Johnnys024

Hello, first time poster long time lurker.

First off let me introduce myself, I'm in the navy, going on deployment here in a few months. I've had a few decent cars in my life but my 350z is by far the nicest

As most of the 2006 owners, I have the dreaded oil burn problem, the only thing is mine is extremely bad. My car normally burns around two quarts per 1200mi oil change.

The other problem I have is my Synchros are going out in 3rd, 5th, and 6th. Due to previous owners abuse. A tranny rebuild is a must.

After deployment I will have over $10,000 saved up and I wanted to get some ideas together to fix my baby / change everything


I've mulled some ideas through my head for the past few months and this is what I came up with.


With the new motors the cost I've seen is just the motor only, so that means I have to buy a tranny, ECU, mounts, and all of the other costs associated with the swap.

This vehicle is a DD!

Thank you for taking a look at my thread, I hope you guys can shed some light on my predicament.

John.

e30cabrio

iTrader: (30)

Thank you for your service.

I have a wildly expensive fully built stroker. If I had it to do over, I'd have gone the LS1 route with my short shifter and 4.08 FD & quaife and called it a day (with almost 8k in my pocket)

kacz07

iTrader: (15)

Do you have boltons yet? If not and you rebuild the VQ:

-pop charger
-3" maf tube
-samco intake tube
-Motordyne 5/16th, at the very least
-Motordyne Mrev2
-PPE long tube headers
-tune with UpRev (tuner version to control exhaust cam phasing)

VQ Rebuild:

Maintenance and oil burning fix
-machine work and balance
-pistons/rods, bolts, etc

Performance
-port match intake tract to heads
-valve job (mild gains, if any)
-valve springs and shims (for high rpms)
-cams (to wake up bolt ons)

I rev to 8k with an aggressive cam and make 300whp from 6-8k. It is fun. Check my build. I overdid it, but I am set for future FI.

The alternative is the LS1 swap kit.

hellman_x

iTrader: (3)

Get a used transmission, don't spend double for a new one.

SirSpeedyZ

iTrader: (10)

If it were me I would just go LS1 route

If you are gonna dump money into your car you have two options - FI or LS1
FI can be more $$$ and you could still blow your motor

If you stick with the VQ find a used CD009 tranny. I've seen them go for under $1000

good luck and stay safe on deployment

davidv

iTrader: (2)

I don't spend will have money. Seems no one is accepting it these days.

bmccann101

iTrader: (16)

got my cd009 trans for 500 bucks w 60k mi on it.

Deal with the added expense of 6 dollars a week on topping off your oil ( look at it that way and it sounds creazy right? I mean, no one complains about having to constantly refill that stupid gas tank)..nothings broken.
Then spend 2000 on a really well built moderate nitrous set up ( which you will get tired off just like FI) and save the other 7500 dollars you made while being deployed for our country to make a nest egg for yourself , so you can enjoy life, take a vacation, and not have any stress on surpise events in life that require you to pay unexpectedly.

Just the change in mindset alone to something closer to this ( ie making better decisions) will change other things in your life..

best advice i can give to a young serviceman. Thanks btw.

JCITY

iTrader: (2)

Take the LS1 route.

But,if it were me,I'd try a swap that nobody else(or few) have done.
Sure,alot of headaches.Will have to be creative to make it work.
Or,find a shop that has a wild streak like the guy in Tampa.
Something like dropping a twin turbo out of a Taurus.500-600HP
Mustang engine.Hell,the LS1 will get you there.
But,its been done!

MaelstrØm

If the LS1 has been well vetted, then go ahead with that route. Don't break new ground, it costs a lot of money. There are many cheap systems for the LS1 to earn even more power, so you're in safe territory there.

ImWeeZzel

iTrader: (27)

Depends what you want outta the car young homie? You want it running fine, reliable, cheap on gas? Replace the motor w/a warranty and cd009 tranny.

All those swaps you listed, your not going to be able to completing for less than 10k, maybe the LS series if you do the work yourself...

If you want build your motor w/ serious power, prepare to drop some coin on over priced internals+turbo kit...

My advice if you have your heart set on power, reliability, go the LS route, there are plenty of threads and members w/good advice. Thank you for serving br0

Johnnys024

Thank you for the replies, I'll probably go the LS1 route then. If I have any money left over then Ill throw some of it into the interior.

SLId3W4YS 89

iTrader: (2)

well, welcome to the forums for one, no shame in being a lurker, it keeps the stupid posts outta here I'm Air Force and finally coming home from my deployment its sooo hard to try and save when building a car...

enough with that, my suggestion personally - from what I assume and sounds like is that you have not really done anything with the car, if so, well hopefully its stuff Im mentioning. What alot of people dont realize is how much power they lose trying to put it on the ground, you could start there and give yourself an extremely good base for when you save up more and do the engine part. I would say get some good suspension to give a safe cushion

lets say;
decent true coilovers 1300$ - nothing crazy but good stuff
front and rear camber arms 600$
toe rods 200$
tension rods 200$
lockout kit 50$

decent suspension altogether safe range to say 2500$
plus your alignment, i got a lifetime alignment from firestone - something like 200$

so we safely say you have 7G left.
next I dont know what model you have, but I had the base - so no LSD. by far my most favorite mod, with this alone the car feels like a whole new monster I had mine professionally installed that would run you say 1200$ for the parts and a couple hundred for labor, so 1500$ and if you have one of the other models, wellll the viscous one can only do so much, and with the abuse from the past, you could probably use a dif one, heck if you really wanted, just buy a decent used one from someone on here.
now we are down to 5500. from here you can replace your tranny lets say 800$ to be on safe side and while you are at it, you said the car was previously abused, so I would look at a new clutch as well lets say another 400$ JWT has a pretty decent one in my opinion.
that puts you at 4300$
from here you can either do what bmcann101 said for the time being orrrrr, if its that big of a deal, just rebuild it to fix the minor issues at hand for now, and save the rest. It will give you more time to mull over what exactly you want to do with the car as far as more HP goes and what not. I am no pro, that just my $0.02

I understand the numbers dont really add up at all, but in the end that extra money you put aside for whatever parts can be used for your upgrades later and it just kind of describes what you will have in the end after everything is said and done with like one too many trips to autozone or beer and pizza for the bros on long nights messing with the car so on and so forth, you get the idea.

anyways if anyone else has input on this correct me if I am wrong on any of this, like I said All personal opinion.

Johnnys024

Hrmm, That brings a up a good point, I have been talking to my dad lately, he brought up a good point. I've seem to have forgotten he works at a Chevrolet dealership doing auto body work.

He says they get totaled GTO's and Grand Prixs through there all the time.
He said I could probably get a motor pull from one of those for pretty cheap.

I'll have to wait and see when I go back home to find out how much one of these will acutally cost me.

For those of you wondering, everything done to my cars was previous owners mods before I bought the car.


2006 magnetic black 350z
65,000 miles
Enthusiast package
AEM CAI
Test pipes with APEXi N1 Titanium exhaust

What I've done
New Exedy stage 2 clutch
New tires
New Headunit
Millions of quarts of oil.


I paid $11,000 for the car, which I thought wasn't the worst deal ever.