While doing a couple builds for customers we had the chance to compare the GTR's VR38 engine with the VQ35 HR. Pretty similar motors, though Nissan added a few nice touches to the VR38

More pictures on the VQ35HR vs VR38 Injected Performance Blog post

VR38 on left.

 

wow, lot more material around the bores on the VR38

tom

 

main difference seems to be closed deck vs open deck

nice pics

 

And it looks like more/bigger water passages.
And looks like larger head studs (openings), but that may be an optical illusion.

tom

 

Thanks for sharing Hal. With the power that you have made with an open deck, it makes you wonder why designs change when they do. I can see a high rpm boosted motor stressing the sleeves near the head and perhaps leading to failure over time - perhaps not entirely unrelated to Jet's current predicaments. Hmmm...

 

probably longevity, they want such an engine putting that horsepower to last 100K+

 

eh, open deck motors have been making big power for a long time with no issues. I wouldn't mind the larger extra water passages though.

 

Is the closed deck all aluminum? I thought there was some manufacturing limitation to casting an all aluminum closed deck design - read that a while ago though...

 

Looks like they changed the way the oil squirters are mounted, too. Instead of having oil run through the hollow mounting bolt and out to the squirters, it looks the VR has separate mounting bolts for the squirters.

Hard to see in these pics though.......and it doens't look like the squirters are installed in these pics of the VR motor.

 

any pictures of the rods in comparison ?

 

thats a nice looking block.

 

The VR38DETT has plasma liners, basically like a coating that is sprayed on, this enables them to a have an all aluminum closed deck, although it will need to be rebuilt at around 100k (rumored)

Great post and pics Hal, as stated the major advantage is the closed deck design, other than that, the HR is a great candidate for boost - more so than our generation motors

-George
GT Motorsports

 

interesting comparison. thanx for the pics

 

+1

 

Already sent them out to have forged rods made. We have another GTR block we will be tearing down for a build in the near future - I will be sure to get pics then compared to HR and DE.

 

That will be cool to see the DE, HR, and VR rods side by side for comparison. Who's making the forged VR rods for you?

 

Very nice!

 

Thanks for the pics

 

didnt happen to check if the stock 350z tranny bell housing matches up to the vr38 did ya?

 

Thanks for sharing this!