Building a Q45 drag car any advice?

[fluiddrive1949]

So new to the forum. I just bought a Q45 its a 1995 with 130k miles on it. Im planning on turning it in to a street racer (note: I dont condon illegal racing an think it should be kept on the track) and was wondering if anyone could give me some advice/tips or tricks to getting the full power out of this car. I live in an emissions free county so any mods or ideas are possible. I see everyone seems to do ecu an tcu mods and ive read the moding a q45 articles but are there any more tips or tricks floating around out there?

thanks for reading any help would be great.

[Unnatural1]

I'll hop in here before all the haters in this forum do. The car itself has very limited aftermarket support directly. The good news is the VH45 is rapidly become a popular engine to swap. Therefore, we are starting to see some parts development for it. The engine is very capable. The transmission was fortunately shared with a number of other vehicles many (maybe most) of them non-Nissan. It was used in the 300ZX TT with some slight differences. The point is upgrades are available.

The rest of the car is the some what more difficult part. There are a number of parts either shared with other Nissan's, like the 300ZX, or close enough they can be made to fit. It just takes some research.

A couple guys have turbo'd their Q's. And, at least, one owner has run nitrous (Elwesso)... he completed a 5spd sway too. I'm a fan of turbo'd engines. That power adder gets my vote. Check around the engine specific VH/VK forum here on the NICO forums and V8nissans.com too.

Now, I'm sure Maxnix and/or qship will be along to talk about maintenance and how stupid it is to simply ask this question. But, fortunately, I think you'll ignore them!

[BadQ45t]

If your serious about getting enough power out of the Q to make it a real racer you might just drop the engine/transmission combo and try to shoe-horn in a cart motor from Chevy, Ford or Mopar. If you want to get the most out of that motor you'll need to rebuild it to handle turbo and and nitrous.....the transmission will not last so plan to buy a full rebuild. There are some threads out there from Level10 who rebuilds these, not cheap but they can make you a hell of a heavy duty one.

Good luck show us pics as you build it...also, I would plan to gut out as much weight as possible. These cars are very heavy, so getting rid of tons of weight will make it much faster.

[fluiddrive1949]

Picked up a set of heads going to port an polish them thiss weekend

[maxnix]

Hope you have cash coming out of the kazoo!

[fluiddrive1949]

LOL out of my 3 project cars the Q is def not the money pit. needed a car no one would suspect. going to see what kinda trouble I can get into with it. Been kinda boring lately Dont know why the import guys are so afraid of old american cars but no one wants to race. the Q45 should do the trick

[Unnatural1]

I like it. No one expects a full size luxury sedan to do anything. But, with cars like the BMW M5, MB E-series AMG, Cadillac CTS-V (don't forget the wagon!), and even the Dodge Charger SRT-8. No one doubts these cars are big, heavy but capable and quite quick by anyone's standards.

While I'm sure there is room for improvement in airflow through the cylinder heads I doubt that is the bottle neck in this engine. Also, the only cam options are probably regrinds. Without cams you really limit the airflow increase that is possible with ported heads. Of course all that matters much less with forced induction!

Keep us posted!

~Brendan

[jbracy7]

Hope you have cash coming out of the kazoo!

Me want me want, drooooooooool

[Q-ZILLA]

I for one will be watching to see how much you trick one of these out. I'm pretty much at my limit... But I sometimes find myself digging for just one more mod...

[Skibane]

I would plan to gut out as much weight as possible. These cars are very heavy, so getting rid of tons of weight will make it much faster.

Yep.

If all you're interested in is going fast, there is a whole butt-load of stuff that can be yanked out to help.

Fortunately, removing stuff is cheap - Nothing to buy, install or adjust, and the only expense involved is your time.

[GSUjinih]

One word: Nitrous! Best bang for your buck for drag racing always! These cars run so pig rich under full throttle, you can run a decent size dry shot with no issues, just make sure you are using some quality premium gas!

[Q-ZILLA]

fluiddrive1949; It's been six months with your Q... What's going on with it?