Fred Allen Burge

It's time for episode 3 of "Has anyone noticed that..." some FWD VQ35 heads are drilled with symmetrical exhaust manifold stud holes? I noticed this last night when I had my motor out and was playing around with different manifolds. I'm using RWD Z manifolds on my RWD project and was trying to figure out a way to flip the Z manifols around to fire them forward for turbo use. Come to find out my heads have 4 holes drilled and tapped for each exhaust runner meaning that I can run any VQ manifold right side up or upside down simply by moving the manifold studs around!

This is significant when you want to turbocharge because it starts to open up a lot of possibilities for manifolds.

Also, I realized that FWD VQ35 manifolds are about 2" or so shorter then FWD VQ30 manifolds.

If I had a FWD VQ setup I'd run two RH FWD VQ35 stock manifolds flipped upside down with a Y pipe coming around the LH side of the engine bay connecting at a turbo above the tranny.

OR a set of RWD ebay type tubular headers meant for a Z flipped upside down and modified to clear your radiator if necessary (I intend to use this method for my RWD project BTW).

Anybody tried this?


P.S. I don't know why but about half of FWD VQ35's I've seen do not have symmetrical bolt holes, it appears that all RWD VQ35's heads do.

Fred