I am not to sure where to place this, hopefully this area will do since there is not a swap or building thread area.

Whats up everyone. After 2 years of searching, mainly due to saving money, I finally found my G35. She is a 2004 Ivory White Pearl with black leather interior 6mt. I always intended on doing an engine swap on this car but I had originally wanted to build a Frankenstein vk45, which is a great but different topic. but due to oil pan location and engine placement in the engine bay. the cost became to great for my needs. I am using a 2011 vk56de out of a titan. I am running a flex fuel engine for some rather specific reasons right now before modifying the engine internally.

I know this swap has been attempted many times and build threads have died out over the years, I have read most of them and seen most of them end in part outs due to part nonavailability. I have been in contact with many shops before getting crazy into this and have found who I need to build what I need so I will start off from the beginning I guess.

She is a little rough, she was not taken care of well. She was female owned..... The rear bumper and spoiler have damage and I will be replacing them and the front driver fender has damage, I have a new fender for it already. The engine had over 203k miles on it and the person I spoke with about fed me a ton of crap about how good of shape it was in. When I met her she was drinking oil like and alcoholic and what she didn't drink she bled out the nasty rtv covered vlave cover gaskets. She had 5 fuel injectors of one car and a 6th from a different car. The dual mass flywheel was shot and the clutch was basically fuzz in the bell housing.

So here she is what I got her.









She was rough and dirty, I didn't take many pictures because of that.

So here is pulling her apart.









Ok you have mostly all seen this stuff cause your all owners. Here is where it gets fun. Since I am doing a vk56 swap and as I have been reading and learning and studying. There are 2 ways to do this. You can A. Squeeze the motor into that small compartment and push a ton of weight forward, ruining the near perfect weight distribution of the car and basically push it heavily through the corners destroying front wheels. Or you can do B, the correct way and get rid of all that crap in the way. The VQ sits so far forward of the secondary firewall alone, plus the depth of that secondary firewall. Thats a lot of space to be had. SOOOOOOO, I started drilling and cutting.



















Now that all that crap is out of the way I bring in a friend that welds, since its the only damn thing I can't do. I don't have the equipment. Funny enough I should have taken a picture but I forgot, the cord for the welder was a 100 ft extension we made and ran to the second floor drier outlet. haha good times.

I noticed in builds that I was seeing, these areas were left open, I wanted to close them as reinforcement and than also for looks.







I forgot to get photos of these covers after they were finished.

Now I started fibergalssing over them and building up layers so I can sand off extra material to clean them up nicely.





I will have updates on the build up and what it looks like all finished. I am working odd hours this week so won't be at it till the weekend.

Here is a photo I think you will all enjoy, lets play "Name that engine"



So far I am working more on the car while I save an accumulate parts. I currently have the vk56 auto bell housing, the Zfever adaptor plate which will allow me to run the stock pos sensor and ecu for now while the engine remains in stock form. The headers are underway right now as I caught them at the right time of them doing a swap, so I am having a set made for me as well. I still need to order the internal slave for the auto bell housing. And engines mounts are also currently being made. They are the same that were used in Ryan Kados 350z, well made by the same company and same style to put the motor as far back as possible.

So that's it for now. I will try to update at the beginning of the week to keep any interested parties up to date.

 

In for this. Interesting, i did a little research on this motor, do you think all the work required for this swap is worth the addl. 25 bhp (305 up from 280)? Are/were there any other nissan/infinity swap options that offer a bit more power? Did you consider a g37 swap?

 

He has a 2011 vk56 so it's like 317 hp and the reason to do this swap is for the torque. Which is roughly 385 ft lbs and who doesn't love the sound of a V8!

 

" I am running a flex fuel engine for some rather specific reasons right now before modifying the engine internally." This makes me think turbo/ SC on stock internals. E85 is like 105 octane- less chance of detonation. It's becoming very popular in places like Australia to run E85 in boosted builds. Cant buy race fuel at your local Chevron, but you can buy E85 there

 

ahh,ok.

 

Sub'd

 

Well the stock engine had 200k plus miles and was a mess so swapping the engine was gonna happen regardless what I replaced it with. While the vq is a great engine (I have a 98 maxima 5-speed) there are things I don't like about it and primarily that being, it's a V6. The VK series was designed off of the vq series and spread to 90* so it is also an extremely capable motor. Sadly the vk45, which I was going to originally use cause it has a higher rev limit and actually makes a out 20 Ish bhp more is not rear sump so that was scrapped. The vk56 weighs leas than the 45 and is bigger.

Yes torque is a huge driving factor in this swap. The stock vq just did not have it in this g. I don't know about the 350, but the g is a heavy *** car 4200 plus pounds and the v6 while peepy, wasn't cutting it. So all and all huge hp was not my goal. If it was I would have went ls3 from a gto, cnc ported l99 heads and a cam and been over 500 at the wheels NA.

This more about style and keeping the brand name this is why I cleaning up all that crap I cut out so much. The g is supposed to be a luxury car so I want it to look nice and sound like a really pissed off monster.

As for flex fuel, you are absolutely correct, this engine has a slightly lower compression and larger stock injectors, higher quality seals and the ecm has the ability (with a sensor) to see the alcohol rating of the fuel and adjust on its own. Because of the nats, I will be running Osiris and that will give me the ability for much better tuning. Also full length headers on the motor are a must and while won't drive the hp through the roof. You would be surprised how much top end power you maintain.

Future plans due include a super charger. Probably stillen since the new harrop model will be like 10k plus. If I can pick up just the stillen unit I will be happy. All the issues people had with this unit are because they used that pre-programmed piggyback **** and it destroyed their engines. I will use the unit probably around 8 psi single set of injectors and jwt cams they made with cam phasers for this motor. This however will be after it is up and running and I can save up for them. I would also like to have the heads extrude honed and 3 angle valve job before sc. But we'll see


Let's get it running and driving first.

 

I did look at swapping a vq37hr or vhr or whatever it was cause I found it for a great price. The problem is modern nissan technology, and Nats. Still need Osiris, and still needs a ton of rewiring. Yes I would. Or have to modify the engine bay, yes it would be a LITTLE cheaper. Why go through all the head ache and trouble like that when 2 more cylinders is so tempting and IMO sounds and feels so much better.

Besides, I totally don't understand the point of having and engine bay that long and putting the engine where it was. It looks like the designed this car for a v8 and then said not, it would be more economical to use a v6, just add more metal and close off half the bay so we don't have to redesign everything.

 

Hey the weekend was crazy but I am trying to get some pictures up tomorrow. Ia trying to wrap things up with the engine bay so I can move on to pulling out the rear.

 

I want this to happen. Please be real this time...

 

With the amount of metal in have cut out and the alterations I have done with the engine bay so far, there is no turning back. The engine is sitting in the garage. Adaptor plate is in the box, looking for a machine shop to cut off the g35 bell housing. Headers are being made and I know where to pick up the flywheel for it. Having the wiring done as drop in. I had it all pinned out for the vk45de but the vk56de is weird with the connectors. So that and Osiris so I don't have to mess with it.

 

Is this gonna be a build where you'll have all luxury options working (I.e. radio, power windows/locks/seats, AC, etc.)? What's the ultimate goal? I'd love to see something like this as a daily driver type build that basically resembles a stock G but with a 350ci vk under the hood..my dear lord..

 

That is the goal. I am staying completely stock looking maybe a 1 inch drop. Rear subframe and diff will have solid bushings and the arms all poly from energy suspension. Front arms also energy. All stock interrior working heating ac basically a sweet angry ride.

 

Do you know how the weight distribution will work? Obviously you'll be front heavy a little.

How will you compensate with spring rates? You should probably go with linear springs up front..omg, I wanna play..hahaha

Can you put G56 badges on it?

 

Weight distribution will not be an issue, as you read above I removed all that extra firewall metal which allows the engine to be push back 10 inches or so. This places cylinder 1 on the vk56 further back than cylinder 1 of the vq. I will not be badging it anything and will be clean all around. Nothing will advertise what it is except the sound.