Some engine pictures

Post by **ceningolmo** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 3:02 pm

Mind if I ask an idiotic question?

What is the engine rebuild going to end up costing you in parts/labor? I know you are doing a big chunk of the work yourself... but, I am interested in how many hours you think you will actually have invested by the time you are done, and how much money.

Thanks.

Post by **3Q Jay** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 7:14 pm

hotness. man the VH is a sexy engine

Post by **BlackBirdVQ** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 8:30 pm

Well... here is the run down SO FAR...

500 bux for all the hoses for under the plenum along with radiator hoses.500 bux for having the heads fixed500 bux for engine rebuild gasket kit135 bux for valve cover powdercoating 200 bux for intake polishing, powdercoating the timing covers and fuel rails.108 bux for injector servicing by Deatsch Werks.400 bux new MAF280 bux new knock sensors with new harness.310 bux new 02 sensors.

This is all I can think off right now... I am doing all the work myself other than the services I subleted- mentioned above. I would say if a dealershop got a hold of my car they would charge me around 6K dollars to do this job. Since I am a mechanic and have LOTS of Nissan experience, none of my cars set a foot inside a Nissan dealer- other than for parts ofcourse. I hope she runs like a champ, I don't like buying 2nd hand JDM engines as from my personal experience you have a 50/50 chance of getting a good engine- and even then I would still need to invest some $$$ into the engine before swaping it in. I bought other items to revive my car back to life- suspension items etc... but none of em have anything to do with the engine so I left them out.

Post by **QShip** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 2:04 pm

This thread is so beautiful! It brings tears to my eyes...

Post by **5seryan** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 7:59 pm

Im pretty sure I just popped a boner..... yep, I did.

Post by **grosspolluter** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 5:07 pm

Nice pics!

Post by **Q45tech** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 9:38 am

Looked at all the pictures but never saw one that looked like a head gasket failure? That supposedly was the cause of tear down?

AS we have never seen a headgasket failure that wasn't from a severe overheat that trashed the engine.

Usually easy to tell from piston top/spark plug insulator examination which one and where.

Quite true that the cost of 32 HLA is equal to the cost of a JDM engine.

Post by **BlackBirdVQ** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 6:16 pm

Actually what happened was the cylinder heads WARPED very bad. Head gaskets where barely sealing the block to the heads and I was burning coolant at a very high rate. Block was straight as an arrow, but the heads where garbage.

I HATE JDM engines, they have ZERO history behind them, and the whole "compression tested before sale" theory is BS. I got a used SR20 engine with broken camshaft- would a compression test reveal that ?? I certainly thing so. Importers refuse to pay for labor in cases where the engine is acutally bad. I lucked out one time and got a free SR20DET out of a deal cause the engine was completly destroyed inside after I checked it out... Stay away from importers- US engines could be atleast traced down to cars with know history behind them.

Here is another teaser pic of my VH45DE....

Post by **BlackBirdVQ** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 6:20 pm

Another quick one.... Candy Apple Red with metalic flake in it- deep gloss finish. I need to wax my valve covers in order to keep em nice looking I will tease you guys with another shot sometime this week.....

As I said this isn't my primary car and I am doing all this to make a awesome looking and sounding car for years to come for me to drive around in on nice weather days. 18" deep dish wheels are ready to be installed... suspension all ready to be installed too, just need to fire the engine up

Post by **maxnix** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 8:22 pm

Oh, you are a bad boy for producing a VH45DE Testarossa!

Post by **BlackBirdVQ** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 11:34 am

Few pics of my intake manifold.... I am laggn quite a bit on the Q- no motivation to get things going after a full day of wrenching on cars. Once I start working on the Q I work till I have to GTFO out of work cause they are closing. Before I left work today I decided to take a few pics of the intake manifold with my camera phone.

Post by **BlackBirdVQ** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 11:35 am

Pics are in large resolution and our forum crops them into smaller pictures making them kinda fuzzy looking.

Post by **BlackBirdVQ** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 11:36 am

Camera phone doesn't do this intake justice, it looks killer in person.

Post by **BlackBirdVQ** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 11:39 am

I have a spare intake manifold I could use for a CORE if people wanted to get the intake polished like mine. Problem is my guy doesn't wanna polish these, they take 4 ever to get looking like this. The intake isn't fully aluminum, it also has other materials in it that are hard to polish out. I could ask my local Harley shop if they are willing to polish the intake and what they would charge for it.

Post by **Rex** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 11:49 am

Okay, all I have to say is no more waiting 2 weeks for new pics .

That looks killer, I wonder how it compares to the polish job PMQ was gonna do???

Before I do too much leg work on finding another source for polishing, toss a ball park idea of cost out and see if anyone is interested. As cool as it looks, I'd never pony up for it. Did they polish the inside of it?

Post by **maxnix** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 12:06 pm

Rex wrote:Did they polish the inside of it?

Boy, my question exactly! I would pony up for that.

The exterior polish is way too sexy for my car. But the interior polish.......mmmmm good.

Post by **elwesso** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 12:22 pm

im not sure an interior polish would really do anything?? maybe? Still would be cool to look at bling on the outside, and then look inside and see MORE bling.

Post by **BlackBirdVQ** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 1:04 pm

No I didn't get the inside polished- BUT I thought bout getting it extrude honed now that I remember. I am not sure if there will be any gains from extrude honing the intake, as from my previous experience on FWD NA SR20s, there was almost no gains to be had on that intake setup.

To get the intake polished, my front timing chain covers powedercoated, fuel rail powdercoated, and lower intake manifold - all 8 of the runners, redone in the same silver as the rest of the engine- 200 dollars. I won't post any more pictures untill I have the engine runing. I should have my carbon fiber engine covers done this week also.

Basically I need motivation to get the car going, with our "winter" in Chicago I wouldn't mind crusing around in the Q. I got the emissions notice in the mail few days ago, so I need to eighter finish the car up and go smog it- or send them the card back saying the car is not operational at this moment and they need to reschedule the testing. My exhaust is all rotted out and leaks on one of the hangers- which will alter my tailpipe emissions. Hopefully I will luck out and they will not do the IM240 dyno test, all I need is my 18" dished wheels and lower it (got all the parts to do it) and they will only do a idle test- which I can pass.

Post by **maxnix** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:40 pm

BlackBirdVQ wrote:I thought bout getting it extrude honed now that I remember. I am not sure if there will be any gains from extrude honing the intake, as from my previous experience on FWD NA SR20s, there was almost no gains to be had on that intake setup.

Exactly what Q45tech found when he had his intake extrude honed.

I was more interested in dealying the crud build-up and easing cleaning with a fog. Ideally, a teflon coating would be great.

Post by **elwesso** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:48 pm

Brian, one thing I noticed that synthetic oil has much less blowby..... When I took my TB off to clean it a few weeks, the plenum was really clean and its been about 50k since its been messed with..... IT was REALLY clean, not perfect but it was still acceptable, IMO

Post by **maxnix** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 2:46 am

I am sure you are correct, Wes, but how would that affect the intake path?

Post by **elwesso** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 5:19 am

Well as you know blow by gasses are sucked in by the intake... It sucks the vapors up from the valve covers in a few different places and such... I figured you knew this!!! If we didnt have the PCV system bringing blowby gasses back into the intake, and we had no EGR, there woudl be NO reason to clean the plenum, because it would never get dirty!

Post by **maxnix** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 6:41 am

Right, and it is pressurized by blow by and thus contains some of it. EGR and PCV definitiely do contribute to the contamination.

Looking at air filters during change, I assumed most contamination was from intake air, but since the intake pathway between the filter and TB is pretty clean, I think you are more correct.

Sure would like to make it less sticky in any case.

Post by **BlackBirdVQ** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 4:39 pm

I am waiting for some lil shizznit to show up so I can finish putting this engine togheter...

Extrude Honing would cost me more than my headers did. I am not sure if I will be putting them on right away or wait till I have the car runing.

Post by **BlackBirdVQ** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 4:40 pm

Carbon fiber coil pack covers.....

Post by **3rd Q** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 7:33 pm

BlackBird,Oh my God, that looks gorgeous! Did you say you were doing the engine trim pieces in CF, too? Really, really nice work!

Paul

BTW, I'm still interested in the polished plenum- is your guy absolutely not into doing another? LMK, cause I've got my spare ready to go.

Post by **maxnix** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 9:11 pm

You've got to put Wurth on all your under plenum rubber so it will be up to standards. Absolutely beautiful.

Post by **MinisterofDOOM** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 9:25 pm

Beautiful!

You're building my dream car, man.

It's great to see a Q being treated this well--and to know that there will be at least one Q on the road for another decade.

Post by **Flagship-Q** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:49 am

What is the process for the carbon fiber? It looks great!

Post by **hannibal** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 4:53 am

Thats one great looking VH45!

Some engine pictures

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VH45DE Testarossa (BlackBirdVQ)

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