Dirty Paperweight

[bohunk]

Hello all, I picked up a VH this weekend from a junkyard nearby for a whopping 170$. It is a bit oily and rather dirty, but I am hoping most of the oil is from blown valve cover gaskets. I have found quite a bit of oil on top of a few of the spark plugs. However the motor is not seized, the coolant is still a fruity lemon-lime (no carbonated frothiness of course), and the tips of the spark plugs show no signs of oil in the chambers. The RTV on the front of the motor is light blue which tells me I will need new chain guides, and I definitely need new gaskets. The plan is to shoehorn this into my '89 240sx with the assistance of elwesso's adapter plate for a Z32 Transmission. I do have a few questions however. I desperately want to get this onto an engine stand so that I may turn it over and take a look inside the engine while keeping the heads on so that I may tell if the block is shot or not, but the Vh45 is quite heavy, are the aluminum threads where the bell housing mounts to the engine going to hold with only 4 bolts attached to the stand? Also how much of the harness out of the Q45 do I need? I have the ECU, do I need to pull the harness from the ECU to the fuse box and the harness from the fuse box to the motor?

[Chrispy300]

Yeah, no worries with putting the VH on a stand with just 4 bolts, I've had a complete VH on a stand for about 2 years now :p

Your motor looks a bit sludgey Guess someone didn't like changing oil very often... How many miles on it?

Only harness you need is the one from the ECU to the motor. It's a complete harness that you can just unplug, no wire cutting needed.

[bohunk]

The car had 200K miles on it which concerned me a bit. However the oil filter I drove a screwdriver through and the belts were Nissan brand, so thought he may have replaced the guide brackets. Of course I read today that Nissan used a light blue RTV, which I see is whats on the engine, so I suppose I have to crack it open anyways. I have the harness unplugged at the ECU in the car, and traced it through the firewall, under the ABS, and to the fuse box, does it unplug at the fuse box?

[Chrispy300]

I didn't pull the harness out myself, engine was from Japan. We only have a couple of Q45's in Australia and they are too expensive to buy to just pull the motor.

My harness wasn't cut anywhere.

Here is mine, it has been spliced into the Z32 body harness plugs (one near the ECU plug, and another 2 middle right of the piccy red and grey plug).

[T45]

The 4 banger in the 240 probably weighs as much the VH. It's lighter than the VG series.

Also, it looks pretty good for the money. Check the knock sensors for melting, an indication of overheating. Also, you may or may not have metal guides. Check through inspection plate on FL side of engine.

Valve cover gaskets get old and hard and leaks are common. Full gaskets if you can afford to do so.

[bohunk]

Thanks for the info T45, makes me feel a bit better. However I heard that to inspect the chain guides through the inspection plate would require an anal camera (more or less). Is it really as simple as taking off the plate and it is sitting right there?

[bohunk]

No use starting another thread. Finally had time to work on the engine again this week. Took 2 hours to get the oil pan off thanks to an impossible 10mm bolt. Once off my fears became real as I saw the oil pickup was impacted with pieces of plastic. The motor is covered in oil and I was hoping it was a valve cover gasket, but it appears it is likely more sinister. Since most of you are more experienced in these matters, should I dig deeper to see what the damage is or just pick up another one for 200 bucks?

[kingkilburn]

I would go with both options. That gives you a possible mock up block and a motor to clean and freshen up.

[omgshawn]

^^^I concur

I think it's also safe to say that she didn't get many oil changes, but I've seen a lot worse.

If you need help with the wiring let me know I have a good amount of notes/diagrams I'm sure would help you

[bohunk]

Forgot to mention, the plastic pieces were of course the chain guides. I guess I will strip this one down and check it out, and pick up another that hopefully doesn't require any work. omgshawn I will be asking you about your wiring, does your knowledge include making the gauge cluster work?

[omgshawn]

Yeah I have a couple diagrams from v8nissan's that are pretty good and cover just about everything

I got my engine cheap as well($220 with ecu/harness/extra stuff) so I'm going to go back and pick up another for parts/mocking up stuff

[bohunk]

What size single turbo's are you guys using on your setups? I am considering a .70 A/R compressor and .68 turbine T4 to run as a single setup with external wastegate and hoping for 400-500 hp, am I crazy?