I was in talking to the dealer the other day and much to my astonishment the sales man seamed to know a bit more than color options and MSRP's.

I'm looking for some history of the engine and drive train of the 350z. This is not the first car with the 3.5l v6 or Nissan's 6 spd tranny.

Can someone enlighten me, or point me to a good resource.

 

http://subscribers.wardsauto.com/Mic...1004&siteid=26

there you go.!

 

Let me give you another history lesson on the VQ. My brother is a nissan master tech and since it came out 9 years ago, he has not had to even pull a head off one yet which is amazing considering how many VQ's are in Nissan's line up.

Jeff

 

Thanks !

So then if this motor has been around for 9 years, why is the after market for the 350z seam to be just emerging? Sure the car is new... but the engine sure isn't. I'd think that a TT setup for this car would have already been designed... the pluming cant' be that different can it?

 

Well you need to consider a few things to truly understand this dilema. Initially, the engine was the VQ30DE and placed into the '95 Maxima. Although marketed as a sports sedan, it still wasn't sporty enough a market to get major aftermarket support, but it did alright. JWT, Cattman performance, and a few others were the only realy mod houses offering support for the Maxima. Most only offered exhuast increases, while JWT also offered Nitrous and ECU upgrades. Of course, there was $tillen too, but there is a whole can of worms with that story.

The 2k Maxima came with the VQ30DE-K engine and offered one major increase in the VQ performance, a Variable Intake manifold that allowed the engine to finally breath above 5500 RPMs. Now that the 5th gen guys had the power up top, a couple places started making variable intake manifolds for the 4th gen guys. Around this time,a few guys had started making their own turbo kits and more companies were offering cosmetic kits for the maxima, but no major company took on the task of developing and marketing a turbo kit. I "think" that JWT had tried it, but were unsatisfied with the results and scrapped it for lack of financial security. Around this time, JWT also created a set of cams that gave good performance gains.

With the 2k3 maxima finally came the VQ35DE, and the rest of the Nissan lineup following suit. Now that there are so many more vehicles with the engine, you have an "explosion" of aftermarket support, but not untill the 350Z was released, was there enough "sport" demand to constitute a serious turbo, SC investment from aftermarket companies.

I hope that helps. I'm not saying this is the bible, but it's my own memories and experiences with the industry when I had my '99 Maxima.

 

Awesome!

Now to finish it... the 6spd tranny. Who is using it other than the 350z and the G35.?

 

I believe that only the Maxima is using this tranny other than the Z and the G.

 

Eh? Did the Maxima turn rwd recently? How can it use our tranny?

 

doh! sorry, I meant to say that only the Maxima uses A 6spd tranny other than the Z and G. Although they are differnt drivetrains, does anyone know if there are any similarities between the FWD and RWD trannies?

 

Actually the 2001 Pathfinder/QX4 is the first vehicle to see the VQ35DE. In 2002 the Maxima/I35 and Altima recevied the VQ35DE.

 

Like I said, I was just serving info from memory, so I really have no idea about when the pathy got the 3.5, but the alti and max/I35 were definately 2k3 models.