Updated 4/12/08 new pics added.

I get a lot of emails regarding the VH swap into a Z32 so I am going to try and cover the basics regarding fitment issues, parts compatibility and some reasons to consider this swap or to opt for the TT swap.

Each swap has it's benefits, mainly the labor and amount of fabriaction involved separates the two. If you don't have a welder and your Z is your daily driver don't even think about a VH swap. The TT swap is a proven power adder and it's almost 100% bolt in. There are numerous vids on how to do it and every part under the sun is available to help you do it.

Until a bolt in kit is available for the VH it will take you lots of time to fab up all the systems to make them work properly. I'm sure someone could hack your car up and get it done in a weekend but why take the chance? There is nothing fun about having a sweet looking ride that's stuck in the driveway because of a bad install. Or even worse is having an accident due to faulty cable/wire routing and stuff. Expect your ride to be off the street for a few months. I bought my Z in August of last year and it's still in the driveway and won't be ready for a few more months.

I am doing a complete front to back overhaul so my build isn't like most. Most everyone else has had years to put into their Z but mine needed a lot of TLC and what better time to do it than now. At least when I'm done I know my car is up handle the hp and torque the VH throws down.

My original plan was to drop the VH into this...hence the "T45" handle. I figured if Infiniti ever built this truck it would be called a T35-T45 or whatever.

But then these came along...

And I needed a new project with a backseat. I loved my fronty and hated to see it go but I did something pretty smart. I sold it to my friend and I still get to ride in it and do a lil bit of rootin' every now and then so it's not so bad.

I am using a VH45DE from a 1992 Q45 and my Z is a 1990 NA 2+2 Z32. Many parts are interchangable from the Q and Z so it will definately benefit you in the long run to buy both cars. I picked up my Z for 1020.00 and my Q for 456.00, both off ebay. Without the Q donor you'll need a lot of nickel and dime stuff, only it won't be nickels and dimes, it will be Grants and Benjamins. If one took the time to part out the left over's one could possibly complete this swap for free, if not coming out in the positive end of things. Ever priced a Z MAF?

Some parts that you'll steal off the Q are the engine, ecu, engine harness, coolant thermoswitch, fuel pump, a/c compressor, p/s pump, alternator, MAF, exhaust manifolds, and a few small brackets and things. It's best to keep the donor around until you're done with the swap. Throwing away a small part can cost you hundreds!

Now is also a good time to rebuild the engine or at the very least install new gaskets and check to make sure your VH has metal backed timing guides. These were made of plastic on the early 90's VH45's and prone to breakage. If you have metal backed guides then you're probably good to go. If you want to swap pistons I suggest a google of Motor Parts Warehouse in Phoenix. They sell Safety Mfg pistons up to .040 over, main bearings, hastings rings and gasket kits. Options for low compression pistons are limited, usually ending up with having custom pistons made.

There are quite a few Nico members working on hop up parts for the VH including low compression boost pistons, high performance cams and other things. Currently available power adders are slim but you can add a Nico ECU from Elwesso for some extra hp and rpm's (7200-7400). I also port matched my intake and heads to pick up a bit there too. The head design is awesome and only a small amount of cleanup is needed for clean runners.

This is what a stock runner looks like. As you can fuzzily see, the circle really isn't a circle. The sharpie mark is the gasket outline. I just cleaned them up a bit to provide un-hindered smooth airflow versus going around the uneven jagged edges between the head and runner. The head side was much smoother but was still far from perfect.



The VH has a killer torque curve and has dynoed in stock trim about 190 ft lbs at 800rpm's at the rear wheels. That's about what the stock V6 makes all together at the crank!

There is no doubt the VH is a killer powerplant, it's only major downfall is the lack of aftermarket support. Where's the love? It's only the best engine nissan has ever produced in NA form, hell, it was designed for indy racing for crying out loud! There is so much potential inside of this factory balanced all aluminum 32 valve bearing girdled variable sodium filled valve timed siamese ported equal lenth runnered 10.2:1 compressed V8 that it makes me sick that nobody offers any aftermarket power adders for it. Nissan's biggest mistake was not offering the VH in the Z as an option from the factory. It would have crushed everything else in it's path.

Enough of my rant.

As of now there is only one component that is available to help with the swap, the Z32 5-speed transmission adapter. This will save you welding your Z32 bellhousing to adapt it to the VH. I'm a cheapskate and like to fab as much as possible to allow me to spend my money on other things so I ended up welding mine with alloy wire, 100% argon and my mig. It looks like kindergarteners did it but it turned out strong and I also adapted the stock brackets from the Q to work with the transmission. They are simply L shaped and bolt to the block and then to the lower half of the bellhousing. Between my "welding" and the brackets I think it will hold up to moderate abuse. If you're going high hp then a nice adapter would be a safer bet.

If you happen to have an a/t then you're in luck. Apparently almost all nissan a/t's use the same pattern where the bellhousing bolts onto the transmission. Basically from what I gather it's simply a matter of bolting up the VH bellhousing to your Z a/t and mating them up.

The next big obstacle is the oil pan. The VH's come from the factory with a front sump, meaning the oil pickup tube and oil reserve is in the front of the engine. On almost all other RWD vehicles it's on the rear, Z's included. I have no idea if the Q pan will even come close to fitting over the Z xmember, I never investigated it. I knew that I could graft the Q and Z's pans together and come up with one that was guaranteed to fit without R&R the engine a hundred times and that's what I did.



I took the VH pan and cut the flange off. Then I took the rear of it and put it where the front sump used to be. I then took the Z pan (black painted parts) and cut the rear section off and put it on the rear of the VH flange along with a section that allows clearance for the new rear sump tube. There are a lot of guys using VH41 pans which are made out of aluminum versus steel but still require welding. The steel is much easier to work with for do-it-yourselfers and it's almost free to make!

For the sump, starting at the block, I cut off the VH flange, welded up the 90 of the Z pickup tube to it, then another small section of pipe from the VH and finally the end of the pickup from the Z. I added a bracket from one of the scraps and that's it.





Like I said, you may be able to modify the Z xmember or the Q front sump pan and get it to work. But with the rear sump it fits in the frame like the factory Z pan did, wrapping around the rack and pinion and allowing the engine to drop in the bay as low as possible without xmember modification.

Here is the pan in the car, also showing the oil level check bolt I put in. You can also see the factory VH trans mount that fits nicely around the pan and bolts to the trans.



Next is motor mounts. Again, there are numerous solutions for these but I wanted a nice, smooth, quiet engine instead of a vibrating monstrocityso I opted to use the Q mounts. There are 2 studs on them and I just cut off the outermost studs because they interfered with the xmember, then just bolted up some 1/4" flat stock to them and welded the stock directly to the xmember. Reinforced it a bit and that's about all there is to it.

This is a pic of the pass side. You can see the inner stud that's holding the mount to the steel I "welded" in. I welded it too low and had to add another 1/4" plate to raise it back up for header clearance so there's really 1/2" of plate on the pass side.



Here is a pic of the drivers side mount. Same thing only it's just one piece of plate with a gusset welded in there.



The transmission will stay in the factory location and use the stock mount along with the stock driveshaft. No mods are necessary!

For exhaust manifolds I simply cut off the factory VH stainless heat shields and pre-cats, bolted them up and made them fit. They fit fine between the fenderwells but hit the xmember if you get your engine as low as I did. I only needed about 1/4" clearance so I heated up the bottom of them and BFH'd the front half of them flatter. It didn't make the piping any smaller and the only big thing I had to flatten was the weld going around the tubing. It's probably not acceptable in the racing industry but I can't afford the time and money to build custom headers so this was the best solution for me. And it's free. If I raised up the engine another 1/2" or so I wouldn't have had a problem, but to keep the center of gravity low and have the least amount of horsies sticking out of the hood it was worth the effort.

For hooking the manifolds up to the rest of the stock Z system I simply hacked off the ends of the stock Z V6 mani's and welded them up to the VH mani's. Now the only thing custom made is the mani's and when I upgrade the rest of my exhaust I can buy anything that fits a 2+2 and I know it will fit. Probably not good for airflow but it is very very good for teh cashflow.

Pass side mani welded to the Z flange.



Drivers side



Tight clearance above xmemeber



For the P.S. the stock Q pump hits the sway bar in the Z. There are a couple options, you can use an EOH pump from an MR2 or similar, but you know me better than that. I just took the free Q pump, swapped in the Z pump fittings on it, clocked it about 90 degrees from original position, cut off an ear on the stock VH ps bracket, moved it up as far as possible in the bracket and drilled one hole in the bracket and got 2 bolts to thread into the rear of the pump. For the front bracket I modded the stock VH bracket, just adding a bit of steel to mount it to one of the front holes on the pump. A small amount of excess aluminum needs to be removed from the block for the supply fitting to clear the block. Don't worry, it's just like an extra casting ear.

For the hoses I made a mock up of what high pressure hose length I needed and had one made up at a local hose shop for $30. The rest of the hoses are simply p.s. return and supply hoses with hose clamps. You will use the stock z ps reservoir in the stock location and you can even use the clamps that run along the crossmember that used to hold a/c lines to hold the new ps lines. It looks just like factory!

I had a small conflict with the front sway bar and the ps pump, even after relocating, so I lowered the bar about an inch and a half with simple square tubing and flat stock and some longer bolts. To avoid ps/sway bar conflicts from the start the ps pump must be mounted elsewhere or use an EOH pump.

Sway bar drop brackets



I believe the VH a/c pump will fit but haven't tried it yet. It's on my list of things to do.

The alternator clears the frame rails just fine. Another sweet thing about this swap is that after you get your transmission bolted up to the VH you will notice that the trans harness contains the starter and alt wiring with it. Route it like it was originally wired and it will plug right in to the VH alt! All that is needed is a bigger ring terminal to allow the power wires to fit on the bigger stud of the alt. Then just route the wires to the stock location on the pass. fender and plug them in. Trans, alt, and starter wiring is done.

The Z uses the stock starter which bolts to the trans. No issues here other than if you decide to use a tt clutch in your na trans, you'll need to spacethe starter away from the trans approx 4mm to allow for the larger ring gear on the tt flywheel. Also needed is a small amount of clearancing inside the bellhousing. No biggie. Any Z flywheel will bolt right up to the VH crank, I did however notice that my flywheel lined up better when placing the stock VH auto trans spacer/washer thingy behind my flywheel. It allowed for more bite on the flywheel from the starter pinion.



The accel cable pops right in. Another killer bonus to this swap is that the factory cruise control will work with only slight modification to the bracket.Just cut the bracket, turn the diaphragm 90 degrees so it faces the drivers side and weld it back up. The bracket on the engine needs to be modified to accept the shorter cable pull from the Z cruise. Simply cut the ear off and move it forward matching the accel ears. Done.

Cruise actuator bracket mod



Cable bracket mod



As for wiring...ahahahahaha. Good luck with that!

Nah, it's not bad at all. Some sweet facts are that the Z and Q both have independent engine harnesses. Simply unplug the Z ecu and the other plug under the pass side footwell and pull it through the firewall. It may break in half like mine did but it's easier than removing the entire dash. There are also 3 plugs on the drivers side fender for power and relay triggers that runs through the harness itself. Cut the 4 plugs off leaving enough wire to splice into. You won't need the ecu or ecu plug but you will need the bracket. The VH ecu is identical in appearance and will bolt right into the stock Z bracket. After your swap is done it will be invisible on the interior of your z. The VH harness also looks factory where it passes through the firewall and just a small amount of trimming helps it fit perfectly. On the engine side you'll want to remove all the factory plastic and tape and just route the wires to your hearts desire.





I'll post up some wiring color codes when I'm done with my swap. It's only about 10-15 wires but you get to keep the factory CEL, tach, coolant gauge, speedo, and oil pressure!!! Add in the easy cruise mod and hopefully a/c and you have one of the best "factory" sport/touring cars ever made.

You will have to run a few wires from the ecu to the drivers side fender but that's no big deal. Also if you decide to use the stock Z oil pressure gauge you'll need to extend the wire from the old location, which is in the trans/starter/alt harness, over to the drivers side and plug it in to the VH sender.

The 3 plugs on the drivers fenderwell will provide relay activation for the fuel pump, cooling fans, inj and coil power and some other things. The plug by the ecu will have the guages, CEL and stuff. It is possible to have consult too but plan ahead and grab the VH consult plug and hook it up in the Z somewhere in the pass foot area. Either that or I believe you'll have to add a 4th wire to the 3 wire Z consult plug.

Intake will require custom plumbing. I took the stock zoctopus intake out and am fabbing up my own ram air system using 3.5" aluminum ebay intercooler tubing and some silicone elbows and 45's. There is enough room for 3.5" tubing if you trim a lil metal from behind the headlight. That will get you into the space in front of the drivers tire. You could add a filter there and be done with it or you can notch the frame and turn the piping in front of the radiator and you have all that room up there to add whatever kind of airbox you want.

I got my rubbers finally and started on the intake. Here's some pics of current progress.







I am also adding in a couple cheap cooling fans to the stock radiator. I am not sure if it's big enough but Z1 has a nice oversize rad for the NA for a good price. The thermoswitch from the Q will work on the Z radiator with an adapter to the radiator drain c*** or I have found a piece from greddy that fits rad hoses and has a tap in it for tswitches. Wire the tswitch up to the stock Z fan relay and hook your fans up to the stock z fan wiring and you have action. The Q tswitch has 2 stages, first makes contact at 190 and the other over 200. Just fire up your stove and put it in a pan of hot water and use your multimeter to check for continuity between the wires. You'll find it.

A hole in the hood is almost mandatory. I plan on covering it nice and smooth like the factory would have done. I am going to use fiberglass but there may be an aftermarket hood that will work. But....you know me...

This is a killer swap because you will have to spend very little money if you get a good running donor. It will be almost invisible to the uneducated Zenthusiast and if done good enough one could even convince someone that it was offered from the factory in a limited edition "GTS-1" package. It will lighten up the Z by a hundred pounds or more and I assume that it will outrun a TT Z with similar mods. Even though the TT V6 has a few more horsepower on paper, the VH has more power than was advertised. For being only 4.5 liters big, it rivals bigger engines in torque output but sustains high torque from idle all the way up to redline thanks to the variable cam timing and ingenious intake design. Not only that, but the early engines were factory balanced and dynoed. You won't find a smoother V8 with a more linear power output for the price. It simply doesn't exist.



Modified by T45 at 6:48 AM 4/12/2008

Modified by T45 at 9:07 PM 4/12/2008
Modified by T45 at 5:16 PM 4/16/2008

Before reading this I used to think why people would do this swap to their Z. And I also assumed(but was wrong) that a VH swap would mess up the weigh balance the Z has.

Looks very promising.

chamion....thanks for the information mate

much obliged!

Your welcome. Info is scarce but hopefully this gives people of the magnitude of things. I will put up some more pics when I get some free time.

will you be adding information about tting the vh45? :P

Nice project but first of all i want to know details about that truck... that thing is nice! And nice job on the swap, id like to see some dyno #'s when your finished

Good job and good research. Interested to see how the finished install is gonna look. Wondering how bad of a shoe-horn install it is. Keep up the good work.

Planning on adding some addition upgrades to add a few more ponies? Altering the upper plenum to gain some power (porting/polishing/sectioning for a larger breadbox), emmision system delete, etc. ???

I'll be updating and adding more pics as I go along.

The truck is actually a 99 frontier. I converted the front end to the 01+ bodystyle and added the glass fenders, calmini bumper and had to make the rear flares because nobody made them for the xcab bed. They were originally for the short bed crew cab but I extended the front halves of them to make them fit.

Lots of work and money into that truck but I think I will actually be happier driving the Z. The truck got looks but that's about all. The V6 didn't like the 35's too much and I had no lockers or winch....I just got tired of it.

As for the VH there isn't much left to do power wise. I punched it out .040 over and did some minor port work on it. The heads are such a good design and cast that they don't need that much. The problem lies where the lower intake runners meet the heads. The runners are poorly cast so I used the gasket to port match them and clean them up a little bit. I am no expert so I just did what I thought would be an improvement. We'll see how good it worked when I dyno it but I think it'll run a little bit better.

I have the nico 4-way ecu and deleted the tcs butterfly, all egr stuff, vapor canister, etc. The only thing I left on was PCV and I will probably re-do that to clean up the engine a bit and get it looking a little bit sleeker.

For the airbox I'm running 3.5 tubing to a hand built airbox that will be fed from a duct in the bumper. Now I'm thinking that I'll cut out the small vent in between the fog lights and use that whole area for the intake. I figure it's the highest pressure point on the car and the bigger the better IMO.

Until cams are made I am pretty much done with the power aspect. I need to get used to what I've got first. Ya'll gotta remember this is my first sports car. The fastest car I have ever driven was probably a V6 something or other. I've ridden in vettes and mustangs and stuff but never owned one. I'm gonna take it nice and easy. I like my life the way it is...alive.

Very nice. Looks like you already have done everything within reason on the engine that I would have done. Very impressive.

On the PCV system, you planning on just capping everything and plumbing from the highest point and then into a catch can of some sort? I think that would work well and allow you to asthetically clean up a the topside a bit. What are the plans for fuel delivery? Stock TT pump, upgraded injectors and then just tune out accordingly using the ECU?

If very anxious to see some other photos. Got any engine prep pics?

Man I thank you for all the info regarding the swap, but there is two ?'s that I have(or should say one thing I'm unclear on) you stated that you can use the Q45 auto trans in the Z right?and the other is can you useradiator from the Q or will the Z radi be enough to keep the beast cool without overheating issues. I actually pick up my engine/tranny tomorrow along with anything else for $800. It was a sweet deal . If you can please don't dissappear b/c I will lean on you for alot of your knowledge/expertise on this subject. thanx in advance and do you have any updated progress on the swap

I'm in the middle of this same swap, 150 miles west of ya.

You can use the Q's trans, if you wanted to,, but it is a crappy trans for a sportscar.You have to do alot of fabbing on the oilpan, and motor mounts to fit it. You would not want to use either radiator, neither is large enough for any real driving condiditons in a V8ZX. I am done with my wiring, and working on the pan, and waiting on the trans adapter. If you are interested in this swap, there is a Vh45 page, with so much info. Search, and you will be amazed at the amount of info.

not correct.you can use the tt or n/a radiator.the only reason it work is the whole in the bonnet.and yes ive done it twice on two diffrent z's,just bought another last week.doing it again.

IMO Not big enough. But I also live in A hot environemnt, 100 degrees easily in summer, and i drive hard. Personally, I would reccomend spending an extra 160 on a radiator after doing all this work, jsut ot know that it will have plenty of cooling. To each their own. Yes it will fit, and you could use it, but it I wouldn't, i also would not spend 400 on one either, I have a list of what radiators are what size. an 88 tauras w/ 3.0 has a 4 core, that i use in s-10 swaps n rx7's.

yo, in 100 degree it wont work but in new zealand it works fine.even my tt vh ran at acceptable temps.cheers

craigztoyz wrote:IMO Not big enough. But I also live in A hot environemnt, 100 degrees easily in summer, and i drive hard. Personally, I would reccomend spending an extra 160 on a radiator after doing all this work, jsut ot know that it will have plenty of cooling. To each their own. Yes it will fit, and you could use it, but it I wouldn't, i also would not spend 400 on one either, I have a list of what radiators are what size. an 88 tauras w/ 3.0 has a 4 core, that i use in s-10 swaps n rx7's.

yeah ill be getting a twin pass radiator for this....seeing as we will be tting it......not taking any chances

Looking forward to seeing it completed. Great job!

The Q radiator doesn't fit. If I have to upgrade I'll upgrade to this one.

http://www.z1motorsports.com/p...4c941

do you know of a six speed auto that will be able to hook up to the vh bellhousing???

i have a saw kit (shift at will kit; ie i have paddles behind the steering wheel so i can have manual mode and auto mode and change gears that way) and it would just be awesome to have a six speed i can use that with......

I haven't heard of any. The 6 speed auto's are fairly new. Finding one will be a challenge in itself, and then finding one that will bolt up? lol

yeah aussie's ford falcon (family car) has a six speed and they are plentiful....someone even organized getting an adapter made up...but that was a year ago and never went through

Ask around in the VH forum. There are plenty of Kiwis and Aussies (that get along too!) that work on adapters for that kind of stuff. We don't usually get the same stuff over here in the states.

If you have the transmission already it's only a matter of money to get something made unless you're handy with a welder.

Here's my photobucket. There are some other random pics in there but I need to get the Z out in the sun on a nice day and get some of the pics detailing the mounts, exhaust, ps pump, hood, etc.

http://s100.photobucket.com/albums/m19/bonez34/

T45 wrote:Ask around in the VH forum. There are plenty of Kiwis and Aussies (that get along too!) that work on adapters for that kind of stuff. We don't usually get the same stuff over here in the states.

If you have the transmission already it's only a matter of money to get something made unless you're handy with a welder.

yeah there was a member from nz who invited me to his nz 300zx forum but i lost my username details....soo pissed because he said he had heaps of info on it and some of them have done this conversion

hey ed300zx!! I was wondering if you ever found your login for the site so I can find some more info. Been doing alot of searching coming back with good info, but not to detailed except for this site. so anybody that has converted their Z32 to 450z or(tt) please respond!!! do you think that we could ever set up a meet where all of the 450z's can be together at once? that would be so tight

In Austin Next Month, i hope to be driving mine, so when you out, stop by, Fun Roads in the hillcountry!

hey mate

nar i could never get it to work.....the admin gave an email but i couldnt get iot to work.....are you referring to the nz froum???

after a very intoxicating spring break I've finally took out the old engine and cleaned up the bay what drive shaft do we use for this swap? and could someone post pics of the mounts with dimensions b/c I want to go get them made this week! how is the progress coming on the swap? no updates in awhile

If you're keeping the stock transmission then you won't need a new driveshaft. There really aren't dimensions for my mounts but there are some other guys that may have some. I basically took 1/4" plate and bolted it to the stock mounts and welded the plate to the xmember with some gussets.

As for updates please refer to the second pic in the first post.

so you can use the 300zx transmission with the q45? will it be strong enough