two days ago my pride and joy, a fully built turbocharged 1997 Saturn SC2 was totaled by a stupid old lady in an ex-cop crown vic.

today i went by the towing company, knowing i need a cheap "new" vehicle immediately to get to work, and bought the best "junk" vehicle there.

burgundy mid-90s Nissan Maxima. 162k miles, auto. runs decent, a/c shot (may just need a recharge), interior is pretty good shape. clear coat peeling, i will address that later.

i am interested in the aftermarket support for this car, where to buy the best performance parts, and what engine swaps are compatible. also what cars can i rape a manual transmission from for a swap.

thanx guys

Ps. pics when i get some time in the next couple days

What year is it? If its 89-94 I can help you out, if later some of the other guys will have to chime in.

mtcookson wrote:What year is it? If its 89-94 I can help you out, if later some of the other guys will have to chime in.

you got it she's a third gen. im looking for anything i can do with the engine or any swaps form Nissans with more balls then this one. she has some get up and go but i got a need for speed. compared to my 380whp Saturn it feels like driving a lawn mower. hopefully you guys can help me change that.

what sites to buy the best and lowest price parts (internals, cams, heads, manifolds, and so on), and just in general help me get to know my Max and her tuning potential.

the car's badging is gone, how do i tell if she's a SE or GXE, and whether i have the vq30e or vq30de engine? sorry to be n00bstyle, like i said the last three years i have been working on Saturns...

The 3rd gens actually never came with SE and GXE badges. The 89-94 GXE's had the VG30E, all were automatic, I believe they always had body colored mirrors and had chrome accents like on the grill, tails, and around the windows.

I believe all SE's had a wing and fog lights, mirrors were black instead of body colored (at least on the 89-91's, not sure about the 92-94), they were available with an auto or manual. 89-91 had the VG30E, 92-94 had the VE30DE. 92-94's had the option for a viscous limited slip differential. If you're looking to swap to a manual the 92-94 5-speed with VSLD is the way to go. They're slightly stronger than the previous ones.

Sounds like you probably have the VG30E. Looking at the engine, its SOHC and the intake manifold comes forward with twin throttle bodies. The VE30DE is DOHC with the throttle body pointing to the driver's side.

The VG30E is definitely low on power stock but an incredible engine as far as reliability and power potential go... they absolutely love boost. You really don't even need to change the internals if you go with some boost. There are numerous VG's out there pushing 400+ hp on stock internals. I know of at least one or two pushing over 500 and I believe the highest seen on stock internals is around 700, though it likely didn't last to long making that much. Tons of 300 and 400 hp stock block VG's out there being daily driven though.

The big thing you have to worry about is the transmission. They are weak... very weak. Like I said above, the 92-94 5-speed is the way to go but it still has its issues. The input shaft bearing is the weakest spot in these. There's a company on the east coast called Import Performance Transmissions that knows of the issue and can put in a larger bearing, which should fix that problem permanently. If you're looking for a lot of power you may look into cryo treating the gears as well. Third is usually the most problematic when it comes to power as its usually the smallest in there.

If you have the VG30E my recommendation is to keep the stock engine in there and do a custom turbo setup from there. If you want to use salvage yard parts you can make a decent turbo setup with Z31 or 2nd gen Maxima manifolds. I recommend using two right/rear manifolds and making a custom crossover pipe to mount the turbo on. You'll have to relocate the battery to the trunk but this gives you a good deal of room for large turbo upgrades down the road.

Intake manifold wise I really like the 2nd gen Maxima's manifold. It should flow the best next to the Pathfinder manifold, which won't fit under the hood. There is also a company out there that can modify the 2nd gen manifold to flow much better than stock. I think they may even sell some on ebay.

If you go the 2nd gen manifold route I highly recommend going to top feed injectors. I believe the 2nd gen uses top feeds but if not you can go with a 84-86 300ZX lower intake manifold and fuel rail with the 2nd gen upper manifold. From there you can use large injectors like from the RX-7's (440's and 550's are common, larger available) and the 1975 Mercedes 450SEL 420's are popular as well. With our ECU you'll want to get high impedance injectors just so everything works smoothly. I think some guys run resistors on low impedance injectors but I'm too lazy for that.

Another nice thing about going with the top feeds is there is going to be a very nice fuel rail coming out soon for the VG's with top feeds. The stock rail should flow plenty of fuel but if you want to go all out, I believe the ones they've done so far can flow enough fuel for 700-ish hp.

There are quite a few cam options out there as well. Cams are said to make pretty big differences in the VG. The best route to go would be a custom grind in my opinion. Most pre-made cams out there are made to work in both normally aspirated and turbo setups, which means is not optimized for either. You can go to a company like Isky or similar and tell them what you're doing to it and they should be able to get you a grind that matches well with your setup.

Ferrea offers 1mm oversized valves as well, but I don't think many people really use them. A good port and polish will help. There are also adjustable cam gears out there that is a good mod to fine tune your timing.

As far as tuning goes you have quite a few good options. Probably the best out there is using a romulator with a program like Nistune. It pretty much turns your ECU into a stand alone unit, a very powerful setup.

I believe one of the 300ZX ECU setups from Ash-Spec is said to work perfectly with the VG Maxima ECU. Its pretty much the same setup as the romulator really.

You also have you piggy back units like the Apex'i S-AFC but if you're looking for a decent amount of power these won't offer enough control. I think the Greddy E-manage is a better unit as far as control goes... but with the romulator options out there for our ECU's the piggy backs are a bit expensive.

You also have the option of going with Jim Wolf Technology. Its expensive but they can program the ECU for you to the specs you need. They won't be able to get it quite as perfected as if you were to go with the romulator setup but its not a bad option if you aren't into the ECU programming.

If you have the VE30DE everything will be a little more custom. They had some variable valve timing issues, which caused the engine to clack really bad when they went out... the thing would literally sound like a diesel. You can rebuild the VTC units so that they work properly and don't make noise. If you do, be sure to use a high quality oil filter as that is generally accepted as the reason why they die.

The VE hasn't really been modified all that much but I believe its an excellent engine to put some boost to. Its basically a compact version of the VG30DE in the 300ZX. It has a forged crank with 8-bolt flywheel flange. Rods are the same as the VG, pistons can be swapped from a VG which means you can get some low compression VG30DETT pistons for some extreme boost if you wanted to.

The turbo setup would have to be completely custom though. The manifolds from the VG won't bolt up that I know of so you'd have to make your own manifolds for the turbo. As far as ECU tuning its a little more difficult not having the EPROM style ECU like the VG but there is a guy working on getting one of the 300ZX computer setups to work with the VE as the two ECU's are very similar. JWT can also do VE ECU's I believe so that's another option.

Hopefully that will give you a bit of a start. For some extremely good VG info take a look at http://www.redz31.com. Its for the Z31 300ZX but it will all be the same. If you have any questions just let me know and I'll help out the best I can.

what are some common reliability and longevity problems this engine suffers from, besides the tranny? every car has signature problems, what are her's?

The early VG's are said to have pretty common injector issues. I lucked out with mine and never had injector problems. If they do go out most say not to go with refurbished injectors and to replace all of them at the same time. Costly but you won't have to deal with it again.

With the VG you have you common replacement items like the distributor cap and rotor, timing belt, etc. The distributor cap and rotor tends to get overlooked quite a bit. I've noticed a lot of the caps have a tendency to crack causing performance issues. They're hard to see but if you look inside it carefully around the contact points you can sometimes see cracks. If so, go ahead and replace it along with the rotor.

The only major, odd issue I've seen with the VG's is I've heard of the crank snout breaking on some people. Its pretty rare from what I can tell but it has happened a few times since I've been into the Maximas. I think that is probably caused by over tightening the accessory belts most likely.

The timing belt needs changed every 60k miles. If it breaks the engine will be toast in most cases as its an interference engine. If you're unsure of the condition of it, I'd personally change it out just so you know that its fresh.

Other than that as long as you keep up with the oil changes the thing should last a lifetime. Its not uncommon for the VG's to go well over 200k miles. It really should be a 300k mile engine if taken care of.

The VE has some issues as well. Cracked coil packs are pretty common and the VTC issue is very common. Usually the VTC's won't cause too much trouble when they die and you can ground them so that they don't clack but I've heard of some cases where there was major engine failure from not dealing with them. Like I said above, if they're shot rebuild them and use a good oil filter with regular oil changes and they should last a long time.

I'm not too well versed in the VE so I don't know all of its quirks but those are the two major ones I know of.

okay can you tell me specific sites online that sell performance for the VG30e engine? and other Maxima mods? i tried Googling and it didn't help much; for example the only catback exhaust i found was Pacesetter and those suck big time. what specific sites should i check out for the good stuff?

i will post pics up tomorrow morning after i was and wax her, clean the engine, etc. BTW, i have confirmed that she is a 1994 GXE.

PS do you know where online i can find a wiring diagram for the car, namely for the car audio/head unit wiring, so i can install the system and DVD unit out of the Saturn?

If you want decent exhaust go with a magnaflow muffler and take it to a muffler shop! thats the best and cheapest way I think! This site is great for do it yourself projects as well! Look around and go into the search area! you will find a bunch of info on all you need! That car has got plenty of potential and by the time you are done you won't miss that saturn bro!!!

to my dismay the car has drum brakes in the rear. i thought all Maximas had four wheel discs. anyway, can i do a rear disc conversion? how hard is it to use parts from a rear disc equipped Max, and are other non-3g year cars compatible, brake wise?

and can somebody post up pics of the Z31 manifolds so i can visualize my turbo setup?
Modified by dragon370 at 6:35 PM 9/14/2007