Assembly has started:
Today I put on the crank, main caps, girdle, bolted it up to spec.

I attempted to put in the pistons, but i don't feel comfortable doing so, so im going to take it to the shop and have someone with experience do it.

 

Quick update with pics:


Put in new ACL bearings and lubed them up with fresh new oil.


micropolished stock crank installed


Torqued main bolts, put oil on threads and seat surface (important)


Sexy picture, with pistons in, Rods ends/bearings were triple checked, then torqued down to 43ft-lb's (ARP 3/8" 2000 bolts).

 

^^ engine looks so clean I can eat off it!

 

That looks good enough to make your panties wet! or drink a LandShark lager, so I'll do that instead.

 

Impressive my friend, impressive

 

Update:
Bolted down both heads, cams. Put on the inner timing cover. Tomorrow I shall be putting on the outer timing cover, sprockets, chains, etc.. oil pans, and drop in the motor. Aaron as you suggested, i have been filling everything with assembly lube!, cams are all nice an lubed up. going to do the same for the timing equipment.
btw, when putting rubber o rings (for timing covers), are they supposed to have a lil coat of oil?

 

yes. all rubber o-rings gotta have a coat of some sort of lubricant to make a proper seal and NOT dry-rot with time. Injector o-rings for example, gotta lube em up. Everything in life is better when its lube'd up

 

Truth (except for injector o-rings which is mainly so they can seat properly) but I suggest NOT lubing the o-rings that seal on the upper oil pan.

 

I wet my finger n passed it around the o ring (oil pans, same with inner timing cover. should be fine.

The engine is complete. Everything is on, mounts and all. Now I just have to wait till the rain goes away and gives me at least an hour or two of dryness to put the engine in.

 

In my experience those oil pan o-rings can be problematic if they're not completely clean and degreased.

 

Good to hear. We expect start-up videos

 

the finna get oily anyways homie G dawg lol j/k

I personally always made sure the surface was spotless-clean so that when the orings (which went on with a light coat of oil) would get pushed against the block with my fingers, they'd actually stick so I wouldnt have to worry of them shifting when the oil pan went on.

 

The groove is enough to keep them in place w/out earl. And the thing with those o-rings is they're probably seeing the highest pressure of them all so it might be easier for the "wet" seal to be penetrated, ya know?

 

Everything is done and installed.

The good i guess:
engine idles perfect, starts perfectly, no smoke, a/f didnt even need adjustment (14.7). its all good.

The problem: It seems that there is(are) rod(s) bolts hitting the oil pan baffle. while engine is on, you hear very loud tapping, sounds like spun bearings from hell, but i know I dont have spun bearings. I took off the lower oil pan, turned the crank by hand and heard it tap the baffle, then left finger on it and felt it, something hitting it or scrapping on it, most likely the bolts on the rods because that's the part that sticks out the most.

Now its hard for me to compare with anyone considering there are very limited people with same setup or even built motors, but anyone have ever experienced this before? I am using the 3.0 oil pan as well as 3.0 baffle.

 

Sorry I didnt bother to mention it because I assumed you were aware of this. I know Mardi & Mexi had to shave/mod the upper oil pan too.

click on this link & scroll down to" BUILD DETAILS" Engine:3rd paragraph down.

http://forums.maxima.org/6140303-post1.html

 

That's gotta be giving you a heart attack - at least everything else seems to be working. I used the same ARP rod bolts and the same oil pan as you did, and no banging noises. I see a couple of possibilities here - you have a loose bolt(s) for some reason, or one or more bolts are too long to clear the baffle. Did you measure the depth of the bolt when installed on one of your new non-OEM rods? It could be possible that the upper part of the rod is too close to the center of the journal, so when tightened the bolt/nut is lower than OEM, thus striking the baffle. The bolt is too long for the rod - too much is left over and sticking down too far.

Of course, I'm just guessing here...

You may have to remove the upper oil pan to check this.

 

Well these rods already come with those bolts, its what everyone uses (in the vq35 that is), the 3.5 baffle has a different design. the issue is that the rod bolt sticks out to much. I took off the upper pan, and just like i predicted, the bolt was hitting one of the lips that the baffle has. Solution, i bent the damn lips lol. the rod bolt dosnt even have a mark on it, no damage or anything, here are some pics of baffle:





Also, i looked at my old baffle (one that was on when engine blew), and it looks like it was being hit as well, this might be an issue with most 3.5 swappers that use 3.0 oil pan. The section that was marked as if was touched (shiny) was towards the tranny, the area where the access plate is.
here is the pic of the baffle used on the stock 3.5 (3.0 oil pan and baffle)

based on the shape of the marking, I believe it is the weigh of the crank that caused that, if this happend to mine, im more than willing to bet that most poeple with same setup have the same mark.

 

That's good, right? That was a baffling problem - glad you figured it out and there was no damage. I was just guessing that the height of the rod cap that you used was a little shorter across the bolt, so that when tightened the nut would stick down a little further from the rod and hit the baffle.

But that was just speculation.... Glad you resolved your problem this quickly.

 

So i bent the baffle, turned on the car, idles fine n all. Wanted to ask, what weight oil should I be using? im thinking something little thicker than a stock 3.5, considering it has acl bearings which is not as exact clearance as stock bearings. iv seen alot of built Z guys running like 15-50. right now im using 10-40

 

Ask your machinest. My builder said 5w30/10 w 30 (non synthetic)will be fine during break in. Then I can use any syn blend I prefer after break in.

 

Use a good non-synthetic 10-30W with a break-in additive mixed in (like from Lucas) or the same weight Royal Purple Break-in mineral oil... which is what I'll do.

 

Sound good harol thats wat im doing except i put in 10 40, goign to change the oil again tomorrow.

So.... I started the car this morning, still idles fine. no noises, something very very faint, might be normal most likely. anyway i was slowly moving the car out of the back yard it was in, and turned off, spent 2 hours trying to figure out why the fuel pump didnt get any power, so i just bypassed the whole fuel pump electrical system and ran a 12v ignition source to it, started right up, car runs fine.

Drove it around a few blocks, varying rpm's etc.. i drove pretty good however while at a stop you can feel it shaking a little bit, dont know if its from the rings not being seated yet, and oil getting in causing slight miss fire, who knows. as i came back, i was also getting a good amount of smoke coming from front n back of engine (gotta redo silicone on the ypipe/header), so yea. questions...

is it ok for it to smoke a bit at first? perhaps alot of oil is getting in there due to the rings not being seated. someone give me some good news lol. I stopped driving it for the day, the smoke was scaring me.

 

I would imagine it would smoke a little bit as residue oil is burnt off in certain areas but not prolonged smoking. For peace of mind you could do a leak down test and or compression test to see what's up. Are there any codes perhaps, maybe a coil went bad or is going bad?

 

The smoke has gone down, it seems it was just oil that was on the ypipe/headers burning off. no smoke coming out the tail. Drove the car some more, and started to overheat.
now the new god damn problem is that the radiator fans dont turn on, all relays are good, all fuses are good, fans work when you apply direct power. Im getting tired of all this bull**** little issues man. Perhaps the ECU the one with the problems, first the fuel pump not getting power, now the fans, only thing i can think of. Other than that, the car runs fine, little misfire or hesitation it had at idle went away mostly, i regapped the plugs to a bigger gap(to stock).

sigh......................

 

I wouldnt open the gap on a boosted app to be honest. Deff try to figure out what the REAL problem is but i would lower the gap personally. I am running a lot smaller than stock on mine .

 

Man I know how you feel, my clutch pedal bracket broke and I went to the dealer and put my max up for sale, test drove a g35 and went home and welded the bracket and drove my car again next day told the salesman never mind

3.5 swaps are sooooooo worth it

 

I drove the car today, put about 15 miles on it, I bypassed the whole factory fan controls and ecu, and installed my own controller, basically a relay that has a probe and a ****, when it picks up certain temp (based on where you set the **** too), it will click the relay and transfer 12v to w/e you want, in this case to the fans(high), works. and its pretty damn cool, i just have to coordinate it perfectly with the tstat, but it works great.

So far, car feels good, drives fine. At idle is a little little rough for some reason, while moving, its smooth and feels great. i gotta figure out why its rough while at a stop.

I am getting oil dripping around the alternator/compressor, probably the timing cover, I gotta see exactly where its coming from, gotta take it apart.
Also still getting a little bit of smoke coming from the back/bottom of the motor, I am pretty sure its something thats still burning, like oil on the header. going to keep driving the car, tomorrow i'll change the oil, and keep driving. im so nervous everytime i drive the thing lol

 

I am getting less and less nervous the more I drive my VQ35 3rd gen. I have over 500 miles on my car now and am starting to trust it a bit more now. It's almost time I change my break in oil.

 

I hear you man, and I am sure you are fine. Minor oil leaks/dripping can be real common after the kind of work you just did. I am about to begin my build, let the headaches begin!

 

The man is working with flip flops! dont do that, if anything over a 1 lb falls on your foot. You will feel the pain! Guys be safe

 

LOL, thats only when im doing mild work. when im doing more serious things like the swap itself, n stuff like that. I get in full gear, a hoodie to block me from sun and be able to get under car (without turning my arms black with oils lol), long pants for same reason. etc.. i just need something for the face, cuz iv cought a few ratchets and sockets to the forhead lol

 

Ok, so a few things solved, I did my 2nd oil change (has 25miles on it), still had some metal shavings, so thats good that i did the second change. I found the problem for the fans and fuel pump not working, basically the Engine Cont fuse had blown (i must have shorted it while figuring out my wiring nightmare). I fixed the rough idle (raised it a little). Put silicone on the valve covers to stop their leaks. redid silicone on lower oil pan as well. so that got rid of a few leaks I had. I believe I still have a leak coming from the alternator area (hope its just residue from before), if not then its most likely the timing cover SIGH!!!!.

Here are some pics I took while I was waiting for silicone to dry.

 

Good to see u up and runing.. Hope to see U at countyline one day
oh and how much boost u running...

 

Right now it still has the same boost setting as before with the bad 3.5, which was 10psi. But im not taking it into boost till after 500+ miles, maybe 1 or 2 psi.

 

county line. ha ha, i hope to see a real 1/4 mile vid. the last 8th is when it should really be moving nicely.. 20 psi , lets see that vid soon ...

 

Looks good! I'm glad you are making progress.

 

A little update:

Im in 507 miles so far! I have gone WOT a few times, only 5psi ofcourse, feels pretty good.

My idle was pretty darn rough, lumpy, missing, etc.. I also had a misfire I was getting like at high gear in low rpm with some load, or quick acceleration. So I changed the plugs for some new fresh ones, made sure all the coils were in snug and plugged in all the way, discovered that one injector was wired backwards, although I dont believe thats a problem, it might have been creating a little inbalance in the overall injection system. I also did something I dont kno others have done but it works. I drilled a very small hole on the TB butterfly plate, this way i would have to turn the idler screw less, and less change on the tps. this seems to have worked to smooth out the idle. car is running great now (this is a good alternative for others that dont have an IACV).

 

im having the same problem with the misfiring, what plug are you using.

 

I havnt been feeling the misfire anymore (cross fingers), Hopefully its gone for good. I am not sure what may have gotten rid of it though, either new plugs, or making sure the coils were plugged in right, or fixing the injectore wired backwards.

The plugs im using are 1step colder, v-power LFR6A-11 (part number NGK 3672 at napa and discount stores), btw i have the plugs gapped at .035

 

LOL I have the same plugs gapped at the .035. I drove it today to work and it felt really good no misfire, but when i take off and put a little load it hesitates for about 2 second and takes off...