Ok guys, I have been reading the forums here for months and tring to decide the path to take on moding my car. I am a serious boost junkie, but after talking with a lot of people about it I do not think I will ever be boosting my Z with a stock motor.

I was at a friends shop on friday dynoing my eclipse, 313 hp on pump gas at 16 psi! Not bad for a 4 cyl 2.0L. Anyways, we were talking about the new Z and its VQ motor. This guy is a pro motor builder, you may have seen some of his work in tuner mags. He said the VQ motors use aluminum blocks without sleves. They have some kind of coating on the cyl walls and thats it. He has a 88 300zx turbo and loves it, but he said he just couldnt imagine having a NA Z.

My idea, and I didn't think to ask this guy because I just though of this. Would It be possible to have someone make custom sleves for the motor? Then the cyl walls would be very strong and able to hold boost. Then rebuild with some nice CP pistons and oliver rods. mabye see if someone could stroke the thing! ooogh that would be sweet! Is thier anyone on here that knows if it would be possible to sleve the block? A sleved VQ with forged internals and a stroker crank would be downright sexy. Hell even a NA stroker motor w/ high comp would be cool! Any ideas guys?

 

The VQ is sleeved, but it's also open deck.

Michael.

 

Dido. There isn't an aluminum engine on the planet without iron sleeves. Aluminum is far too soft for a cylinder wall: I'm pretty sure that if someone (at some point) didn't sleeve one, it ran for about 5 minutes before it seized...

I think the VQ35 will handle a good amount of power before you have add parts...maybe 400HP in a daily driver. How wild do you want to get?

Open deck might not be such a bad thing. I have an article (somewhere) on how they prepped a GM Ecotec (which I also believe is an open-deck block) to handle 450HP before it blew the rods out the bottom of the pan. They replaced the rods with beefier ones, then tried to shore up the block with a plate across the tops of the cylinders...they only ended up cracking blocks at 650HP. I forget the details.

 

trust me everything else will blow up before we have to think about the block. now throwing a rod through the block is a different story

 

you guys are crazy. I'll eventually boost my Z, but not until it gets some cylinder guards to prevent the cylinders from shifting, some new rods, and new low-comp pistons as well. I have no idea why everyone thinks it's such a great idea to boost an N/A motor without prepping it.

 

already enough said, i plan on goign TT with low boost, and replacing all of the internals after.

 

I have been around cars along time and this is the first that I have ever heard of cylinder guards or anything about cylinders shifting. What are you talking about?

 

as far as I know, this is a relatively new technique for strengthening open deck designs..

essentially, if you have an open deck and you want to run a lot of boost, you have an issue with the sleeves actually shifting within the block, because they are not securely attached, particularly near the top of the cylinder. One option is to completely resleeve the block in a closed deck fashion, with some coolant channels in the sleeve. Another option is to install guards between the block and the sleeve that prevent cylinder shift and still allow coolant to flow past. I've seen this done on Honda B-series engines, under various names.

One example is this "sleeve saver" for a Honda engine: http://www.acautotechnic.com/race.html

 

Ok, I get it now. Well I sure as hell will not be boosting my Z until I rebuild the motor. The stock compresson rate is too high for my likes on boost anyways. I don't know much about these fancy new motors, heh.

 

Well, I have to agree with this. Get a safe low boost TT first and see how you like it. If or when you think you need more power, then strengthen the engine. Strengthening the engine first will do nothing for power at all, and you will still have to buy the TT kit. Get a safe kit, then go from there. Heck, you might find that you don't need anymore power.

 

to each his own, but if you ask me... there is no such thing as "safe low boost" for a high-compression N/A motor. I've seen too many engines blow because they had bolt-on turbos with ****-poor fuel management. If and when I go the TT route, I will build the motor and install the turbo all in one shot. Since VQ blocks are in every Nissan car under the sun, I'm sure getting a cheap spare block to build wouldn't be too hard.

 

I'm waiting for the Greddy TT kit.... seems like they're safer......
I'll see how that goes first

 

Greddy is the Gucci of auto parts. Higher prices don't make thier stuff any better of safer.

If I go turbo I will be designing my own kit. Bolt up some mitsu s20g's and build custom IC pipes. I would probably use a secondary standalone fuel computer like the 034efi system I am using on my other car for its aftermarket turbosystem. Or mabye build a megasquirt or use the greddy emanage. I guess all I would really need are some well made manifolds made for the Z.

I have run 9 psi on a 2 liter 4 cyl motor with stock 9.6:1 comp pistons, it was fun while it lasted. And it didn't last very long. No matter how much fuel I dumped in and regardless of my fmic the thing would knock. boom boom. I am down to 8.8:1 with forged internals and it runs like a dream.

 

Tru dat, but keep in mind that not everyone has the resources (garage, tools, knowledge, time, ...) to build their own kit.

I would love nothing more than to get involved with someone locally who had the resources to do such mods.

 

It's true. Greddy's had a good amount of past turbo kits blowing engines on some applications. From what I hear, Greddy hasn't released the Z kit cuz it doesn't run right at all.

 

Yeah ChadO, I don't have a garage or any special tools. Well I do have a garage but its filled with stuff. I could do it in my driveway, the nehbors hate it, but whatever. I just put a new motor in my eclipse a couple weeks ago in the driveway. I have a custom turbo setup on my eclipse that dynoed 313 hp at the crank last friday, not bad for a 4 cyl 2.0 liter.

Thier seems to be a LOT of room for a decent intercooler behind that front facia. I will probably pickup a core and have someone weld it with the flanges in the most logical location. Then order the pre-bent pipeing that i need from jc witney and weld that and power coat it. The hard part will be the manifolds. Thier are a lot of great performance shops here in detroit, I can take it somewhere and have them make me the manifolds with the proper flange for whatever turbos I decide to use. Bolt on the manis and turbos, fit the air pipes and route them then have them welded, mount the intercooler and bam done. Then I need some kind of fuel management. I would probably use a standalone injector controller such as the 034 eic or the megasquirt. It would be ideal to use 1 large turbo with a collector manifold, but I don't see thier being enough room for a collector and a huge compressor housing under that hood.

Of course i would need an upgraded fuel pump, fpr and need to run some oil lines. I would probably install an oil cooler in the process. NA motors seem to leak oil after being turboed due to excessive heat.

FMIC $900
2 super 20g turbos $2000
air pipeing and welding $120
Injectors and controller $500
FPR and fuel pump + hoses $300
Manifolds ??? mabye around $1000, its a custom job.

I am going to wait to see what people figure out about this VQ35 over the next year or so. If i do a custom turbo on my Z mabye ill have the place make a quanity of the manifolds and air pipes that I could sell to people looking to do a similar setup. To turbo the Z properly its going to take a lot of work and some serious modification to the intake + a whole lot of tuning.