Waow, insane work, good job

 

Driving that beast around the Cayman Islands must be a blast!

 

Somebody should put that drive train in a Frontier, and throw on those wheels too!

 

Well seeing the VK swap running made me find some ambition for the Z again. Got the motor reassembled and started on the new intercooler & piping.
Plan is to have everything buttoned up after work this coming week and ready to drive next weekend.

 

Tomorrow I'll be finishing up all the small loose ends and hopefully cranking up to break in the motor

 

It lives! Man I forgot how fast this thing is! Rings are seated and the first oil drain is looking good.
next steps are dialing in the tune and then getting it repainted and a Nismo v1 front bumper after the Frontier arrives.

 

Drove it to work today, no issues at all on the drive. There is a strong scent of fuel coming from the fuel pump hanger, snugged the bolts down some more, if that doesn't fix it I'll need to order a new o-ring for it.

2nd gear 60-70% throttle when the boost comes in the 325's can't keep up lol. I have Cooper Zeon' RS3's on it, figure there was no point in any sticky tire since they would just lose traction at higher limits. There is no tire that's going to keep up with this kinda power on the street anyway.

Once the track opens back up next year we will see if I can finally break into the 6s in the 1/8th.

I had to make sure the line lock worked on Sunday 🤣

 

Fuel smell appears to be a torn O-ring on the factory feed line connector at the top of the fuel pump hanger, which is now the return. I have some new quick connect fittings and some -6AN that will be replacing it tonight. With the fuel smell gone I MAY be able to take the wife for a drive, I know the car is too loud for her and the fuel smell doesn't help.

 

Fuel smell fixed, but it seems after giving the car ZERO attention for 2 years it is making up for lost time. The starter has failed. Getting some help to push it into the garage tonight and get to swapping it out

 

So I’ve been driving it, it’s been behaving for the most part. Got an OEM GTR map sensor in there so I finally know that I’m running 13psi.

It has a horrible horrible exhaust note around 3k rpm so I decided to try a 1/4 wave resonator. It's working perfectly, car still has that VQ rasp but the noise right around 3k rpm has been canceled out and it sounds more GTR'ish.

It worked perfectly

 

Much has happened. Mainly the head gasket has popped so out comes the VQ........again

I am recouping some money selling off the turbo kit, internals and some of the fuel system.

I refuse to keep doing the same thing expecting a different result so, it's LS time. I found an 84k mile drive train out of a Camaro off ebay to repower the Z. Plans are to get somewhere in the 475-500whp range NA and spray it with another 150 or so at the track.

90% of the swap stuff will be here by August, lots of back order and logistical challenges.

 

Much has happened. Mainly the head gasket has popped so out comes the VQ........again
View attachment 352001

I am recouping some money selling off the turbo kit, internals and some of the fuel system.

I refuse to keep doing the same thing expecting a different result so, it's LS time. I found an 84k mile drive train out of a Camaro off ebay to repower the Z. Plans are to get somewhere in the 475-500whp range NA and spray it with another 150 or so at the track.

View attachment 352002

90% of the swap stuff will be here by August, lots of back order and logistical challenges.

Woah... this is gonna be cool. Just found this thread - gotta go back and read the whole thing. Looks like you've done a lot... (understatement)...

 

The hits just keep on rolling. Finally got the engine home this week and got it on a stand to find the push rods on cylinder 4 pushed up past the rocker arms. The trunnions failed but luckily the head/valves and pistons are ok.

I have to order some more parts but I did manage to get the crank scraper, oil pump and cam installed. I'll get the rear galley barbell from improved racing installed tonight so I can seal up the bottom end with the sikky oil pan.

Trunnion failure

Pulled the bolt right out of the head, which means helicoil time

Crank scraper and windage tray. Since it's staying N/A I'm trying to do all the little efficiency things to help out.

Ported the ridge out of the throttle body, same as what I did for the one that went on the VK.

No pictures of the cam or oil pump install since that's pretty boring.

 

Last night I got a few things done. Installed the oil pick up tube & brace, oil pan & filter adapter block, oil gallery barbell and lastly the LH engine mount.

The RH engine mount bracket requires a little grinding/cutting on the AC compressor bracket.

Oil gallery barbell from Improved racing, it doesn't allow the oil to bypass the filter like the stock one does.

Another small Improved Pacing part, oil pick up tube brace. Not sure why even the aftermarket tubes don't use both mounting bolts.

Pretty slick how they designed this adapter block, it bolts from the engine side with copper crush washers and there's no room for the bolts to back out. I still used some blue thread locker though.

The oil pan required one allen head bolt for clearance up front but the stock bolts went back in for the rest of the locations.

Highlighter green is now my favorite color

 

Confirmed with Sikky that the AC bracket does need trimming so that got the chop!

You can spot the Hawk Motorsports low profile fitting block. Not sure I need it but it makes plumbing up the lines easier since I don't have to cut and weld to the stock thin wall tube.

Sikky 12" long shifter relocation and 8" tall shifter stick. I think most of the weight gain from the LS swap is from this piece, its solid!

My card board aided design shroud. Got the top and bottom edges bent at the machine shop, I'll be bending a 3/4" strip for the sides then figuring out a mounting solution.

 

I'm sad to see the vq go..... I get it though, it's a much cheaper world going ls. I'm now going to get my box of tissues and sit on the couch...

 

I am sad as well but It's just not reliable past a certain power level. If I wasn't so greedy and could settle for 600whp/450wtq then it would be fine on the stock VQ37 long block.

I prefer to keep to one manufacturer, a bit of a purist but I refuse to "pioneer" a VK swap and force my self into hours of labor for headers (i hate building headers) and figuring out wiring only to be stuck with Uprev. At the end of the day I couldn't argue with the bolt in, plug and play solutions that the aftermarket has provided for the LS

 

You had a built engine right? What was the next step to handle the extra power, billet or sleeved block or something? Also, im happy you moved out of the insanity boat, im still there.

 

Just had a look at mazworx. How much power can that stage 2 block handle?

 

They say they have it figured out but they still have head gasket sealing issues. If mazworx can’t make it work I have a hard time believing anyone else can

 

the built motor was open deck, the closed deck conversion helps but the head fasteners are an issue. Even with the closed deck and whatever stud/bolt the heads lift.

 

And that was lifting around 600?

 

Nah around 900 or so. There’s a thread on the370z by a guy named spooler that’s been really open documenting his built motor trials. Long *** thread but the info is in there
The stock vq37 will do 600whp reliably once torque is kept in check and under 450

 

Sorry I haven't updated this. I got the LS in for some mock up work.

The new radiator support and tow bar. It's made from 1/4" plate, 1 1/4" and 1" tubing

All of the coolers mocked up and mounted in their new home. I intend to be able to hot lap the car at the 1/8 mile track so it got a 34 row oil cooler, 10 row transmission cooler and a 7 row powersteering cooler. The intake is a modified Sikky tube to get down in the front bumper area.

Shot from above showing the expansion & reservoir tank combo as well as the VTA catch can I made. The radiator itself will have a 0psi cap and the bleed nipple will go to the expansion tank, the other 4an hoses are from the steam ports.

The rear of the expansion tank has a 12an bung that connects to the 3/4" heater hose nipple on the water pump.

Oil cooler plumbed to the thermostat/relocation block

Fuel feed line ran, I had to convert to a dead head setup with the regulator which barely clears in it's original location.

All in all the Sikky kit made it pretty simple, I did have to BFH the top of the transmission tunnel to clear the shifter relocation assembly and 2 spots on the secondary fire wall.

 

Been a while for updates on this one. I had a customer car on my lift for the past 5 months so my Z had to sleep outside for a while.

I installed the drive shaft so that I could start mocking up the exhaust.

Cheated a bit and used a prefab X pipe from Pypes. It's 409 and not 304 like the rest of the exhaust but it saved so much time.

Finished up the passenger side last night, once I get the last part tacked the real fun starts, the compound cuts I'm going to have to figure out to get the exhaust cut outs to bypass the muffler and exit through the exhaust tips are going to be such a pain.

Lastly I got the clutch slipper lines bent & flared. Mounted it and also plumbed it to the clutch master.

 

My brother got me some purge plugs for christmas so I tried them out boxing day and finish welded the mid pipe. Ironically I still had to use foil on 2 ends since I only had two 3" plugs.

A view of the cutting and BFH'ing required for the sikky swap kit and a TR6060 manual transmission. The cut at the top of the transmission tunnel was needed to clear the larger bell housing, I have a template to cut some caps for the holes. The secondary fire walls need some massaging for the heads and the OEM coil pack's & brackets.

One of the rocker arm mounting points got stripped out when whatever went down, went down. I did re-tap for a helicoil but I managed to **** that up and didn't get the 2 inserts aligned properly. The insert at the bottom of the hole caught on the valve spring compressor bolt, so now I have to hope I can EZ out the helicoils.

Comparing the new BTR dual springs & Ti retainers to the unknown beehive springs and steel retainers. I think the old stuff was from Howard since it had a cam and push rods from them.

I decided to remove the other cylinder head and continue on changing the valve springs. The BTR shaft rocker conversion and Summit HDR push rods went in with a new OEM head gasket. There's a million reviews for each style but after seeing the bronze bushings I pressed out worn and shot to ****, I am glad the BTR kit uses needle bearings.


Tools wise I used the Trick flow valve spring compressor (p/n 90307) and Summit trunnion bearing installation kit (p/n SME-906011), I know you can do this with sockets but having the stop built into the tool so you don't press the bushing too far in made this so easy.

Wiring specialties wired up a 4 pin alternator connector even though I specified everything was from a 2011 Camaro. Waiting on their reply as to my options for converting to a 2 pin, if it ends up a pain in the *** I'll just buy a 4 pin regulator/brush holder and swap that out.

 

Glad to see some progress on this one! Welds look awesome man! How much power are you shooting for? If your old vq setup was stuck around 800, I would assume you want more?

 

Nice color on those welds too

 

Thanks! I those were fusion welds, I've never run into an issue doing them to the v band rings and it saves me on material.

For the moment I am just aiming to get it running NA with the mostly stock long block. I think with the electric water pump, intake, long tubes, exhaust, cam & valve train upgrades it should make around 460-470whp. I'll be happy with that for a while so I can actually enjoy it for more than 2 weeks

At the track the nitrous will get me around 650, I do plan on getting some drop in pistons and rods and sending the heads to Texas speed for their port work and to mill to bump the compression. Eventual goal is as close to 500whp NA as I can get.