before the tooth gap on the trigger wheel appears at the gear-tooth sensor. I think I can do this easily on the 3.5 cams used in a 3.0 installation, since the 3.5 intake cams have four slots on the end, which can be used to hold a thick steel washer with a large notch cut out for another sensor. I haven't made the prototype yet, but have included a few photos here.

I think I can drill out a stack of two washers for a pass-through screw going thru the large notch on the intake cam (left head in this case) and holding the two washers in place, since I found washers that fit exactly onto the end of the cam. Possibly the OEM intake cat sensor will work here - or another Cherry Hall-effect sensor will do the job. Dunno yet...














I also started tearing down the old previous 3.5 , because I was curious. It actually looks pretty good, but I'll yank the heads next, because I have at least one burned exhaust valve in the right head .

 

Nice work, love reading your updates.

 

Thanks for the good words... The present 3.5 (also with a burned valve) is going into my fav shop on Monday to yank the engine. I'm still stripping the old engine - all the timing chains and gears are off, removed the S1 cams, and just need to remove the 10mm head bolts and lift the heads.

Once I get the second engine stripped down and heads removed I can see if there is any cylinder damage on #4 - hope not, cause the engine was bored to 96mm. Lots of other work done as well... I'll need to figure out what repairs are needed on the left head, probably new valves, may talk to JWT about cams and cam timing, and a few dozen other details to resolve...

 

Welcome back and welcome to the 4.0 club! With the added displacement (longer stroke) I have a feeling JWT will recommend that you stick with an S1 type of grind or suggest a 4.0 Pathy type grind with higher lift and about 8-10 degrees more duration. 6800rpm is the very most you will want to see. I played it safe with 6500 and used the factory Rev limiter. Great progress on the trigger wheel and great to see your back in the swing of things.

 

Well, the BC stroker kit rev limits are 8000, according to BC, so I'll have some headroom there. Conversations will ensue... I'll start up and break in the engine on the 99 ECU, while I'm figuring out the MS3-Pro setup. The trigger wheel is mostly a done deal, but the cam sensor is "pending", although I was looking at the intake timing gears, said "hmmmm" and got out a digital micrometer and measured one of the large holes that circle the gear - 14mm hole, exactly. Hmmmm again - got on eBay and found a selection of super strong round magnets with different dimensions - like 14mm thick and 10mm long. So if I stick one of those in a hole in the right-hand gear and drill a hole in that side of the outside cover and mount a Hall sensor in the hole, I can maybe have a cam sensor working rather quickly.

The burnt exhaust valve had actually been "nibbled" away on the outer edge for around 1/4 of the valve - never saw that before. I'll still need a JWT valve spring compressor, so I'll order one on Monday, because I want to see the valve seat in the head.

So much to do - but plenty of time to do it, 'cause parts delivery is gonna be another 3 weeks for the BC stroker kit. I'll have the present engine out and torn down about a week after I pick it up, and stash the Land Shark on the trailer until the engine is finished.

EDIT: some photos from today. Side note - I used the HR head bolts and gaskets on this engine, with the usual 10mm allen head bolt, and I broke three Craftsman allen sockets off trying to get the first 4 bolts loose, so went to O'Reillys and got an impact 10mm allen socket, which worked great for all the rest. Lifetime guarantees don't mean squat if they break on the first use.

10mm allen socket - the good, the bad, and the busted...


















Ol' reliable S1 eBay cams













3.0 / 3.5 cam adapters












engine - bottoms up





A chip off the old 2002 block:






let's see - bumpier cams, more intake advance, lift, duration, 4.0 stroker, 3100 stall converter, Cosworth heads, ITBs, built RE4F04B with 4.4 final drive, E85, buckets of direct-port nitrous, MS3-Pro ECU - gonna need some bigger tires! Heh... (and maybe a couple of pre-paid Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free cards)


.

 

With the increased displacement from the BC stroker kit, I'm going to need larger injectors, going from the present 440cc to a set of six Bosch EV14 52lb 550cc fuel injectors for Nissan 350Z. E85 does require a larger volume of fuel, so this size should do nicely, based on the displacement increase from 3500cc to 4000cc, with some capacity to spare...

EDIT: I also ordered a neat looking valve spring compressor that should make it easy to drop valves from a head.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-HD-Valve...-/331551681873

EDIT - again, about 9PM. I got the compressor today, in the mail, so I went to my storage shed and picked up the stock right 3.5 head with a damaged exhaust valve on #1, brought it back, assembled the compressor following the pix in the ad ( !! ) because no instructions, but it went together with a little work and I compressed the spring, popped out the two clips and lifted out the spring, then tapped the valve out the rest of the way. Easy-peasy... The valve looks damaged, and part of the valve seat looks chewed and the bronze valve guide is partly melted off.

Warn your children of the dangers of NOS !!

Pictures tomorrow...

 

Burned (melted) exhaust valve: and melted valve guide...






hammered seat





compressor hardware - spans entire 3.5 head ...








the tool





melted stub of valve guide (cannot focus close into a hole)




Better shot of melted valve:




I also bought a full set of Viton valve seals for the Cosworth heads, once I get to repairing the one bad exhaust valve on #4 of the left head. Also ordered a set of tools to pull old seals (which seemed to leak a lot) and replace old with new. Still waiting for my shop to pull the engine, so that will be a week or two. I also talked to my Brian Crower supplier today, and BC is still waiting for CP to create the pistons (1-3 wks) and once BC has them, they need to balance the entire hardware collection, so 3-4 weeks before delivery, I guess. Gives me time to research cams, I reckons....

 

Here's a couple of photos of a new super magnet stuck in the intake cam gear and a new Hall sensor to test with the new super rare earth magnet. Got 10 of these from China and they arrived in 8-9 days!

The holes in the cam gear are exactly 14mm and so are the magnets, although the cam holes are tapered from the front to the back, so peening around the hole will be a Good Idea to keep the magnet in place.

I'm betting that the sensor won't even have to be close to the magnet to detect gear rotation!

( I also have a few exhaust valve seats ordered form Courtesy Nissan TX, and a +1mm Inconel exhaust valve from Supertech. )











Hall sensor

 

glad to see your back

 

Hey, it's nice to be back... or anywhere the sun still comes up in the morning.

 

you could always just machine off the factory lobes except the single lobe for cylinder 1

 

Don't understand what you mean here ??

 

see how the lobes(bumps humps timing triggers) have been machined off...the ECU only requires 1 cam trigger with the 36-1 crank wheel. Im setting my up this way but with this \/ crank trigger



check out his build its a buddy of mine over in Australia V30DET bluebird
http://performanceforums.com/forums/...My-New-Project

 

or you can just spend a couple extra bucks and get a Link ECU and not have to mess with any of the trigger stuff as it already has the trigger patterns programmed into the ecu. The exchange rate is pretty favorable for us folks on this side of the pond

 

OK - I see what you meant.. that is really what I'm thinking about doing with a magnet in one of the holes in the right bank cam gear, so I can keep all the sensors and such in OEM status for the stock 99 Maxima ECU in the car, and transition to the Megasquirt MS3-Pro ecu as I learn what it can do. The cam gear magnet with Hall sensor peeking thru a hole in the timing cover, along with the 36-1 trigger wheel I've already mounted on the stock pulley should let me control coils and injectors separate from the stock ECU and leave everything else alone - for now.

Question - is that a couple of extreme cam lobes peeking up on the rear of the left head??

Any easy links to the "Link ecu" ?? new one to me, anyway... it sounds interesting - and welcome to this forum.

 

thanks for the welcome (ive been a troll since 2012 lol)

Link is a very good ECU and is the parent company to vipec ECUs
but if you buy a link its in NZD so we get a instant "discount"
http://www.linkecu.com/
http://www.nzefi.com/products/engine...s-wire-in-ecu/

yes those are some mean little cams. He has a quality build going

 

Some new items to post, while still waiting for my shop to pull the engine for me - maybe this week !

Wirless Dell notebook computer and 23" monitor mounted above the engine stand location. This sure beats looking thru paper manuals for numbers.



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New Speedtech +1.0 mm Inconel exhaust valve, needed to repair the left Cosworth head.






New forged aluminum girdle for the mains using the BC stoker kit. It's required to clear the rods and the main caps need to be machined and then align-bored ... The splash shield in the pan needs to come out as well. The new girdle will use the existing ARP main studs - a good thing, because $$ ..

Brian Crower says the kit will ship this week, so Yea !

 

 

I had a long chat with JWT this afternoon, exploring some cam options, and of course I learned a bunch about VQ35DEs and cams and some other stuff. I hooked up with one of their race car builders, and after I kinda explained with I had and what I wanted to do, he skipped my suggestion of C8 cams and recommended the C11 intake and RZ1 exhaust cams for me. For a small fee JWT will do the machine work to clear the lobes in the heads. That's some big cams... OK..

Then he discussed the failings of the Cosworth heads (weird dual springs, heavy valves and retainers) and after some discussions of HR DLC lifters and HR head gaskets (I use both) we discussed how to use the superior HR heads (including the 2009-2015 Maximas) on my block and with the VQ30 timing chains.

Apparently the HR heads will bolt to my block and the gears and chains will work but the index pins in the cams may not be in the right places to time the cams for the gears - no problem, so JWT can grind me a set of cams to work with my timing gears and chains !! Do it all the time...

I'm going to locate a HR head and mount it on my other 3.5 short block (maybe both heads) and see what's up with this idea. On the JWT flow bench, the HR heads flowed better than any other Nissan or Cosworth head, so with a 4.0L short block, HR heads, and a super set of JWT cams and my existing HR intake parts and headers, I may not need nitrous !!

 

I vaguely recall someone mentioning this. Lol
Your build is definitely the proper way to go about doing the 4.0+ build as opposed to my lower reving budget build.

 

Yeah, if "the proper way" = $$$ .... Woops, I do forget - what was your budget build plan ??

Since this may be my last Nissan build, I'm trying to make it interesting, at least. I've found several sets of HR heads (they're all the same) at $500-$700 so getting a pair of HRs, cleaning and shipping them to JWT for cam grinding, cam clearance grinding, and maybe setting up lifter clearances on the cams, then bolting them on the 4.1L stroker block with HR gaskets will make a nice foundation, eh?

My racing contact at JWT wants to give me good data on proper long-tube header design including details on tubing stepping sizes for long-tube headers. I've built headers in my distant past, but I might have to buy the front part of a 4th gen Max to mock up something, and that leads to more problems with neighbors and city codes. I cannot find a suitable garage to rent in this town. Even closed gas stations are snatched up by used-car dealers.

Just got a call from my shop - the engine is out and can be picked up tomorrow, along with the rest of the car. I'm going to put the Shark on the trailer and leave it there until the engine project finished. Yea !!

 

I'd be interested in seeing the data for the long tube headers.

 

Me, too... I'll get to that when we make detailed plans for the new JWT cams. I have located two pair of 2012+ HR Nissan heads, so after I get at least one pair, I'll have that talk about headers.

 

I loaded my Max on my trailer with the 9000 lb winch and got the engine loaded into the back of my pickup. The car is staying on the trailer, parked in my storage lot, and all the extra parts from the engine went into the storage unit until needed.




The engine made it into my garage and I put it onto my good engine stand.






I brought the LIM back to the garage to eyeball, and I found something unusual about the injectors. They all had "black goo" on the holes, some worse than others - weirdness.

 

Oh yeah, old headers.. 1 5/8" at the flange, 3" at the cutout..











Carrillo H-beam rods:






The CP 11:1 pistons did not come with the purchased top thermal coating and the skirt coating, so didn't take photos, and didn't want to take the crank out of the wrapping yet, so pistons are going back to CP to finish up right.

 

There was more black goo on all the intake valves !!

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Off with the pan..






Carrillo rods, CP pistons, and ARP main studs looking at you..









Finally the front cover is off, and I'm stopping here tonight...





ARP head studs as well..

 

After the new engine is built and installed, I'm still going to have a built 3.5 L short block laying around. If the HR head project with JWT cams works out, then if I swap in 8.8 CR pistons into the backup block, I could then play with a turboed engine !!!

 

Today I removed all the VQ30 timing stuff ( with 2K miles on all of it) Then the back timing cover came off, pulled the $33 spark plugs, researched what socket to use for the ARP head nuts ( 1/2" 12 pt, it turns out), removed the cam caps and Cosworth ZK2 cams, removed the ARP nuts, removed both heads and then used a 3/16" allen wrench to unscrew the 20 ARP head studs. Whew. Now I am down to the short block - when I get the correct treated pistons from CP, I can deliver everything to my machinist.

Time to hunt down some HR heads, now. There's a butt-load of opinions about which HR heads will fit which blocks and why, but I think most of the opinions are based on exact replacement, and I don't give diddley about all the variable cams and cam sensors. I'm not going to use anything except the basic head, VQ30 timing equipment, and monster JWT cams ground for me.

EDIT: Found a definite answer for the HR head question - probably can include the later Quest vans, as well...

SurraTT
5.7 Gen Maxima


the 7th gen maxima motor has true hr heads.

its the exact same part number for maxima, altima, 350z, g35,

and even the murano, which i just learned. hmm

 

Actually, I ordered a nice pair of HR heads w/cams today, and should be here in a few days, like Oct. 12th.... Since I have a nice bare short block just sitting around waiting for another set of CP pistons to arrive, I'm gonna put the head studs back in the left side and bolt that HR head down and make some measurements, then get out the VQ30 timing parts and bolt them to the HR cams, then spin the cams with a really loooong Harbor Freight wrench - well, can't do that unless I put all the cam timing stuff back on, but I can check the gears and chain fit to see if this is even possible.

 

Here's some good info on a HR headed VQ with 3.0 timing if you haven't seen it already.

https://maxima.org/forums/all-motor/...-0-timing.html

 

Thanks - apparently I've seen this before, because I made a few posts in that thread, but that's been a while back and I didn't remember it. I see why my contact at JWT said that he could build me a set of C11/RZ1 cams drilled for the VQ30 timing gears - obviously he's done this before. Dang - cam lobes so big that the head (and covers) have to be clearanced for the cams - and they have C12 and C13 cams hidden away. This is gonna be fun !!

Good information - Thanks again..

 

BC sent me a shipping label so I can return the bare pistons for the coatings I paid for - they went to UPS today and will ship to BC tonight. I went ahead and removed the flex plate from the short block and hoisted it down on a roll-around cart, then strapped it down for transport. I'm going to call my machinist tomorrow and see if I can deliver it right away so they can get to work on the crank and rods and girdle, since you don't need pistons for most of that, so some time can be saved. I'll deliver the pistons when I get them back.

The HR heads should be here Thursday, but sometime this week would be great. I'm pretty excited about making them work with JWT cams on the stroked block.

I do have the other short block to use for HR head measurements and mockup, so no time wasted here....

 

I delivered the short block and the BC crank, billet girdle, and H-beam rods to Performance Machine in Manhattan KS. The owner agreed that they could do most of the work before the coated pistons come back from BC in California. No schedule yet, but it's in the queue. Yea !!

The shop owner is a racer from way back, fuel dragsters and funny cars, competed in AHRA, ran against and beat Don Garlits once (with photo) and has completely restored several classic cars (ex. 67 BB Vette) and is working on a 55 in his spare time. I only do bidness with racers.

-------- HR heads are out for delivery today !! ---------

 

They were certainly well wrapped in bubble wrap. I set the damaged Cosworth head (left side) on a work table and set the left side HR head up there for comparisons. The HR cams were installed, so I could try on the 3.0 timing gears and cam chain. Everything fit just right, near as I can tell after a few minutes of fiddling.

Cosworth burned-thru exhaust valve on #4. This is gonna take some welding and machine work to repair. Big ol' valves in there... the Cosworth heads may be obsolete if HR heads work out.






Apparently the HR engine has a different location for the crankcase dipstick, but... there is a rubber plug in the dipstick location - and it comes out so the VQ35DE dipstick can be used!






Hole showing plugged dipstick channel. Remove the plug, stick your dipstick down the hole..







Since I probably won't be using the HR cam sensors, taking off the mount for the cam sensors gave me another idea - comparing all the other bolt holes for the valve covers shows that they are the same as the VQ35DE/Cosworth holes, which may mean that the older valve covers will work. Sure look the same.. I'll test this tomorrow.

Of course, grinding off all but one bump on an intake cam bolt-on lobe would give me a way to get one cam sync pulse for the Megasquirt MS3-Pro ECU.. Hmmmm.... I could drill a new hole in the back of the head for a Hall sensor easy-peasy...












Cosworth titanium valve retainer - I'll remove that bad valve tomorrow to see what's left in there.






I have quite a few long 6mm stainless pins for cams left - will need longer pins for the 3.0 timing gears. It's up to JWT to drill the new cams for the pins in the right location.







The water plumbing on the exhaust side of the left head seems to be different between the older DE head and the HR head, so another problem for tomorrow. Need to eyeball the back of the heads as well...

Cosworth/DE water connection:







HR head water plumbing:

 

The last photo showed the only difference in the water discharge from the heads - an extra hole. I decided to plug the hole - it mikes as just under 8mm, so I found a drill and tap to let me install a 10mm x 1.50 allen screw into the hole, and did it.

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I hope that's all that needs fixed in the "water department".

 

The rear cam bumpy thingies hit the old cover so that it won't bolt down - they can be removed, which doesn't matter much because the front cam tower is drastically different between head types, so the heads are still going to need the correct valve covers. Darn....

 

I washed down both heads in a plastic bucket with gasoline to get all the oil off. I poured gas down the cams to flush oil in there, and used an old paint brush to scrub everything, rotated the heads around to remove as much oil as possible, then turned them up on the exhaust side to finish draining and drying in the sun. Later I sprayed the cams and mounts with WD40 to prevent rust from forming tonight. JWT does not want oily heads delivered to them - California laws ???

I think I'm ready to contact JWT on Monday and prepare to ship these heads to California for cams and machine work, and maybe get them to install the correct DLC lifters as well. I'm going to offer to send a complete set of 3.0 timing gears if needed to get the cam holes in the right place.

 

That's too bad on the older valve covers. I was thinking about removing the bracket and closing the holes in the valve cover off with some plastic and JB Weld. For a little less hassle, you can get 07+ altima valve covers as they will only have one opening in the valve covers for the intake cam sensor.